Tag Archives: Torture

If You’re Going to Kill Evil, Make Sure You…”Crush the Skull” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

vlcsnap-00011Master thieves Blair and Ollie have known heists for most of their young lives but promise themselves one more job before a long overdue retirement with their stashed earnings. When the job goes South and Ollie gets pinched by the police, Blair has to use all of their savings and borrow on top from a ruthless crime boss to utilize his connections for Ollie be released from jail. With the first payment due in a week, Ollie and Blair have no choice but to put their lives in the hands of Blair’s brother Connor, a two-bit thief with a seemingly full-proof plan of scoring big at a vacant vacation home. The only problem is is that the home is a murder den for a deranged serial killer and with being trapped from the inside, Blair, Ollie, Connor, and their crew are being separated in a maze of murder with no way out.
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“Crush the Skull” is a cleverly scribed 2015 horror-comedy from writer-director Viet Nguyen and co-star, co-writer Chris Dinh that was molded from the brimstone and fire of two successful short films, “Crush the Skull 1” and “Crush the Skull 2,” and a modest crowd funded financial backing that brought this witty and terrorizing film to fruition. Seriously, it’s been a long time since I’ve been entertained and jumpy with a film, especially one that’s working with a little more than a $75,000 budget. The superb character development and dialogue produces lively characters built upon an established dynamic group of tight knit actors whose on screen chemistry is beyond just a spark. Much of the character interactions are comical with a wrap around horror story and the mixture is purely potent and damn good that’s trying to pinpoint whether “Crush the Skull” is a dark-comedy or a flat out thriller.
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The unconventional lead man Chris Dinh is Ollie, the quintessential good guy despite his lawbreaking thievery profession and Dinh provides a semi-serious, semi-standup comedian performance that makes Ollie likable. What also makes Ollie likable is the character’s main concern ultimately lies with concerning for the love of his life Blair, casted by the gorgeously talented Katie Savoy. Savoy’s Blair has fathomless compassion for Ollie and the Boston-bred, actress can imitate that affection, stating she would do anything for her lover. Both characters connect well within the context of the roles played by Dinh and Savoy, but connect them with actors Chris Riedell and Tim Chiou and you have a fearsome foursome of hilarity. The merciless jabs, the daunting quips, the pleasantly bad jokes, and the utter goofiness somehow manages to be experienced very naturally from the hapless heist team of Connor (Riedell) and his simple-minded, light-hearted crew Riley (Chiou). Though Connor is far more bright than Riley, their additions add colorful farce to production, causing more mayhem than mending to Ollie and Blair’s predicament.
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“Crush the Skull” doesn’t strike as a very effective horror title at first glance with a slight vapidness about it. Yet, the title works as an appreciation to the series of events leading up the final moments when reformed do-gooders combat a demented and unspeakable evil and only then does the title reach out, grip tightly your neck, and slap you right in fat part of your cheek. Now, that’s a horror title! The horror portion inside this genre blend is an effective outer hull providing a superstructure of motivation and to stimulation. “Crush the Skull” doesn’t splinter at the first sight of blood, keeping the bones intact to scare the pants off edgy audiences when the diabolical game begins between naive robbers and a calculated killer until the instant of truth serves a fracturing blow that’s hard to reset. Nguyen and Dinh’s script isn’t overly gory; in fact, with a few blood splatters and a brief moment of a decapitated body, gore shouldn’t even be in the film’s glossary, but their script works diligently and brilliant along side amazingly gritty production design of the maze-like torture dungeon from Eloise Ayala to produce traumatic moments of gut-wrenching terror that’s hard to forget.
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Breaking Glass Pictures absolutely crushes it distributing “Crush the Skull” on a not rated DVD. The 80 minute film is presented on a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio DVD9 MPEG-2 disc with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. No issues with video and audio qualities with balanced color hues and audible tracks though the David Frank Long score was generically clunky at times as I swear I’ve heard that particular score before in other microbudget films. A small band of powerfully punching bonus features include both shorts that I’ve mentioned prior to and an informative behind-the-scnes with the cast and crew speaking about their experiences of the 18 day shoot. “Crush the Skull” is one part “The Bone Collector” and two parts “Silver Streak” with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor – an entertaining cult inspiring horror-comedy that’s shamefully too far under the radar.

