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Doppelganger EVIL Shares a Deadly Family Secret. “AmnesiA” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Become Caught Up in the Mystery of “AmnesiA” on Limited Edition Blu-ray!

Alex, a meek photographer, is called back to his family home by his estranged identical twin brother, Aram, on the news of their mother’s severe illness.  Agreeing to help look after her for a while, Alex travels back home with his new girlfriend in tow, a pyromania epileptic named Sandra.  Upon his arrival in Amnesia, the home of the family business of tinkering on broken down cars around the property, Alex is met face-to-face with a past he’s long tried to forget.  Aloof Aram’s peculiar involvement with organized crime, his heart-healthy mother’s obsession with heart conditions, Sandra’s fire infatuation, and himself crippled by a imprinted, photographic fear swirls with ridicule tension around the crumbling junkyard estate.  The years long secrets between the brothers about their childhood past have taken a personalized toll on them and being in the same space together after a long time a part has loosed embedded raw emotions and dug back up the past again to finish what they started all those years ago.

“Amnesia” is a curious and mysterious black comedy thriller from the Netherlands and is the surrealistically bold effect of duality and family skeletons in the closet from filmmaker, the Hague native, Martin Koolhoven.  Taking similar household elements from the avant, 60’s inspired “Suzy Q,” writer-director Koolhoven pours another fractured glass of dysfunctional family-ade to sour perfection, squeezing every last drop out of neglected relationships in order for the truth to the be tasted.  With themes around secrets, guilt, processing that guilt, and family, “Amnesia,” or as originally spelled, “AmnesiA,” progresses a narrative of an irreversible broken family from through the looking glass of dark comedy and layered mystery to it’s ultimate destruction perceived as bittersweet.  Shot in Belgium, “Amnesia” is produced by Paul Verhoeven “Black Book” producers, Jeroen Beker and Frans van Gestel, under the partners’ 1995 established, Amsterdam-based production company, Motel Films. 

If unable to locate two suitable actors to play siblings, why not have one great actor to be both?  That’s the approach Martin Koolhoven erected when falling head over heels with Fedja van Huêt who could intuitively give Koolhoven the exactness of each brother’s personality.  Brothers Alex and Amar are so distinct in how they carry themselves as well as in their appearance that your mind and eyes can barely keep the registered fact that the brothers are inhabited by the one and the same Huêt.  Huêt, along with some good writing from Koolhoven, keeps insecurities close to the chest, blossoming a massive bubble of enigma that often repels the brothers against one another to keep audiences from homing in too close to the exact cause of their personal strife.  Tension works wonderfully despite not having the ability to act against the actual physical embodiment of the antithesis to spar with and the editing fully supports the duality with perfectly seamed visual effects touchup efforts.  Other support efforts come from a great supporting cast, including the international success Carice van Houten who starred in Verhoeven’s “Black Book” and won an Emmy for her high priestess role of Melisandre on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”  Houten’s cagy, pyromaniac Sandra is just as odd as her appearing suddenly into Alex’s life, or rather into the backseat of his car, when things are beginning to feel complicated for Alex having to return home after many years away.  Sandra’s emotionally supportive, almost as Alex’s backbone or a buffer, when dealing with Aram but she’s interpreted as not normal by the brothers’ mother (Sacha Bulthuis) who herself is a representation of the past that keeps the individualized brothers connected and tries to keep both boys nearby without angering them; she even attempts to turn Alex into his mechanic father, whether done consciously or subconsciously goes unsaid, but in the end, the past always creeps back to the present and the unresolved coming to a close will put the final nail into the coffin of the Amnesia family business for good.  Theo Maassen, Cas Enklaar, Eva van der Gucht, and Erik van der Horst costar.

