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Under an Urban Club Scene, EVIL Horrors Connect Us All. “Flesh City” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Flesh City” Yearns for Connection on DVD!

An insomnious city pulsates with an industrial soundtrack and claws cantankerously at denizens without pity. Under one of the raging night club scenes, enamored raver Vyren follows the beautifully alluring Loquette, an inspiring electronic DJ, down into the club’s labyrinth of old stone corridors. Their coquettish play becomes the monitored study of Professor Yagov, a glowingly cadent and mad experimenter of anthropology. The two lovers are drugged and abducted by the Yogav with the intent of genetic mutating the couple’s anatomy that renders Vyren’s hand displaced with a bulbous nub and Loquette impregnated with an ingestible sludge. What becomes of their affliction insidiously infects the entire city population with a flesh tentacle curling through the city’s underground sewer and drainpipe infrastructure in what amasses to a single connection of brain-invading techno-horror.

“Flesh City” annexes our individuality for the sake of connective solidarity conveyed in an electronically infused and alternatively aesthetic experimental film from Germany’s own jack of all independent media and artistic trades, Thorsten Fleisch. The 2019 released feature is Fleisch’s first and only written-and-directed full-length film depicting his feverish analog avant-garde, reflecting the filmmaker’s menagerie of orthodox-shredding short films, video art, and written and produced music. Overseeing “Flesh City’s” cinematography and special effects, Fleisch has complete and utter autonomy of the visuals to obtain a harshly discordant image melody edited together, which Fleisch also manages, into an agglomerate of acetic aesthetics to shock and stress the audio and visual cortexes. Once under the working titles of “Berlin Blood” and “Zyntrax: Symphony of Flesh,” “Flesh City” is entirely shot in Berlin, Germany, produced by the director and United Kingdom producers Arthur Patching and Christian Serritiello, and is a feature of Fleischfilm and Tropical Grey Features.

One of the film’s coproducers and musical artists, Christian Serritiello (“Streets of East L.A.”), is at the front lines of “Flesh City’s” afterthought cast of characters with Vryen as essentially the naïve and lured-in Alice chasing the white rabbit Loquette, played by Eva Ferox (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), down the twisted rabbit hole of a cellar dwelling doctor.  I say afterthought because the characters take a backseat to Fleisch’s contortion of reality and the analogical subtext generated by Fleisch’s love for analog anomalies, using them as supporting pawns to carry out his visceral vision of vitality.  Music videos, psychedelic montages, and grotesques images of beetles absorb screen time like formless or arthropodal principals.  Even Professor Yagov (Arthur Patching”) is obscured by a rainbow shimmer, never visually seeing his face as an individual seemingly between two dimensions.  “Flesh City” is a very multiverse, multidimensional nightmare-scape of unconventional color that has culminated from Fleisch’s imaginative idiosyncrasies over the years and that’s what being intently showcased here with more evident display of a less-character driven, shapeless story within the technical aspects of the DVD release where the soundtrack drowns the dialogue into a muffled deaf tone, like any good loud music venue would subdue.  “Flesh City’s” urbanites fill out with Marilena Netzker (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), Shaun Lawton (“Possession”), Denis Lyons (“German Angst”), Anthony Straeger (“Call of the Hunter”), Maria Hengge (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), Helena Prince (“12 Theses”), and Thorsten Fleisch in a Max Headroom meets Total Request Live-like host role of Quantum 1337.

“Flesh City” will not be everyone’s approx. 90 minutes of how to spend their time choice.  The experimental film will only speak to a few select souls with a filmic affinity for Lynchian peculiarities, Terry Gilliam’s bold fantasy, David Cronenberg’s body horror, and a hellish capriccio along with an eclectic music palate for noise rock, henpecking alternative, and strident industrial bass.  I wouldn’t go as far as saying Fleisch’s film is akin to nails on a chalkboard but can be boisterously unpleasant to the ears at times while, in the same breadth, be stimulating visually, even if that stimulation may induce a photosensitive epileptic seizure.  Fleisch’s non-traditional narrative design splices in music videos from various underground and indie artists with him providing introduction as an illusionary host in a virtual world, breaking up the Vyren and Loquette’s post-punk-adelic core quandary with a teetering melodic cacophony of feedback rock electronic, a hostile rhythm, and bizarre lyrics and visuals.  Fleisch pushes the taboo envelope with not only liberal nudity, to which Germans are very at ease with their body image, but also within the unconfined stylistic creativity of multi-formats that razzle-dazzles like the innards of radiant plasma globe; the Tesla coil electrons that’s drawn to your conductive flesh won’t hurt you but provide a feeling of captivated wonder.  Yet, don’t expect to be thrilled in a traditional predator-and-prey sense as “Flesh City” appeals more to our disconnect from each other and how to reconnect must be through some kind of inclemency. 