Buy “Crush the Skull” on DVD!

Watch “Crush the Skull” on Amazon Video!

Meet the Evil Jade Executioner! “Red Nights” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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“Red Nights” is not exactly a new film. Being released in 2010, the erotic, giallo-inspired, thriller has only been available for DVD purchase in the Belgium market while Germany has the sole blu-ray edition. With much anticipation, Philadelphia based company Breaking Glass Pictures will be bringing “Red Nights” to DVD in the States in all it’s suspenseful and bloody glory.

The ancient box of the Jade Executioner has become the fascination of everyone’s desires. From crooked politicians, to thieves, to sadomasochistic murderers, the box contains a poison that will increase your pleasure by ten fold while leaving you completely paralyzed and increase your pain by the same amount. This twisted tale with a sexual aura constructs a cat-and-mouse game between two femme fatales, Catherine – who just wants a giant pay day for the box and Carrie Chan – who wishes to use the poison for the ultimate pleasure from pain, while a Manau crime lord embarks on a mission to retrieve back his stolen antique box.
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This is the first feature length film from French directors Laurent Courtiaud and Julien Carbon and while “Red Nights” looks beautiful on screen – the shot scenes remind me the Wachowski brother’s Noir film “Bound” – the story can be a bit loose and slow at first. The By the end of act one, “Red Nights” really pick up the pieces and the story of how Frédérique Bel’s character Catherine, a personal assistant to the crooked politician Savini, becomes snared in a web of deadly game with Carrie Chan – played by Hong Kong actress Carrie Ng – and in this game, minor players get a slow and painful death which translates very well to screen and relates very precisely to the character’s personas. Carrie is a sadist who can whip a dry martini while skinning you alive. Catherine is a bit more hesitant but her greed can force her hand to kill.
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The gory effects are surprisingly realistic for a pair of visual effects crew members – Jam Abelanet and Bertrand Levallois – who don’t have much horror and thriller film credits behind their names. This goes hand and hand with how I described the first time directors and how the crew of “Red Nights” got it right the first time. Where the film lost me a many of times was the back and forth dialect of French, Chinese, and a little bit of English thrown in there for good measure. As much as I like a foreign film to use their native tongue, it’s hard to follow when a conversation between a Chinese actress who speaks in full Chinese and then the French actress retorts in full French. “Red Nights” would not make a good Rosetta Stone substitute.
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Carrie Ng creates a fascinating character in Carrie Chan, a respectable, world renowned perfume designer and model. Chan’s dark side involves tight leather, bondage ropes, and razor sharp metallic finger talons that shred skin like shredding a block of cheese. Carrie Ng is lustfully sleek and sexy with her bad girl image that suites her well. Frédérique Bel couldn’t compare to Ng’s prowlness nor clean good looks, but I have to give Bel credit for making her character Catherine a sneaky and aggressive go getter. Maybe the issue was in the script’s writing, but Catherine seemed to lack a lot of intelligence for being in a game that could cost her her life. Catherine trusted everyone too easily and let people go too quickly without any kind of punishment or pain.
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While “Red Nights” won’t break the DVD retail shelf bank, I’m still glad Breaking Glass Pictures and Vicious Circle Films are releasing this foreign gem to the masses of ‘Merica. And while I appreciate every aspect of this film from the director’s inspiration of Giallo genre to the histories of Chinese folklore, I can’t see my country men going crazy over a Chinese girl with finger blades. However, the story for Carrie Chan might speak more to horror enthusiast in that the Jade Executioner’s poison is similar to the box in Hellraiser. The box is described to show you the pleasures of pain much like the poison in “Red Nights.” Lets also not forget that Japanese porn actress Kotone Amamlya and French actress Carole Brana do a bit of nudity as well – click to see my skin page here. Come Tuesday October 21st, DVD will be readily available for purchase, but why wait? Pre-order your copy of a unique thriller with hints of gruesome horror torture!

