Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

While we know Fred Olen Ray today as a multifaceted filmmaker capable of grinding out movies with alarming speed, he was once a hungry young director on the rise, trying to break into the industry with his vision for low-budget entertainment. 1983's "Scalps" made an impression, but 1985's "Biohazard" started to get the ball rolling for the helmer, who musters up all his creative energy to complete an "Alien" clone where the beast from a distant galaxy is played by a five-year-old boy (Chris Olen Ray, Fred's son). Expectations aren't welcome here, as Ray barrels through this scrappy production, trying to keep faint star power and visual distractions active enough to cover for the endeavor's distinct lack of polish. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Mike Hammer was big business in the 1980s. A creation from author Mickey Spillane, introduced in 1947, Hammer is a quintessential pulp private detective, imagined as a brute with a brain and his share of vices. He's hard on crime and harder around women, but focused on justice, with Spillane coming up with plenty of literary adventures for producers to use. And they did, hiring Kevin Dobson and, most famously, Stacy Keach to portray the character in television efforts, finding a home for the era-specific mood. However, 1982's "I, the Jury" elected to modernize Hammer for a new audience, attempting to merge dated aspects of masculinity with an action endeavor, basically laboring to make a Hal Needham film with Spillane grit. "I, the Jury" tries to play it cool, trusting star Armand Assante to be bold enough to carry the work, but absurdity blankets the picture. Striving to play with the big boys of violent cinema, director Richard T. Heffron (who replaced original helmer and screenwriter Larry Cohen a week into the shoot) makes a television movie that's periodically interrupted with salacious and macabre encounters, keeping Hammer more of a cartoon than an engaging screen antihero. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The Brooklyn Hipster is a popular target for derision these days. The television show "Girls" seeks to understand the ways of millennial life from a female perspective, wrestling with stereotypes to find the living, breathing people underneath. "Fort Tilden" takes a more jocular approach to understanding the ways of youth as it collides with responsibility, with writer/directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers creating a travelogue of sorts for Brooklyn and its edgy, exhausted community of struggling twentysomethings, trying to find the humor in off-putting characterizations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Famed director Elia Kazan takes on law and order in 1947's "Boomerang" (released the same year as his classic, "Gentlemen's Agreement"), which takes viewers into the heart of justice, inspecting all its passions, procedures, and corruption. It's distanced work from Kazan, who traditionally embraces intimacy when it comes to characterization, but the feature's iciness is intentional, surveying judicial battles and political gamesmanship to deliver a stinging viewing experience that challenges the process, not the authenticity, behind guilt and innocence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Tikkun" isn't technically a horror film, but it creates a nightmare realm where religion and sexuality collide, dissecting ideas on obedience and maturation. Writer/director Avishai Sivan has a unique vision for his third feature, launching a provocative descent into a young mind at the point of implosion. "Tikkun" is specialized moviemaking, challenging faith and sanity as a lifetime of order, religious education, and respect for family is thrown out the window when an erection and pent-up curiosity come into play. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1972's "Sacrifice" (aka "Man from Deep River") is largely credited in horror circles as the first Italian jungle cannibal movie, inspiring a legion of knockoffs and variations, which grew into its own subgenre during the 1970s and '80s. It's a strange legacy to assign to the picture, which barely features any cannibalism at all, saving most of its human munching for a single scene near the end of the film. However, director Umberto Lenzi (who would go on to replicate this success multiple times, most notably in 1981's "Cannibal Ferox") does generate a familiar atmosphere of dread and fear that other productions would help themselves to, staging a jungle adventure that embraces the reality of remote tribes in the corners of the world while emphasizing myths about tribal life, celebrating grotesque rituals. "Sacrifice" is more observational than macabre, and while Lenzi isn't shy about showcasing body trauma, animal abuse, and sexual horrors, this is by far the easiest of his "cannibal" efforts to digest, more interested in the evolution of its main character than potential depravities to share with the viewer. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As melodramas go from the 1940s, "Daisy Kenyon" has the advantage of a sharp cast and a surprisingly authentic handling of marital and relationship woes. An adaptation of Elizabeth Janeway's novel, the picture offers director Otto Preminger a chance to toy with the conventions of a traditional love triangle. However, instead of giving in to syrup, the helmer (along with screenwriter David Hertz) maintain a slightly acidic tone to the feature, treating the confusion, hysteria, and growing bitterness with the authenticity it deserves before returning to formulaic events. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Following up 1940's "The Return of Frank James" with another western, director Fritz Lang opts to recreate America's developing communication woes with "Western Union." While it's not rooted in any true events, the feature takes a look at the expansion of the telegraph, and how that specialized intrusion on private land plays out with troubled characters all battling for something they can't have. Lang aims to tell a quintessential American story with heightened dramatic intentions, and he ends up with a curious picture that resides somewhere meditative and cartoon, periodically visiting both extremes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The 1960 British comedy "The Battle of the Sexes" takes a look at a world where men and women compete in the workplace, playing up the oddity of such an event during a special time of growing national consciousness. However, this is no document of progression, but yet another chance for star Peter Sellers to play dress up, burying himself in middle-age make-up and heavy clothing to portray a mild man brought to a boiling point by female interruption. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Instead of keeping up with comedies and horror efforts, director David DeCoteau aims for a more sensual, soap opera mood with 1989's "Deadly Embrace." Aiming for a late night pay cable vibe, DeCoteau (billed here as "Ellen Cabot") and screenwriter Richard Gabai cook up a few games of sexuality and power to fuel this mild take on film noir, but they also keep up with the era's demands for nudity and overheated bedroom encounters. Mercifully, most of "Deadly Embrace" is played relatively straight, dropping a campy approach to at least attempt a level of suspense typically ignored from cheapie productions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Enjoying a career playing teases and monsters, actress Linnea Quigley receives an opportunity to show off her thespian range in 1989's "Murder Weapon." Granted, director David DeCoteau (credited here as "Ellen Cabot") still demands a substantial amount of nudity and sexuality from Quigley, but the actress gets to do a little more in this oddball thriller, trying out a few dramatic exchanges to help "Murder Weapon" achieve a small degree of gravitas it wouldn't otherwise enjoy. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Deathrow Gameshow" is the second film from 1987 to address a futureworld where the incarcerated are offered a chance at freedom if they compete on a popular television show. However, this isn't "The Running Man," which is admittedly a pretty goofy movie trying to keep a straight face. "Deathrow Gameshow" is a farce from writer/director Mark Pirro (and his Pirromont Pictures, which uses a mountain-esque image of a single female breast as their logo), who doesn't waste a minute on serious business, launching this take on the disposable lives of the condemned as a wacky exploration of television production and stupidity, without any sort of social or political commentary. It's a broad creation, but one that's eager to please, doing what it can to secure any laughs from viewers, trying to make a limited budget feel sizable with help from slapstick, nudity, and small bites of industry satire. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Any drive-in spectacular needs a gruesome reputation, and 1970's "I Drink Your Blood" carries the ominous distinction of being the first movie to be rated X for violence alone. In this day and age, the lowlights of the picture aren't all that shocking, but it's interesting to remember a time when the ratings board was actually careful about violence. "I Drink Your Blood" has its fair share of aggression, soaking in the juices of the Manson Family/Vietnam War era to inspire its own take on disease and Satanic rage, with writer/director David E. Durston coming up with a nifty low-budget shocker that treats exploitation with care. The feature isn't particularly sharp, but it's engaging and enthusiastically performed, coming up with a beguiling take on the zombie subgenre without actually using the undead. It's a weird one, but very entertaining. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Film noir gets a routine workout in 1941's "I Wake Up Screaming," which pours all the energy it has into the construction of style. It's a striking picture, and one that's always more interesting to watch than decode, finding its tale of murder and false accusations a little mundane compared to the feature's visual depth, orchestrated by director H. Bruce Humberstone and cinematographer Edward Cronjager. "I Wake Up Screaming" doesn't rattle the senses with its presentation of paranoia, but it seizes the highlights of the subgenre, giving fans a comfortable return to dynamic lighting, panicked characterizations, and police intimidation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Usually slasher entertainment enjoys being slasher entertainment. It wears its blood, guts, and misogyny like a badge, proudly entering the world as a violent diversion for fans who appreciate the art of the scare and the visual power of masked madmen. 