Likely to transmit under the radar, “Flesh City’s” biomorphic body horror arrives onto unrated director’s cut DVD home video courtesy of cult and independent distributing label Wild Eye Releasing in association with Tomcat Films.  The DVD5 presents the transfer in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio with varying levels of image quality due to different types of equipment and methods used to create Fleisch’s tripped out vision that contains, but isn’t limited to, black and white, color, stylistic lighting, analog equipment, digital equipment, stock footage, and so forth.  This mishmash movie makes for divisible degrees of signal quality that can be look crystal clear in one scene and then heavy noise interference the next, but the overall clarity is remains stable without any scenes being rifted because of visual vagueness.  The audio comes in two formats:  a English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a English Dolby Digital 2.0.  Frankly, the original English dialogue track is feeble under the tremendously potent soundtrack and sound design that makes comprehending Vyren and Loquette subterranean exchanges under the industrial rumble of the score virtually impossible to discern.  Even Quantum 1337’s cyber-stutter chat softly introduces us into his world, essentially leading the blind into a mound of musical mania. Bonus features only include other Wild Eye Releasing trailers with the physical aspects of the DVD come with a misconception cover art that has a terrifying gaunt and fleshy, humanoid creature front and center, but that creature doesn’t exist in the film until maybe at the climax that’s nebulously discernible at best what viewers are supposed to see. Inside the standard DVD snapper, the disc art is pressed with the same front cover image but with no accompanying insert. The region free disc features the unrated film with a runtime of 84 minutes. “Flesh City” is a delicacy of distortion, but the Thorsten Fleisch film is an acquired taste that general audiences won’t have taste for but, then again, general audiences are not Wild Eye Releasing’s target audience, now are they?

“Flesh City” Yearns for Connection on DVD!

Fausto and His EVIL Queen Will Enslave You in the “Forbidden Zone” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Intestine to the “Forbidden Zone” on Bluray!

The Hercules family recently purchases a house from a drug dealer who warns them to never open the basement door that leads into, what he calls, the Forbidden Zone.  Curious about the secrets the Forbidden Zone holds, the beautiful daughter, Frenchy, accidently finds herself in the Sixth Dimension, a subterranean word ruled by King Fausto and his sadistic Queen Doris who superintends the torturing of half-naked prisoners. Having laid his eyes upon for Frenchy for the first time, Fausto is instantly enamored with her beauty and the Queen, jealous beyond reason, along with her sadistic daughter, Princess, seek to destroy Fausto’s newest concubine. Frenchy’s brother, Flash, and their mentally invalid grandfather dive into the “Forbidden Zone’s” gonzo world to try and save Frenchy only to find themselves in a labyrinth of skimpy-cladded slaves and nonchalant sex. All hope seems lost for the Hercules family until a deal with Satan might become their only way to salvation.

Remember that opening blurb in my recent review of Richard Elfman’s “Aliens, Clowns, and Geeks” where I state my only regret in watching Elfman’s zany 2019 sci-fi comedy was that I didn’t priorly and properly experience his cult classic, the “Forbidden Zone,” first? Everything makes sense now in regard to Elfman’s fascination with the harlequin, his esoteric humor, and a knack for ridiculously unconventional in a direct pull of inspiration from his and his brother’s, Danny Elfman’s, time performing with the musical stage troupe, the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, which would later evolve, at the behest of Danny Elfman, into a popular 80’s ska-band with a reduced name simply known as Oingo Boingo. Richard Elfman wanted to take that stage presence of the Mystic Knights and transpose it to the silver screen, effectively doing by penning and helming a microbudget musical complete with series of extremely detailed and cockamamie cutout animation blended with morbid sideshow talent and performances tuned to the over-the-top theatrics of a well-oil, low-budget, far-out comedy. “Forbidden Zone” became the stepping-stone for script cowriters Matthew Bright (“Freeway”), Martin Nicholson (“House II: The Second Story”), and Nicholas James and was produced by Elfman and James along with executive product Gene Cunningham under the limited production of Hercules Films.

