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EVIL, Over a Decade in the Making! “Profane Exhibit” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Profane Exhibit” is Finally Here! Come And Get It!

Forged, smelted, and baked from the fiery grounds of hell, 10 stories of bleak and utter horror crimson the soul with blood and pale it with terror.  Ten directors, ten stories, ten obscure unfathomable depictions tell of a draconian religious sister matron with a despotic rule over a child orphanage, a daughter held prisoner by her parents in her own home basement, a cult willing to sacrifice newborns for the sake of their demonic tribute, the Third Reich submitting to extreme measures to keep their ranks pure, a reenactment of a father and son’s unnatural skin-to-skin bonding, a nightclub’s underground bloodletting witchery, and more unnervingly bizarre ballads.  These tales of torment tatter the life force piece-by-piece until there’s nothing left to exhibit, nothing left of one’s humanity, nothing left of being human.  A cruel anthology awaits just beyond the play button, ready to shock, appeal, and maybe even stimulate the perverse, primal nature in us all.   

An anthology a decade in the making or, to be more specific, a decade plus one year in the making in the long awaited “The Profane Exhibit.”  The 10-short film anthology is the brainchild of Amanda Manuel that began principal production in 2013 and finally saw completion and release in 2024 after a slow slog of shoots, edits, and post-production this-and-thats to finally crossover the finish line.  Varying from micro shorts and to average length short films, the anthology employed 10 different in degree genre directors from all over the world to make the mark in what would become a manic syndrome of monsters, mayhem, and molestation.  Yes, we’re talking about some really gross things, some terrifying things, and some other abnormal, abstract, and abysmal things that could be happening right now in your nightmares, or under your nose.  Anthony DiBlasi (“Malum”), Yoshihiro Nishimura (“Tokyo Gore Police”), Uwe Boll (“Bloodrayne”), Marian Dora (“Cannibal”), Ryan Nicholson (“Gutterballs”), Ruggero Deodato (“Cannibal Holocaust”), Michael Todd Schneider (“August Underground’s Mordum”), Nacho Vigalondo (“Timecrimes”), Sergio Stivaletti (“The Wax Mask,”) and Jeremy Kasten (“Attic Expeditions”) helm shorts they’ve either written themselves or by contributing screenwriters Carol Baldacci Carli (“The Evil Inside”) and Paolo Zelati (“Twilight of the Dead,”).  Harbinger Pictures and Unearthed Films, who also premiered it’s at-home release, co-produced the anthology.

Much like the diversity of directors, the cast is also an assortment of aggregated talent that stretches the global gamut.  Popular and classic horror figures like Caroline Williams (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”) and Clint Howard (“Ice Scream Man”) play the normal couple next door conversating about politics, date night, and work while all the while they’ve locked their daughter away from the world and use her as daddy’s little sex slave in Uwe Boll’s “Basement,” depicting the normal and safe is actually abnormal and danger right in the middle of suburbia.  Others such as the underrated scream queens Monique Parent (“The Witches of Breastwick”) as a fully naked and willing “Goodwife” to her sadistic husband, Mel Heflin (“Queen Dracula Sucks Again”) donning a pig mask, naked by the way, in a rave club along with Tina Krause (“Bloodletting”), Elhi Shiina (“Audition”) and Maki Mizui (“Mutant Girl Squad”) finding happiness amongst death, and notable global genre actors Thomas Goersch (“Voyage to Agatis”) as the German father crippled by his son’s retardation, Dan Ellis (“Gutterballs”) as the hardworking husband who has everything but it all means nihilistically nothing, and Art Ettinger, the editor name and face of Ultra Violent Magazine doing his part with a bit patron part in the nightclub.  Mostly all listed have previously worked with their short film directors previously that denotes a sense of ease and expectation from their performances but that still makes their acts nonetheless shocking.  “The Profane Exhibit” also sees a few newer faces in the conglomerated cast with Christine Ahanotu, Tayler Robinson, Tara Cardinal, Mario Dominick, Witallj Kühne, Valentina Lainati, Josep Seguí Pujol, Dídac Alcaraz, and Stephanie Bertoni showing us what they can dish out disgustingly. 

