Tag Archives: Strangulation

This Serial Killer is the Mother of all EVILs. “Ed Kemper” reviewed! (Dread / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Ed Kemper” on Blu-ray Home Video

Edmund Kemper at the age of 15 tortured animals and killed his grandparents just to see what it was like.  For five years, Kemper was held at and subsequently released from a psychiatric ward where he was deemed not harmful to society.  His acrimonious relationship with his mother as a child did not stop Kemper from living with her as an adult man after his release and her abusive, alcoholic ways continued on him as well.  After some time, Kemper’s aggressive sexual urges sought out hitchhiking women and in the months between 1972 and 1973, Kemper had abducted multiple school age women and either strangled, stabbed, or shot them in isolated areas of arid California.  From there, Kemper satisfied his depravities with dismembering their bodies and committing necrophiliac acts with the sawed-off parts.  Before turning himself in to authorities, Kemper’s killing spree culminates back to his very existence with the death of his abusive mother and he does not spare her from receiving the same kind of posthumous dismemberment and sexual acts he done upon the young women before her.

American Edmund Kemper is the titular subject of the latest film from director Chad Ferrin, horror director known for pushing eyelids open for atrocity-laden films, such as “Someone’s Knocking at the Door,” “Pig Killer,” and “Scalper.”  Ferrin also cowrites the biographical horror drama with Stephen Johnston, a serial serial-killer screenwriter who has painted with font some of America’s most notorious serial murderers from Ed Gein to Ted Bundy, to Kenneth Bianchi from “The Hillside Strangler.”  The tall, dark complexioned, round glasses framed, and pitched mustached Kemper is the next subject for Johnston and the first serial killer biodoc from Ferrin that takes him from fiction to nonfiction while still retaining his admiration for graphic content, produced under Ferrin’s production company of Crappy World Films in association with Dance On Productions and Laurelwood Pictures.

In the role of Kemper is Brandon Kirk who is a by all comparisons a beefier Ed Helms and Kirk has worked with Ferrin on numerous projects since their first collab in 2021’s “Night Caller,” marking “Ed Kemper” as their sixth film together in Ferrin’s rapid release method.  Initially, Kirk seemed to not fit the role that started off with Kemper suitcase in hand being escorted out of the psych hospital and back into society.  His presence felt shallow, unimportant, and a punching bag for his mom’s barrage of boozy hate with little kickback from Kemper’s large and formidable frame and his deadly past which was only half a decade ago.  Kirk has the tall stature and framework to resemble Kemper in that department but didn’t quite fit the bill instill a confident killer that can chill to anyone to the bone with a simple smirk.   By the end, Kirk proves our conceptions incorrect by becoming a delusionally composed killer that no longer needed a smirk to make blood curdle but rather just look into the camera with his plain eyewear frames and mile stare when casually conversing atrocity as if noting the weather.  It’s plain to see how Kemper came to be with a mother like Clarnell Strandberg and her incessant physical and verbal abuse through and beyond Kemper’s youth; Susan Priver, who has also worked with Ferrin and Kirk since “Night Caller,” nails worst mother of the year being in Strandberg’s constant drunken tirade.  Kirk and Priver’s mother-son dynamic has no and is not depicted to have such traditional warmth or merit and, instead, is a one-sided browbeating at Kemper’s expense is fueled by necessity, and perhaps a little bit of masochism on Kemper’s part because if it really got under the skin of either one of them, I’m sure living on the street would have been better.  Repeat scene principals are laid with only a few with Brinke Stevens (“Nightmare Sisters,” “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity”) in the role of Clarnell’s closeted lover Sally Hallett, adding a bit more complexion to Clarnell’s life choices and fueled bitterness after failed heterosexual marriages, and Joe Castro (“Blood Feast 2:  All U Can Eat”), special effects makeup artist on the film, also down the traditional black horn, red-caped devil that influences young Kemper’s abused mental state.  The co-ed of the Co-Ed Killer include roles filled in by Erin Luo (“Feral Female”), Patty Hayes, Isabelle Morgan, Autumn Rose Ruch, Gloria Therese, and Katie Silverman (“The Exorcists”).  Familiar faces of Lew Temple (“The Devil’s Rejects”), Robert Miano (“Chained Heat”), and Cassandra Gave (“Conan:  The Barbarian”) pop in supporting parts. 

