Tag Archives: thriller

What EVILS Lie After Death? “We Go On” reviewed! (Lightyear Entertainment / Remastered Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get Haunted as “We Go On” is now on Blu-ray!

Miles Grissom lives in fear every minute of his life.  What scares the editor of shoddily performed, midnight television infomercials the most is the unknown after death.  The question is Is there a life after you die or is there just a black void of nothingness?  To answer that existential question, Miles places a quarter page newspaper ad seeking an ounce of proof of the afterlife with a $30,000 reward attached for one single person who can show him that there is an existence beyond death.  With the unconditional support of his mother, he scours through hundreds of fakes, solicitors, crazies, and the like until he narrows down the advert answerers to a few possibilities that have real promise.    As Miles investigate the claims of each one, he finds himself closer to the truth than he ever wanted to be and now he’s forever trapped between existential planes for the rest of his life.  

One of the longstanding and biggest questions in the universe is what happens to us when we die?  Where does our immortal soul, the individualistic essence of our being, wander to after the corporeal shell is empty?  Or does it just poof vanish, like an extinguished candle flame?  While all of these questions can be up for philosophical debate amongst the various, and often contentiously stubborn, religious groups and cultures, filmmakers Jesse Holland and Andy Mitten use the idea for their 2016 drama-horror “We Go On” that gives one possible, uncontested and cinematically electric, explanation as well as imparting a somethings are better left unknown dread.  The duo behind “YellowBrickRoad” returned to write-and-direct their sophomore U.S. production with a principal photography location shoot in Los Angeles.  “We Go On” is produced by Logan Brown, Irina Popov (“Chilling Visions:  5 Senses of Fear”), and Richard W. King (“The Witch in the Window”) under the production banner Filmed Imagination.

Miles Grissom is a mild-mannered and scared into solitude individual.  His loneliness, though not conspicuous to any extent, extends to his profession of a video editor of infomercials and other overnight television programming.  Agoraphobia and thanatophobia keeps Miles securely isolated in his modest apartment building where a recurring dream of a car accident sends his heart racing, a side effect of a core, back history moment yet to be explored when we meet Grissom, who is played by a stiff, but gets the psychologically wounded character across, Clark Freeman who has worked previously with Holland and Mitten on “YellowBrickRoad.”  “Cat People” and “Superman III” actress Annette O’Toole fills in as Miles’s ride-or-die, overprotective mother with a deep, dark secret of her own coated with a thin film of backseat family drama that’s doesn’t make her character shine like it should, especially being an important piece and highly influential to Grissom’s character.   Instead, the exposure of the secret and the impact it’s supposed to have is left on the backburner for Nelson to come into play, a greasy airplane janitor with deadly drug problem in what can be described as the best Sean Whalen role he never played with Jay Dunn filling those janitorial coveralls.  Dunn, who would go on to have a role in Andy Miton’s solo project, “The Harbinger,” dons slicked over balding hair, grimy teeth, and a deep, sunken eyes to be a bane toward Grissom’s existence and while Dunn doesn’t have dialogue for half of his onscreen time, he makes for a perfect hang around the background, meanspirited glarer.  The rest of the “We Go On” cast pop in and out as Grissom dwindles down his list of fakes and phonies with appearances from Laura Heisler (“YellowBrickRoad”), Giovana Zacarías, and the always wonderful on screen, “Gremlins 2’s” actor, John Glover, as a scientist trying to scare Grissom into giving him the reward money.

“We Go On” encases more drama elements than horror but the circling horror imagery enclosed has a beautifully grim layout with the minor touches, such as the slow turn of a hanging corpse or the statement of a ripe smell of a long dead overdose victim, that add a palpability, reinforcing the horrific moments and increases the ghastly tension.  The further we journey with Miles Grissom in his obsessive search, the grislier the imagery gets in what is essentially a two-part tale that firstly puts us and Miles on the hunt for life after death that quickly nosedives into a leeching supernatural torment.  Oddly, Grissom takes his newfound nuisance almost instantly in stride with not a ton of obstacle or self-realization work to warrant an acute enlightenment of how to handle an orbiting ghost that flashes disturbing images every other minute inside his mind and allows him to see between the planes of other gruesome ghosts stuck in limbo.  There are other examples of these sudden reversals or improvements that work against the pacing and don’t invite reward through struggle or pain in what is a walk in the park for Miles Grissom to see and handle ghosts being introduced to audiences as a man emotionally crippled by a traumatic, underlying fear.

