Tag Archives: Wild Eye Releasing

The Red Glow of EVIL Lurks Inside Your Closet of Trauma. “Midnight Monster” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Midnight Monster” is On Sale at Amazon.com!

The police track down a serial kidnapper and murderer of women by relying on Veronica’s projection psychic abilities to keep tabs on the killer’s every move before he claims another victim.  When the rescue and apprehension of the killer went off without incident, saving a woman’s life as a direct result of Veronica’s supernatural ability, the exhaust Veronica returns to what’s consider her normal life but when she sleeps, dreams of a monstrous human figure with glowing red eyes haunts her dreams.  Basking in a hot red glow, the monster lives in her closet and comes out when she sleeps, manifesting terrible visions Veronica can’t tell if she’s awake or dreaming of the monster in her wardrobe space.  Every night the dreams become more intense and frightening and she senses losing control, it consumes her psychic powers and entrances her to confront her past with dire consequences that will change her life forever. 

“Midnight Monster,” also originally known as “Closet Monster” and labeled on other global releases, is the Dustin Ferguson written and directed, psychic-powers and burning-eyed, night terror from 2023.  Ferguson is no stranger to low-budget B-horror moviemaking have worn multiple hats in a budget that doesn’t allow for individual expertise.  Having over two decades worth of directorial credits, including the penny-pinched and scantily-cladded thrills and coherent productions of “Horror Movie Workout,” “Mondo Shock,” and more fittingly enough “Penny Pinchers:  The Kings of Low-Budget Horror,” a documentary about making a horror movie on pennies of the dollar, the multi-faceted filmmaker, who also goes by the alias Dark Infinity, utilizes his own independent film production company, SCS Entertainment, to finance and equip production costs by funneling working capital through non-studio and alternative- spurred means as Joseph Williamson (“Arachnado,” “Ebola Rex”) serve as producer and “Liza:  Warden from Hell’s” Kevin Age and Brad Banacka as executive producers, all three have worked previous together on numerous films throughout the years.

Opening up “Midnight Monster” is the dramatic scene of Veronica using her powers inside a police interrogation room to track down a soulless killer before he nixes the life of another victim tied up in the back of his car, setting up Veronica’s uncanny abilities to project into current time through a personal belonging, or more technically known as psychoscopy, and she apparently does it very well to help authorities capture their suspect.  This also sets up for the conjured misfortune of a closet monster haunting her sleep, representing or demonizing personal childhood trauma.  Alana Dro (“Zombie Rage,” “Death Bitch”) steps into psychic-shoes of the closet creature plagued Veronica with little effort put into the character’s complexity of navigating her powers and her dreams to try and understand them better.  Instead, Dro becomes more of a peepshow prop than a proper lead character trying to solve the evil enigma that skulks from out the closet.  Not all the character flaws can be contributed to Dro with Veronica being written half-hearted into a narrative that requires her to be inquisitive and resolute in curing what haunts her.  There are not many scenes shared between Dro and Robert Lankford (“Nemesis 5:  The New Model”), who portrays the closet monster as more a tip-spear figurehead for Veronica’s ship of trauma rather than an actual beast with unknown intentions, but Veronica and the monster have their individualized zoned moments that are shared and connected only through the power of editing to create a surreal space of subliminal supernaturality between them.  Other characters pop in and then pop out for non-reoccurring roles with the 80s-90s scream queen Brinke Stevens (“Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity,” “Nightmare Sisters”) being the most recognizable actress given primary credit.  Jonathan Nation, Ronnie Angel, Joycelyne Lew, Guillaume Rivaud, Richard During, Roger Trexler, Vida Ghaffari, and Breana Mitchell have their moment as the rest of the cast.

Ferguson’s “Midnight Monster” has interesting, dark undertones of childhood trauma expressed through the manifestation of a monster whose power of Veronica holds her entranced, as if the monster is familiar to her.  It can be understood that the monster represents someone who hurt her, abused her, or raped her as a child, someone close to her who’s authority and relationship has likely brainwashed her into trust, love, and affection.  While these themes are provocatively deep and powerful, Ferguson can’t quite pull in “Midnight Monster’s” narrative into a balanced state and cheapens it with wash, rinse, and repeat scenes of Alana Dro full naked in the shower in an extended shoot of her getting wet and soapy.  Not necessarily a bad thing to have an abundance of gratuitous nudity in a grindhouse picture, there’s typically only one shower scene per film and “Midnight Monster” has two with the same actress doing the exact same thing, a slow full-body soap up, for a good chunk of the already fleeting runtime.  The second shower scene forces the narrative to wander off course and Ferguson tries to wrangle it back in by the finale ties all the pieces together with a meaty twist ending I found blindsided by, in a good way, but it also can feel and seem arbitrary and disconnecting with the introduction of new characters suddenly thrust into the fold without warning in its concluding moments.   