If you’ve seen the deeply studio underappreciated and fan-favorite “Mindhunter” Netflix television series that was prematurely and devastatingly cancelled, Cameron Britton’s performance may have already seared a first impression of Kemper.  The David Fincher crime drama was dark, bleak, and interesting in what makes serial killers tick as the series investigators sat down with Kemper and utilized him as a source of knowledge, much like novelist Thomas Harris had done with his Hannibal Lector character to track down the Red Dragon killer.  Britton’s large stature and soft-spoken delivery made for a terrifying persona when Kemper goes bluntly, coldly, and without expression into detail of his own exploits and methodology with women and corpses.  Side-by-side, Britton and Kirk are starkly different portrayals and those familiar with “Mindhunter,” like me, may already have an impressed idea of Ed Kemper, but Kirk manages to reign in that initial impression and engrave his own version of the murderer into the solidified stone.  In contrasting stylistic and storytelling choices, Ferrin’s film also strays away from reality quite a bit with the Devil inside Kemper’s mind as a child, his frequent disconnection with time, and delusions with seeing things, like John Wayne knocking on his driver side window and giving him sage advice.  There’s more cinematic universe with “Ed Kemper” the feature film than reality-gripping realism to tell his tale without sensationalism, but the story does get down and dirty in Kemper’s Co-Ed killing days.  Initially, the feature felt watered down and wouldn’t go into the darkest of territories inside Kemper’s skeleton closet and deranged mindset but Ferrin, true to form, gets weird with Kemper and his sexualized obsession with dismembered corpses, unafraid to flash gore and nudity that couldn’t go untold with this type of nonfictional narrative, and to be honest, being the nudity shy Dread Presented film, I was shocked with their green light of certain scenes. 

Dread and Epic Pictures Group present true crime horror-drama “Ed Kemper” on Blu-ray that’s AV encoded with 1080p resolution on a BD25.  Presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, Jeff Billings cinematographer handles the 70’s aesthetic of an arid brown California scenery melded perfectly with 70’s period specific avocado green, mustard yellow, and a singed orange while also tackling the black-and-white representing Kemper’s childhood past.  No compression issues to note, blacks are solid, the colors saturate and diffuse nicely throughout, and details are on the softer side but stick the detailed landing unequivocally in the color scenes with the black-and-white harnessing what it can through lack of color.  The English language audio track is compressed with a Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0.  The sole compressed options hangs back the full potential of disorienting muscle, such as with Joe Castro’s basement dwelling devil who’s aimed to be an intense, delusional provocateur of Kemper’s evildoings and also Kemper himself when he goes into full-throttle turmoil within himself, when he can’t take his mother abuse or when he’s grinning ear-to-ear with killing, hacking up, and necrophiliac-loving co-ed victims.  Dialogue comes through clear and clean with optional English and Spanish subtitles available under the title menu.  What’s additional interesting about the “Ed Kemper” score is it’s orchestrated by Richard Band, brother of Charles Band, and is a stray away from his conventional carnivalesque tone into a more traditionally dark that swells tension when needed and coddles the more abusive scenes to picture Kemper as the victim of abuse.  Special features contain an audio commentary track with director Chad Ferrin, co-ed victim audition tapes, deleted scenes, a Kemper 70’s Psycho featurette documentary that’s a raw look behind-the-scenes and get a real sense of Chad Ferrin’s all-in, guts and all, directing style, a Lost Ending providing an alternate finale to the sensationalized Kemper tale for this release, “The Devil’s Slide” music video, the official theatrical trailer, and trailers for other Dread Presents films.  The traditional Blu-ray case has a mustard yellow covert art of Kemper’s face close up but does not appear to be Kirk’s Kemper mug.  The cover art is one sided and there are no other physical trimmings with a disc printed with Kirk’s Kemper mug split down the middle expressing two different faces and incorporated into a personnel file like design.  Not rated with a runtime of 92 minutes, “Ed Kemper” is encoded with a region free playback compatibility. 

Last Rites: To put all of his immoral and depraved transgressions into just over 90 minutes is simply skimming the odious surface but the Chad Ferrin and Dread / Epic Picture Group collaboration condense the irreverence and the ickiness of “Ed Kemper” onto a platform that reminds us all there is true pure evil in this world.

“Ed Kemper” on Blu-ray Home Video

Caught in the Act, Evil Must Do Evil’s Bidding. “The Killer Must Kill Again” reviewed! (Rustblade / 50th Anniversary Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Killer Must Kill Again” on a restored, 50th Anniversary Blu-ray!

Giorgio and Norma’s hot-and-cold marriage takes a turn for the worse when Giorgio’s greed convinces him to plot her murder after she threatens to cut him off from her family’s money.  When Giorgio catches a sexually perversive killer in the act of dumping a young girl’s body in an isolated canal, he devises a blackmail agreement with the killer to murder his wife and falsely claim a ransom from her father to satisfy Giorgio’s gluttony.  Killing Norma was easy enough but after the killer brings the car around to put her body in the trunk, a young couple steal the car for an all-night joyride to the beaches of Seagull Rock, unbeknownst to them a dead body stowed in the trunk.  With the killer in pursuit of the couple and the police suspicious of Giorgio’s involvement of his wife’s disappearance, it’s only a matter of time before the killer must kill again.