Was the 11-year wait worth it?  Over the last months years, “The Profane Exhibit” received substantial hype when Unearthed Films announced its home video release, pelting social media with here it comes, get ready for it posts, tweets, and emails and for fans who’ve been following the decade long progress, director Amanda Manuel’s “The Profane Exhibit” does not disappoint as the content storyline harks back to the lump-in-your-throat, gulp-swallowing roots of general discomfort from an Unearthed Films release.  While it may not “Slaughter Vomit Dolls” level gross of upheaved bile and whatever was ingested moments before shooting, the filmmakers go deeper into the viscerally ignorant, ugly truths.  We’re not talking monsters or supernatural entities tearing Hell a new rectum, but “The Profane Exhibit” delineates the sordid nature of the human condition in an egregiously behavioral way that some of these ideas are not so farfetched.  A select few of the filmmakers incorporate surrealism into their shorts, such as with Yoshihiro Nishimura’s aberrant Mary Poppins, known as Hell Chef, replaces a spoon full of sugar with a bowl full of cooked human when turning a frown upside down of a young girl who just killed a man who she suspected tried to rape her.  The Geisha-garbed Hell Chef flies through the air holding up her Wagasa, Japanese umbrella, when her job is done.  Most others are grounded by realism with sadism being the primary culprit – “Basement,” “Goodwife,” and, to an extent, “Sins of the Father” and “Mors of Tabula.”  And then, there are shorts like the late, and great, Ruggaro Deodato’s “The Good Kid’s” that feels hackneyed and unimpressive coming up short amongst the others and makes one think if his name alone awarded the short a spot in Manuel’s lineup. 

In all, “The Profane Exhibit” delicately caters to the indelicate and is a visual instrument of visceral imagery curated for pure shock value. Unearthed Films’ Blu-ray release has finally arrived and is now in our bone-exposed and gory fingertips. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 allows for dual-layer capacity for not only to squeeze in the 108-minutes’ worth of micro shorts, but allow for extended extras, deserving to fans who’ve waited years for this production to see the light of day.  Like any other anthology, a mishmash of styles but up against each other with the assemblage of different stroke directors and cinematographers but there seems to be no issues with compression, such as banding, blocking, aliasing, or any abundance of blurry noise, in the flexing widescreens aspect ratios of 2.35:1 and 1.78:1.  A good example of Unearthed Films’ codec processing is Deodato’s bridge scene; while I don’t care for the short all that much, the long shots of the bridge are nicely detailed in the nighttime, lit only be the bridge’s powered light poles, creating a downcast of warm yellow along a solid shadow-spotty bridge.  You can see and realize the stoned texture without even using your imagination on how it should look and that tell me there’s not a ton of lossy codec at work here.  An English, Spanish, Italian, and German mix of uncompress PCM 2.0 audio serves as the common output to be as collective and unified as possible.  No issues with hampered dialogue with a clear and focused track.  There dual channel quality is robust and vibrant, living up to Yoshihiro Nishimura’s surreal energy and a commanding Japanese tone while still finding voice prominence in other shorts, if dialogue exist.  Depth is fleeting without the use of a surround mix with an anthology that’s centered around the human condition rather than atmospherics, but I do believe Jeremy Kasten’s Amuse Bouche would have greatly benefited from the distinct gnashing, squirting, and smacking sound elements of a pig being processed to consumption in his wraparound.  English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available. Years of bonus content has been produced and collected for this special release which includes an audio commentary Director Michael Todd Schneider, Producer Amanda Manuel and Ultra Violent Magazine’s Art Ettinger, a world premiere interview with creator Amanda Manuel and short director Michael Todd Schneider at the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival, a world premiere Q&A, a 15-minute mini documentary Ten Years Later with “Mors in Tabula” director Marian Dora, an extended short entitled “Awaken Manna” with introduction and discourse, PopHorror’s Tiffany Blem Zoom interviews select directors with Michael Todd Schneider, Uwe Boll, Jeremy Kasten, and showrunner Amanda Manuel, image gallery, and trailer. The 2024 release has a runtime of 110 minutes, is not rated, and is region free.