A regular outlet for Dustin Ferguson’s films, Wild Eye Releasing continues to shower horror fans with more of filmmaker’s films onto DVD.  “Midnight Monster” receives a MPEG2 encoded DVD5 in true 720p standard definition.  The digital image is deconsecrated from its divinely detailed imagery due to poor, commercial equipment, and a lesser codec that’s not upscaled, creating more of a SOV aesthetic which I wholly believe to be the intent.  Presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on the DVD, the compressed image does decent capturing of the peripheral objects but without an spherical lens, there’s limitations to the scene.  There are some gorgeously soft red lighting and glow to get the monster in the mood for scaring and for surrealism, but most of the film is considerably ungraded with not a lot of other pop to its palette.  There LPCM stereo presents a fine U.S. English dialogue that isn’t quite robust in the forefront but has clarity and no obstruction and the rest of the ambient and environment sound is most comprised of added action in post-production.  The entire encoding is a bit rough and ready, and again that’s likely purposeful in attempt to be a grindhouse picture.  Encoded special features include an interview with actress Alana Dro, an image gallery, and trailers for “Midnight Monster” as well as other Wild Eye Releasing titles.  There are also three fake grindhouse trailers at the beginning as 9-minutes’ worth of B-movie coming attractions with retro visual graphics and each film encased with a 8mm film filter to mimic vintage film stock and films. The clear DVD Amaray case has a neat and red color-infused, illustrated graphic art of the titular monster overlooking a sleeping woman with a reverse side containing a still of the monster.  The runtime listed is 60 minutes, but I had clocked the film in under 50 minutes, even with the faux trailers.  The region free DVD is not rated. 

Last Rites: “Midnight Monster” plays out like a fever dream of serial killers and daddy issues but there’s not enough Scotch tape to make this digital reel work effectively, leaving Ferguson to piece together slim pickings on what could have been a promising night terror.

“Midnight Monster” is On Sale at Amazon.com!

EVIL’s Arms, Legs, Head…All Fall to Pieces and Want a Piece of You! “Colony Mutation” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Colony Mutation” Literally Gives an Arm and a Leg for Blu-ray release!

A genetic scientist working on test batches of a resurrection formula finds out her public relations executive husband, both of whom are working for the same research company, is having a clandestine affair with another colleague.  In a fit of rage, she splashes the latest test batch liquid onto his face when confronting about his illicit affair.  As time passes, the side effects of the experimental drug crave raw red meat but requires the meat to be fresh and, more grotesquely, his appendages are able to separate and become monstrous to do his bidding driven by his impulsive need for meat.  He stalks young women, luring them into hope of a romantic evening, to feed his need.  With no cure existing, he throws caution to the wind and continues the monstrosities against the women, even against his contentious ex-wife and his side woman until he comes face-to-face with his lover’s gun-carrying sister who never trusted the married man in the first place.

Tom Berna’s one and only directorial and screenplay feature film, “Colony Mutation,” takes womanizing and sexual assault to a whole new disturbing level, mutating toxic masculinity for severe severed limb bedlam against young women.  Berna, who went on to having acting credits in independent productions of “Go to Hell,” “Vengeance of the Dead,” and, perhaps the most notable feature, “Jigsaw,” not the “Saw” spinoff story, from the late 90’s and into the early 2000s, shot the film in the Milwaukee metropolitan area to be the background for masculine predatory behavior, finding and integrating influence from body horror films from the likes of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” or David Cronenberg’s “Rabid” to show extremities with aggressive, mutated autonomy and parasitical symbiosis hungry for other humans.  Berna self-produced the film and listed as a film from Tyger Brand Coffee Productions.