“Forbidden Zone” isn’t your normal run-of-the-mill musical feature as an assortment of styles coursing through what results as an eye-widening breach of political correctness. A smidgen of arthouse, a true to form vaudeville, and wall-to-wall crude comical carpeting would be a challenge to any actor set to play any role in this farcical natured fantasy, yet with the help of the Mystic Knights and Elfman’s madman charm, “Forbidden Zone” lands just the right cast to pull off a production this barking mad, beginning with the casting of Elfman’s then wife, Marie-Pascale Elfman, as the principal lead and anti-damsel in distress, Frenchy. Dredging for comprehension through Marie-Pascale’s thick French accent proved to frustratingly difficult to a linguistical layman’s ear, but her performance is light, fluffy, and defiant against the stark contrast of a brutish, no-nonsense Susan Tyrrell (“Butcher, Bake, Nightmare Maker”) as Queen Doris. Tyrrell is phenomenally “Rocky Horror” in prosaic seething and in dive-bar dress while having her Sixth Dimension King be played by her real-life lover off screen, “Fantasy Island’s” Hervé Villechaize. The chemistry between Tyrrell and Villechaize is more than natural even in Elfman’s pasquinade light. A few of my personally favorite performances are in the grandfather and grandson dynamic duo of Gramps and Flash. Phil Gordon wears a hilarious propeller hat and boy scout uniform overtop his older older-than-the-rest-of-the-cast body and though Hyman Diamond doesn’t say one single world in the entire film, as the former Jewish wrestler, Gramps, his antics are far funnier. Danny Elfman, undoubtedly, has a role in his brother’s debut feature, reprising himself in essentially a reoccurring role from his stage acts as Satan. His brief time on screen solidifies the presence of the Mystic Knights with the musicians taking bit parts playing instruments as Satan’s hooded minions. “Forbidden Zone” fills out the cast with executive producer Gene Cunningham as Pa Hercules, Jan Stuart Schwartz as the servant frog Bust Rod, writer-producer Matthew Bright playing twins Squeezeit, the chicken boy, and Rene, Squeezeit’s crossdressing brother, Gisele Lindley as the topless Princess, Kedric Wolfe as a crossdressing teacher and a chandelier (Yes, you heard right, he plays a chandelier), Virginia Rose as Ma Hercules, Viva as the former Sixth Dimension queen, Joe Spinell as a drunken sailor, and the performance artists Kipper Kids, who I remember seeing briefly from Weird Al Yankovic’s “UHF.”

Creative control is everything and with total control, total madness (or genius) can takeover to recreate a bastardized version of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” that follows a young girl falling down into a curvy intestine chute and come face-to-face with anthropomorphic creatures, a dice-decorative land (parallel’s “Alice in Wonderland’s” playing card theme), and a Queen with a strict and haughty dominion over her terrified subjects.  I also wonder if the Mickey Mouse hats worn by many of the characters in the Sixth Dimension is also a direct connection or an Elfman homage to the Disney rendition of Carroll’s story.  The “Forbidden Zone” should be explored, should be experienced, and should be enamored as a cult favorite amongst fans of not only Through the Looking Glass but also of Terry Gilliam, “Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and Pee-wee’s Playhouse.  With a barebones production value but with immensely vigorous performances that bring to life the extraordinary and flamboyant in all walks of life characters, Richard Elfman materializes a vision, his own vision, of transpiring a feature length film platform for his founded street theatre group, the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo.  At the time, did the film change the troupe’s musical journey for the better or skyrocket Danny Elfman’s evolutionary, new wave band?  That remains ambiguously unclear, but the project certainly places Oingo Boingo, in all its moniker and various bandmember forms, on a pop culture map and on everyone’s weird science fiction radar with an unforgettable, unimaginable chthonic comedy spurring laughs and gasps of content. 