Last Rites: Worth it. That’s the bottom line for this long-awaited film imbuing with bottom-feeders. Unearthed Films returns to roots with rancidity and fans will find their bloodlust satisfied.

“The Profane Exhibit” is Finally Here! Come And Get It!

To Do EVIL, You Must Pay EVIL a Ton of Euro. “La Petit Mort 2: Nasty Tapes” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Step Back into La Maison de “La Petit Mort” for a Sequel that’s Hard to Stomach!  

La Maison de la Petit Mort’s doors remain open under new management, continuing to serve the dark web public interest with a wide variety of snuff services.  For the right price, a fantasy-driven in-person torture show can be arranged for your liking, and one can be an commanding observer or one can get their hands dirty in participatory play where anything goes and pleasures are on-demand.  The German snuff house expands their reach to a global level with live webcam shows that can be directed by the high price paying patron and the leather-cladded vixen staff carry out their illicit instructions exactly.  A robust menu of dark pleasures, displayed on a new showreel of select gruesome services, are available at the simple transfer of a money wire or cash in hand for the depraved to make their fantasies a reality.

In 2009, German born director Marcel Walz helmed a linear, three-act narrative of tourists laid over in the big city winding up at patronizing a dark and dingy dive bar, La Maison de la Petit Mort, only to be abducted as inventoried stock for the rich to exploit in a slew of murder perversions.  Five years later in 2014, Walz returns for a sequel, “La Petit Mort 2:  Nasty Tapes,” with reprising principal actress Annika Strauss co-writing the film alongside Walz as well as stepping back into the sadistic black platform shoes of Dominique, one of the two lovely ladies with a lecherous and violent vocation.  The direct sequel that follows a day-in-a-life of the snuff house’s employees making an advert showreel does not follow suit in the way the first film was structured.  Instead of a linear, chronological narrative, “Nasty Tapes” evolves into an anthology of different kill archetypes for the marketing video. Walz’s Matador Films serves the production oversight with Harald Schmalz (“Collar”) coproducing the anthological torture porn feature.

“La Petit Mort 2: Nasty Tapes” doesn’t seen a whole lot of return on the original cast.  The tourists were all mangled, mutilated, and murdered, the original Monique bit the dust in an escape attempt, and the first Maman rode off into the sunset rich with blood money.  Instead, and among other things, “Nasty Tapes” folds a new treatment of terror with the same old eggs and flour by reinventing itself into an anthology type, introducing a new, blonde Monique (Yvonne Wölke, “Bad End”) into the batter, and disclosing the new owner of the freaky, fetish club, a feminine man by the name Monsieur Matheo Maxime (Mika Metz, “The Curse of Doctor Wolffenstein”).  Annika Strauss is the only original cast member to reprise her original role of Dominique, the brunette to Monique’s blonde and who showed slight inkling of hesitation before being summoned to torture and murder.  Strauss doesn’t buck the character trend as Dominque still displays disgust on her face when slicing a man’s facial features in a Picasso style portrait.  Yet, Dominique remains loyal to the Monsieur and to the La Maison de la Petit Mort by committing the atrocities without question, unlike the regular administrative bookkeeping and housecleaning she regularly remains vocal in opposition in what’s a slither of dark humor contrast between her gruesome work compared to mundane work.  Unlike Cyanide Savior singer Manoush, who was a very convincing merciless club owner Maman, Mike Metz plays a very different, more layered proprietor portrayed as someone who sees the work as a paycheck to fund his deepest desire – to be a beautiful woman just like his wife Jade Maxime (Micaela Schäfer, “Sky Sharks”).  That’s about the gist of complexity the sequel has to offer with much of the thinly laid foundation is bricked up by a compilation of back-to-back kill scenarios that involve some extreme genre directors as special guests, such as Uwe Boll (“House of the Dead”), Dustin Mills (“Bath Salt Zombies”), Mike Mendez (“Big Ass Spider!”), and the late Ryan Nicholson (“Gutterballs”), taking part in the clandestine, underground activities in-person or on the web.  The film fills out the cast with victims and victimizers in Armin Barwich (“The Terror Stalkers”), Bea La Bea, Babriela Wirbel (“Plastic”), Nichol Neukirch, Marc Rohnstock (“Necronos”), Thomas Pill (“Moor-Monster!”), Kai Plaumann, Markus Hettich (“No Reason”) and the twins, Barbara and Patrizia Zuchowski.