David Rommel plays as Jim Matthews, a PR exec having a romantic affair with Jenny Dole (Joan Dinco) at the workplace.  Also at workplace is Jim’s wife, genetic scientist Meredith Weaver (Anna Zizzo).  While Meredith works nights or is away for business, Jim’s able to sneak away and play with Jenny, building a relationship that’s quickly getting serious for Jim, much to his chagrin.  A workplace triangle, by all means, will run to a confrontational head and does with Meredith confronting her husband’s credit card statement that lists hotel stays.   Rommel, Zizzo, and Dinco play to their character’s ability extremely well.  Rommel’s not the epitome of machoism as he’s favors a selfish and cowardice side that doesn’t allow him to break his union with wife Meredith and he doesn’t fully commit to Jenny’s head-over-heels love for him, we see this when Jim stutters and becomes reclusive when the mention of having future children come into the conversation.  Meredith’s rage causes her to toss her experimental resurrection and growth serum into his mouth agape face and this climatic act acts like a metaphor for Jim’s breaking point between the contentiousness with wife and his side piece’s neediness for more than just sex, sending Jim into sexual assault airspace where even his wife Meredith falls victim to a forced oral sex that results the mutation to blow a hole through her head.  Jim goes on to pick up bar women to then kill them for the fresh meat of his mutated biology but mostly done off screen or in the shadows and implied, which could be said as a double entendre for off screen sexual assault.  “Colony Mutation” rounds out the indie cast with Tammy Andersen, Nancy Brown, Clyaton Simchick, Tom Fugina, Yeng Monroe, Carri Krehl, J. Elizabeth Marhal, and Susan L. Cane as Jenny Dole’s sister who had a bad feeling about her new boyfriend Jim in the first place. 

If looking for a DIY body horror with plenty of ambition but short on cash, look no further than “Colony Mutation” that harnesses the B-movie mayhem of an appendage detaching, young woman feasting, monster of a man which, ironically enough, is created by a woman and is innately obsessed with devouring raw meat.  The curious about this modified man-thing, who can appear normal until time to strike then all parts detach into a feasting frenzy, is that he only attacks women, suggesting single-sex predator behavior.  Jim’s detachable limbs and other suggestive parts celebrate the independent spirit with crude construction, inventive editing and imaginative conceptions that appears antiquated on the outside but surely heartfelt in its objective – a David Cronenberg tiered body horror.  The unicellular organisms can be arms, legs, manhood, and even his head in a scene very reminiscent to John Carpenter’s spider-head moment in “The Thing” but the scene stand on its own two idiosyncratic pereopod legs, or rather four legs.  Shot on Super 8mm, the harsh details and near monochromic complexion with all the cell’s imperfections associated to provide the Tom Berna film a classic monster movie façade and since the film was shot in the early 1990s, there are very minimal period specific details that pin down a modern decade.  “Colony Mutation” could be set in the 1980s.

“Colony Mutation” is not longer detached from the body of filmic society with a new, director-supervised Blu-ray release from the Wild Eye Releasing associated company, Visual Vengeance.  The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50 is pulled, transferred, and restored from the original Super 8mm elements.  The 2K transfer retains plenty of the Super 8mm innate aesthetic with desaturated color palette, cell transparency bleed, and the dust, dirt, and scratches but never do anything of those distort the overall viewing experience.  “Colony Mutation” is a quintessential rare gem of indie filmmaking setting the bar high with practical and stop-motion special effects and pulling off a rough cut of said effects.  With the new and upped pixel count, many of the special effects scenes render over as cheesier than ever with all the minute details now exposed.  While that’s low-hanging fruit, the more problematic issue with Berna’s film is Brad Snowball’s choppy editing that often feels key scenes being cut too short or omitted for crucial continuity.  “Colony Mutation” is presented in the original full screen aspect ratio of 1:33:1. The uncompressed LPCM dual channel English Stereo offers a directionless and flat track that often sounds mono designed but the synched post-production dialogue, ADR, is evident with not an exact detailed synchronization between lips and vocals in its isolated and omnipresent attendance that never feels like it’s within the scene.  Range and depth are loss with the accompany audio track with often loss of Foley that creates moments of silence, typical with films shot on Super 8mm and kept on tighter purse strings.  Optional English subtitles are new and provided for optional selection.  Visual Vengeance always comes out swinging with supported special features on all their releases and this feature includes feature parallel audio commentary with Tom Berna, a second commentary with Weng’s Chop Magazine’s Tony Strauss, a new interview with director Tom Berna, new interview with star David Rommel, new interview with music composer Patrik Nettesheim, archived public access interview with Tom Berna In the Director’s Chair, alternate cuts from the original VHS and DVD releases, the original completed script, an image gallery, “Producer” teaser trailer, and Visual Vengeance preview trailers along with their trademark motion title menu.  The physical release comes with a Justin Coons illustrated slipcover art that’s “The Thing”-esque with additional artwork from Belgium artist STEMO.  The reversible sleeve art also includes the original VHS artwork.  Inside, there’s a sex-risky promotional illustrated mini-folded poster, a tri-folded booklet with an essay by Tony Strauss Of Milwaukee Mutations and Men:  Tom Berna’s Colony and Blu-ray acknowledgements, and a retro sticker sheet.  The region free product is not rated and has a runtime of 83 minutes.