“L’assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora,” aka “The Killer Must Kill Again,” is a straying kind of Italian psychotronic film from the typical giallo overload being produced out the country between the 1960s and up to the early 1990s.  Released right in the middle in 1975, the film never enshrouds viewers in mystery with a blunt, clearcut case of who and who is not the villains, the victims, and the heroes.  “The Naked Doorwoman” and “Contamination” director Luigi Cozzi helms the script he cowrites with Daniele Del Giudice (“The Story of a Poor Young Man’) with an inclination of slipping darkly dry comedy into the fold of a cold and callous killer’s purview of an extorting mastermind’s bidding and the uncomfortable self-serving sexualized force thrust upon women, the dead and the living.  Sergio Gobbi (“Vortex”) and Umberto Linzi coproduce the GIT International Film, Paris-Cannes, and Albione Cinematografica coproduction. 

The cast is comprised of an ensemble lot and for an Italian production, there are hardly any Italian actors leading the charge.  Most of the principal cast hails from Europe, mostly Spain, and with a few outliers from France and even one from Uruguay in South America.  Each actor and actress have a rough fair share of screen time, preluded with the titular killer, played by Frenchman Antoine Saint-John.  Saint-John has a face for television, villainy television that is, with high cheekbones that create deep contoured shadows, a danger stare, and a round head with cranium hugging, short dark hair that make him distinct amongst his fellow castmates.  “The Beyond” actor’s heart put effort into a heartless role of the unnamed perverted murderer of young, beautiful women for unknown reasons and motivations.  That’s not the case for the opposite transgressor, the killer’s blackmailer Giorgio Mainardi who’s a scheming businessman and money leech off his wealthy wife (Tere Velázquez, “Night of 1000 Cast”), two reasons and motivations to put a kill contract on his wife.  “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh’s” George Hilton dons the dapper swindler with trim suits, neat hair, and a handsome façade underneath his ugly intentions as he tries to fraud his wife’s ransom for himself.  Caught in the middle of this plot are two young lovers, who in themselves are not so innocent by stealing the killer’s car with a dead woman in the trunk.  Cristina Galbó (“The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue”) and Alessio Orano (“Lisa and the Devil”) are the couple Laura and Luca, two teens on a stolen car joyride to a distant beach front in order Luca to try and convince Laura to take her virginity.  While there’s ransom fraud, murderous plots, murdering, corpse disposal, and other heinous crimes, the most disturbing in the story is Luca’s pressuring to get into Laura’s pants and his means of satisfying his lust by picking up car stranded blonde (Femi Benussi, “Bloody Pit of Horror”) and cheating on Laura while she is raped when confronted by the pursuing killer.  The sleaze and skeeze level on Luca is beyond reproach and it really makes him more the villain than the actual killer who’s up two bodies by this point.  The principal cast can’t be complete without police presence and that is where Eduardo Fajardo (“The Murder Mansion”) steps in as the cool, suave, know-it-all-and-see-how-it-all-plays-out inspector, a cliched role of the time and even in today’s whodunit ventures.   

This crime giallo lacks mystery but makes up for it with rich characters, a sleaze-bag crime, and a little style from director Luigi Cozzi and cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini in their choice to visual effects to insulate the moment within a scene by matte narrowing the focus and using a sharp spherical lens to heighten the tension around the center focus with a semi-fishbowl effect.  Coupled with solid editing and great lighting for the night drive sequences between the two cars and it’s reflexive, subsequent chase, the story’s pace doesn’t rush into the more gushing violence and sexual subversion, effectively building up a pressure cooker of a confrontation between the killer and the kids that’s brilliantly edited in a taut juxtaposition that flips back and forth between the killer’s virtually explicit raping of Laura and Luca’s wanton encounter with a stranded licentious blonde motorist; both elicit wrongdoings, rendered around the crave of naked flesh, but they are from different perspectives with one being a clean cheat of carnality with another person and the other being a malicious rape of innocence yet both leave that sour taste of discomfort in the mouth but the edited design is about as sweet as it gets. 

The Italian distributor Rustblade Records, under the movie release sublabel of simply Rustblade, release L’assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora,” aka “The Killer Must Kill Again,” onto a new Blu-ray in its complete Cozzi’s original vision and is a restored transfer for worldwide audiences in association. The 50th anniversary Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, on a surprising BD25. The BD25 is surprising because the restored picture quality looks phenomenal considering the capacity, retaining deep shadows, vibrant color palette, and no incongruous signs of compression artefacts. There is however some detail smoothing fragmented throughout depending on the interior or exterior scene. More of the opening moments between Giorgio and Norma look quite polished and intricate regarding textural skin and fabrics but a good number of moments appear to smear portions of the face, especially in Antoine Saint-John’s more distinct facial characteristics. Depth and range favor the bold with Cozzi able to obtain decent amount of space between objects within his stylized choices and the color spectrum, like many giallo films, is saturated with intensity. An Italian and an English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio are the reigning encoded audio choices, both of which are post-production ADR and both of which show the obvious synchronization discord. The English translation, as well as the English subtitles, contain generalizations of a perhaps more complex scripted dialogue intent. With ADR, dialogue clean and clear with present, defined space right in the front two channels but lacks milieu acoustics, depth, and little range with the action added with Foley. Nando De Luca’s lingering avant score blend single low-note guitar chords, resonating piano keys, and Theremin wooing lift up the story with ominous tension. The English subtitles appear accurate without any grammatical errors. Special features include an interview with director Luigi Cozzi, a film analysis by Federico Frusciante, a horror enthusiastic musician from Rustblade Records, film locations toured by Giallo Italiano, and the feature trailer. The 50th Anniversary Edition comes with two versions: a limited-edition DVD/Blu-ray Deluxe mediabook with postcards and a single disc Blu-ray. For this review, the single disc was provided in a clear Amaray case with double sided art sleeve of a giallo yellow and contrast shadowed illustrated composition of characters and the reverse side depicting two moments from the movie drenched with giallo yellow. Presented in widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the not rated, region free film has a runtime of 90 minutes.