When going into a German gore film, such as “La Petit Mort 2:  Nasty Tapes,” you have to go into It having an affinity for, or at least an understanding of, complete shameless representation of torture and killing of another human being for the simple and pure joy of the act.  In other words, you have to be somewhat sick in the head.  For me, personally, the sickness is rooted out of admiration for special effects and how the F/X artist(s) can create a realistic depiction of an unofficial autopsied anatomy. Filmmaker Ryan Nicholson, who passed away in 2019 of brain cancer, not only had a role in the Marcel Walz sequel, but was also the special effects artist, following in the footsteps of one of the notable German underground special effects artists, Olaf Ittenbach (“Premutos:  The Fallen Angel”) who had done the graphic gags on the first film with head turning results.  Nicholson, with a credit list that has a foot in independent productions and more mainstream, Hollywood productions, such as “Final Destination” and the remake of “Blair Witch” from 2016, doesn’t disappoint and keeps the blood, guts, and stringy sinew seamless in a gruesome pageantry of death that rivals and continues Olaf’s original stamp.  Beyond the glossy surface of a blood glaze, “Nasty Tapes” is nothing more than a kill-after-kill anthology with no concrete premise for either of the individual slaughter vignettes.  Title cards setup the kill moments with basic victim descriptors, such as married status, age, and how much their life has been paid for, but doesn’t humanize them in the least, creating zero compassion for the unsuspecting abductee fated for something far worse than death.  Instead, Walz flips the script with more background on the clients with ipre-and-post interviews of their most intimate time at La Petit Mort.  This structure can be monotonous as there’s nothing else to look forward to or to absorb empathetically as a viewer in an anthology that simply glorifies the leisure time of an undisturbed murder.  

As a nail-pulling, nose-cutting, drill-holing, lip-stitching, dick-scissoring, gut-stabbing anthology, “La Petit Mort 2: Nasty Tapes” is a gory, good time and is even better now in high-definition with a 1080p Blu-ray release from Unearthed Films The AVC encoded BD25 looks as good as can expected for a shaky cam, hectically edited, and filthy dark German gore film presented in a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  Details are oleaginous wet with blood and tissue that incongruently with the Roland Freitag’s gloomy yet suppressed cinematography and Kai E. Bogatzki discordance and chaotic editing technique that is supposed to elicit extreme shock but consequently results in a loss of the intended grisliness.  Unearthed Films‘ release exhibits no issues with compression, but the hues and tones appear to fuse in the near eliminate of some contours where there should be some.  The German-English DTS-HD 5.1 mix can be score heavy, especially a hard and energized Tekkno title credits from composer Klaus Pfreundner that’s distinctive German, but “Nasty Tapes” has profound focus on its core selling point – torture.  The very few scenes of intercut dialogue shots spliced into the client’s sociopathic session are well understood and do have prominence over the score, as well as the ambient milieu of screams and the integrated flesh destroying Foley, despite the cam-esque quality of the pseudo-testimonials.  The burned-in English subtitles under the German Language only are synced well without error and with consistently good pacing.  Disc extras include a behind-the-scenes making of cut out from the main camera, an alternate torture scene, a behind-the-scenes still gallery, a short advert of a naked woman strung up by her arms and being stapled with signs, and Unearthed Films trailers.  The Blu-ray physical features don’t stray to far from normal Unearthed Films releases with a standard Blu-ray snapper case with grisly cover art of a marred victim’s plucked out eye and a Jade Maxime holding a bone saw and wearing ripped fishnet stockings and black lingerie.  The pressed disc art has the rehashes the back cover image of Monsieur Maxime wearing a venetian mask.  The Blu-ray comes unrated, region A locked, and has a manageably sufficing runtime of 83 minutes to not overkill the overkilling.  Transparent in its surreptitious atrocities, “La Petit Mort II: Nasty Tapes” subsists as Marcel Walz charnel house of horrors with a new revamped anthology approach to razzmatazz special effects wetwork without any due remorse. 