After watching “Aliens, Clowns, and Geeks,” we had an inkling that Richard Elfman was an ass man and looking back at “Forbidden Zone” only confirms our theory of a cutout animation poop-chute characters pass through entering the Sixth Dimension and the continuous Kipper Kids’ vocal raspberries and revealing jockstrap ass cheeks.  If you like big butts (and cannot lie), then you’ll like the weirdness of the “Forbidden Zone” on a new Blu-ray director’s cut from MVD Visual, presented in its more recently colorized version of its 35mm stock with a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  Retouched with a few Richard Elfman enhancements to the video quality and special effects, the Blu-ray display a remarkable durability of film transfer that show no sign of deterioration or damage.  Natural grain goes unobtrusive and there are any detectable egregious enhancements to circumvent any flaws in the used film stock.  The audio is a slightly different story in the English language LPCM 2.0 stereo that often feels lossy, muted, and hissy at times.  The musical numbers are bore a static underlayer that’s faint but there.  This never inhibits the dialogue or other audio tracks in anyway but can be a nuisance.  English subtitles are an available option.  Special features include a new introduction from director Danny Elfman, a new music video of Richard Elfman beating a bongo drum to a tune to a Danny Elfman score with his wife, Anastasia, thrusting her daisy-duke clothed crotch, and a guised band playing behind them, the original audio commentary by Richard Elfman and writer-actor Matthew Bright, A Look into “Forbidden Zone” featurette from a few years back, prior to Susan Tyrrell’s death, that showcases interviews with the cast and crew looking back at the film, black and white outtakes and deleted scenes, and the theatrical trailer.  “Forbidden Zone” is an ostentatious ornament that’s larger than life in many regards and remains a cult classic to this day with a niche fanbase and tribute theatre productions still being done to this day.

Intestine to the “Forbidden Zone” on Bluray!

EVIL Comes Not on the 1st Day, or the 2nd Day, but “On the 3rd Day!” reviewed! (Scream Factory! / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“On the 3rd Day” arrives onto Blu-ray on March 29th!

A car accident leaves Cecilia dazed and confused as she wakes up in an abandoned warehouse unsure of what crashed into her and how she arrived inside the vacant area.  Her son, Martin, who was also in the car with her, is missing.  Plagued by disturbing visions being reflected through mirrors, an agitated and frightened Cecilia escapes the hospital and with the help of an empathetic, young doctor, they employ a hypnotist to extract her post-accident whereabouts and possibly locate her missing son, but what is unleashed through hypnosis is more terrifying than imagined.  Meanwhile, the other crash victim, a hermit priest, sets forth to reclaim an ancient and deadly Catholic secret lost in the wreckage and will stop at nothing and do anything to get it.  When Cecilia and the priest converge, the truth of what really happened will be profanely revealed with spilled blood.

“On the 3rd Day” is one of those movies that needs tiptoeing around when reviewing it to not divulge spoilers.  The Daniel de la Vega mystifying horror hails from Argentina and is penned by the screenwriting duo of Alberto Fasce and Gonzalo Ventura, the latter of whom authored the 2017 novel “3 Days” (3 días) in which the film is adapted from.  What can be divulged about Vega’s film is that context revolves around a classical monster fans know and revere to be a staple of horror iconography but “The Chronicle of the Raven” director ventures deep into a disoriented mother’s puzzling gap in time, working backwards through her mind’s murky-dirty window to then make the picture wretchedly clear.  “On the 3rd Day” blends abusive relationships and ugly divorce with traditional and appreciable genre tropes to fully convey that those who are to be loved and protected the most out of dissolving unions are those who are ultimately the ones hurt most of all.  Del Toro Films’ Néstor Sánchez Sotelo, who produced Vega’s 2016 supernatural thriller, “White Coffin,” produces alongside the filmmaker in a coproduction with Furia Films.