Last Rites: A giallo unlike the rest, “The Killer Must Kill Again” is a perversion of greed, lust, and murder without virtuous players in a plot gone awry. Luigi Cozzi’s 1975 classic is a genre staple for fans old and young in this Italian murder shocker and Rustblade offers a new and improved, director approved vision that collectors will see to acquiring immediately.

“The Killer Must Kill Again” on a restored, 50th Anniversary Blu-ray!

Screenland’s Bright Lights Can Turn One Lonely Man EVIL! “Hollywood 90028” reviewed! (Grindhouse Releasing / 3-Disc Blu-ray and CD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Hollywood 90028” 3-Disc Collector’s Edition Can Be Preordered Here!

Having moved West from a small Ohio town a few years back, photographer and video cameraman Mark found himself stuck shooting nudie reels for a low-budget porn producer.   A solitary life lends Mark more freedom then most to wonder about and driver around on the streets of Hollywood with ambitions for a legit job of shooting regular material that doesn’t humiliate him.  Troubled about his childhood past involving the death of a younger brother and with his frustrations within his video film capturing vocation, Mark finds himself in the company of young, attractive women who find him easy to talk to and attractive as well, but when Mark reaches a limit, aberrant thoughts take over and he strangles them to death.  When he meets starlet Michele on one of his shoots, Mark believes he’s found the woman for him, one that can relieve the pressures of life and work with nothing more than her beauty.  For Mark’s abnormal mind, love at first sight might not be that easy.

Writer-director Christina Hornisher tackles trauma induced behavior and the Hollywood pull of small-town aspirations chasing dreams in the drama-suspenser character piece of “Hollywood 90028.”  Hornisher’s debut feature film released in 1973 also became her only feature credit as a director who supplied arthouse substance but also embodied a different kind of substance, the grueling confiscation of hope for work, stardom, and love, perhaps even sliding into a bit of escapism, as the bright lights of Hollywood draw the flies to the flame.  Shot on location in and around the Hollywood, Los Angeles area that also had scenes fillmed directly at and underneath of the self-referential hillside Hollywood sign landmark before the iconic, globally recognized attraction had been fenced-off with visitation restrictions post-film in the 1980s and further protected with security systems in the mid-1990s.  Hornisher also self-produced the film which was also known under alternate titles as “The Hollywood Hillside Strangler,” “Twisted Throats,” and “Insanity.” 

Christopher Augustine, who would also have a part in “The Doll Squad” of the same year, played Mark the calm and restrained pornography cinematographer and editor.  Not as sleazy as his title, Mark’s reserved nature doesn’t stop him from photographing and working diligently on splicing film without completely cutting off from the world but does make him quiet, observant, and intriguing, or so does Michelle thought.  Michelle’s a smalltown girl who moved West to work in the fame industry who soon finds herself being financially forced out of legit paying gigs for more sordid, sleazy work.  Played by Jeannette Dilger, who would actually have a role in the adult film “Young, Hot ‘n Nasty Teenage Cruisers” a few years later, she would spark chemistry with the mustached Augustine that allows their Mark and Michelle to fall in love that isn’t amorously glamorous but has innocent notes of flirtation and a lot of walk-and-talk realism onscreen relationships tend to omit.  Hornisher determines Mark to be the centerpiece of her character study.  Every scene caters to Mark’s interactions with Michelle, his professionalism with sleaze producer Jabol (Dick Glass), and the two other women he meets and eventually strangles.  Where Hornisher isn’t her best is in the building up of Mark’s suppressed sociopathic behavior, stemmed from a brief opening montage of a preteen Mark and his large family that implies his involvement in the accidental death of a younger brother, with ever delicate triggering that doesn’t solidify calling back to his aggressive-resulting trauma.  “Hollywood 90028” cast rounds out with Dianna Huntress, Beverly Walker, Kia Cameron, Ralph Campbell, Melonie Haller and Gayle Davis.

