Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

In a genre known for its storytelling lethargy, credit must to be paid to writer/director Jeff Lieberman, who isn't the most polished filmmaker around, but he certainly has an affinity for oddball horror distractions. His movies ("Squirm," "Just Before Dawn") are clunky but crammed with low budget promise, and 1978's "Blue Sunshine" is no exception. A semi-coherent journey in the rainbow heart of acid ingestion and fugitive blues, the picture is a delightfully baffling concoction, lost on its own groovy trip of horror and paranoia — resting in a space where exposition is light but death by baldness is certain. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1982's "Creepshow" is famous for many reasons. While it didn't invent the anthology movie, it certainly popularized the storytelling format during the 1980s, giving filmmakers the inspiration to collect their own miniature tales of torment, most born from the mind of Stephen King. The picture was also a big hit for director George A. Romero and arguably one of his best movies, tapping into the comic book aesthetic with purity and impishness, paying loving tribute to the world of EC Comics and their frightening tales of death and punishment. "Creepshow" isn't high art, but the effort showcases an engaged Romero, who's having a blast arranging all sorts of macabre events and antagonistic encounters, scratching a boyhood itch for ghoulish fantasy that translates wonderfully through five tales of doom. It's a treat. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Roland and Rattfink" isn't big on complicated plotting. It's a mash-em, bash-em series from DePatie-Freleng Studios depicting a never-ending war waged by the titular characters, with their broad antagonisms reimagined for every short. Roland is the square-jawed hero and Rattfink is the gnarled baddie determined to ruin the day, and, throughout 17 chapters of this saga, he manages to do so in a mildly silly manner. Physical comedy carries the viewing experience, highlighting big action and stymied troublemaking with small additions of satire and stillness. It's not the company's finest creative hour, but there's plenty to like about "Roland and Rattfink," especially when it pays tribute to silent film romps, focusing intently on elastic violence and cartoon reactions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Dealing with a show like "Tijuana Toads" in 2016 is a tricky situation. Obviously, this isn't a new production, with episodes released from 1969 to 1972, capturing a time when racial and cultural sensitivities weren't exactly a priority to the entertainment business. Indeed, the animated shorts from the DePatie-Freleng Studio aren't exactly kind in their depiction of Mexicans and Asians, and it takes extra effort to look beyond dated attitudes, but there's a highly amusing series that's worth a look for those who are up to the challenge of a viewing while keeping the production era in mind. After all, this is a rare opportunity to watch two silly frogs embark on a prolonged quest for survival, avoiding danger and each other's stupidity along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Atomic Age paranoia reaches beyond the stars in 1959's "Invisible Invaders." While the picture remains earthbound, the story carries into space, merging nuclear threat with an alien invasion, though, to keep production costs down, the aggressive extraterrestrial conquers are, as the title mentions, unable to be seen. "Invisible Invaders" eschews much of the popular research facility exposition of the day, charging ahead to the best of its ability as a monster movie mixed with end-of-days terror. As long as expectations are kept at a minimum for the feature's visual potency, the ride to doomsday is entertaining. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Directed by Karl Hartl, 1934's "Gold" has plenty to say about the state of the union in Germany. A critique of greed and abuses of science, the feature is careful to support its commentary with human interests, including the possibilities of love. "Gold" is broadly defined but competently managed by Hartl, who blends striking visual elements with melodrama, creating a somewhat slack but effective offering of entertainment that hopes to rattle moviegoer minds with its depiction of a financial apocalypse. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's interesting to welcome the Blu-ray release of 1943's "The Ox-Bow Incident," as its story of intolerance and mob mentality is more relevant today than it was back then. It's a striking discovery and a classic motion picture, which uses traditional western elements to secure familiarity as it explores the challenges of rational thinking in a difficult situation of feverish condemnation. Director William A. Wellman guides an efficient adaptation of Walter Van Tilburg Clark's celebrated novel, wisely keeping his most powerful screen weapon, Henry Fonda's lead performance, front and center. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Rabin, the Last Day" isn't the easiest picture to acclimate to. At first, the effort resembles a television news program, offering an extensive interview with Israeli politician Shimon Peres, setting the tone as the details of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's 1995 assassination are established. The film then introduces camera footage from the fateful day, exploring the volatile public gathering that greeted Rabin. And finally, when gunfire breaks out, director Amos Gitai transforms the effort into a dramatic recreation of the fallout and preamble to murder. Tonally, "Rabin, the Last Day" takes some time to adjust to, with the helmer ambitiously attempting to dissect a specific moment in time through various perspectives and levels of confidence. It's not an especially convincing juggling act, especially for 155 minutes of screen time, but the passion that drives the feature is difficult to smother, fighting to identify Rabin's controversial vision for Israel's future and dissect the figure's cruel death any way it can. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Emerging from the wreckage of 1975's "Dolemite" with a hit movie, Rudy Ray Moore wasn't about to let a franchise opportunity pass him by. Quickly regrouping, adding director Cliff Roquemore to the mix, Moore revived Dolemite for 1976's "The Human Tornado," continuing the adventures of a nightclub comedian who does battle with white people and gangsters during the day, often breaking his routine to sleep with willing women. The formula hasn't been rethought, but the sequel is a far stranger feature than expected, finding the production taking some genuine risks with tone and abstraction to balance out issues with a limited budget. Moore's making this one for himself, indulging interests in club performance and martial arts, arranging a parade of silliness where he's the grand marshal, welcoming onlookers with heaps of violence, nudity, and comedic rhymes. It's not a better film than "Dolemite," but it never really tries to be, content to mastermind its own peculiarities and lean heavily on its moviemaking limp. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1975's "Psychic Killer" is an unusual take on a murderous rampage. The screenplay arranges the usual antagonisms and paranoia associated with the genre, but instead of detailing the movement of a bloodthirsty murderer, it remains weirdly meditative as it showcases grisly deaths and developing panic. Perhaps the effort isn't completely original, but it feels like a fresh take on old business, with director Raymond Danton paying attention to characterization and suspense while still indulging all the gore this type of entertainment needs to make a suitable impression. "Psychic Killer" is an effective but throttled romp with dangerous men and savage mental power, and its unusual approach to the routine of screen death keeps it interesting, often celebrating its strange ways as much as the B-movie budget allows. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Baseball is a game of patience and timing, but it's also a test of power. "Fastball" is a documentary about the titular pitching style, with director Jonathan Hock exploring the history of sporting velocity, attempting to summarize a century-long obsession with speed. Gathering famous player, scientists, and fans (and bringing in Kevin Costner to provide narration), Hock reflects on the particulars of pitchers, their philosophies and training, while inspecting the pursuit of the "world's hardest thrower," breaking down the fastball into segments for study. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Throughout the 1950s, paranoia cinema reigned, though most threats emerged from the sky or from beneath the earth. In 1953's "The Magnetic Monster," the villain is radioactivity, though represented here as a growing physical threat capable of destroying the planet through sheer size. It's cinema science executed with complete commitment by the production, joining 1954's "Gog" and "Riders to the Stars" as a trilogy of terror that plays liberally with facts and figures to manufacture horrors the audience isn't prepared to understand. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Before "Platoon" found enough political distance to explore the Vietnam War, resulting in a critical and commercial triumph, other productions made a similar, less funereal attempts to address the futility of the conflict. 1978's "Go Tell the Spartans" was perhaps a victim of bad timing, finding a limited audience during its theatrical release, but the clarity of its message and overall emotional authenticity is as powerful as a best Vietnam dissections, only hampered by a limited budget, which prevents the picture from achieving a truly cinematic viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Producer Roger Corman has spent his career paying tribute to the works of author Edgar Allan Poe, most notably masterminding pictures such as "The Masque of Red Death" and "House of Usher." In 1990, Corman returned to Poe's creative playground with "The Haunting of Morella," tasking co-writer/director Jim Wynorski to come up with a sexually charged take on witchcraft and period passions, making sure to remain within strict budgetary limits. Big on nudity and light on thrills, "The Haunting of Morella" isn't a premiere Poe/Corman pairing (the material was previously covered in "Tales of Terror"), but when the film finally begins to issue macabre highlights, it finds its B-movie footing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1973's "Crimson" offers dim-bulb criminals, shoot-outs, sex, police chases, mad scientists, and a human head transplant, and yet, somehow, the production makes the macabre and the absurd feel like punishment. Frightfully dull work from director Juan Fortuny, "Crimson" has a strange way of ignoring the possibilities of its premise, using copious amounts of exposition and vague depictions of sleaze to slowly put viewers to sleep. Handed a chance to make a weirdo thriller that touches on medical impossibility, and Fortuny chooses to make a crime picture that's so inert, it's a wonder why the story even bothers with such an outlandish plot to begin with. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Emerging from the success of 1969's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1971's "Something Big" aims to sustain the freewheeling good times with another folksy western, this time pitting Dean Martin against Brian Keith. "Something Big" (which could inspire a drinking game, finding characters working the title into dialogue any chance they get) isn't a dynamic production from director Andrew V. McLaglen ("The Wild Geese"), but it gets the job done thanks to the charms of the cast and its askew sense of frontier priority. The screenplay by James Lee Barrett isn't always interested in Gatling gun action and chases, but pursues a lightly romantic tone as female characters become treasures to cowboys and military men, with the adventure straddling the border between America and Mexico. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1975's "The Land That Time Forgot" proved to be a hit with audiences, playing into the decade's fascination with the work of author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who provided inspiration for the big screen adventure with his 1924 novel. A sequel arrived two years later, also adapting Burroughs's work, with returning director Kevin Connor continuing his study of the forgotten land Caprona, reuniting with the sub-continent's population of dinosaurs and assorted native cultures. "The People That Time Forgot" sticks closely to what "Land" began, laboring to bring a special effects-intensive extravaganza to the masses, resulting in an offering of classic moviemaking craftsmanship during a year where "Star Wars" emerged to change the industry forever. "The People That Time Forgot" isn't successful as a roller coaster ride, but it retains thespian charm and touchable textures on its creatures, remaining a mild distraction with occasional surges in excitement, providing a natural extension of strange encounters with a little less budget to work with. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sometimes, actors join a project to fulfill creative desires, drawn to material that offers newfound areas of dramatic expression, challenging them to reach beyond their capabilities and establish new career achievements. Other times, actors just want a free vacation. I believe the latter was the primary motivation for the cast of "Killer Force" (titled "The Diamond Mercenaries" on the disc), sending famous performers to the arid wilds of South Africa, spending their days rolling around in the sand, shooting guns, making out with Maud Adams, and blowing up various vehicles. Not that there's anything wrong with a chance to visit a corner of the globe, but "Killer Force" could've used more narrative emphasis when constructing its tale of a heist gone wrong. Visually, it's a stunning picture, taking advantage of its unique locations, which provide a wide playing field for criminal activities, but storywise, the effort is missing some snap with its twists and turns, in need of more combustible events to ornament this agreeable but unremarkable thriller. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I don't think director Jim Wynorksi has ever turned down a job, managing to build a career on blind script selection, finding hope with the bleakest of productions. He's a B-movie craftsman, and one with plenty of experience with exploitation, credited on such titles such as "Not of this Earth," "Deathstalker II," "Chopping Mall," and "The Bare Wench Project." Give the man lunch money, naked actors, and the opportunity to spill a little fake blood, and he's capable of creating a certain type of bottom-shelf magic. 1995's "Sorceress" (titled "Temptress" on the Blu-ray) isn't a raging effort of pure cinema, but as sleaze goes, it has its moments, most of them manufactured by Wynorski and his indefatigable interest in bedroom antics, seasoned here with bits of witchcraft. "Sorceress" doesn't make complete sense, and its handle on refined filmmaking elements is tenuous at best, but for those looking for cheap thrills and a weirdly calming viewing experience, Wynorksi delivers here, wisely showing more interest in sexual gamesmanship than suspense, as the feature is much too silly to support the weight of proper screen mayhem. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Arabian Nights" is not something to be approach casually. Director Miguel Gomes takes on an incredibly ambitious project with this extended vision of Portugal woes (broken down into three chapters: "The Restless One," "The Desolate One," "The Enchanted One"), demanding over six hours of screen time to work out his vision for storytelling and symbolism. It's a huge undertaking, reserved for those who appreciate cinematic artistry, world culture, and have the patience to deal with a filmmaker who indulges himself in full, often for little payoff. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com