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A Talking Black Lab with EVIL Red Eyes Target Children. “Where the Dead Go to Die” reviewed! (Mountain Oddities Home Video / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Where the Dead Go To Die” Now Lives on Blu-ray!

The first story in a disturbing 3-part omnibus tale concerns a little boy named Tommy.  Constantly at each other’s throats, Tommy’s troubled  parents don’t burden him down in their mini bickering wars and abusive verbal tirades where he becomes the passive aggressive fodder for each of them to shell the other with, but when Labby, a talking, red-eye dog proclaiming to be a messenger of God’s word, tells Tommy to kill unborn brother because he’s the antichrist, Tommy’s world is turned upside down when Labby murders both parents and the unborn child in the name of God.  In another story, a man steals liquid memories by killing people and extracting an intoxicating substance from their memory glands to inject them into his own body.  One particular liquid memory of a dying prostitute sends him through a warped nightmare of the underworld, one where he may never return to normal.  The last story focuses on a mask-wearing deformed boy named Ralphie, whose Siamese twin brother’s face protrudes out of the side of his face, and his infatuation with schoolmate and neighbor Sophia.  When trying to impress Sophia by relating to her father, Ralphie learns the father records VHS tapes of Sophia being molested by older men and is coerced to partake in an act Sophia is an unwilling participant.  At the behest of Labby, what Ralphie does next will put a fatal stop to the madness that surrounds him and his soulmate crush. 

In the same clunky spirit of crude early 1990’s computer generated imagery or in the early days of the original Playstation graphics, Jimmy ScreamerClauz’s “Where the Dead Go to Die” fully embraces the ungainly graphics in a 3D world of unimaginable horror where kids and demons intersect with wretched results.  The 2012 omnibus reflects three short narratives from ScreamerClauz and combined into one seriously screwed up tale, orchestrated by deal brokered wit Unearthed Films’s Stephen Biro who was sent two of ScreamerClauz’s short films – “Tainted Milk” and “Liquid Memories” – and challenged, or maybe even championed, ScreamerClauz for a third to build toward, and the eventual release of, a feature length product.  With the challenge accepted, the full-time musician and 3D animation artist succeeded with an unforgettable story that’s pure evil at heart and a surreal kaleidoscope of ghastly phantasmagoria.  ScreamerClauz not only writes, directs, and composes the film he also produces under the Draconian Films and Chainsaw Kiss production companies.  

As it has been already established Jimmy ScreamerClauz wears many hats in his production, we can add another with his voice acting of the demonic, fireball-eyed dog, Labby and along with the director’s voiceover participation, other genre actors and filmmakers are casted to voice one, or possibly more than one, of the crudely animated, disturbingly souled characters.  “Subject 87” director, “Reality Bleed-Through” actor Brandon Slagle tackles a double voiceover with the memory addicted man as well as Sophia’s sleazy abusive father.  As Sophia, the once upon a time softcore horror actress Ruby Larocca (“Witchbabe:  The Erotic Witch Project 3,” “Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde”) has real innocent palpability up against Slagle’s aggressively toned, VHS-recording, and peeping perve that is her in character daddy.  Larocca also voices the mysterious advice-giver with the Lady in the Well and as the dying Hooker in the arms of the serial killer-for-liquid memories Man.  Another multi-voice player in the film and who also had a stint in the sex and violence category is Joey Smack with a string of strangler themed films (“Vampire Strangler,” “The Masked Strangler,” “The Bizarre Case of the Electric Cord Strangler, etc.,”).  Smack extends himself into a child and parent performance as the deformed Ralphie in “The Masks That the Monsters Wears” and Tommy’s dad in “Tainted Milk” that gives provides range albeit the quintessential grown man mimicking a child’s voice unmistakableness in the cracking high voice.  Much like Larocca, there’s something pleasant in seeing names like Linnea Quigley (“Return of the Living Dead,” “Night of the Demons”) and Devanny Pinn (“Nude Nuns with Big Guns,” “Bloodstruck”) be credited to voice because that takes the focus on their physical appearances and gives them a chance to actually be seen, or rather heard, with their dialogue performance.  In this instance, Quigley and Pinn embody the rancid maternity of Sophia and Ralphies’ mothers respectively.  “Where the Dead Go to Die” rounds out the cast with more B-movie actors in Trent Haaga (“Terror Firmer,” “Killjoy 2:  Deliverance from Evil”) as Ralph’s ashamed dad as well as Carlos Bonilla, Victor Bonacore, and Joshua Michael Greene. 