Step Back into La Maison de “La Petit Mort” for a Sequel that’s Hard to Stomach!  

Evil Zombies Inherit the Earth! “Zombieworld” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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A deadly virus turns the world’s living population into a hoard of fleshing-eating, brain-devouring, gut-munching zombies and KRPS anchor Marvin Gloat bravely remains on the airwaves reporting the walking dead incidents from all over the globe until his very last breath. “Zombieworld” delivers an undead collection, glorified in gore, vicious in violence, and surely necessary for the human survival in a zombie inhabited world. From Canada to Australia and from the United States to Spain, the tales of the risen dead relentlessly show no mercy with no holds barred on the bloodletting.
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From RLJ Entertainment and Image Entertainment comes “Zombieworld” onto home DVD video from the United Kingdom and for all you zombie apocalypse nuts out there, “Zombieworld” will be your handbook guide through the trying times. “Zombieworld” is the epic storytelling of various zombie-related accounts from several countries directed by young and fresh talent who bring a blood bathed new take on a seriously soaked genre. The 11 narratives are unique in their own rite, but share a common horror-comedy element with the exception of a couple of segments. While internet researching on “Zombieworld,” my curiosity got the better of me and I wander onto other review sites to see what my peers’ opinions are about the collection of shorts and to my surprise, the reviews and opinions are fairly negative as the reviewers take in the collection as a whole that’s being glued together by an outer story segment. This style relates similarly to the V/H/S or HI-8: Horror Independent Eight’s way of conveying multiple short films with the outer-storying being their commonality.
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In fairness, yes, the outer-story does come off a bit cheesy especially with the animated zombies that resembles the Dire Strait music video “Money for Nothing,” but my main man Bill Oberst Jr. doesn’t disappoint as anchor man Marvin Gloat and his slow transition into one of the undead masses as he continues to report world incidences. However, my interests lie mainly with the girth of “Zombieworld” and what better way to start off the tale-telling by going head first right into an intense first-person take of “Dark Times” where a nuclear plant meltdown causes panic, extreme chaos, a heartless military response, and, of course, rampaging zombies! Bits of comedy come about with a zombie Santa, a golf-club wielding family, and ends with a stellar, monstrous finale that leaves you hanging for your own interpretation!
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One of my favorite shorts is the sacrilegious short “Fist of Jesus” directed by David Muñoz and Adrián Cardona. Jesus fights off undead acolytes, Romans, and, uh, cowboys in a gory old Peter Jackson type way and then some. The non-stop comedy and blood translates over to Muñoz’s and Cardona’s other short “Brutal Relax” along with a third co-director Rafa Dengrá. “Brutal Relax” awards itself as the grand finale of “Zombieworld” and rightfully so by being just as bloody as “Fist of Jesus” yet bringing in tons more comedy especially from lead actor José María Angorrilla who portrays a large and uptight, angry-issued ridden man needing of a vacation which becomes interrupted by sea-dwelling zombie-like creatures that rip apart the beach goers.
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There are segments that pay respects to other zombie-related medias such as Resident Evil. The Vedran Marjanovic Wekster directed “How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse” are informative shorts that refer to a welcome to sign for Raccoon City and any self-respecting horror fan knows, Raccoon City is a big part of the Resident Evil series where all the Umbrella Corporation hijinks go down. “Teleportal,” helmed by Paul Shrimpton, also pays homage to another video game series that is first person shooter entitled House of the Dead. Forget Uwe Boll’s mess of a film and go for the throat of this short that sucks in a gun-toting controlling player through his television set and right into the zombie attack that contains an ironic and spectacular game-over ending.
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Though many of the segments are inspirational, “Zombieworld” does contain some originality. The Aussie-born Cameron McCulloch directed “Home” starring a lovely Jamie McDowell contains no dialogue, but conveys the rough time McDowell’s character goes through with the loss of her fiance who she has chained up. Her loss is so tremendous that she is unsure on how to use her last remaining bullet – will she kill her fiance’s corpse or will she kill herself? The Irish horror-comedy “I Am Lonely,” directed by Phil Haine, follows an naive and annoying young man named Chris living in a zombie overrun town who comes home to his apartment and finds his friend Steve has been fatally injured. As Chris dim wittingly spills out all the absurdities he’s done to Steve, Steve’s injury isn’t solely zombie-related and that’s where things get interesting. Also, an American film entitled “Certified” is not necessarily a zombie short, but only implies to the undead. Luke Guidici directs Rebecca Spicher as young Alice who tells the grim tale of her uncle and cousin’s mind shaft demise to a gullible new mailman that nearly scares him right out of his USPS uniform.
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Lastly, some shorts follow a more heart-pounding scenario. For example, “Dead Stop” by director Tommy Woodard is a CCTV shot short that has a police officer pulling up on a frantic woman who is trying to save her bitten husband. The scene grows more intense when the husband turns on his wife. Realistically surreal with well acting completes this short and fits right in with the “Zombieworld” collective. Another intense short with a synonym-like title is the first person view of “Dead Rush” directed by Zachary Ramelan. The viewers embody a man waking up in a bathroom with dead bodies and blood everywhere and we follow his, and two others’, journey as he wields an axe through a mass of the undead. Things get serious when our hero becomes part of the dead ranks from being gut-ripped opened and devoured!