Last Rites: Visual Vengeance brings out of the depths of obscurity Tom Bern’s “Colony Mutation” for a special features packed Blu-ray of body horror bonanza saturated with predatory male sexual addiction.

“Colony Mutation” Literally Gives an Arm and a Leg for Blu-ray release!

“The EVIL Dead of Hawaii!” “Day of the Wicked” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Day of the Wicked” Now on DVD!

Down on his luck John Jones finds work at a special construction job, restoring an old Japanese school house in the outskirts of Hawaii.  Excited to work with his longtime friend Chelsea, he arrives days ahead to stay in the old schoolhouse after going through an ugly divorce and losing his car to maintenance issues.  Jones stumbles upon the book of the dead, the Necronomicon, and it consumes his soul to do the bidding of an evil Kane, the former school master who took the soul of 35 school children and looks to return to the corporeal realm to do more soul taking.  When the rest of the workers arrive days later, Jones’s already peculiar behavior is magnified by call of the Necronomicon’s influence, and he is constantly bullied by the other workers to a breaking point of Jones using the book to summon demons from out the netherworld and possess them.  All hell breaks loose on the school grounds and with bodies succumbing to evil possession, those left will have to stop Jones and Kane before it’s too late. 

Borrowing concepts and ideas to integrate, pretty deliberately, into their own film, Blake and Brent Cousins, under their merged directorial title of the Cousin Brothers, director the demonic action-horror  “Day of the Wicked” where a group of unfortunate souls find themselves isolated in the middle of the woods during the opening of a gateway to hell.  In fact, the 2024 U.S. feature is a squeal or remake of their 1991 SOV debut film “Slaughter Day” that roughly follows the same plotline with construction workers in Hawaii.  The two films are  written by the brothers who have since specialized over the years helming extraterrestrial documentaries, such as “Who Saw Men in Black” and “Nexus to Disclosure:  The Truth is Classified,” as well as navigating their own individual talents with Blake Cousins’ editor role on “Rising Dead”” and Brent Cousins taking on the cinematography role with mostly in the documentary field.  Like its predecessor, The Cousins Brothers remake was too filmed on the Big Island of Hawaii.

“Day of the Wicked” is mostly filled with island locals who’ve only worked with the Cousin Brothers or haven’t seen the front end of a lens before.  The story surrounds centralized sympathetic villain John Jones, played by Gabe Hernandez who last worked with the brothers on “Rising Dead” over 25 years ago, who must teeter the line on being the oddball punching bag for blue collar construction workers and the driving force that unleashes unholiness in dimension-splitting troves.  Like the rest of the cast, Hernandez has forced articulation that’s more exclamatory than natural as he splices the efforts between good guy and bad guy.  Jones serves the rousing Kane (Jean Louis Goff), a 3rd world knockoff of Julian Beck’s “Poltergeist II” character of the same name.  Named the same and dressed very similar with long black church clothes and wide brim hat, Kane seldomly evokes the same sinister strength witnessed by a very feeble Julian Beck at the time of filming “Poltergeist II,” resulting in one of the most unforgettable and haunting characters haling from the 80s.  “Day of the Wicked’s” Kane doesn’t have the lingering appeal and is barely skimmed at the surface, heavily relying on Gabe Hernandez to be the vessel of evil.  The vessel of good is another story as there’s no real hero or protagonist for the role other than Gabe’s childhood friend Chelsea, a fruit stand shift worker who doesn’t express her qualifications working at a construction site other than her electrician friend Gabe.  Actress Chelsea J. Schaffer, in her namesake role, has slightly better acting intuition compared to some of her cast mates but her primary objective in the movie is to defend John Jones against the bullies with her secondary objective to flee the quickly succumbing demonic supernaturality structure.  The cast fills out with construction workers doing more horseplay and gossip than actual work with Cameron Cousins, Bryan Gazaui, Trent Carrier, Orlando Smith and rounding out with the local Sheriff in Doc Skinner with Guy Pohlman and Apolla Asteria as Hollywood-based researchers of the Necronomicon. 

