Author: BO

The world was a vastly different place 45 years ago, and 1976's "The Bad News Bears" is both a film of its time and timeless in many ways. It's the screenwriting debut for Bill Lancaster (son of Burt), who provides saltiness and silliness with this underdog comedy about a California little league team, but he also has something to say about the ways of guardianship and parental influence. Put into the hands of director Michael Ritchie (who was on a roll at the time, building career momentum with "Downhill Racer," "Prime Cut," "The Candidate," and "Smile"), and "The Bad News Bears" is transformed into a true sports cinema classic, with the helmer finding a way to celebrate the rougher edges of the writing while still making an approachable picture about baseball, offering a vivid understanding of the little league experience. Ritchie does a remarkable job keeping the endeavor invested in character and mindful of abrasiveness, never slipping into mean-spiritedness when dealing with loudmouthed kids and their learned behavior. It's a heroic directorial effort, with Richie finding just the right tone to make a crunchy movie lovable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Bert Dragin didn't have much of a filmmaking career, but he tried his luck with scary movies in the 1980s, making his debut with "Summer Camp Nightmare" before quickly jumping into 1988's "Twice Dead." Dragin, along with co-writer Robert McDonnell, attempt to create a haunted house experience with the feature, which follows two siblings as they deal with the violent history of their new home. The helmer puts in the work to generate a modest level of suspense and a surprising amount of style, but his focus isn't strictly aimed at the supernatural. "Twice Dead" is more of a "punks at war" viewing experience, keeping the endeavor from living up to initial expectations for a creepy event involving a malevolent spirit and its determination to disrupt domestic peace. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Rent-A-Pal" is set in 1990, but it's a relevant picture for today's world of frustrated people dealing with isolation. This isn't what writer/director Jon Stevenson initially intended, but he's found a way to make a movie about today's increasingly isolated world, creating a slow-burn chiller about one man's decent into madness due to suffocating domestic experiences and his own distance from a functional relationship. While other filmmakers have touched on the toxic relationship between man and machine, Stevenson gets oddly specific with his writing, which turns a simple quest for VHS attention into a downward spiral of insanity. "Rent-A-Pal" has flashes of originality, and Stevenson has a good eye for casting, finding actors capable to doing something memorable with a shapeless threat. It's not the tightest feature around, in need of more editorial pruning, but when it focuses on blurred lines of reality, it's vividly executed with a wonderfully dark sense of humor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sometime during the production of 1989's "The Terror Within," star Andrew Stevens took a moment to consider his professional situation and thought, "Yeah, I could make one of these movies easily!" Stevens makes his directorial debut with 1991's "The Terror Within II," also claiming a screenplay credit while resuming his acting duties as David, a scientist crossing America to save the world from a growing mutant threat. Stevens doesn't have a new vision for the story, which remains an "Alien" rip-off, but he brings a stronger cast, different monster madness, and hires cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who, in two years' time, would go from shooting this no-budget endeavor to Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." So yes, kids, don't give up on your dreams. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A full decade after the release of 1979's "Alien," and producer Roger Corman was still in the business of ripping it off. The concept of a malevolent beast from beyond attacking characters in a confined space gave director Ridley Scott a classic movie, but Corman views "Alien" as an unlimited resource, with 1989 "The Terror Within" another knock-off from his company. To be fair to the Hollywood legend, the feature does take place on Earth, and the creature causing all the trouble is a mutant, but the rest of the effort is the same old xenomorph-ian stuff, this time finding Andrew Stevens in the hero role, taking on a grotesque beast who enjoys killing survivors of a deadly plague. The villain also does other stuff to the locals, which manages to drain any possible fun factor out of this incredibly dull endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Futurists promised a tomorrow with flying cars, food in pill form, and colonies on the moon. Instead, we now have adult entertainment in 4K. Continuing their efforts to bring more titles to UHD, Vinegar Syndrome returns to one of their biggest adult titles, "SexWorld," giving it an upgraded viewing experience after its initial, successful release in 2015. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Promotional materials for "On-Gaku: Our Sound" celebrate the feature's very existence, with director Kenji Iwaisawa putting in a heroic effort to simply complete the picture, which was seven years in the making. It's also completely animated by hand, with use of the rotoscoping process to bring to life a rather small story of adolescent awakening via the power of music. The material takes its inspiration from a manga written by Hiroyuki Ohashi, giving Iwaisawa a storytelling direction to follow while the production cooks up its own wonderland of attitudes, musicianship, friendship, and personal expression, sold with an exquisite dryness that pulls humor out of the strangest of places. "On-Gaku: Our Sound" loves its stillness (probably for financial reasons), but it's a marvelous exploration of an askew liberation. It's as small in scale as an animated film gets, but it delivers such a wonderful understanding of character, detailed through inventive and unusual artistry. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1974's "Devil Times Five" (a.k.a. "The Horrible House on the Hill" and "People Toys") rides the line of good taste as it offers a story about mentally ill children who enjoying killing adults, spending a weekend at Lake Arrowhead murdering a collection of couples who've settled in for a nice vacation. The "Evil Kids" genre is a tough one to deal with, as it takes a special filmmaking touch to extract the horror of the situation without making the whole endeavor mean-spirited. While "Devil Times Five" isn't a polished picture, with plenty of dim directorial and editorial choices, it's also not an endeavor that's looking to destroy viewers with scenes of cruel behavior. There's plenty of violence to satisfy genre fans, but the movie isn't a complete chore to get through, helping it to rise above the competition. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Devil's Express" is a 1976 release that attempts to be a martial arts extravaganza, a police procedural, and a horror movie. These are not three subgenres that coexist peacefully, and director Barry Rosen is not the guy to pull off such a tonal challenge. "Devil's Express" throws everything at the viewer with hope that something sticks, looking to dazzle with bursts of violence and a murder mystery involving a supernatural serial killer. The picture simply doesn't work, but Rosen is determined to at least put something together, struggling with basic storytelling competency and editorial finesse in his quest to contribute to filmmaking trends of the era. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Stephen Traxler has a vision for 1978's "Slithis" (a.k.a. "Spawn of the Slithis"), but he doesn't have a movie to back it up. Inspired by genre classics such as "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "Jaws," Traxler tries to create his own little corner of horror, taking the action to Venice, California, playing into growing environmental concerns of the era to inspire a mutant monster effort that barely features the titular menace for a good portion of its run time. Weird creative decisions are common in the picture, which devotes time to inane conversations, wild overacting, and the seductive powers of a potential sexual predator, keeping away from the basic enjoyment of a man in a rubber suit gobbling up local idiots. Traxler is hanging on for dear life with "Slithis," almost going out of his way to generate a painfully dull viewing experience, finding it more comfortable to do nothing with his production. After all, violence costs money, and there's not a lot of that to be found in the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com