In all, I’m pleasantly pleased with how the Ruthless Pictures and Dread Central produced “Zombieworld” brought in little-to-unknown talent and showcased their short features that awesomely fit into the highly entertaining category and bites ferociously into being one of the best zombie DVD releases of the year! The RLJ Entertainment and Image DVD release cover is colorfully detailed with the best intention on not taking itself too seriously, but feels eerily similar to other notable covers such as “Faces of Death” or Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds.” The specs include a widescreen 16:9 transfer with Dolby Digital 2.0 mix. Since this is a mixed bag of films, the clarity of presentations vary, but I can tell you that most shorts are sharp and clean looking with with no distortions in image or audio. Some of the night scenes in “Home” or “Marathon Apocalypse” have some digital interference that won’t ruin your viewing pleasure. The overall recommendation is to pick this undead puppy up and dive into a whole new world of talented horror directors and I’m positive that your blood lust won’t go unquenched!

All Evil Needs is Love! “A Cry from Within” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Jonathan and Cecile live in the New York City hustle and bustle lifestyle with their two children and when they suffer a devastating miscarriage, they decide to move to the slower life of a Long Island rental that was owned by a woman and her catatonic mother. As soon as the family starts to settle in, the daughter Ariel starts to converse with whom she calls Sebastian – a manifestation of a young boy who roams the house. When things start to get worse, Jonathan and Cecile desperately try to unravel the secrets of the house in order to save their family from the supernatural occupant.
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So bad it’s good. That’s how I describe my viewing of Deborah Twiss’s “A Cry from Within.” The script penned by Deborah Twiss is solid but the poor execution digs a deep hole of which the film can’t climb out of to save it’s own legacy. Plagued by numerous wacky edits and acting straight out of a Uwe Boll production, “A Cry from Within” needed a slowed pace of production perfection and need to have veteran actor to stop saying “baby” to his wife every other sentence. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Eric Roberts. Best of the Best is still one my favorite martial art films of the late 80’s. As of late, Roberts has been in nearly every damn low budget movie and especially in horror with “A Cry from Within” being just the tip of the iceberg, but his husband role feels more distant and disconnected than the husband should be considering he’s suppose to be the support system to his wife and children.
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Speaking of wife, writer-“supervising” director Deborah Twiss plays the wife Cecile. Her melodramatic take on a woman who just had a miscarriage and is living with a malevolent doesn’t speak to the dire situation. You might remember Twiss from her hot for teacher role in Kick-Ass or more notoriously notably her raunchy blowjob scene in the black comedy, not that space film, television series Gravity. Roberts and Twiss don’t ever seem to connect and they’re equally child-like in their reactions to the situations in, what I thought wasn’t possible, separate mannerism. Twiss also casts her very own children, Matthew and Sydney McCann, as her on screen children who are spellbound victims and tormented by this house-spirit.