Via Lightyear Entertainment, an American coast-to-coast independent film distributor, “We Go On” receives the Blu-ray treatment with an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD25.  There’s little information regarding the remastering of the film with the only kick up being a digital restoration and enhanced visual effects and touchups to provide a smoother, cleaner picture presented in the film’s original anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1.  Having never watched the DVD or first Blu-ray version, I have to take Lightyear’s restoration at face value which does have a crisp, clear picture full of natural color and graded with brilliance that sometimes makes the picture look too digitally sterile with not a ton of contouring shadows that can make the picture look depthless at times.  The infused visual digital f/x add about the same flavor, but the images never linger on screen, turning brevity to the film’s effects advantage.  No apparent issues with compression on the 25gig BD; textures modestly tactile despite the bright and airy grading and blacks are deeply saturated with spectrum banding.  The English language audio options include a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and a lossy Dolby 2.0 Stereo.  Dialogue is clear and projecting over the other layers but lacks that full-bodied, full-channeled trait of lossless.  Supernatural effects find distinctive ground and synch greatly with the sudden scares in transition between reality and the ghost realm.  Range and depth are favored by the remastering in the scenes that warrant both, such as the LAX’s airstrip takeoffs that considers the jet plane’s positioning in the background or above, increasing steadily the jet noise volume whenever a plan is in the extreme background to a more overhead location.  Also added for the remastered release are three new, feature-length commentaries:  two with the individual directors in Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland with the third houses the two stars, Annette O’Toole and Clark Freeman. The clear Blu-ray Amaray arranges a darker composition cover art than what the movie actually entails with an interior disc pressed with the same cover and a reversible cover that has one of the more memorable scenes from the feature. There are no insert materials included. The region free, unrated release has a runtime of 89 minutes.

Last Rites: You get what you ask for is the moral of the story maxim in Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland’s “We Go On,” a commercially technique, light-weight thriller with a thin lining of grim imagery between drug overdoses and suicide and adequate performances by Annette O’Toole and Clark Freeman that drops the everlasting question of desire and extreme, emotional fear for instant peace of mind, even if experiencing the terrifying truth firsthand.

Get Haunted as “We Go On” is now on Blu-ray!

Is this EVIL Real or is it a “Deathdream” reviewed! “(Blue Underground / 4K UHD and Blu-ray Combo)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Nightmare is Here. “Deathdream” on 4K UHD Blu-ray!

The Brooks family just sat down for dinner before receiving a personal house call by a military commander, conveying the tragic killed in action telegram of their son Andy during a Vietnam War skirmish.  Very early next morning, Andy inexplicably arrives at their doorstep and the whole family is elated with his return and relieved in the military’s gross error about his death.  But something isn’t right with Andy; he isn’t the same affable young man his family and friends knew.  All day, every day Andy sits in his room, gliding back and forth in his rocking chair, won’t eat or drink anything, and has the social personality of a slug.  While his father can’t grasp Andy’s bizarre behavior, his mother defends him, being overjoyed, comforted, and relieved by her son’s safe return.  Anybody who comes close to discovering what Andy has done or has become is preyed upon by Andy’s need for concealment and need for blood. 

If there was ever the quintessential anti-Vietnam War film, Bob Clark’s “Deathdream” is it.  The 1974, Alan Ormsby (“Cat People,” “The Substitute”) scribed grindhouse classic introduces combat shock to audiences through a macabre and ghoulish lens as the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War came to an official end in 1973.  Before becoming one of the holidays’ household names with “A Christmas Story” and “Black Christmas,” Bob Clark sat in what would be one of his first films as a director, a film that wasn’t sold in taking just one title having also been bestowed “Dead of Night,” “The Veteran,” “Night Walk,” and “It Came from the Grave.”  The U.S.-based shot and crewed feature, filmed in and around Brooksville, Florida, is a production of Quadrant Films and Impact Films with United Kingdom producers Gerald Flint-Shipman, Peter James (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”), and Geoffrey Nethercott (“Blue Blood”) with John Trent and Bob Clark coproducing.  

For the ambiguous terror of “Deathdream” to work without baffling audiences to a nonsensical death, the cast had to really give it their all and not only that but also sell the deteriorating dynamics of an American nuclear family when the son returns home strangely different from then when he left for war.   The debut film of Richard Backus, playing the reclusive and uncharacteristic Andy who has returned home from the battlefield, is complimented by the heart-wrenching performances miseries of his onscreen parents in John Marley (“The Dead Are Alive!”), as the distraught father over Andy’s peculiar behavior, and Lynn Carlin (“Superstition”), as the denialist mother who can’t or won’t see the issues with Andy, the gift of her little boy returning home. Not only does Andy’s return ignite a slow-burning divisive wedge between parents and child but it also exposes pre-war schisms that were long established years ago.  We’re initially introduced the family sitting around the dinner table filled with compassion, hope, and happiness but Andy’s return kicks the wasp’s nest and we can see their true nature.  The father is a crotchety, dogged man who can’t connect with a more sensitive son and the mother spoils his only boy the point where Andy must enlist himself voluntarily to prove something to toward his father’s disappointment.  Then, there’s sister Cathy.  Poor sister Cathy, the gentle, positive, and sweet daughter who is all buy nearly forgotten by her parents as they push her out of the way by her father stating to mind her own business or is exclaimed in so many words of her little worth in compared to her brother by her mother.  Yet, Cathy, played softly and attractively by Alan Ormsby’s then wife, Anya Ormsby (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”), continues a cool and level head about her shoulders as the only true family member willing to give Andy time, to let him be himself, while acclimating back into society, let alone his family.  However, the family’s opposing forces is ultimately what destroys them in conjunction with Andy’s terrible, morbid secret.  Henderson Forsythe, Jane Daly, Arthur Anderson, Michael Mazes, and David Gawlikowski fill out the cast.