“Amnesia” is a thought-provoking puzzle box of rearranging clues and drop in visitants that instill an uneasy, surrealism surrounding chiefly these two brothers.  Bubbling to the surface through a series of baby step flashbacks is the root cause for much of the tension coursing the narrative. History becomes the driving force behind Alex’s apprehension in returning home, seeing his naive mother, and interacting with sycophantic brother who’s also jaded by the life’s little lurid lesson by turning toward a life of crime and holding onto not only a grudge against his brother’s abandonment but also against a decision his father made many times over that he now sees as unfinished and unsatisfied. What’s even more interesting is the lack of urgency and empathy surrounding them and to resolve what has been stayed stagnant for years from their adolescence and into their adult established lives. Immediate attention matters become secondary to the underfoot game that occupies mental space between them, infects those around them, and spills out of the shadows to eventually into the light. For example, Amar’s partner Wouter is critically injured after a botched heist and comes to Amnesia to wait for further instructions from Eugene, Amar and Wouter’s boss; yet, while Wouter bleeds from his abdomen, Amar saunters around the house and Wouter is equally leisured when it came down to his mortal wound. Eventually, Sandra and the brothers’ mother grow accustomed to Wouter’s state, just like Wouter, and though their mother’s deteriorating health inches itself back and forth into the conversation, the only thing that doesn’t shy from the forefront and never becomes accustomed is the lingering sense of that something isn’t copacetic between Alex, Amar, and their father in what transforms into a problem of masculinity affairs in which Amar steers the way in accordance to alpha theory. Koolhoven uses closeups and arranges characters in scenes that makes them feel right on top of each other, in various ways, that perpetuates the incommodious communalism of Amnesia.

With the associated restoration from the Eye Film Institute, Cult Epics introduces a new 4K HD transfer and restoration of Martin Koolhoven’s “AmnesiA” onto a limited edition, 2-Disc, dual-layered Blu-ray from the original camera negative. IMDB.com lists “Amnesia” as an Arriflex 16mm film blown up to 35mm, but the is incredibly sharp for 16mm and there doesn’t appear to be a ton of makeup work to cover 16mm’s sizzling grainy and jitteriness. However, the film is presented in the European standard 1.66:1 aspect ratio that’s shot in Super 16 and is particularly fascinating how Koolhoven’s color schemes and depth shadowing adds to the noir fashion of Menno Westendorp’s beautifully warm and splintering specious cinematography. Restoratively, “AmnesiA” is a perfectly graded film with a sharp, invigorating image that exhibits no compressions issues on the dual-layer BD50, available on both discs. The Dutch language audio options on the Cult Epics release has three options: a LPCM 2.0 stereo, a DTS-HD 5.1, and a Dolby Digital 5.1. Jumping back and forth between the audio choices, I settled upon the DTS-HD surround sound mix that produces a better full-bodied output, if only by a little better with notifiable sharper crackling of the tire and car fires to bring an audible warmth to the scene. Sometimes, it’s the smallest vibrations that make a biggest impact. Dialogue renders nicely on each of the three tracks with clarity and a cleanliness of the recordings. Tracks are dynamically distinct in each scene that creates a nice depth in many of the closeup scenes with more than one actor. English subtitles are available on all three audio options. Special features on the first disc include an optional presentation introduction by director Martin Koolhoven, audio commentary by Koolhoven and star Fedja van Huêt that’s moderated by Peter Verstraten, a 44-minute theater aisle retrospective conversation with Koolhoven and actress Carice van Houten, a making-of featurette, an archive behind-the-scenes with Carice von Houten from 2001, and the theatrical trailer. The second disc includes two bonus films from Martin Koolhoven’: “Suzy Q” from 1999 and “Dark Light” from 1997. The release itself comes in a clear traditional Blu-ray snapper case inside a cardboard slipcover with a new burning tire lens illustrative artwork from Peter Strain. The snapper cover art is a split screen of Alex and Amar with Sandra divisively in the middle and the reverse side of the artwork contains original poster reproductions for “Suzy Q” and “Dark Light.” Disc art is pressed with the same cover design on the feature presentation while the disc two is pressed with an image for “Suzy Q.” The 89-minute “AmnesiA” comes unrated and the both Blu-rays are tested region free. A real mind flayer that gets under your skin in a humorously surreal way, director Martin Koolhoven’s “AmnesiA” stuns as an official debut feature film, a real under-the-radar sleeper hit for the Netherland filmmaking canon, that only Cult Epics could deliver pristinely with a time-of-day restoration and high-definition scan.

Become Caught Up in the Mystery of “AmnesiA” on Limited Edition Blu-ray!