“On the 3rd Day” pursues the storyline of two principal characters: Cecilia, a mother recouping her memories after a shocking car accident, and Padre Enrique, an off-the-grid priest guarding the Catholic Church’s dark secret. The Buenos Airos-native actress Mariana Anghileri becomes lost in Cecilia’s constant struggle against the forces guiding her down a subconscious alter ego path that’s unveiled at the tale-telling end while at the opposite end of the spectrum, Padre Enrique, played with a feverously somber faith from Gerardo Romano, who also had a role in Daniel de la Vega’s “Necrophobia 3D,” knows exactly what’s at stake after accidently crashing his truck into Cecilia’s car and the displaced crate he was hauling to Santa Cruz at the behest of the church opens and sets loose an unspeakable evil to lurk. Romano is purposeful in Padre Enrique’s mission with a scrap of uncertainty splayed on his face, but never discloses a sense of true concern or panic-stricken hopelessness which makes the character refreshing in his confidence rather than tense in his unwavering assurance. The same can’t be said about Cecilia who suffers a continuous reeling over the missing gap of time. However, locating the sincerity in Anghileri is difficult as the actress doesn’t convey that primo motherly instinct of a sudden and violent detachment from her child properly. Anghileri wonderfully denotes an obfuscate posture but condoning her as a loving parent just doesn’t seem justifiable, even in the finale that is while still impactfully poignant, misses utterly gutting audiences with Anghileri’s lukewarm care. “On the 3rd Day” rounds out the cast with Osvaldo Santoro, Mathias Domizi, Lautaro Delgado, Susana Beltrán, Octavio Belmonte, Sergio Boris, Rodolfo Ranni and Verónica Intile.

“On the 3rd Day’s” first act didn’t fill me with confidence. I was about as lost as Cecilia waking up disoriented in a vacant warehouse. Vega jumbles sequential order and interjects flashbacks into an already copiously edited narrative with a slither of surrealism to the style of early David Lynch or Terry Gilliam. We’re thrust into Cecilia’s post-crash nightmare, witnessing irrational visions through standing oval mirrors and departing characters who don’t come out alive on the other end of meeting her. Vega seldomly gives into definitive trope context as he reshapes with miniscule precision what we already know traditionally about this particular monster into seemingly something new. By the second and third act, Vega begins whittling down obscuring barriers, leaving more dead bodies in Cecilia’s wake although we definitely don’t ever see death by her hand as it’s always just implied between before and after cuts. The script also pieces in more clues with Padre Enrique’s razing of collateral damage stained with the blood that is not their own. I’m enamored by this phrase that embodies a mystery on the tip of the tongue hungry to be solved and as the padre proceeds to liquate an innocent bystander because of clues he only recognizes, his character, however vilified Vega makes him out to be, becomes far more interesting in a role as a priest with a less than a pastoral posture and as a persistent caretaker of an ominous being, cleaning up after whoopsie daisy incident in losing his oversight. What “On the 3rd Day” boils down to, thematically, is when the sight is lost on what is most important, there becomes an indefinite loss that can’t be put back safely into the box. Between Cecilia’s radical escape from an ex-husband and Padre Enrique’s hastiness, they both take their eye of the prize and ultimately suffer loss in the worst possible way, turning “On the 3rd Day” into a distilled gaslight of unquestionable terror.

Hopefully, to this point, I have not spoiled Daniel del la Vega’s “On the 3rd Day’s” elusive revelation. One of the only ways to see what happens, to see the shocking ending, check out “On the 3rd Day’s” on Blu-ray from Scream Factory arriving Tuesday, March 29th! The AVC encoded, region A Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition and in a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Mariano Suárez carries over the tenebrous “Terrified” low lighting to provide a tonal dreary environment akin to noir, which “On the 3rd Day” fashions itself. Skin tones, practical effect textures, and even the retro-esque compositional special effect flush out nicely. What’s a little disappointing is the forced English dub track on both the audio options: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 stereo. With no alternative languages to opt into, even a native Spanish track, the English dub is obvious desynched between the speech and delivery. The ambient range and depth fairs better with adequate detail and an Italiano–mysterio soundtrack by Luciano Onetti, who worked on the modern giallo films “Francesca” and “Abrakadabra” with brother and co-founder of Black Mandala productions, Nicolás Onetti. English subtitles are available. The 85-minute film releases not rated and without extras other than the snapper case sheathed inside an image redundant cardboard slipcover and a wide still capture on the reverse Blu-ray cover. “On the 3rd Day” starts messy but ends in a gothic aghast that sets the seal on Daniel de la Vega’s slow burn evolution as a genre filmmaker.