All of the costly signs of shell shock and PTSD are present within the context of “Deathdream,” blanketed under a sensationalized, representational guise, but the film’s cinematic façade of Tom Savini’s rot and decay special effects and the appalling imagery of living death doesn’t alleviate or even dilute the horror of the revenant in the actual disorder.  In fact, it pales in comparison if you ruminate on it for a while.  Andy’s withdrawn from the likes of acquaintances, friends, and family alike and is severely impassive at signs of cordiality.  Director Bob Clark emphasizes the effect even further in one scene where a World War II veteran anecdotally describes in nonchalant detail the death of a brother in arms and this flashes images in Andy’s mind of him and his friend’s own mortal wounds in the jungles of Nam, sending the young man into a minor fight or flight moment, two of the associated signs of shell shock:  fight and flight.  Within the sensationalized horror context, Andy requires blood to keep his body from decaying, like a reanimated corpse trying to hang on a little long before his skin and muscle tissue just seep and ooze off, and in one scene of attack, Andy shoots up his victim’s blood with a hypodermic needle in a reminiscent drug addiction scene of shooting up narcotics right into the vein of one’s arm, an experience afflicted on many PTSD vets. Ormsby’s script might be specific in the anti-Vietnam War propaganda but is not so detailed in the narrative’s whys and wherefores as much of Andy’s unlikely, and undead, return to his family falls into that inexplicable, ambiguous, “Twilight Zone,” and “Tales from the Crypt” category to foster a greater cloud of mysticism and darkness around the story, one in which has a hopeful, desperate mother conjure will and desire in order to see her son come home again.

In continuing to upgrade their catalogue to the best possible format currently available, “Blue Underground” pulls an Andy and returns “Deathdream” from the dead, heading home to the nearest ultra high-definition player. The 2-disc 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray combo set arrives with a brand-new restoration, scanned in 4K 16-bit from the 35mm negative with Dolby Vision HDR in honor of its 50th anniversary. The UHD is HVEC encoded onto a 66GB Blu-ray with 2160p resolution while the Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, on a BD50, both presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. A grainy 35mm print is ingrained with superior color saturation and understanding of how to manage the perceptibility of image. Blue Underground’s previous restorations show a spectrum, step-by-step improvement to get to where the film is today in a higher, upgraded format. “Deathdream” can be a very dark film at times and often, but this release eliminates speculation of events without collapsing the contrast integrity, providing a clear and concise image for its spot in history. Blu-ray is a step down albeit only minorly and with some color stability shimmer, more notably in the finale with a less than standardized and wear-showing deleted scene that is integrated back into the story. A single, English DTS-HD master audio mono track is available. The lossless option doesn’t need any more or any less to effectively be the overlaid track. Distinction runs through the single channel with managed assurances that dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack divide and conquer their respective uniquities. English SDH, Spanish, and French subtitles are available. Due to space on 4K UHD disc, all of the package’s special features are encoded onto the standard Blu-ray. The UHD Blu-ray includes an archival commentary from director Bob Clark, a commentary by writer Alan Ormsby, and a brand-new commentary with a pair of film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson, plus the theatrical trailer. All that and a slew of previously recorded content, including a recollection featurette with Alan Ormsby and star Anya Liffey (Ormsby), an interview with composter Carl Zittrer Notes for A Homecoming, an interview with production manager John “Bud” Cardos Flying Down to Brooksville, an interview with star Richard Backus Deathdreaming, an interview with Tom Savini regarding his early years in special effects, a screen test of the original Andy actor Gary Swanson, an alternate opening title sequence, Alan Ormsby’s student film, theatrical trailer and still galleries. The only other new content is an interview with the original Andy actor Gary Swanson The First Andy. The same illustrated cover art composite from the 2017 Blue Underground Blu-ray is recycled for the 4K UHD Blu-ray with tactile elements of a raised title and taglines on the cardboard slipcover. The primary art also resides on the black UHD Amary but the reverse side has retro traits of the film’s starkly contrasted yellow and blue poster art and the “Dead of Night” title to which, once again, is preferrable for me to have diverging slipcover and case cover arts. The two discs reside on their respective sides of the interior with the 4K UHD pressed with the illustrated art and the Blu-ray going contrarily retro like the reverse cover art. There are no loose insert materials. With an 88-minute runtime, Blue Underground release comes region free and is rated R.