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I also expected a little more from “Cop Land” actress Cathy Moriarty though her role as Alice is more down to earth as a annoyed daughter with a devastating secret. Moriarty has a sinister outlook throughout most of the duration, but her character’s intentions are murky at best. We don’t know if she’s suppose to be a good person or a bad person. The cast rounds out with “Max Payne” voice actor James McCaffrey as Father Thomas who unknowingly shares a secret with Alice. McCaffrey is solid up until the end where, basically, ever character becomes a sobbing mess of hopelessness. Robert Vaughn even makes an appearance very briefly as a doctor and I was sold on the “Battle Beyond the Stars” actor as a silver-foxed medical professional and that was only for a minute worth of screen time.
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“A Cry from Within” suffers severely from choppy editing that causes aggravating transitions from scene to scene and this aids in not setting up the film properly for success. I’m still trying to figure out why Deborah Twiss had to be the supervising director over director Zach Miller, maybe because she was one of the stars she had to the right to tell Miller when to cut and when to go into action. Miller seems to be a lame duck in case the film goes south. The Breaking Glass Pictures DVD release, slated for St. Patrick’s Day March 17th, is so bad its good and I’d suggest taking a look because I’m sure you can’t look away.

Nudity Report

Deborah Twiss – Breasts – Twiss briefly shows off her massive chest while in bed with Eric Roberts who aggressively goes straight for the right nipple. I do feel that through the film Twiss wanted you to notice her best assets by wearing low cut shirts that show her deep-as-the-Mariana Trench cleavage. Also, the temperature must have been constantly cold on set resulting in many scenes of stiff nipple outlines. Her one topless scene in “A Cry from Within” is by no means as good as her full nude scene in the television series “Gravity” but Twiss emits a hot mother aura and that’s the possible reason why one can’t turn away from the screen.

From Video Game to the Big Screen: “Dead Island”

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Occupant Entertainment and Deep Silver announced that they will be backing a screen adaptation of their 8-million copies sold, mega-hit “Dead Island”. Deep Silver is the video game publishing label for Koch Media, an independent theatrical and home entertainment productions company. Occupant is eyeing a Q1 production start date in 2015.

“Dead Island” revolves around a isolated beach resort over-ran by fast-paced, blood thirsty zombies. Apocalyptic zombie films have been a dime-a-dozen with today’s technology advancement relying more of CGI than practical effects, but Koch Media’s CEO Klemens Kundratitz says that “The “Dead Island” universe offers a rich and unique setting that can expand beyond the pure gaming experience. We are very much looking forward to seeing Dead Island open up to new audiences and showing off the fun everybody at Deep Silver has with this brand.”

My faith in Kundratitz’s statement is strong due to sheer fact that “JCVD”, “Before The Devil Knows Your Dead”, and “Moon” were solid, independent films in the last 5 years. Dead Island is set on a much bigger scale and in the grand scheme of things, Koch Media will have to step up their involvement and maybe help Occupant Entertainment some with more cash on the table. We’ve seen video game adaptations go south before. Of course, most failure credits reside with Uwe Boll, but there was also “DOA”, “Mortal Kombat Annihilation”, and “Max Payne.”

In June, “Dead Island 2” promo trailer was released and already has a million plus hits on Youtube and while the trailer is great and quirky, nothing out beats the announcement trailer for “Dead Island” with it’s dramatic, frightening reverse sequence.

Dead Island 2

Dead Island