Though her first feature credit, Hornisher had the makings of a competent, auteur filmmaker.  “Hollywood 90028” evaded the conventional narrative structure and one-trick pony photography with more arthouse ambition that saw not only panning and tracking in her cinematic cache, but a stunning and incredibly quick finale zoom out from the Hollywood sign of smooth drone quality but completed in 1973 with a helicopter soaring over the Hollywood district.  Use of spliced-in cells of modeled sex representation as well as sign denotations of the character’s dialogue and thoughts, a kaleidoscope lens utilized during an intimate love scene, and the greater use of off-screen dialogue over on-screen conversating creates a thin layer of psychological realism in contrast to the actual realism between Mark and the rest of the characters.  Mark’s sullen display of emotions throughout the story culminates with his unconscious destructive demise after finally expressing a sliver of elation with Michelle but that’s also when he realizes that his tragic past and present psychosis will never let him go and will destroy anything that tries to replace it.  In one theory, Hornisher might have kept Mark in the same clothes throughout most of the picture to depict a deranged mental image; his constant choice of clothes is a hangup that can’t be let go for sharp-eyed viewers who wish he’d change out of his denim, long-sleeved shirt and denim jeans.  Unlike Mark’s unchanging denim statement, Hollywood in Hornisher’s film is a city captured in time; much like the Hollywood sign had gone from an area of loitering to now protected from the public, the fornicated fleapits and the colorful and character-building structures of Hollywood have long since been razed and rebuilt into the more glamourous, if not still snakebitten, Hollywood you see today. 

Grindhouse Releasing has gone the extra mile in not releasing a standard version of “Hollywood 90028” with standard fare and a rink-a-dink, barely passing muster transfer, but releasing a definitive chef-d’oeuvre of this lost Christina Hornisher film.  The new 4K restoration created from the original 35mm negative makes a statement that they underrated, underappreciated and the underbelly of indie cinema will not be ignored and, instead, be celebrated in retrospect, recoloring, and painstaking supervision in the efforts of all areas of rejuvenation.  The 3-disc, Blu-ray and CD set has an AVC encoded, 1080p high-defintion, 50 gigabyte capacity on the feature disc.  Presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1, the Grindhouse Releasing restoration gives “Hollywood 90028” a fresh coat of paint on a precise saturation spectrum and illuminates details from the limitations of untouched, processed 35mm triacetate.  The original negative appears to have survived the test of time with barely perceptible, thin vertical scratches that were more sporadically sparse than a nagging nuisance.  Grain’s healthy and natural looking in the overlap and the contrasts levels clarify stark delineation and depth, attributing to finer details on textures and skin tones when mostly interior scenes.  Exteriors lose some definition because of the natural lighting and contrast levels typically lower to more create deeper shadows and amalgamation between object and background.  Video bitrate decodes a nice low 30s Mbps. The back cover does not provide explicit specs for the audio but my setup picks up the English language mix as a DTS-HD master audio stereo (the menu setup states mono) is the adequate acquaintance to the visual elements with an ADR dialogue recording, that to note has nothing to do with the release’s presentation, does feel detached in some regard to the visual character temperament despite its well-preserved clarity and projection, but the real star of the audio makeup is the Basil Poledouris (“RoboCop”, “Starship Troopers”), remastered by Jussi Tegelman soundtrack that is a delicate and absorbing mix of piano, wind-instrument, and percussive that reflects Mark’s wondering loneliness and reserved longing as well as introducing jazzier sax and guitar tracks for livelier montage moments.  Suddenly, we’re thrust into string-laden, semi-dark and low-tones for Mark’s buried spiraling. English subtitles are available.  Grindhouse Releasing had some so bonus content they added a second disc with the first containing audio commentaries with film enthusiast Marc E. Heuck, the film’s editor Leon Ortiz-Gil, and cult and porn director Tom DeSimone who attended UCLA with Hornisher, the original, unrestored, X-rated alternate scenes, Christina Hornisher’s experimental 16mm short films, cameraman outtakes, still galleries, radio spots and trailers under the “Hollywood Hillside Stranger,” the “Hollywood 90028” trailer, and the Grindhouse Releasing coming attractions.  The second disc contains retrospective interviews with stars Christopher Augustine, Jeannette Dilger, Gayle Davis, and editor Leon Ortiz-Gil in a near feature length making-of, a theater presentation discussion with Christopher Augustine, and a Tom DeSimone retrospect on Christina “Tina” Hornisher.  The third disc, a soundtrack CD of Basil Poledouris eclectic composition, is 17-tracks deep and comes in a customer sleeve inside the beautifully illustrated and tactile slipbox.  Instead, a slightly larger than normal Blu-ray Amaray case without the Blu-ray logo with the original poster art as primary cover with the new slipbox art on the reverse side.  The Blu-rays set on top of each other, staggered, on the right side while the left houses a 24-page booklet filled with color pictures, poster art, and historical, anecdotal, and analytic context essays from Marc E. Heuck, David Szulkin, Richard Kraft, and Jim VanBebber.  Grindhouse Releasing’s region free “Hollywood 20008” hits retail and online stores November 26th and has an 87-minute runtime under it’s not rated package

Last Rites: Grimy Tinsel Town sets the backdrop and insidiously swirls inside the mind of the forefront encased and bejeweled inside a Grindhouse Releasing special that’ll never have you look at Hollywood the same again.