Last Rites: Andy didn’t destroy his family. He was only the last straw, a catalyst that tipped the boat over into a sea of slowly brewing tempest. Doesn’t help that he was also decaying right before their eyes as the embodiment of walking death and looked good doing it too with the help from Blue Underground’s sharp-edged and solidly sound 4K upgrade.

The Nightmare is Here. “Deathdream” on 4K UHD Blu-ray!

Classic Sequel Gets a Lenticularly EVIL! “Halloween II” reviewed! (Via Vision / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Halloween II” Limited Edition Blu-ray + 6 Photo Lobby Cards! Order here!

The horrific Halloween night massacre in Haddonfield where a masked escaped mental patient named Michael Myers murdered the close friends of Laurie Strode has not yet ended.  Hurt and in shock after narrowly escape Michael’s relentless pursuit, Laurie is rushed to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to receive treatment from a skeleton shift while Dr. Loomis, who shot Michael six times, continues his hunt for the hard-to-catch, hard-to-kill killer.  Frantic about the evil inside his former patient, Dr. Loomis will not stop at nothing to track him down with police assistant and try to puzzle together just why Michael had returned to his hometown in the first place.  As Laurie recovers from her injuries and copes with her friends’ deaths, The Shape arrives at the hospital, continuing his emotionless killing spree of hospital staff in order to get to Laurie, and with nowhere to run, Laurie’s only hope is in the hands of a determined Dr. Loomis. 

Picking up where the highly successful independent horror, John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” that changed the slasher genre to what we know it as today, “Halloween II” provides more illumination on The Shape, Laurie, and shuts the door on the significant open-ended and fear-inducing mystery at the finale of Carpenter’s masterpiece.   The 1981 sequel, released three years after the first film, was not helmed by Carpenter whose success skyrocketed post-“Halloween.”  Instead, Carpenter and creative producer Debra Hill agreed to the executive producer title with some creative control in penning the script that would be a what-happens-immediately-next continuation with newcomer Rick Rosenthal sitting in the director’s chair.  The director who would helm later the follow year’s “Bad Boys” with Sean Penn had a goal to retain the same Carpenter stylistic choices to make the sequel seemingly seamless.  Alongside Carpenter and Hill in the melting pot of producers, the more narratively opinionated Moustapha Akkad and Dino De Laurentiis served as executive producers along with Joseph Wolf (“A Nightmare on Elm Street”) and Irwin Yablans (“Tourist Trap”) in what became a coproduction between Universal Studios and Dino De Laurentiis’s production company.

“Halloween” converted the then unknown Jamie Lee Curtis into a couple of things.  She instantly became a household name that at the same time also made Laurie Strode a household icon.  Curtis also became what was a relatively new coined term at the time of a scream queen, propelling her career in the horror genre with “Halloween” subsequent films such as “The Fog,” “Prom Night,” “Terror Train” and, of course, the more recent titular television series “Scream Queens” and the contemporary “Halloween” sequels.  What also emerged post Lee’s performance is the actress was eager for the role and effortless to work with making the 23-year-old daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis a treat to work with, malleable toward her role, and enthusiastic about returning as Laurie Strode for the sequel.  Curtis falls right back into the role as if filming didn’t stop rolling with Strode in a confounding state of shock and injury from her the relatively short scuffle with Michael Myers until Dr. Loomis intervenes with six gunshots into The Shape at the key and climatic moment, saving Strode from being strangled.  The difference in the sequel is Curtis’s instilled knowledge for her frightened character.  It’s that kind of touch that doesn’t hesitate to react to a force of evil.  Returning as Dr. Loomis, and again as if he never stopped performing as the paranoid and fervent good psychiatric doctor, is the iconic and late Donald Pleasence tracking down his former patient with trench coat sagacity, an understanding that no one else shares except for maybe Myers’ ultimate prey, Laurie Strode.  A new cast of relegated kill fodder magnifies part two’s grislier death count with Lance Guest (“Jaws: The Revenge”), Pamela Susan Shoop (“The One Man Jury”), Leo Rossi (“Maniac Cop 2”), Tawny Moyer (“Looker”), Ana Alicia (“Romero”), Gloria Gifford (“Virgin Paradise’), Hunter Von Leer (“Trancers III”), Cliff Emmich (“Hellhole”), Ford Rainey (“The Cellar”), and Dick Warlock putting on the mask as The Shape with Charles Cyphers and Nancy Stephens returning in their respective roles as Sheriff Brackett and Marion Chambers.