The Evil Dr. Is in! House of the Witchdoctor Review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Who doesn’t love Bill Moseley? The loud mouth, sarcastic-trash talking, balls-to-the-fucking-wall, maniac characters swirl him into a familiar role that have been overly typecast by general audience standards, yet we, as the audience, love every minute Moseley is on screen – Otis Firefly from Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects” for instance. Hell even Johnny from Tom Savini’s “Night of the Living Dead” gave Johnny a more twisted outlook on his short lived life. The same maniacal Moseley archetype reveals itself once again in House of the Witchdoctor along side a timeless buxom blonde and reoccurring co-cast member Leslie Easterbrook.
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A young and beautiful Leslie Van Hooten and her four grad-study friends retreat to the Van Hooten home to help Leslie cope with the anniversary of her fiance’s brutal and shocking death one year ago. Peter (Bill Moseley) and Irene (Leslie Easterbrook) Van Hooten leave the family home for the weekend, giving the young group a chance to give Leslie a feeling of peace and relaxation during her time of suffering. However, a peaceful weekend is interrupted by a career criminal Cliff (played by Allan Kayser) and his drug fueled sidekick Buzz as they break into the Van Hooten home looking to rape and torture the women and steal from Leslie rich parents. What Cliff and Buzz don’t realize is that they have unleashed hell upon themselves breaking into a house that isn’t all quaint and innocent as it seems.
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“House of the Witchdoctor” prides itself more toward the torture, rape, and murder that falls upon the young grad students than more toward the actual focus of what the title suggest – the Casa de El Witchdoctor. And while I enjoy a good torture scene between dirty old criminals and the naive youth of the nation, the witchdoctor intrigued me more because the subject matter of voodoo and witchdoctors are hardly explored anymore. “The Serpent and the Rainbow,” “American Horror Story” Season 3, and, well the “Candyman” trilogy, is all I can really account for voodooism. Aside from the lack of witchdoctor and witchdoctor activities, the misbehaving activities of Cliff and Buzz are quite enjoyable as their rampage is non-stop, their carnage reaping is continuities, and their true to their snake tongue speak. Buzz especially since this is actor’s David Willis feature film and his long, yet balding greasy hair and beer-belly gut attributes really play to Buzz’s low-life persona. Cliff is a bit of an enigma; coming from a religious home and being just release from prison, my first thought is that Cliff is a converted convict. The two minutes of his scenes are deceiving and you’re beliefs about Cliff will turn your head around so fast your neck might snap.
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Leslie (Callie Stephens) travels home with a group of stereotypical archetypes that are commonly used in horror films such as the sex-crazed best friend Regina (Emily Bennett), her jock boyfriend Tom (Danny Miller), their religiously prude friend Patty (Summer Bills) and the nerd wimp Thad (Jonathan Helvey). I’m surprised that wasn’t a token black actor who tossed around quick quips, but I guess you just can’t have it all. Surprisingly enough, all three lead actresses show their racks! Woohoo! That in itself makes up for the usage of common archetypes and yet those scenes were more-or-less gratuitous – some more than others. Character development could have been improved especially since Thad and Patty had some sort of weird relationship arrangement where they together, yet not on holding hand terms due to religious beliefs. In turn, their religion background, along with Cliff’s religious background, would have been a good contrast with the Haitian voodoo, but the mark was missed. Also, Regina and Tom couldn’t stop with the overzealousness of their hormones and so their development was skewed. Leslie had more going for her character in which she would reminisce alone about her murdered fiance, but this is confusing in later on scenes when the shit hits the witchdoctor’s fan. We’re more in tune with Buzz and Cliff’s characters than really anybody else’s. Even Leslie parents, Peter and Irene, are simplified characters who deserve more background. But like I said at the start of this review, Bill Moseley could bring any character life even a limp one.
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“House of the Witchdoctor” breaks the mold with a couple of good scumbags and will forever terrorize your dreams about being home alone. Also, a good amount of iconic cult star power doesn’t hurt and along side Moseley, Easterbrook, and Kayser are Dyanne Thorne (the ferociously buxom and nasty nazi Ilsa of the “Ilsa She Wolf of the SS”) and Howard Maurer (Also famed from an Ilsa film “Ilsa Harem Keeper of the Oil Shieks). Breaking Glass Pictures plan to release “House of the Witchdoctor” on DVD on September 16th!