“Slaughter Day” draws from “The Evil Dead” series with unmistakable measure but it’s three decades later sequel and/or remake, “Day of the Wicked,” adds a plumpier version of “Poltergeist II’s” Reverend Henry Kane to the mix, down to the full black pastor suit, wide brim hat, and white hair, to be the in tandem driving evil force with the shoddily constructed, Temu version of The Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon, that supplies the unstable and unloved Joe Jones his sinister powers of conjuring and psychokinetic manipulation.  From there, the Cousin Brothers’ endearing effort to re-envision their 1991 film, an endearing effort in itself, aims to reach a different, more contemporary, audience generation that make retroactively work toward their debut production.  Another difference, and perhaps even a downgrade to an extent, is “Day of the Wicked” shies away from most practical effects for more visual effects that does no harm to structures, puts no actors in compromising makeup, sprays Coke can’s worth of blood, and looks about as authentic as a backwards Nike logo.  Yet, with all the cringy acting and dialogue, the rehashed storyline, and little-to-no practical effects whatsoever, I’m not totally turned off by the VFX that involves large hands, monstrous heads, and opening fissures to be composited into the frame along with the actors and there’s an entertaining blend of the two images that so ridiculously bad, it’s good. 

Wild Eye Releasing picks up “Day of the Wicked” for DVD release that’s been written onto a MPEG2 encoded, 720p standard resolution, DVD5 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  “Day of the Wicked’s” digital image is clean, no surprise, but the what’s more amazing is the detail comes over nicely, especially on facial features and the dilapidated schoolhouse structure.  In appraising facial features, the contours are greatly defined, sweat has isolating gleaming that doesn’t spread, and all the hair, pore, and distinct facial molecules are evident as well as their foreign bodies, such as piercings.  The visual effects are the only exception to mastering details overall as they’ve been manipulated into the frame and can provide a blurry integration when in composite action. The uncompressed LPCM Stereo 2.0 is ample but not as refined with a subtle crackling breakage in the higher dialogue and action.  Dialogue renders good with clarity but struggles within the hierarchy as the soundtrack can be absorbent.  Not a ton of opportunity for depth as much of the narrative is held inside the old schoolhouse, which does manage flexing some echo here and there, and the range is plentiful between the composited effects busting out of the ground, walls, and ceilings with a few roaring exclamations from the demonic creatures.  The only downside is there no punchy impact to these effects, limited by the dual channel output.  There are no option subtitles.  Essentially, the Wild Eye Releasing is feature-only except for a trailer for others in the Wild Eye Releasing catalogue.  “Day of the Wicked” is not rated, has a runtime of 97 minutes, and has region free playback.

Last Rites: A remake of a film that was already pulling heavy influence from a cult classic. It’s enough to make your head spin like a Kandarian demon. “Day of the Wicked” doesn’t break the mold or redefine the narrative and is pretty careless with it but horror is supposed to be fun, inspiring, and outrageous and the Cousin Brothers check all three boxes.

“Day of the Wicked” Now on DVD!

Keep an Eye on EVIL Unloved Ones with a Camera in the Coffin! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Watch Me Sleep” Now Available on DVD!

After the death of his abusive mother, recovering alcoholic Sean returns to his hometown with ulterior motives other than attend her funeral.  He hires a webcam company service to install a camera inside her coffin to ensure that his mother, who would repeated micro-stab him in the back with knives, is, in fact, dead.  As he struggles with his addiction and plagued by nightmares of random occult images involving his mother, Sean can barely hold it together to watch the video fee but when he does, what he sees often horrifies him – a rotting skeletal corpse with maggots, brief movements caught in a glimpse, and even her staring right back at him.  He implores a town friend to check his sanity, but all seems normal as normal can be with a coffin-cam facing directly at a corpse.  As the nightmares intensify, a presence takes hold of Sean, a familiar presence that hasn’t terrified him since he was a child. 