What new can be said about “Halloween II” that hasn’t been already said?  Dichotomously, “Halloween” and its sequel share a single narrative that emanates the same stylistic tone; however, both films couldn’t be more different in their surface level and underlying intentions and that gnaws raggedly on the connective tissue that binds them.  Carpenter’s original embraces the mystery enshrouding Michael Myers motivations with a merciless, yet nearly bloodless, killing spree of horny hopped-up teenagers who wiggle themselves out of responsibility for a little trick-or-treat fun under the sheets or for just being alone in their house.  Myers unneeded and unheeded explanation formed The Shape as evil personified, an incarnate force compelled to return home where the light switch was flipped to an expressionless compassion for human life.  Rosenthal’s part two subverted the unknown by providing Michael reason and that reason being Laurie Strode, anyone else who gets in his way, could foil his plans, or are just in the vicinity of the hunt are eliminated with extreme prejudice, and that leads into the ramped-up gore with large pools of blood and other gratuitous displays of damage to unsuspecting soon-to-be stiffs.  Despite the different strokes, the sequel is not bad by a longshot.  In fact, “Halloween II” is just an extension spiraling in intensity and terror, a product of its time when everyone and their brother had directed gore-ladened slashers during the steep beginnings of the slasher renaissance. 

Though a many number of “Halloween II” video media exists between the current formats, the collaboration of Via Vision and Lionsgate release from Australia is beyond reproach for any kind of transfer print woes, lackluster bonus features, and drab packaging.  The limited edition and numbered 2-Dsic Blu-ray set is a physical media thing of beauty with an AVC encoded, full high-definition 1080p, BD50 on both discs.  Disc one houses the theatrical cut of film, presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, from pristine print, likely the original negative licensed through Universal Pictures for this very release, with the Via Vision caveat of every effort has been made to produce the highest quality on the back cover.  Not a single reason comes to mind on that statement being false as the Dean Cundey’s cinematography retains an undiluted facsimile of the original “Halloween,” represented here with phenomenally suitable contrast that can presumably hide Micheal Myers in every shadow and create the apprehension in every darkly lit scene with minimal key lighting in various, sometimes neon, shades of red, yellow, and white.  The 35mm film grain has a pleasant consistency of a low-to-medium low visual viscosity that never reaches levels of blotting out picture quality, presenting no issues with zoomed in images or any other touchup enhancements to note for that matter.  Perceptible details sanction The Shape’s tactile and weathered look of a rough night in Haddonfield.  Colorfully warranted scenes, such as the Nurse Alves on a gurney in the middle of a pool of her blood, are robust to display the carnage whereas other, more minimalistic approaches detail just enough for the imagination to take over.  Disc two contains the standard-definition, upscaled to 1080p, television cut of the film, presented in a made-for-TV 1.33:1 aspect ratio, that omits some of the gorier moments, suitable for broadcast viewers.  Audio options include two lossless English language selections with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.  The audio codec distributes punchier ambiences of Myers’s rhythmic breathing through the mask, the jarring alert of a hospital room buzzer, and the impactful moments of Myers slamming his fist-loaded weapon into the skull, back, and….a pillow with the cringe-worthy associated crunch and thud.  No impediments on the dialogue track that’s free of crackling, hissing, and popping and is consistently prominent and mixed well within more chaotic, milieu-mania scenes, such as with the finale with hissing air tanks and scalpel swoops.  Optional English subtitles are available.  Special features are consolidated to the theatrical cut disc only with Shout Factory’s inaugurated 2012 documentaries – The Nightmare Isn’t Over:  The Making of Halloween II and Horror’s Hallowed Grounds:  The Locations of Halloween II – featuring cast and crew interviews with director Dean Cundey, Tommy Lee Wallace, Dick warlock, Leo Rossi, and more as well as visiting locations in a modern time with host Sean Clark, and two commentaries featuring director Rick Rosenthal and Leo Rossi in one and stunt man/The Shape Dick Warlock in the other.  There’s a brand new 2024 commentary with author Dustin McNeill, co-author of Taking Shape:  Developing Halloween from Script to Scream.  The encoded features round out with the alternate ending with more explanation on the fate of a certain left ambiguous character, deleted scenes, a theatrical trailer, TV and radio spots, and a still gallery.  What makes the Via Vision a limited, numbered set is the neat package and physical goodies inside.  The rigid lenticular cardboard sleeve of the skull pumpkin has eyes that follow you at every angle.  Inside is a slightly thicker Blu-ray Amaray casing with reversible cover art displaying notable stills from the feature.  The extra disc, disc 1 likely, is in a clear push-lock, page-turner disc holder.  Six photo lobby cards featuring stills from the movie come alongside the Blu-ray.  Via Vision’s release has a region B playback encoding, a runtime of 93 minutes on both cuts, and rated R.