Nature is Healing. The EVILs of Industry are Destructive. “The Great Movement” reviewed! (Sovreign Films / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on



A group of out of work Huanuni miners march into the capital of La Paz to protest forced labor shortages.  Young miners Gallo, Gato, and Elder roam around La Paz to rummage up piecemeal work to live.  When they find work as commodity runners at an outside market, the job is labor intensive, pays very little, and they must sleep outside with other runners and vendors with essentially everything they own on their back.  The job takes a toll on Elder who is suffering a strange illness that cases fever, coughing, shortness of breath, and fatigue that hurts his pockets when he can’t run product in a timely manner.  Elder comes under the wing of a mysterious earthy, old woman who thinks Elder is her godson and she enlists the holistic medicine of a clairvoyant herbalist, living off the mountainous land just outside the city, to extract the unnatural elements that plague him.

Every so often, diving into a dramatic piece of filmic art, with hints of nightmarish surrealism to satisfy the horror element (or, in this case, the EVIL), is worth cracking into and peering into dependent the writher’s personal taste and the influencing environment surrounding.  In this instance, Kiro Russo’s “The Great Movement” spoke to the interests of this reviewer for not only the urban growth is death, nature is life social commentary but also my intimate connection to Bolivia because of my second-generation wife whose mother was born and raised in the South American country before migrating to the U.S.  “The Great Movement,” aka “El Gran Movimiento,” is the first native Bolivian film I’ve ever seen and that, too, sparked a curiosity in the Bolivian film industry that was virtually thought of as nonexistent.  Russo writes-and-directs the film produced by an international conglomerate of production companies with Altamar Films (“Killing the Dead”), Bord Cadre Films (“The Untamed”) and the La Paz based Socavón Cine as well as Sovereign Films who also distributes the film.

“The Great Movement” is a continuation of Elder Mamani’s story in this follow-up film from Russo’s 2016 “Dark Skull” where Elder’s moves in with his grandmother after his father’s death.  Living in a mining town, Elder pickups a miner job which leads to unearthed secrets about his father.  Julio César Ticona reprises his role as Elder, marching from the mines to the capital in protest for work only to be stricken by an illness insinuated from his dirty work at the mines.  Only a little of the previous “Dark Skull” story works itself way into the next chapter revolving around Elder’s suffering from various forms of urban reaping toxicity and also a clairvoyant old man living off the adjacent wilderness.  Max Bautista Uchasara, in his performance debut or at least as stated on IMDB, plays…well…Max, the well-loved, if not hard-loved, and dirty-cladded mystic that sees visions of La Paz in ruins.  Elder and Max cross paths because of Elder’s unexplainable sickness, without hardly a word spoken between them, to eradicate his illness and heal the young man’s failing body.  The connection between them is an old urbanite woman Mama Pancha (Francisa Arce de Aro) who thinks Elder is her godson but Elder, taking advantage of her kindness and generosity, doesn’t know this random person and, in the grand scheme of mysticism, Mama Pancha, which translates loosely to Mother Earth, is a symbolic representation of a forgiving planet lending a hand to an ore reaping miner by introducing a natural healer.  “The Great Movement” rounds out with a cast in Gustavo Milán Ticona, Israel Hurtado, Armando Ochoa, and Richard Aguilera. 

Through Russo’s use of cityscape and natural soundscape compositions, the sound design injects a creeping presence, enveloping the characters either insidiously or soothingly in their respective surroundings. The overwhelming arsenal of concrete jungle noise pollution becomes the harsh soundtrack that contributes to Elder’s environmentally unfriendly downfall. Every car horn, every construction machinery, every hustle and bustle of foot traffic is a spike through the head as Russo wants to make sure you can feel the audible image. In contrast, Max experiences virtually little noise, aside from streams, wind, and the rustle of greenery, in his detachment from clustered society when roaming the mountainous wilderness. Max’s elder ways grant him inexplicable aptitude that allows him to essentially speak to nature, live amongst the trees, and use the land for beneficial properties without waste and destruction. This encourages Pancha Mama, aka Mother Earth impression, to ask Max to heal her godson, aka an Earth child. This is Kiro Russo’s linchpin theme for “The Great Movement” that showcases a distinct dissonance between urbanization and nature. Being a nationality outsider going into Bolivia, that distinction is immensely obvious seeing firsthand the lack of organization, resources, and care for the city I travelled to that has been turned into a comprehensively polluted, dry dust-riddled, population on top of a population where one has trouble simply inhaling a breath of fresh air and struggling with the annoyance of a bloody nose. Now, I’m not singling out or epitomizing this one area of Bolivia I journeyed to as the worst of the worst, much of the same can be said about New York City sans the dust, but once you escape the city limits and step into Bolivia’s lush jungle, the air is noticeably cleaner with an almost healing effect on the body – no more bloody nose! My experiences greatly make visible and nail in Russo’s message as we accompany Elder through his deterioration, hearing about inhaling dust as a miner, drinking nothing but strong alcohol, and being worked literally to death with backbreaking labor. Modern medicine can’t locate or explain his symptoms, diagnosing Elder with psychological manifestation of physical problems. Russo’s “The Great Movement” is powerful and invokes soul-searching about reconnecting and healing with Mother Nature.