“Hollywood 90028” 3-Disc Collector’s Edition Can Be Preordered Here!

Necrophiliac EVIL Until the Eyes Open Awake. “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” reviewed! (Invincible / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” While Available! Purchase here!

Renowned actress Anna Fritz steals the hearts of millions as fan adorn her beauty and her acting performances that invite her to galas and red-carpet events.  Young and promising, Anna’s career is at its peak until her untimely death upon discovering her lifeless body in the bathroom of a private party.  This is where we begin Anna Fritz’s story, at her death as her body is wheeled and stored into a hospital morgue, naked on a metal gurney and under a white sheet.  In the hands of a late-night shift orderly, Pau, Anna’s beauty and body becomes the ultimate temptation as he sends his party rowdy friends Ivan and Javi pictures.  As soon as Ivan and Javi show up, curious and eager to see the once famous Anna Fritz in all her glory, Pau leads them down to the basement morgue where Ivan and Pau decided to have a once in a lifetime experience of molesting and penetrating her corpse at the disagreement and discouragement of Javi, but in the middle of the necrophiliac act, Anna wakes up in a temporary paralyzed state of shock.  Now that she has seen their faces, the three men have to come together to decide on her fate or theirs. 

By the very title alone, you know “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” is going into the dark territory of sick perversion with unnatural molestation of a human corpse.  The 2015 Spanish film, natively titled “El cadáver de Anna Fritz,” is the debut feature written and directed by Hèctor Hernández Vicens (“Day of the Dead:  Bloodline”) and cowritten with Isaac P. Creus.  An unofficial re-envision or just reminiscent of Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel’s “Deadgirl” where young hormonally aggressive young men find themselves immorally pants down with a presumed dead body of a beautiful young woman without the supernatural element, and sprinkled with similar imagery and energy to that of the following year’s “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” even with the DVD cover art and film title, “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” is more grounded in reality in comparison but still retains the theme of what aberrant people will do when they believe no one is watching, no one is getting hurt, and believe they’re doing nothing wrong when in fact everything they’ve done is completely deviant and a price has to be paid.  Produced by Bernat Vilaplana, Marc Gomez del Moral, Xavier Granada, and Marta and Albert Carbó, the film is a co-production of Silendum Films, Plató de Cinema, and the Instituto de la Cinematografia y de las Artes Audiovisuales. 

Like most of these autopsy or morgue pictures, they come standard with intimate casting of less than a handful of actors to create a sense of dreadful isolation and loneliness far from public view and safety.  Vicens’s basement of dead body debauchery follows suit with a quad-principal of three men – Cristian Valencia (“Atrocious”), Albert Carbó (“Beach House”), Bernat Saumell (“Eloïse’s Lover”) – and the one lone woman Alba Ribas (“Diary of a Nymphomaniac,” “Faraday”) mainly secluded to the morgue and its cramped backroom.  Valencia, Saumell, and Ribas have worked previously together a couple of years prior on the rom-com “Barcelona Summer Night” and that possible familiarity may have contributed to a feeling of ease when shooting the disturbingly portrayed necrophilism scenes where Ribas’s amazingly still life proneness is physically being rocked back and forth until her head eventually slides off the back of the gurney in a truly sub-rose moment of a cold-fact reality in one point in time, I’m sure.  The three men run the gamut of being trio of separate personalities to which the respective actors deliver the tension into with Ivan (Valencia) as the coked up party boy game for anything except being caught, the orderly Pau (Carbó) has a deep, dark yet timid obsession with molesting the dead of the fairer sex, and Javy (Saumell) exacting some measure of level-headedness and reason despite going along in the first place.  Opinions and concern perspective clash between them with Anna Fritz’s undead consciousness comes around yet the whole back-and-forth does become too long in what is a crap-or-get-off-the-pot stymie of progression in the second act.

Other confounding instance continuous slip banana peels under the feet of “The Corpse of Anna Fritz’s” extreme depravity and violence.  Aside from waltzing right into the hospital morgue without being spotted by personnel or security cameras (there’s CCTV in Spain, right?), Anna Fritz being dead for hours and then suddenly wake up could be considered a medical miracle. With no signs of brain damage other than a temporary nerve paralysis that alleviates segments of her body at a time, Anna appears to be completely recovered and showing no signs of being dead for hours.  She’s even noted as being cold to the touch before the turning point.  If you can stomach the indecent touching of a dead body and then the subsequent risen of said dead body, in what could be considered a parallel to the resurrection of Christ as Anna is this beloved figure killed by self-destruction by her own fame, the Spanish thriller picks up with the ever-growing cascade of bad decisions and no-turning-back moments and with that, those obfuscated moments can be pushed aside with the shocking, disturbing, if not sickening basement-dwelling behavior that’s sought taboo television. For a near stationary storyline, “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” paces particularly well within limited oscillation, especially with the first act and half without Anna Fritz being, lack of a better word, alive.