“On the 3rd Day” arrives onto Blu-ray on March 29th!

That Little Strip of Tape Keeps EVIL From Spying On You! “Eye Without A Face” reviewed! (Gravitas Ventures / U.S. DVD and Miracle Media / UK Digital)

Posted by Steven Lewis on



A lonely agoraphobic hacks into the laptop webcams of six beautiful women across the Los Angeles area, tapping into their lives as a compassionate friend from afar.  His voyeurism allows him interaction, even if it’s virtually, and to deal with his severe introverted panic attacks brought upon him by an extremely abusive father and an absent mother as a young boy.  As he continues to stare at the screen, watching the women’s every move, he becomes convinced that one of the women is drugging, killing, and cannibalizing her one night stands.  Trusting his struggling actor and eccentric Youtuber roommate with his secret, too much ambiguity divides their suspicions until the recorded videoclip files of the women’s death show up on the hacker’s computer one-by-one, leaving the hacker vulnerable to possibly someone watching him. 

Every time your laptop monitor is in the upright position, you’re face-to-face with the onboard camera reflecting every movement you take and everything that happens in the background.  Voyeurism is a powerful drug, a contactless addiction where the depraved eyes crave the lifestyles of others to either stimulate the opiate-secreting pleasure endorphins or for more nefarious reasons, such as obtaining sensitive information that can be used for blackmail or theft.  “Eye Without A Face” represents that all-seeing laptop camera lens peering into what should be a private space, quietly invading without making a sound, and possibly turning into the big brother you never wanted.  Ramin Niami’s written and director voyeuristic thriller plays into that unobstructed power over someone by an antisocial hermit and the more that hermit stays reclusive in his shell the more he feeds into his feed of women, becoming more delusional in his attachment for them.   The L.A. shot thriller is a production of the Iranian-born filmmaker’s Sideshow Films with leads Dakota Shapiro and Luke Cook co-executive producing alongside Karen Robsen and Somme Sahab.

Playing the agoraphobic, voyeuristic, hacker Henry is Dakota Shapiro making his feature film debut.  Henry on paper sounds like an oily and unscrupulous lowlife unable to fit as a piece inside society’s puzzle as he watches women from the comforts of his untidied home and unwashed sweatpants.  Niami saw Henry on the contrary as an abused loner seizing at the thought of being out in the world, being around people, and finding comfort incognito with being these women guardian angel.  Henry is empathetic, modest during more private acts, and speaks to them like an equal in a guiding, positive voice without a hint of aggression.  Dakota Shapiro accentuates Henry’s unthreatening existence with dopey eyes and a lethargic posture. Shapiro’s decelerates so slowly that he makes Luke Cook appear like Speedy Gonzales. “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” actor is Henry’s house tenant, Eric, an aspiration Aussie actor trying to land a gig, any gig, in Hollywood and his influencer status is an obsession in itself as he garnishes followers for his own path toward Tinseltown stardom. Eric’s intense self-arrogance can be a put off, but he’s oddly chumming with Henry even after Henry lets him in on his little watcher setup, buying his landlord breakfast nearly every morning, providing him drugs, advising him to stop taking prescription drugs, and trying to find a crack in Henry’s impervious shell as if it was a personal challenge extended to him undertake. Their relationship is night and day, hot and cold, and often splashed with awkward friction with Cook laying on the thick, goofy charm with great attention; yet despite Eric’s knack to have money for everything else but Henry’s rent, the struggling actor eagerly wants to befriend Henry in who might be considered Eric’s only friend as sad as that might sound. All of Henry’s other friends are unaware their performing for the all seeing webcam eye as the cast rounds out with Vlada Vereko, Rebecca Berg, Ashley Elyse Rogers, Evangeline Neuhart, Sarah Marie, Danielle Hope Abrom, and Shekaya Sky McCarthy.