How a filmmaker chooses and utilizes his brand of CGI landscape is how that filmmaker’s film should be judged in the gelling of those areas, in my opinion.  “Where the Dead Go to Die’s” crude 3D animation is the intended result from Jimmy ScreamerClauz’s choice in conveying his short story narrative, but that intention won’t stop audiences and critics from browbeating and disparaging the film.  Yet, if accepting the former viewpoint and watch with understanding eyes through that recognition lens, “Where the Dead Go to Die” is one messed up and horrifying dystopia accentuated by the animation that gives each chapter more weight toward wretchedness and wrongdoing, gelling with tremendous intent to scramble the proverbial innocence with demonic forces and human perversions.  Some of the ideas and concepts swirling around ScreamerClauz’s head and make it into the three tales were just images he thought were visually neat but that speaks loudly on the dark mindset of creativity and many of those images are now temporally seared, scarred permanently into our long-term memory lobes.  Granted, tale transitions and recycling back to their sole connection with each other route into choppy territory at best, creating a windy, bumpy road in braiding the three chapters together under a single umbrella of animation style and storytelling, but “Where the Dead Go to Die” is a poignant and throbbing like touching a raw, exposed nerve through gouged muscle and tissue.  Every inch of surreal, sawtooth imagery is like a knife twisted into our virtuous side because upon closer look at Jimmy ScreamerClauz’s story containing children being hurt is only separated by the mere stylistic choice of cinematography. 

Out from the distribution shadows of Unearthed Films and in the hands of adult animation distributor Mountain Oddities Home Video, also in partnership with MVDVisual, for a new Blu-ray release, one we haven’t seen since Unearthed Films released the DVD and Blu-ray in 2012.  The first of two initial releases from Mountain Oddities Home Video, the Blu-ray comes AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition release, on a BD50 packed with extras.  Being mostly rudimentary 3D animation installed into a complexity of kaleidoscopic imagery, critiquing the quality is beyond our control but the compression is amply successful with no artefacts to note and the colorful saturation and grading levels provide an enriched, amalgamated dough of diabolic devil-bread, presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio that’s more compromised to its now out of print Unearthed Films counterpart from more than decade earlier.  Two English audio options are available:  a DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound and a DTS-HD 2.0.  At home audio recordings outside the sound barrier studio boxes are not as refined, capturing mic interference and hissing as well as the differences in varying audio volumes that don’t match between interacting characters in the same scene, creating that unshared space and gap.  Dialogue is unimpeded and clear and ScreamerClauz’s original gloomy-looming score fuels the deep morosity and malevolent themes.  English subtitles are option available.  Extras include a director’s commentary track with Jimmy ScreamerClauz, deleted scenes, an online video-conference interview with ScreamerClauz hosted by Quality Violent Cinema, behind-the-scenes featurettes of snipped dialogue recordings and interviews, including Linnea Quigley, Youtuber Diamanda Hagan’s video review of ScreamerClauz’s animated shorts “The Scuzzies,” and the director’s short film catalogue with “The Scuzzies” (that includes commentary), “Labby vs Mr. Pickles Rap Battle,” “Clinical Sodomy,” “Affection,” “Mutwa,” “Reality Bleed-Through Remix.”   Mountain Oddities Home Video’s Not Rated release is listed as the uncut version with a 95-minute runtime available with region free playback. 

Last Rites: An adult animation pushing the envelope with taboo themes involving kids and when you mess with kids, the public taste goes sour, but “Where the Dead Go to Die” swirls surrealism with poignant acting and strange fever dreaming amongst the basic, albeit creepy, animation.

“Where the Dead Go To Die” Now Lives on Blu-ray!

Wake Up and Get Lost in the EVIL Flowers. “Terror Firma” reviewed! (Dark Arts Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Terror Firma.” The First Dark Arts Entertainment TItle Now Available!

Having no place to go during the middle of an unexplained, national Marshall Law event where citizens must remain indoors or else face imprisonment, Lola bunks in with her fellow adopted brother Louis and his bizarre tenant Cage. Though Lola and Louis have not seen each other in years, they quickly bond to deflect Cage’s peculiar persona that has honed in on Lola. After receiving a government issued drop shipment of food, Lola discovers a seed packet wedged in between the boxes. Her curiosity sows a single seed that results a hole in the ground next day, a hole that produces a jelly that conforms to their individualized favorite flavors, and they become addicted to its intoxication, but when Louis disappears, seemingly trapped between dimensions and communicating underneath an alien flower where the hole use to be, Lola is stuck alone with Cage who’s more and more becoming twisted by the transcendental jelly.

A pun play on the idea of terra firma, defined as the Earth’s ground or surface, “Terror Firma” is a prismatic and cosmic hell hole of a psychological and interdimensional thriller from writer-director Jake Macpherson. Macpherson, a regular music video director of photography and a short film filmmaker, debuts his 2023 feature film with a broader, elephantine story under a bantam budget, reduced to a singular location, and uses the idea of terra firma as the basic premise for natural Earth horror blended with the pandemic confinement of COVID-19 in which the story was conceived and how that isolation acceptance, thralldom from authoritarian instruction, and broken family bridges originate the internal dysfunctions outward toward a destructive, maddening outcome. “Terror Firma” is a production of the Los Angeles based Capture Theory company with Macpherson, John Angeli, Forrest Clark, Theo Linder, Katie Mamie, and Bryan Wilson serving as mostly first-time producers.