The 2015 released Spanish film finally sees its day back in the U.S. market with a re-release DVD from Invincible Entertainment. The MPEG-2 encoded, 480p, on a DVD-9 that decodes the data decently at an average of 7Mbps and presenting it in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Yet, therein lies still some evident compression issues such as banding in the darker image regions. Skin tones and details, however, are favorable and delineated nicely. The Spanish uncompressed PCM stereo 2.0 has and shows no trouble of making itself heard with a lively dialogue track overtop an ambient secondary that’s a little on the softer side for an echoey basement, if you ask me. English subtitles are forced with no optional menu. In fact, there is no menu at all as the film starts up from the very moment you hit play on your physical media device. Translation appears accurate and errorfree with my knowledge of the language and the Spanish dialect. Aforementioned, there is no DVD menu, resulting in no special features to peruse. I quite like the simplistic, yet provocative cover image on Invincible Entertainment’s release; it may not be as graphically explicit as the Dutch Blu-ray but does still immediately direct one’s brain to the depravity to come with an eye-opening twist. Inside holds a nearly identical image on the disc press with only a slight facial change. There is also no inserts, booklets, or slipcovers with this release. Invincible’s release comes not rated, has a playback of region 1, and has welcomingly brisk runtime of 76 minutes.

Last Rites: “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” doesn’t sprinkle a coating of sugar over what it set out to do – to gorge viewers with real world ghoulish, post-mortem coprolagnia and necrophilia – and like those very few titles in existence across cinema land, a universal theme of those who mess with the dead get theirs in the end.

Get “The Corpse of Anna Fritz” While Available! Purchase here!

Sadomasochism and Decapitation Seen by a Child Turns Him into An EVIL Adult! “Nightmare” reviewed! (Severin / 4K UHD – Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Your “Nightmare” Should Be in 4K! Own it Here!

A schizophrenic patient continues to have reoccurring dreams of a young boy chopping the head of a woman in the midst of rough sexual fetishism.  The intense nightmares send him into violent stints, delusional states, and severe seizures.  As a test subject for an experimental behavior drug, the troubled man shows promise of recovery and enough so that he’s released from the mental hospital with continued outpatient therapy sessions.  Not long after his release does he skip his sessions to hightail it from New York City to Daytona Beach, Florida, killing people along the way after decapitating nightmare continues to plague and force him to murder.  In Daytona Beach, single mother of three becomes his obsession as he stalks the youngest boy, a mischievous troublemaker, and even breaks into their house when it’s not occupied , but as the bodies begin to pile up on the hands of his need to kill, the more brazen he becomes to entering while they’re home alone. 

Based loosely on the improprieties of government spy agencies using drugs to bend the minds of home and oversee terrorism to their wills, “Nightmare” sensationalizes the concept for the public sector involving a mental patient, experimental drugs, and exasperating an already instable person’s constitution into a hyperdrive of bloodletting carnage.  The U.S. production is written-and-directed by Italian filmmaker Romano Scavolini who came to America to shop around his scripts having failed to secure financial support in Europe, including, you guessed it, “Nightmare.”  Shot in New York and mostly around the Cocoa Beach Florida, the crime thriller filmmaker flexes his muscle with his first attempt at horror and the outcome is nothing short of unadulterated madness.  Once considered to be titled “Dark Games,” and goes loosely by “Blood Splash” and “Nightmare in the Damaged Brain,” the 1981 film is a feature of Goldmine Productions with John Watkins and Bill Milling (“Silent Madness”) producing.

The man behind the nightmare is George Tatum and the man behind George Tatum is Baird Stafford in one of his only two roles as an actor.  “Nightmare” wouldn’t be as skin-crawlingly shocking if it wasn’t for Stafford’s distressing performance of a man whose psychology is being peeled away and you can see Tatum physically fighting the urge, fighting to stay sane, but losing the battle as the grisly terror replays over and over inside his mind.  Stafford’s asunder of Tatum’s equilibrium has unequivocal transference to the audience.  Parallel Stafford is a child, a young child by the name of C.J. Cooke who essentially played his own version of himself in C.J. Temper, a mischievous prankster that ran babysitters up a wall mad and frightened and frustrated the living daylights out of his mother.  C.J. is part of the family Tatum is hellbent on driving down from New York to Florida to see for a reason that isn’t made clear yet until the shocking reveal.  C.J.’s single parent, a mother desperate for love and affection, is played by Sharon Smith who has become romantically involved with nice guy, and yacht owner, Bob Rosen, with Mik Cribben in the role.  Cribben was actually part of the cast but the original actor for Bob Rosen dropped out and Cribben quickly filled into the role that suited him well enough as a suitable suitor for C.J.’s mother.  “Nightmare” rounds out the cast with Danny Ronan, Scott Praetorius, Christina Keefe, William Kirksey, Tammy Patterson, Kim Patterson, Kathleen Ferguson, Candese Marchese, Tommy Bouvier, and producers John L. Watkins and Bill Milling as drug trial executive and psychologist tracking down Tatum to clean up their mistake. 