There’s more to “Eye Without A Face” than what meets the…uh, well…eye. While the voyeurism isn’t sexually gratifying but the act itself certainly a core aspect, the blatancy of it is more a distraction to what’s really being conveyed by Niami’s script that’s more aligned with “Henry: A Portrait of a Serial Killer” as the film exhibits key homages to the Michael Rooker starring and John McNaughton directed film. Henry falls into the hazards of a blackhole by becoming entangled in a web of women, drugs, and mental illness without almost never leaving his chair.  Eric unintentionally perpetuates Henry’s reasoning for deviating from his straightened arrow path and constant routine.  In all fairness, that arrow was already severely bowed and wavy at best as the 30-something-year-old has more than definitely broken a few federal and local laws by spying on women through their hacked webcams.  Between the nightmares of an abusive father, memories recalled at Eric’s prying, and being fed the disillusion that the medication he’s taken for years is a figment of a society system trying to control him, Henry has to choose to stick with his current reality or try to be something more than a slug in his inherited home, going as far as to calling into one of the girl’s Onlyfans type website and striking up more of a branded I-am-a-stalker conversation than clearly expressing interest in just casual conversation that sends her into a panic defense mode.  From there, “Eye Without A Face” nearly resembles a theme of anti-confidence resulting in Henry blowing up his quaint and satisfying lifestyle when reaching for a little more that ends with disastrous consequences and becomes woke to his triggering of quelled past.  The surprise twist fails to hold water, making no splash when easily discerned, as it’s slathered way too thin and too revealing around Henry’s anxiety-riddled and panicked life.

The invasion of privacy leaves chills with an overwhelming uncomfortable take on the voyeur thriller while the shocking twist kicks around an underwhelming subplot too easy to spot in Ramin Niami’s “Eye Without A Face,” released on U.S. DVD on August 10th from Gravitas Ventures and on UK digital this coming Monday, August 23rd from Miracle Media. The region free Gravitas Ventures DVD is presented in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio on a DVD5 and is displayed with a healthy serving of natural digitally recorded coloring that only strays toward a yellow-mustard tint more noticeably whenever Henry dips into a tense or distressed state. The cinematography is the debut feature film work of Sideshow Films’ Tara Violet who has clever POV shots of characters in front of the camera and characters sitting in front of another camera while acting their individual personalities by a high resolution webcam. Among using different types of distortions to render Henry’s mindset, Violet also takes a page out of Terry Gilliam with a wide-angle lens and touch of a Dutch angle to compound the crazy factor. The Dolby Digital English language 5.1 surround on has prominent dialogue unimpeded by shoddy equipment or mic placement that renders good sound design with passable range and depth, especially during webcam dialogue and other miscellaneous sounds. DVD lacks special features aside from a static menu and, obviously, digital releases don’t usually come with any extras well. No bonus scenes during or after the credits. Despite some elements extracted respectfully from inspired classics, “Eye Without A Face” shares a troubling angle on creepy in a digital world and the calamitous ill-effects of ill-advised help that’s no more useful than saying to an uptight person with an anxiety disorder, “you just got to relax.”

“Eye Without A Face” available on DVD / Blu-ray / Prime Video!

Two Evil Guys Stick to the Script! “Snowflake” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on


Tan and Javid go on a killing spree in anarchy-riddled Germany after their families were killed in a house fire in which emergency services were purposefully withheld. After slaying bystanders at a diner, they happen upon a script in a stolen car; the script reads line-by-line, word-for-word on everything the two men say and do. Simultaneously, the wealthy Eliana is hunting them down, seeking revenge for the death of her parents by collaborating with her parents’ former bodyguard to hire cold-blooded serial killers to kill the men. As Tan and Javid try desperately to not follow script, the two men seemingly can’t avoid their fate along with circumventing a variety of dangerous people crossing their path. Only a couple of people from the script can possibly save them, an Angel named Snowflake, and, possibly, the screenwriter himself.

Adolfo Kolmerer’s “Snowflake” has maybe little-to-no relevance to the derogatory term commonly used by right-winged conservatives when describing the assumed liberal millennial with a heightened sense of uniqueness and having a knack of being overly offended by, well basically, everything. Kolmerer’s “Snowflake” also has no correlation with the concept of winter, snow, or even Christmas. So, the question is, what the hell is “Snowflake” about? The 2017 shocker, also known originally as Schneeflockchen in the German language, is as cold and as unique as any snowflake mother nature can cruelly reign upon down a person and methodically compounds the series of gritty events, from two sets of characters, through a head-bearing funnel that’s supernaturally poised and brutally executed. From writer Arend Remmers, the script itself is smartly constructed as a narrative character, woven to become a pivotal motivator that not only churns out characters’ supposedly ill-fated destinies, but also a metaphysically, arch-able player in the grand scheme of gruesome revenge and absolute atonement that within the bookend pages of the treatment has unorthodox religious themes and a radical, almost anti-hero like quality of rising against the powers of racially insensitive autocratic and populist agendas. The film’s location of Berlin isn’t the only thing that’s anarchical driven as Kolmere and Remmers bends cinema conventional rules to enthrall one punch to the gut movie.