Keeping in line with a low-cost production, the story takes root at mostly one location, Lou’s rundown, multi-story house with creaky old floors and compact rooms, extending the location beyond the walls and into the house’s minute front yard where a pile of dirt with a strange jelly hole metamorphizing into an even stranger looking flower becomes the catalyst of weirdness.  Thai-American actress Faye Tamasa is Lola, the weary sister of Louis, played by Burt Thakur, who invites her to come stay with him during the beginning of a nationwide shutdown of unexplained purpose.  Lola and Louis, both once orphans and adopted by the same parents, haven’t seen each other in years and have rarely spoke.  Repeated motifs of isolation, such as the extension of their orphanage, and an awkward disconnect between them display their relationship instable without having an obvious clash to outright scream incompatibility between the two who don’t share bloodline but grew up together.  There’s still an affection quality between them but it is damaged.  And, then, in comes the third wheel that becomes the wedge between Lola and Louis’s relationship rekindling.  Cage, a dodgy spiritual pseud and played with monotonic sleaziness by Robert Brettenaugh (“Strange Blood”), interjects his numinous nonsense as a façade to impress Lola but as Lola sees right through him, Cage diverts his attention to the Jelly that drops the façade and unleashes his true spirit, a sociopath with an obsession.  The trio works to relay a significance in loneliness and isolating desperation in a sensationalized, supernatural way in finding a pathway through the lockdown blues.   Rounding out the cast with a small role that wouldn’t even be considered turning the trio into a quartet is Max Carpenter as a former love interest to Lola.

Not to be confused with or have any similarities to Lloyd Kaufman’s 1999 burlesque slasher titled “Terror Firmer,” Macpherson’s debut is born and bred out of the woes of a global pandemic by formulating a fantastical escape from the reality as we knew it before everything went into an abrupt lockdown.  The sudden stoppage of the world and social gatherings certainly began a snowball effect of emotional distress, some more external than internal that gradually drew to head an uneasy amount of stir crazy.  For the trio of roommates, and like most of us during the beginning of the lockdown, we’re excited and thrill for a break in the norm but as time marches on, those you’re stuck with without anywhere to go is an unusual alienating feeling.  “Terror Firma” expediates the sullied sensation to cosmic proportions with gateways to upside down worlds that mirror our own and develop cultish acolytes to the Jelly’s mystical powers.  Granted, no much of Jake Macpherson’s story makes a whole ton of sense and is very open to interpretation, but one possible avenue I’ve concluded is that the Jelly is a convenient, sweet-tasting poison that one can easily fall for its pseudo-tranquility and limitless euphoria to solve all our immediate problems as a quick fix but ultimately it’s our will and the power within ourselves to reconnect, re-establish, and revitalize what’s missing from ourselves.  Macpherson’s hallucinogenic rabbit hole of a thriller is an abstract course on preservation of relationship and connections while overwhelmed with obstacles.

Prominent genre filmmaker Brian Yuzna, well-known for his behind-the-camera roles on Stuart Gordon’s “Re-Animator” and “Dolls,” as well as his own directorial credits “Society” and “Beyond Re-Animator” to revolutionize the way we see horror in the 80s and 90s, teams up with John Penney, writer of staple cult classic “The Kindred” and “Return of the Living Dead III,” to form a new at-home physical media label known as Dark Arts Entertainment.  “Terror Firma” is the first title to be released by the joint partnership with MVD Visual for distribution.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD50 houses the widescreen, 2.39:1, aspect ratio presented blossoming madness.  Picture image varies with the refracting coloring within the polychromatic lenses and in contrast to the post grading of a slightly coarse tone.   Yet, that isn’t to say quality is subpar and we’re treated to a fine digital image compressed without compromising the encoding on a double layered disc.  The English LPCM Stereo 2.0 offers a lossless reproduction of true audio fidelity and while not be a powerful mix course isolated layers through individualized channel outputs, “Terror Firma” isn’t necessarily powerful in range.  There’s only a handful of psychedelic moments of discord tunes and notes to emphasizes the crossing between dimensions and a few minor key moments to evoke fear out of Cage’s madness but other than that, “Terror Firma” specializes mostly in exposition and silently witnessed moments.  Dialogue is clean, clear, and prominently placed with depth dialed in where needed, especially when Lou begins to speak beyond the plane.  English subtitles are available for the feature only.  Inside the bonus material, a second version, an extended director’s cut, of the film is available and does not have the subtitle option.  Also included is Jake Macpherson’s commentary with main feature, a behind the scenes gallery, and the theatrical trailer.  The maiden Dark Arts release package is standard fare with a traditional Blu-ray casing containing no inserts or other tangible material ride alongs.  Release cover art leaves enough to the imagination to be lured in with Faye Tamasa crawling through a dirt hole and coming upon the alien flower.  The not rated feature has a runtime of 84 minutes and is encoded region free.

Last Rites:  “Terror Firma” is a bold first impression for not only writer-director Jake Macpherson as his debut full-length feature film but also for Brian Yuzna and John Penney inaugurating their distribution label with a film that might not strike a likeable chord with most but will certainly leave a relatable lasting impression on us all. 

“Terror Firma.” The First Dark Arts Entertainment TItle Now Available!