An insomniac nightmare that’s haunting in Russo’s solemn vision and full of delirium, “The Great Movement” is an arduous detox from the overdevelopment’s intoxicating prospect. Sovreign Films will release Kiro Russo’s 85-minute disenchanting and revival tale in UK cinemas on April 15th, 2022. With the limitations of a digital screener, I am unable to entirely comment on the audio and video quality, but the film is shot in the faint speckle of super 16mm and is presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio to get the full spectrum of the cinematographer Pablo Paniagua shot Bolivia from the market busy streets to the monolithic stone and mountain structures on delineated outskirts of the capital. Paniagua employs the vibrancy of daylight and the scarcity of night light for tenebrous effect already poorly rendered by the 16mm grain. Miguel Llanques’s score is often overshadowed by the conspicuous soundscape, but the impromptu synth-flash mob dream sequence broke up the feverish trajectory at midpoint with catchy beat and dance seemingly out of nowhere. There are no bonus scenes during or after the credits. “The Great Movement” is just as raw with the foreboding circumstances in the rest the world civilization as it is with Bolivia in Kiro Russo’s film that shepherds the overlooked denizens in need for growth back to a natural world of healing.

EVIL Trolls the Waters, Angling for a Kill. “Bood Hook” reviewed! (Troma Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Troma’s 2-disc “Blood Hook” Available on Amazon!

Muskie Madness.  That’s the moniker for the locals’ fishing contest set as the background for a group of city slicker friends looking to unwind and do a little fishing themselves.  17 years earlier, Peter van Clease witnesses his grandfather suddenly fall into the lake and disappears without a trace.  Present day, Peter returns to his grandfather’s cabin with his friends but is still haunted by the memory from his childhood.  When locals and tourists engage in the contest for who can catch the biggest Muskie, a maniacal fisher casts his giant fishhook lure into the flesh of unexpected contestants on the lake and on the shore, dragging them violently into water and never to be heard from again.  The disappearances send Peter into not only an investigation of those currently missing but also into the cold case of grandfather’s demise whose fate was eerily similar. 

On the calm, glossy surface, “Blood Hook” resembles the quintessential severed tongue-and-cheek comedy and horror of Troma’s outrageously independent repertoire.  Tossed around as a crude idea about opulent society diluting the quality and the quietness of quaint lake resorts during their extravagant vacations outside city life, “Blood Hook,” once under the working title of “Muskie Madness,” is the first, if not the only that I can recall, American fisher-slasher from the unique imagination and vision stemmed from director Jim Mallon (producer, writer, and director of the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” series and movie) and producer David Herbert’s childhoods growing up in the summers of small town Wayward, Wisconsin.  Larry Edgerton and John Galligan were brought in to spruce up the script as the official screenwriters, adding bits of dry humor to an already unorthodox slasher in this catch-and-released in 1986 B-movie produced by Golden Charges and Spider Lake Films Ltd.

Like a Kleenex, the young cast falls into the fresh for one-use category of being mainly known for their role in “Blood Hook” and I hate to use that analogy because there are some really campy, genre-perfection talented acts here for a relatively large cast of a small, independent production about a killer fisherman.    Granted, a handful of the talent were able to snag up minor roles in bigger films, such as with Mark Jacobs (“Goodfellas) in the principal lead of Peter van Clease.  Jacobs, who is a dead ringer for David Schwimmer appearances and mannerisms, castrates van Clease’s manhood with extreme meekness more so than the character’s wishy-washy stance on his university music studies, romantic connections, and confronting homicidal maniacs when his abducted woman is in danger of becoming grinded up minnow chow.  What is more vexing about van Clease is the fact he essentially woes 2/3 of the principal ladies without even casting a line.  Beyond the frustrating namby-pamby, all other characters are depicted, in every sense of the term, more in accordance with those who portray them.    There is a side relationship building between van Clease’s friend Finner (Christopher Whiting), an enthusiastic fisherman who is new to the group of city friends, and Bev D. (Sandy Meuwissen), a single local with a toddler, that the audience can get invested in and takes an interesting turn when Bev D. plays the fishing rod at both ends, dipping her toes in another man’s lake with fellow local, and crazed military nut, Evelyn Duerst (Bill Lowrie).  Evelyn’s father, and yes Evelyn is a grown man with a beard, is played by Paul as the van Clease estate caretaker and a real stern pit for local purity.  A fan favorite will be the salty-looking bait shack owner Leroy Leudke complimenting his lovable persona, thick Minnesotan accent, and overall mysterious allure (with a lure) from Don Winters.  The cast rounds out with Lisa Jane Todd (“Playback”), Sara Hauser, Patrick Danz, Dale Dunham, Paul Heckman, Bonnie Lee, Don Cosgrove, Dana Remker, and Donald Franke.