Erkan Acar and Reza Brojerdi play the brothers in arms, Tan and Javid. As they venture on nihilistically slaughtering quest to come face-to-face with their maker, Tan and Javid have nothing more to lose and Acar and Brojerdi depict themselves in that predicament while maintaining their characters’ seamless, longtime friendship, like watching two sets of personalities move as a single unit. Tan and Javid are hunted down by another character seeking vengeance for her parents are the wrong place, at the wrong time. Eliana has money, status, and all that she could ever want, but when she befriends her family’s bodyguard who is then let go from the position, she loses sight of the meaning of uncoupled protection in Berlin’s anarchy state and also loses sight of what’s truly important to her – her folks. When they’re slaughtered, Eliana, played by Xenia Assenza, is hellbent on exacting retribution. Assenza clearly proceeds with a cold, drafty personality for Eliana with unrelenting ambition. The character is scribed as ultimately over flawed if not even expressly obvious and Assenza does a fine job bubbling those flaws ever so delicately to the surface in every loss Eliana sustains. Tan, Javid, and Eliana have a very grounded reality about them when contrasted with other characters such as the superhero-esque Hyper Electro Man (Mathis Landwehr) with the steampunk power backpack of electrical power, a blind man named Fumo (Eskindir Tesfay) with fits of fury, and a madman named Caleb (“Braveheart’s” David Gant) who could very possibly be God himself. Electrifying, mysterious, and powerful can be their only descriptive adjectives that steer “Snowflake” into the graphic novel universe. David Masterson (“German Angst”), Gedeon Burkhard (“Inglourious Basterds”), Selam Tadese, Adrian Topol, Judith Hoersch, Alexander Shubert, and Antonio Wannek, Bruno Eyron, Martin Gores, Mehmek Kurtulus round out this amazing, eclectic cast.

On a single read through of the synopsis on the Artsploitation’s Blu-ray back cover, trying to process the quickly summed up tale might also quickly scorch and burn off invaluable brain cells, but “Snowflake” has an immensely alluring nature once reviewed on a second read. Might not be a tearjerking romantic comedy and can be stupendously offensive with hints of barbarism, but the fantasy element, infused with Western composition at times, is stone strong with this film that’s more than just a Tarantino or Coen brothers’ akin film as the summary impresses to potential viewers. I’d toss in their some steampunk aspects of early Terry Gilliam or the delicate fable-isms of Marc Forster. It’s also a little razor blunt like Takashi Miike and perhaps could have surrealistically lobotomized and strenuous dreamlike sequences that speak to the likes of David Lynch, in choice scenes. Adolfo Kolmerer can be considered an equivalent to not one, but all of these visual icons and mega storytelling filmmakers.

Truly unique like an ice crystal falling from the winter sky, “Snowflake” falls onto Blu-ray home video courtesy of Artsploitation Films. Presented in 1080 and in a widescreen format, “Snowflake” vividly impresses with a broad color palette and a sleek, crisp digital picture. Hyper Electro Man has vibrant electrical currents snaking around his body and arms that aren’t just blurry blobs, but maintain two-tones of color and depth. Various decrepit buildings have the details pop out to bring an anarchy German to life. The German-English-Polish Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track has range, balance, and fortitude with a clarity and prominence in all spoken dialects. English subtitles are available. Bonus features included a behind-the-scenes look at “Snowflake” that clocks in just under a hour and trailers of other Artsploitation films. “Snowflake” has an original frame that’s built to sustain the broken westernized violence and is tightly glued together with likable berserk characters and an engaging labyrinthine story that ultimately feels genuine, versatile, and thematically relevant in, nearly, a not-so-abstract vision.