“Watch Me Sleep” might sound like a ploy phrase your kids would say to get you to stay with them at night or during nap time but for John Williams – the director of the 2023 film and not the “Jaws” and “Star Wars” composer – the lingering effect of trauma can be a powerful, often adjacent to being supernaturally scary, and is nowhere near being child’s play.  The director of 2015’s “The Slayers” and “Creatures of the Night” writes and directs the British voyeuristic graveside thriller that concentrates on the lasting aftermath effects of trauma despite our past being buried six feet underground.  Filmed in Staffordshire England, “Watch Me Sleep” is an independent production with Williams and Claire Ward as their third production together since 2021, behind “Creatures of the Night” and “There Something in the Shadows,” and executive producer Volker Plassmann, producer behind “Next Door” and “The Beast of Riverside Hallow.” 

Small production equals small cast but that doesn’t equate to poor performance as “Watch Me Sleep’s” cast is brilliant within the oversimplification explanation of the plotline which is more or less a traumatized man obsessed with watching his dead mother on camera to ensure she stays dead.  That doesn’t sound too exciting but with the actors’ performances and with Williams evolving of the plot to keep Sean’s sanity teetering on edge, “Watch Me Sleep” is more fleshed out with richer than expected character backstory and development of Sean, played intently and without hesitation by William’s go-to actor Darren McAree, and his problems with alcohol, a tormented childhood, and his blinding spite for his mother.  Mum is played by Sarah Wynne Kordas in a dialogue-free peripheral of psychological spookiness as a lifeless head on a webcam for most of the picture but is able to shine in the shadows of Sean’s vivid imagination and be diabolically on point when that lifeless head moves unexpectedly in a not-so-subtle manner for the chill and thrill triggered moments.  While the mum is certainly a presence, Sean is basically a one-man show of bopping between his struggles with drinking, his affliction of nightmares, his hesitation of webcam voyeurism, and trying to blow off steam and showcase his questionable sanity to townie friend Tom (James Whitehurst, “Creature of the Night”) who humors his friend’s hysteria with rather tranquil patience that is unusual.  The rest of the characters support where needed with brief interactions surrounding Sean’s cam setup and AA meetings with  Zane Hopkins (“The Beast of Riverside Hollow”), Steve Wood (“Cannibals and Carpet Fitters’), Charles O’Neill (“The Jack in the Box Rises”), Katie Elliff, and David Tunstall (“Beyond the Witching Hour”) as a mysterious man once friend to Sean’s mother. 

Despite the budget and some unpolished areas, there’s surprisingly more bang for your buck in “Watch Me Sleep” with a thrilling storyline that houses competent performances, editing, and one hell of a movie magic accomplishment in its special effects.  The black and white dream sequences of randomized occult and supernatural imagery are reminiscent of “Ringu’s” the contents of VHS tape with more visceral sound design to give it a lasting, haunting discord and the editing done an all accounts of these dreams are spliced perfectly into Sean’s sleeping and waking nightmares.  Between this reoccurring onslaught of mixt pernicious phantasmagoria and the out of left field special effects that reap the success for “Watch Me Sleep,” John Williams’ little English film is a bit a sleeper itself we should watch in a statement that’s ironically punned.  Keeping it mysteriously ambiguous, Williams doesn’t define the context that is kept open to be obscure and confusing for Sean who’s trying to pieces his dreams, evidence, and his mother’s curious connections together, a puzzle that could be an explanation why she tortured him with a knife, but the gist of the story delves into the occult as his mother dabbled in ritual and paganistic indoctrinations in the layer much more satanists or demonology driven.  Yet, those details are never verbal explained and that keeps you guessing whether his mum had dark dealings with the Devil or is the trauma, stress, and alcohol withdraw doing a number on his fractured psyche.  