Last Rites: Michael Myers has been slashing away in the cinema for nearly half a century and “Halloween II” has been a staple entry that, to this day, is a memorable fan-favorite in the grand scheme of most of the franchise’s sequels. Via Vision’s limited edition, lenticular Blu-ray packaging just sweetens the deal with a crystal clear and top-tier quality release worthy in any physical media collection.

“Halloween II” Limited Edition Blu-ray + 6 Photo Lobby Cards! Order here!

Headstrong EVIL Bedeviled by the Past and the Younger Generation. “Peacock” reviewed! (Indiepix Unlimited / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Peacock” on Indieflix Unlimited Blu-ray!

Unable to fit into The Foundation’s draconian conducts of an in-home professional caregiver, the organization decides to place Anna into the isolated home of Sarel Cilliers, a once prominent South African theologist aged into a feeble old man with prim and proper, religious convictions and living on the edge of a psychotic break.  Anna finds her hands are full with the demanding and stubborn Sarel and his almighty morality but his life’s work and past, strewn about his house as Sarel ceaselessly reopens boxes upon boxes of old files to study, draws in Anna as it strangely feels familiar to her as well as raising internal concerns about Sarel’s esteemed history.  The deeper she digs the more Anna falls into a psychosexual fixation that parallel and merge into Sarel’s own delusional state, soon the two share common afflictions of masked followers and surreal, terrifying imagery of a subjugated past that hasn’t loosened its traumatizing grip on them yet.

A psychological thriller that aims to suppress and shame youthful desire while simultaneously manifesting guilt as ghosts from an older generation’s sordid past at the behest of righteous expectations and a patriarchal society, “Peacock” is a strangely transfixing mental and sexual tug-a-war horror-thriller full of emblematic evocations and provocations from director Jaco Minaar.  Minaar’s debut 2022 feature film, under the native title of “Pou” from South Africa, is cowritten alongside David Cornwell in what has become the duo’s third collaborative project and is the first South African film to employ an intimacy coordinator for the strong sexual content scenes crucial to Anna’s storyline as well as perhaps a few bathing scenes with the older Sarel.  The Gothically-charged horror is a financial production of The Ergo Company with the organization’s Dumi Gumbi and Catharina Weinek, who produced “The Tokoloshe,” serving as co-producers alongside David Cornwell. Fever Dream Pictures, Monolith Film, and Indigenous Film Distribution are co-productions of the picture.

The principal pair of Anna and Sarel, played by South Africa Television actress, “Dam’s” Tarryn Wyngaard, and longtime actor Johan Botha, are representational characters in numerous ways.  Sarel is the established, iron-fisted patriarchy of yore having come to the end of his rope in life with his past transgressions, ones that represent heavily in the socio-political air of South Africa in decades ago, finally catching up to him in the form of a sort of indeterminable dementia.  Anna, on the other hand, is symbolic of youth, desire, and itching for liberty from a repressive system, such as The Foundation that houses young women, supposedly orphans, to be raised subservient and attentive but Anna’s regarded taboo lifestyle clashes with The Foundation’s, as well as the theologian Sarel’s, archaic belief system and so Anna then goes on this obstacle-laden journey of self-discovery that’s historically painful as well as excitingly new on the horizon as she meets Jean Basson (Ruan Wessels), son of Sarel’s house call doctor (Alida Theron), and whom both are virtually a mirror of Anna and Sarel on a lesser intense level.  Wyngaard and Botha earnestly stand firm as individualistic, idealistic characters butting heads to a culminating point of surreal transition of power.  Liza Van Deventer and Nicola Hanekom costar. 

“Peacock” isn’t a knock-your-socks off, popcorn thriller with edge of your seat terror and special effects nor does it claim to be.  Instead, “Peacock’s” fable tale is fashioned delicately out of South Africa’s rough transitioning between conflicting oppositions from, and set as the period in the film, of the 1980s dealing with Apartheid.  From Anna’s atypical of the times perspective, as an outcast young woman growing and maturing in an era in which the old, patriarchal ways of doing things are quickly dwindling, much like the deteriorating mind of Sarel, the young woman tussles externally and internally in trying to conform to the brittle status quo while that’s not subsiding without a fight, yet the desires inside of her are eager to express themselves in a sexual way.  The contrasting phasing out rigidity and the phasing in tolerance courses through a single conduit of uneasy, shared surrealism that frightening and confusing to them both but affects them differently; the ghastly images forces Anna to face her past while those same images torment Sarel like a type of Hell he has to relive over-and-over and that is what the house represents to Sarel, being caged in a purgatory state that parallels the actual peacock living encaged and screeching just outside of the house.  The peacock itself embodies Sarel’s daughter, an image kindred to that of Anne’s illicit lover at The Foundation, who he locked away in the attic for having an improper relationship with a young, black man, an archaic and unfounded taboo from South Afrikaners shamefully stubborn history of the racially segregating Apartheid akin to the historical racism of American culture.  In the end, it’s the overwhelming guilt that plagues us all in “Peacock’s” thematical version of Hell.