Blood Hook” trawls through the familiarity of the 80’s slasher genre with an obscured hunter, a high body count, and a copiously campy campsite of carnage, but this peculiar fillet is sliced from a different kind of fish. While casted under darkness, the killer flings a cast of nylon fishing line with a large, sharp-hooked Suick lure distinguish itself as a unique weapon of choice that fills the icy blood cooler. There’s comedy in that diabolical device, largely so when making too much noise on the water that can scare fish away from patient fishers as Mallon hyperbolizes the idea of outsiders raising a ruckus amongst the sanctity of the local waters while paralleling a message about the aftereffect horrors of war; however, where we should be laughing at the idea of a fisher hooking a 150lb prize human, we’re only barely smirking at the irony as much of the dark comedy doesn’t precisely translate well from paper to screen. “Blood Hook” is about as big as the hook going into the gut as it’s no ordinary jonboat film as Mallon’s film looks serious, feels serious, and acts like a contender up against the iconic slasher-mega yachts of the time with a disconcerting sound design by Thomas Naunas of deafening cicada tymbal clicks all too familiar during summer days coupled with an eerie gelled and moody cinematography from Marsha Kahn that sets the slasher narrative as such. Both Naunas and Kahn exhibit perfect harmony in a disharmonious narrative context as a pair of feature film greenhorns looking for a launching point in their careers.

Muskie Madness turns into a Muskie Massacre. “Blood Hook” is the cinematic catch that almost got away, but Troma reels this trophy cult film back aboard onto a new 2-disc Blu-ray release distributed by MVD Visual. Presented in 16:9, “Blood Hook” holds up even to today’s standards against scrappy independent productions with a slight soft, yet noticeably clean presentation from the Super 16mm stock blown up to 35mm.  Some frames appear cropped and stretched on faces in extreme closeups, losing a bit of textural definition that leans more into a softer picture, but the contrasting is balanced which is unusual for a Troma film, the coloring is richer around the lush outdoor vistas without breaking stride of other color appropriate opportunities, like the vibrant red blood, and no evidence of any damage transferred over from the negative.  No formal mention of audio specifics on the back cover, but I suspect the track to be DTS-HD Master Audio Mono that’s clear but has issues with projecting low-talk dialogue.  Thomas Naunas’s soundtrack introduces a repetitive looming synth score kept well in check around more less-than-major problematic dialogue scenes.  Naunas’s sound design as a whole is paramount to “Blook Hook’s” envisioned success with an incessant cicada clicking combined, on the regular, with discord tones to jar the audio senses in relationship to an imminent threat.  First disc contains the feature plus scene selection menu.  The second disc is all special features clunkily arranged around the rehashing of Vinegar Syndrome produced interviews from their 2018 Blu-ray release with director Jim Mallon, actress Lisa Jane Todd, special effect artist Jim Suthers, and an audio interview with cinematographer/editor Marsha Kahm.  Along with the theatrical trailer, there’s also the usual Troma promos that accompany their re-release such as for Troma Now, Radiation March against pollution, and the Return of Gizzard Face 2 to promote Troma NOW’s streaming service.  The 2020 Metal + Hitchcock “Blood Stab” short, starring Lloyd Kaufman, finds its way onto the release too. “Blood Hook” is a tackle box of slasher tropes and anti-war and PTSD undertones though slightly dragged down by its weighted comedy; however, a killer sound design and a topnotch killer makes “Blood Hook” a perfect poster film for Troma heads.

Troma’s 2-disc “Blood Hook” Available on Amazon!