You never know what kind of film you’re going to unearth at Wild Eye Releasing with its mysterious grab bag of horror schlock and independent ambition.  There have been titles of questionable taste that not even the sleaziest or gorehound fans would touch with a ten foot pole, but titles like the now out-of-print first-person-shooter occult-actioner “Hotel Inferno” and the satirical crude-humor of “Race Wars:  The Remake” are absolute low-budget gold held in high esteem.  “Watch Me Sleep” ranks up in that small layered stratosphere for the company who releases it on DVD.  The MPEG2 encoded DVD5 leaves much on the table technically with fuzzy detail on its standard 720p definition.  There’s no intricate picture quality nor does it have textural achievement but what you see is what you get, a picture constant and watchable B-horror you may catch on USA’s Up All Night hosted by Rhonda Shear and guest starring Gilbert Godfrey on cable television, broadcasting in analog through a tube set.  I will say the special effects are damn good for money and with no signs of how they’re achieved, such as wires, CGI, nor other.  The UK English language PCM Stereo 2.0 has its problems as well with a boxy, depth-less dual channel output that has a subtle layer of interference static, likely due to inexperience or poor equipment, but the dialogue track remains front and center with prominence and the sound design, the jarring clicks and pops along with the discord sounds of Sean’s nightmares and the overall brooding score, shoulders a lot of the weight by carrying the film’s technical problems.  There are no available subtitles.  Bonus features include only an image gallery, the trailer, and other Wild Eye Releasing previews.  The clear DVD Amaray comes with Wild Eye Releasing’s on brand exaggerated artistic rendition of an intense and scary old woman emerging from her coffin.  It’s a bit hyperbolic but eye-catching.  The reversible sleep has a sheet spanning, bloody depicted still from the film and no other bonus inserts.  The region free DVD is not rated and has encoded a 91-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Definitely one Wild Eye Releasing titles to pick up and enjoy, “Watch Me Sleep” has mother issues, alcoholic issues, trust issues, relationship issues, paranoia issues, and supernatural issues in what is a sleeper hit from the writer-director John Williams.

“Watch Me Sleep” Now Available on DVD!

EVIL’s Blonde, Beautiful, and Without Genitalia! “Darbie’s Scream House” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Uh Oh Darbie! “Let’s Go Buy “Darbie Scream House” on DVD!

In Doll Town, Darbie is the most popular doll around.  Blonde, beautiful, and busty, Darbie lives a perfect plastic existence.  When her boyfriend Ben wants to plan a surprise birthday bash for Darbie, Tripper, Darbie’s helpful yet gossipy little sister, interprets Ben’s interactions with Darbie’s friends – Danger Darbie, Ditzy Darbie, and Rodeo Darbie – as infidelity despite no evidence of sexual activity, as well no doll in Doll Town having genitalia, and reports back to Darbie with the unpleasant news.   With her perfect world seemingly crumbling down, Darbie pledges to rid Doll Town of her now ex-best friends by taking a big knife to them in vengeful spite, turning her dream life into a spiral nightmare based off a simple misunderstanding and an obsession with contentment, that drives her insane and no one from her friends to boyfriend Ben, to even her sister Tripper, are safe from her accessorial wrath.  

Former, or current depending on how you look at it, alternative adult content creator turned this next generations cult film scream queen, Jessa Flux (“Murdercise,” “Onlyfangs”) co-writes and co-produces her latest venture “Darbie’s Scream House,” a comedy-horror lampooning of Mattel’s Barbie universe.  Flux’s independent film talents hop aboard a legendary name of the same market in Donald Farmer.  The “Cannibal Hookers,” “An Erotic Vampire in Paris,” and “Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)” filmmaker co-writes and produces with Flux while helming at the seat of the director’s chair.  Together, Flux and Farmer materialize a plastic doll world full of jealousy, rage, scandalmongering, debauchery, and homicidal tendencies.  Crowdfunded through Indiegogo, the campy horror parody.  The 2026 film is a production of Stratosphere Entertainment. 

Not only collaboratively writing and producing the feature, but Jessa Flux also stars as the titular character Darbie, the buxom queen of Doll Town with an amiable personality up to a point.  That point is when boyfriend Ben comes under the scrutiny of Darbie’s nosy, troublemaking sister, Tripper.  Claude D. Miles has collaborated with Farmer and Flux on a few other projects, such as Donald Farmer’s “Debbie Does Demons” and “Scream Queens Weenie Roast,” and between Flux and Miles, their rapport doesn’t seem forced as it’s flexed to work as comedic love interests in a parody setting.  Ana Xaden, another indie alternative horror actress, also has worked with Farmer, Flux and Miles on “Scream Queens Weenie Roast” from the year prior, turning the trio into a regular entourage for the “Cannibal Hookers” director.  Xaden also busts out along with Flux as the two become elementary with their dialogue, by that I mean their conversations, whether written in the script like this or just the style of acting incurred by spontaneity upon filming, has an artificiality to it with monotonic delivery and exposition.  Funny thing is, you only really see this flat conjecture between Darbie and Tripper, and maybe even a little bit from Ditzy Darbie (Ashleigh Amberlynn, “Night of the Dead Sorority Babes”) but that’s more expected because of her dunce character.  Ben conversing with Beach Blanket Ben (Joe Casterline, “Shark Exorcist 2”  Unholy Waters”), or any other minor male character, has more natural back-and-forth without any fabricated flavoring, and it’s curious to think that maybe “Darbie Dream House” has a layered depth to that nuisance that speaks to the fake talk and gossip associated generally around women and men letting it, generally again, hang all out.  The cast rounds out with Mel Heflin (“Scarlet Rain”) as aggressive lesbian Rodeo Darbie, Fallon Maressa (“Bloodrunners:  Vampire Wine”) as Dream Date Darbie, and Kasper Meltedhair (“Hooker with a Hacksaw”) as a Doll Town reporter with Kimberly Lynn Cole (“Bloodthirst”) listed in the credits but her scenes cut and placed in the special features’ deleted scene. 