Sushi Never Tasted so Evilly Delicious. Sushi Girl review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

!!!Pre-order Your Copy Today by Clicking Here!!!
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Sushi. A Japanese delicacy which numerous people fear to digest because the fish is raw and cold and that which is raw and cold usually disgusts us. I should know – I was one of those ignorant people. However, being exposed to sushi for four years now, I’m confident in my opinion that sushi is exceptionally tasty and good for you without all the mayo-like sauces that are sometimes put on top of the rolls. But I can not say that I’ve had the pleasure of dining with a sushi spread laid out among the smooth and creamy body of a young naked woman. Though the idea sounds novel and sexually stimulating, the idea that someones dirty body touching my sushi makes me more nauseous than the raw and cold of the sushi itself.

This brings me to Sushi Girl from first time director Kern Saxton and Saxton has become an impressive director just from his work on this revenge crime thriller. Fish has spent six years, five months, and 17 days in prison for diamond heist crime. In all that time, he did not rat out his accomplices and in return, Duke, the ringleader of the heist, holds a special naked girl sushi dinner for Fish and also invites the rest of the gang. After the pleasantries are quickly established, the truth becomes clear among them that bad blood on the botched crime those many years back have spoiled their beliefs in one another and each wants a cut of the diamond profits and they suspect that only Fish knows where the diamonds are since he was the sole bag man.

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Sushi Girl doesn’t pull any punches and his with such ferocity you’ll inch to the edge of your seat to figure out how the situation will all turn out. The trust is thin among the group and rightfully so as the characters in this game of chess are personally all different. Six years ago, Fish is a rookie looking to score big, but when he does his stint in prison and is released, all Fish wants to do is go home and wash his hands clean of the everything. The other characters don’t see it that way. Max is the hasty muscle of the group and can barely maintain his psychotic nature, most likely caused by his mountain of daddy abuse issues. Crow is also a psychotic individual, but a different kind of species; Crow’s wit, flamboyant, and sadist qualities make him a sheep and wolves clothing. Francis is like Fish by trying to come clean, but this former coke addict doesn’t have the fortitude to save anybody nor save himself from his addiction. And then there is Duke. Duke is educated, suave, a con man, and a killer. He can control the wound up Max, he can out wit the wolf Crow, and he can get under the skin of recovering druggie Francis. Fish is the only character who can stand up to all three of them, but the scenario is nothing as it seems.

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I never thought Mark Hamill could be a character actor. Hamill, to me, will never break away from being Luke Skywalker – I mean he is even rumored to be in J.J. Abrams Episode VII – but Crow could be Hamill’s saving grace. Hamill’s range as an actor has expanded two folds and I have a theory that Robot Chicken and the animated superhero movies have helped Hamills out by utilizing his voice talents. The character has become the most unique character I’ve seen in a year. Good for Hamills as he has earned my respect as an actor. As for the other cast, well they’re a bit overshadowed by Crow, but they’re still worth mentioning. I’ve always had a soft spot for James Duvall ever since I saw him play another drug addict named Jimmy in Cornered! Duvall is like Tracey Walter in the sense that Duvall is a great supporting actor for any film – big or low-budget. Candyman himself Tony Todd, also executive producer, handles the role of Duke with ease. The man is a pro at being heartless, ruthless, calm and collective. His tall stature and baritone voice doesn’t hurt either. Plus, Courtney Palm, the sushi girl, has a drool-over body to die for.

Don’t be fooled by advertising that state this film has the Robert Rodriguez line up of stars like Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, and Danny Trejo in it and though the statement is true, their total screen time is about three minutes at the most..? I did read on IMDB’s trivia page that Biehn waved his acting fee due to a favor for smoking hot actress and Sushi Girl producer Electra Avellan (aka Babysitter Twin in Planet Terror). But these brief scenes of great actors don’t make Sushi Girl the greatest cult crime thriller since The French Connection, no. Saxton creates tension between the main characters, in a small room, with sushi on top of a naked woman and he delivers such a twist at the end, you won’t see it coming. You know there will be one, but what exactly the twist is will be unexpected.

Sushi Girl is brutality at it’s bare-bloody-knuckled best and really does resemble a sort of Reservoir Dogs feel with the trust issues amongst the group and the terrific torture scene goes without saying. Magnet Releasing has yet another winning release. Pick up your copy today!