“Nightmare” combines excellent U.S. thespianism with an Italian way of suspense and violence glued together by the success of the late Leslie Larraine and team’s special effects albeit the controversial assertion on the film’s posters that Tom Savini (“Dawn of the Dead” ’78, “Friday the 13th, ’80) had been the effects supervisor on the film albeit Savini’s adamant claims of the opposite and denying the credit being false and liable for using his name to draw in audiences.  Savini continues to state his contribution “Nightmare” was limited to best to the action of a decapitating swing of the axe.  Ultimately, the whole ordeal mars Larraine’s due recognition for some of the more up-close and personal gory effects this side of the early 80s.  Scavolini also deserves well-received credit for his narrative vision of Tatum’s psychosexual struggles that drive him to kill.  Robert Megginson’s editing and the re-recording mixing team tackle a form of character plummeting that’s unlike any other from the intercut concatenation of events between Tatum’s horrific, blood-soaked nightmares and his antagonizing, sweat-inducing impulses that propel him without a choice.  The simultaneous parallels between Tatum and young C.J., as Scavolini aims to connect the two against-the-grain personalities as a singular link with back-and-forth subplots, leach the shock out of Sharon Smith’s acme line as mother Susan Temper that uncovers the truth when the chaotic smoke clears.  Why Tatum would drive so far from New York City to Daytona Beach, Florida with reason to stop and make roost on this one particular family fails to form mystery around what’s often crafted to be an arbitrary target with some minute hints that may provide clues to the audience is because even without those inklings, the shooting script defines the rationale right from the beginning thus bringing the viewers out from a shrouded suspenser and into being buckled in just along for the ride. 

Severin Films’ 4K scan of the 35mm internegative compositions the print with various foreign element sources for a comprehensive version of Romano Scavolini’s “Nightmare” on a 4K UHD and Blu-ray 2-dsic set.  The UHD is on a HEVC encoded, ultra high-definition 2160p with a 4K resolution, BD66 and the Blu-ray is housed on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50.  What’s released is a very enriched saturation of the technicolor process that defines and differentiates the innate hues.   Details are more than consistent throughout as we’re able to pinpoint the beads of sweat down Tatum’s face or feel the palpable slick sinew of a decapitated head amongst the examples.  Blood is a deep, glossy red and contrasts strikingly in the more sopping moments despite Savini’s claim that it needed more green dye to better pop for the camera.  A consistent layer of agreeable grain runs throughout from the 35mm film stock, as it should, without any inimical dust, dirt, scratches, flares, or of the like to obstruct viewing or cause lapse in the narrative, as it shouldn’t.  Between the resolution diverse formats, there’s a slightly more grindhouse look to the Blu-ray whereas the HDR10 crisps the image for better vibrancy.  Both formats retain inky blacks without shimmering or banding.  The English language audio tracks are available in two lossless options:  DTS-HD 5.1 and a DTS-HD Stereo 2.0.  The surround mix’s dialogue has resounding infusion, spread through the multi-channels to encompass a multi-directional approach to centralize.  The design is effective as it’s prominent to not understate the vocals but leaves little room for spatial distant to which no matter where characters stand, they are almost audible on the same audio plane.  Jack Eric Williams warping harmonica and twangy guitar, intrinsically integrated with piano notes, a variety of percussion, interjecting funk bass chords, and hints of string instruments, that ebb and swell with great intensity and favorable discordance is a real celebration of Williams’ score on Severin’s latest restorative edition of “Nightmare.”  English subtitles are optionally available.  The Ultra HD release comes the film’s trailers and a pair of audio commentaries as the only accompanying special features; commentary one has features star Baird Stafford and special effects assistant Cleve Hall with Lee Christian and David Decoteau and commentary two features producer William Paul.  The Blu-ray also has the commentaries and trailers plus an extended lot of interviews, such as a feature length (71-minute) Kill Thy Father and Thy Mother interview with director Romano Scavolini (Italian with English subtitles), Dreaming Up A Nightmare interview with cast and crew, a brief interview with Tom Savini discussing his role, or rather his not role, in The Nightmare of Nightmare to which Savini looks a little tired of answer the same question about his inaccurate involvement, an interview with makeup artist Robin Stevens The Stuff that Nightmares Are Made of.  Also included is an open matte peepshow as well as untouched deleted scenes, extending beyond the already newly achieved 99-minute runtime for the film.  “Nightmare” from Severin comes in a standard 4K Amaray case with original poster art used for the front cover.  The discs are separated and tab locked on either side of inner casing and this particular release, the 2-disc set, does not come with any insert or content.  The front cover is reversible with the European title “Nightmares in a Damaged Brain” and a different image composition of the European poster art. The disc has region free playback and is not rated.

Last Rites: “Nightmare” on a new, extended restoration in 4K and Blu-ray is a dream of a release. A nerve-wracking performance in Baird Stafford’s schizo vilifies the very classification of the mentally ill in what is sure to go down in history as one of the most disturbing, and disturbed, characters of the video nasty era.

Your “Nightmare” Should Be in 4K! Own it Here!