Streaming service Indiepix Unlimited is slowly, but surely, releasing their repertoire onto physical media venue.  Granted, these DVD and Blu-ray releases are not top-notch quality, being mostly encoded onto DVD-R and BD-R with very little special features to accompany, but still better suited for viewing than the inconsistent determinants of steaming. The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, 25 gigabyte BD-R has sufficient storage to render a decently detailed feature that suffers little-to-no compression issues, presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Graded on a darker, bluer scale, “Peacock” does often have color reduction aspects that either is part of the story’s period approach or is a reproachable side effect of the writable disc, losing a richness to the black levels and leaning slightly more on a higher contrast. Details, too, appear smoother to a lesser degree but there are enough texture and tactile elements, such as the cracked leather of dusty old books, Sarel’s haggard and loosely wrinkled skin, or Anna’s striking dark features, to become swirled into its morose mixture of metaphors and surreal horror cerebralism. The Afrikaans language LPCM stereo 2.0 has lossless appeal that fills in the dual channel output quite substantially and with equipoise. Finding depth in a psychological thriller can be a tad be tricky to isolate the terrorizing trepidation trimmings of what’s beleaguering the mind and that can subdue the intended effect on the viewers. Dialogue is strongly delivered in the foreground of all other audio layers with the optional English subtitles available. The English subtitles are of European English translation and are without grammatical error; however, the pacing is at a breakneck speed. Other than the film’s theatrical trailer, the region A encoded, not rated, 89-minute Indiepix Unlimited release does not contain any bonus content. The traditional Blu-ray Amaray houses a lifeless in a monochrome-purple colored print out of Anna and a peacock feather over her eye. Inside is an advert of Peacock with a QR code and a disc pressed with a plain white circular sticker with the title in a font close to American Horror Story.

Last Rites: Noted having inspiration from Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings, the soul-swallowing torment of “Peacock’s” sundering, secluding visuals plays into the deteriorating psyche of forced solitude and the iniquitous guilt that eats away at our being, like an inhabiting demon, recognized in redux of South African sins that sees a trial by fire with a turning in the country’s tide.

“Peacock” on Indieflix Unlimited Blu-ray!

How Many Chickens Need to Have Their Throats Cut to Satisfying Ritualistic, Naked EVIL! “Voodoo Passion” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get Entranced by Full Moon’s “Voodoo Passion” Blu-ray!

Newly married Susan House travels to Haiti to join her consulate husband, Jack House, who has been stationed at the British Embassy.   Captivated by the Haitian voodoo religion and culture, Susan is eager to tour the island nation’s most ambiguous practice most don’t or will never understand all the while Jack’s naked and nymphomaniac Sister, Olga, makes forward, flirtatious advances toward her.  That fervor for voodooism and Olga’s point-blank seduction has seemingly incepted terrible nightmares of naked, animal sacrificial rituals and murder conducted beguilingly by a priestess in the form of Jack House’s native housekeeper, Inês.  When Susan awakes, the realism of her dreams afflicts her but her husband Jack and his colleague, a psychiatrist by the name of Dr. Pierre Barré swear there have been no police reported murders.  Night after night, Susan’s entranced nightmares continue to be vivid with murderous mysticism that’s slowly driving her mad in the land of voodoo. 

One of Jesus “Jess” Franco’s more bosom and bush erotic-thrillers, “Voodoo Passion” is nearly a fully naked runtime feature sprinkled with hints of the nation’s cultural religion.  The 1977 released, German Production, also known by the titles “”Call of the Blonde Goddess” or “Der Ruf der blonden Göttin,” was less about his own stylistic substance and auteur stamp and more about spasmatic, gyrating nudity under rhythmic bongo beats for the Spanish sleaze and exploitation genre filmmaker.   The gratuitously sexed-up, multinational feature is penned by the Switzerland born, sexploitation and adult genre screenwriter Erwin C. Dietrich under one of his pen names, Manfred Gregor.  Dietrich also produces the film amongst a substantially historical collaborative effort between himself and Franco over the course of the late 70s to early 80s.  Nestor Film Producktion serves as the production company, filming entirely not in Haiti but in the beautifully scenic and old-world allure of the seaside capital of Lisbon, Portugal.  