1987's "The Majorettes" almost seems embarrassed to be following slasher formula, eventually giving up the quest in the feature's third act to become a different style of B-movie mayhem. Perhaps this is an attempt to experiment with genre expectation, finding "Night of the Living Dead" collaborators Bill Hinzman (who directs) and John A. Russo (who scripts, adapting his own novel) ready to disturb expectations after fulfilling them for a solid hour of stalking and stabbing. "The Majorettes" isn't a trainwreck, but it's a highly flawed chiller with confusing structure, which helps to apply the brakes on a picture that rarely appears interested in creating a snowballing sense of terror. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The penultimate feature for the master filmmaker Preston Sturges ("Sullivan's Travels," "Hail the Conquering Hero"), 1949's "The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend" is a curious trifle from the helmer. Toying with western traditions and musical enhancements, Sturges (who also scripts) tries to make a farce out of gunslinger antics and concealed identities, embracing longstanding career interests. However, size tends to get in the production's way, with Sturges juggling a wild tonality that moves the picture from broad slapstick to more intimate concerns. "Bashful Bend" has the saving grace of being short (76 minutes in length), which helps to digest its intermittent oddity and lack of focus. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Infiltrator" has all the elements of a classic undercover cop story, including a conflicted protagonist, a Floridian setting, and a secretive world of drug dealing. It presents a true-life tale that offers fascinating characters and heated showdowns, yet director Brad Furman doesn't quite know if he wants the picture to be a sincere study of a lawman's loss of self or a ridiculously overcooked crime tale with a few operatic extremes. "The Infiltrator" is unsatisfying and weirdly absurd at times, but it's not a complete blunder, blessed with a cast that's capable of finding nuances in the moment, bringing friendships and antagonisms to life in a way that Furman is incapable of doing on his own. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The blockbuster success of 1984's "Gremlins" inspired an enormous amount of imitators, especially in the world of no-budget filmmaking. Titles like "Critters," "Ghoulies," and "Munchies" come to mind, each with a special interest in raising creature feature hell without spending the money necessary to do it in style. 1988's "Hobgoblins" is arguably the worst of the bunch, with writer/director Rick Sloane barely trying to make something special out of the titular menace. Instead of establishing a little monster mayhem, Sloane tries to make a camp classic featuring occasional appearances from furry demons, mostly relying on his cast to conjure up wackiness to pad the picture's run time. "Hobgoblins" isn't funny, but it does provide a slightly different take on the "Gremlins" formula, and Sloane's periodic production recklessness is something to behold. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When one considers the possibilities of a "Casablanca" knockoff, especially one from 1980, a list of potential actors comes to mind for the Humphrey Bogart role. Men like Paul Newman and Robert Redford, maybe even Harrison Ford, who was fresh to fortune and glory at the time. But "Cabo Blanco" (the full title is apparently "Cabo Blanco…Where Legends are Born") doesn't go that route, electing to hire Charles Bronson for the role of a roguish charmer trying to manage the pains of love with the dangers of his community. It's an oddball casting choice, but "Cabo Blanco" doesn't meet many expectations, preferring to mix a "Casablanca" homage with a treasure hunt adventure, surrounding the star with an eclectic mix of prime talent and those relatively new to the English language. Expectedly, the movie fails to inspire anything approaching romance or excitement, but director J. Lee Thompson doesn't tank the effort on purpose, earnestly trying to craft a thrilling tale of mystery in an exotic locale, trusting the natural beauty of the land will be enough to cover for the feature's substantial deficiencies. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1980's "Wolf Lake" hopes to be incendiary work, pitting the World War II generation against the realities of the Vietnam War. It's a grandpas-gone-mad movie that tends to think it's more profound than it actually is, denying the reality of its exploitation elements. Director Burt Kennedy ("Suburban Commando") does a fine job taking the action to the middle of nowhere, and for those who enjoy the ability to view a film performance from space, there's Rod Steiger in the lead role, working himself up into a frenzy as he portrays a member of the greatest generation ready to gun down an example of America's failure. "Wolf Lake" is more odd than suspenseful, but it's certainly something that might appeal to those who value a straightforward summary of hostilities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com