This is not one of those This Is Not Barbie:  An XXX Parody type of film but “Darbie Scream House” very much cold have been with it’s dolled up and naked-positive female cast, male characters with bad wigs and depraved names like Sleazy Steve, and a premise around creeping sexual promiscuity.  However, blood axe-wielding aggression, reared by jealousy, fill in the gaps to level up a cheap stag production to a barebones indie horror that doesn’t take itself very seriously in this meta-existences for the chief characters who are playable dolls of a young, imaginative young girl but who are also moving autonomous with their movements and affairs that are not sanctioned by Barbie or Mattel for that matter.  “Darbie” is a different kind of female empowering doll but in the same breath lacks the informed judgement of a jump-to-conclusions partner, insecure and obsessive over people and ideals.  “Darbie Scream House” caters to that what if scenario if Barbie didn’t have mental positivity and broke into sociopathic tendencies?  The core of the story is there but does heavily rely on the gratuitousness of Jessa Flux, Ana Xaden, and Ashleigh Amberlynn to carry it over the finish line, yet the shoddy effects, poor acting, and mishandling of the meta perspective sink this Donald Farmer production like cemented pink platform and rhinestone shoes. 

This is a no playtime, you can be anything Barbie movie with a house in Malibu and driving a pink convertible.  This is “Darbie’s Scream House,” a bizarro, alternative universe mined form the same vein as the classic children’s characters, such as Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, and The Grinch, turned into monstrous villains of your nightmares.  “Darbie’s Scream House” is right up Wild Eye Releasing’s alley with plenty of against-the-grain filmmaking, attitude, and shlocky satire, now available on a DVD home video that’s an MPEG2 encoded DVD5 with 720p resolution.  Even if you’re player + television combo can upscale the quality, the image quality is limited to the commercial grade equipment with passable delineation and detail that offers immersive detail but gets the job done. Lots of the details are washed away also but the use of blue or pink saturating gels that flood tense moments of Darbie’s life on the downspin and much of the exteriors are ungraded, using natural the deflection of natural light to the best of their ability.  The English PCM Stereo 2.0 carries an unbalanced depth that’s inconsistent on keeping characters dialogue level within the shot.  Those closer to the camera often have strength priority with the second person only a step or two back sounding as if they’re a good ten yards away in the closeup-to-medium marked shots.  The recording mic also can’t sustain sounds beyond its limitations, such as screaming that breaks the reproduction into bits of static and distortion at high peaks.  Special features contain a blooper reel, a deleted scene, and feature and other Wild Eye Releasing trailers with the physical package sporting an embellished, AI generated cover, which I aways appreciate the fluffing-up of an indie film.  In this instance, the art doesn’t stray from the truth per se but aggrandizes the finer details quite a bit; however, the nice touch here is the Barbie font used for the title.   The reverse sleeve image inside the clear Amaray isn’t afraid to be gory with a severed head from the story that has been lightly touched up for effect.  The not rated DVD is region free for all players and has a runtime of 75 minutes, enough to satisfyingly slay. 

Last Rites: Jessa Flux’s “Darbie’s Scream House” skewers Barbie into an unperfect, deranged universe of emotional unstable killer toy dolls but leaves much on the table of possibility and has a hard time gluing together an airtight campy story that’s too reliant on the kink than the gore.

Uh Oh Darbie! “Let’s Go Buy “Darbie Scream House” on DVD!