Lots of hot body action in this beat-driven, voodooism thriller primarily between a trio of character-diverse, titillating ladies and peppered with peripheral nude women and men tribals engaged in a ceaseless native, ritual thrusting, pulsing, and shaking trance dance.  “Voodoo Passion” grips itself around the rags-to-riches character of Mrs. Susan House in what is a matron-look for Spanish actress Ada Tauler (“The Sexy Horrible Vampire,” “Love Camp”) brought to Haiti at the behest of her British consult, newlywed husband Jack House, played by the stony-faced and “Eugenie” and “Pieces” American actor Jack Taylor able to swing both thrills and feminine frills in his films.  While Tauler’s doesn’t shy away from full nudity of Susan House’s fever dream state, the actress pales in comparison to the other two-thirds who are more engaged in sexual promiscuity and the liberating fervor of ethnic ceremony.   Those two actresses are “Caged Women’s” Karine Gambier as the nymphomaniac sister of Jack House and the face of most of “Voodoo Passion’s” physical marketing with French actress Muriel Montossé (“Cecilia”), under the more westernized stage name of Vicky Adams.  With a face and body like a model, Vicky Adams’s wild arm and stoic expression dance moves will hypnotize viewers entranced with the bongo tempo’s transfixing pomp, contributing to the film’s psychotronic premise of magical and religious rites, obfuscated nightmares, and, cue Austin Powers’s voice, murder.  Yeah, Baby!  “Voodoo Passion” has curves for days and in all different personas that keep things weirdly, but welcomingly, platonic on some level and not just an overly saturated sex-fest.  The film’s cast rounds out with Vitor Mendes (“Swedish Nympho Slaves”) and Ly Frey.

If asked to describe or give an opinion on “Voodoo Passion,” one would say cheekily the Jess Franco film is a thriller swathed in an eyeful of bosom and bush.  If the 4-minute introductory scene with voiceover exposition to the ceremonial voodoo band and half-naked native dancers wasn’t enough of a clue, Ada Tauler and Karine Gambier pull you right back into the soaking tub with their soapy, wet bodies as they immediately take a bath together upon meeting for the first time.  From that point on, the bosom and bush bar has been set and in that the thicket of unshaven landing strips, there’s a good story underneath about the mystics and misconceptions of Haitian voodooism.  Unfortunately, much of that story falls behind the showcases of skin, thrusting the principal ladies into the spotlight, overshadowing Jack Taylor’s performance as well as doing nothing for the poor psychologist in Vitor Mendes, and undercutting the very theme of ritual exploitation and misconduct which is half of “Voodoo Passion’s” concept.  The entirety is all quickly surmised in one fell swoop of exposition without the necessary leg work, that should have been carried out by either Susan House or the consul assistant Inês, of building evidence for or against the contrary exposed in the finale.  Then again, does gorgeous naked women dancing about really need a well-rounded plot?  All depends on the eyes of the beholder and these eyes needed that equilibrium!

Full Moon Features conjures up a Blu-ray for this Jess Franco thriller debased in sexploitation slather.  The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, is housed on a single layer BD25, yet not encoded heavily with bonus content, “Voodoo Passion” is able to retain a full-bodied image from a remastered German original negative owned by producer Erwin C. Dietrich.  Vivid color saturation, contrast levels accompanying each other, natural looking skin tons, and the stunning detail render this Full Moon Features release the bees’ knees.  No signs of blocking or banding but some celluloid frames are slightly grainier than others that might be a result of age, wear, or the variable of film stock.  There is only a single audio option, an English LPCM 5.1 renders lossless audio, clearing each channel with ease, and delivering a rhythmic bongo drum beat with intensity.  Dialogue mirrors the richness despite the ADR track overtop the diverse nationalities’ native tongues.  There are no English subtitles, or any setup option for that matter, for this English only track release.  Special features included are an archival interview with Jess Franco with forced English subtitles Franco, Bloody Franco, a rare photo slideshow of images from the film, the German trailer, and a Jess Franco vintage trailer reel of most of his schlocky Eurosleaze fair.  What’s party treasured about these newly re-released films onto a new full HD transfer is Full Moon’s physical package redesigns that offer a cardboard slipcover with new illustrated, pinup-esque, art.  “Voodoo Passion” has a half-naked woman, presumably the nymphomaniac sister Olga, moaning in ecstasy while holding a…hand mirror?  Wonder if that should have been the champaign bottle Olga uses to, well, you know, pleasure herself with.   There’s also a striking, NSFW, Muriel Montossé pose in a scene from the film on the traditional Blu-ray Amaray front cover with additional explicit scenes on the backside.  The disc is pressed with the same slipcover illustration and there are no inserts inside the case.  Presented uncut and region free, this Full Moon release of Jess Franco’s vintage sleaze has a runtime of 86-minutes.   

Last Rites:  Another wholly impressive picture quality presentation of another unwholesome, softcore sexploitation by Full Moon Features, a friend to Haitian voodoo and you, the licentiously greedy viewer! 

Get Entranced by Full Moon’s “Voodoo Passion” Blu-ray!