Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

1986's "Nightmare Weekend" doesn't even try to make sense. It's a French production directed by Henri Sala (one of his final efforts) that tries to cash-in on mid-'80s horror trends, assembling a mixture of slasher and sci-fi cinema, ornamented with mild aerobics, multiple visits to a video game arcade, and squishy make-up achievements. However, somewhere during the production's journey, an actual story was dismissed, resulting in a feature that merely chases whims, especially ones involving nudity and bloodshed. There's a green-haired puppet and a supercomputer involved in the mayhem as well. Hilariously bizarre but oddly mindful of exploitation basics, "Nightmare Weekend" is riveting mess for B-movie fanatics, especially those who appreciate the value of an endeavor that's holding on for dear life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Drive-in cinema receives another thorough workout in 1976's "Vigilante Force," which submits a combination of fisticuffs, scowling, and limited drama, trying to hand its audience the basics in big screen violence. Directed by George Armitage ("Miami Blues" and the brilliant "Grosse Pointe Blank"), the feature is intended to be a rough-and-ready exploitation movie that wears its production year like a badge of honor, but a few things are lost in translation, finding the finished film missing large portions of motivation and smooth editing as it pares down a bigger picture of corruption and family divide to a more comfortable to-do list of mid-70s intimidation tactics. "Vigilante Force" is certainly diverting work, especially when it winds up the stunt team, setting them loose on busy streets and backlots. Anyone expecting anything more than a loosely defined tale of bare-knuckle brawling and vague sibling rivalry is going to walk away from the feature sorely disappointed. The effort is merely interested in basic thrills. Engaging conflict has not been permitted to cross county lines. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Absorbing influences from plays and novels, legendary director Joseph L. Mankiewicz sets out to create a particularly knotted game of love and allegiance with "The Honey Pot." The 1967 picture is one of his last productions, but it still bears the fingerprints of an invested filmmaker with an interest in razor-sharp banter and unusual motivations, laboring to define a collection of troublesome personalities as they struggle with the devil itself, greed. The feature isn't always an easy sit, but when it comes alive, it does so with tremendously refined performances and a streak of mischief that powers the effort for a great deal of its indulgent run time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Extreme Jukebox" is an Italian production that's positively in love with horror movies. The feature has comedic aspects reminiscent of a Troma production (the effort's U.S. distributor), but screenwriters Alberto Bogo (who also directs) and Andrea Lionetti sample from a wide range of influences, with their passion obvious throughout the 80 minute picture. Ambition gets "Extreme Jukebox" only so far, with genuine production polish lacking as it conducts scary business, finding Bogo a lackluster helmer with limited ideas for fright sequences, while the story itself is a confusing jumble of characters and references that grows tiresome long before the endeavor has a chance to sort itself out. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Arthur & George" presents a plateful of comfort food for the "Masterpiece Mystery" crowd, imagining a time when "Sherlock Holmes" author Arthur Conan Doyle (Martin Clunes), growing fatigued with his legacy as a mystery writer, elects to crack a real life case of murder to recharge his creative batteries and snap out of depression. "Arthur & George" (adapted from a 2005 novel by Julian Barnes) tracks his experience in the wild, joined by butler Alfred (Charles Edwards), with the pair venturing into the unknown to help George (Arsher Ali), a potentially innocent man, clear his name. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1972's "The Revengers" is an uneven film, but it wisely commences with all the energy it can possibly muster. A dark tale of vengeance from director Daniel Mann ("Willard," "Our Man Flint"), the first half of the picture launches with shock and rage, establishing a rhythm of determination and planning that stands up this "Wild Bunch" reminder with purpose and identity, also permitting star William Holden a chance to embrace western conventions with pure screen authority, leading the charge as "The Revengers" embarks on a long road of violence and barbed camaraderie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While mountaineering movies are the norm these days, 1924's "The Epic of Everest" was an event. John Noel's documentary about the 1924 British Mount Everest Expedition (featuring George Mallory and Andrew Irvine) is an eye-opening journey into the then-unknown, offering sensational footage of a perilous journey that revealed cultures and dangers few could witness before, shot with startling clarity that follows the mission up the mountain, where explorer glory and profound danger awaited the men. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Bob Chinn's "Sweet Young Foxes" is the polar opposite of his work on "The Young Like It Hot." Instead of lighthearted fun, the feature goes dramatic, exploring a particularly illuminating summer for college freshman Laura (Hyapatia Lee), who tries to make sense of the world without her boyfriend, bickering with her mother, Julie (Kay Parker, who earned an award for her solid performance), and seeking comfort with friends (Cara Lott and Cindy Carver). Displaying surprising solemnity, "Sweet Young Foxes" struggles to manage the extremity of penetration with the intimacy of wounded feelings. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While 1983's "The Young Like It Hot" is an adult film with certain amorous priorities, it's also a workplace comedy of sorts, bringing viewers into a California telephone operator station that's about replace its staff with a computerized system. While pleasures of the flesh are lovingly detailed, there's actually a sense of tension and mischief to the Bob Chinn feature that gifts "The Young Like It Hot" some entertainment value beyond bedroom encounters. Or perhaps office encounters is more accurate description here. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1969's "The Reivers" is based on a William Faulkner novel, with director Mark Rydell doing a serviceable job trying retain the project's literary origins. An episodic feature concerning a coming-of-age journey, "The Reivers" is best appreciated for its atmosphere, as the production creates an enjoyable turn-of-the-century mood with fading innocence and industrial influence, giving viewers a pleasurable time machine viewing experience that helps to digest the periodic tedium of the plot. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1979's "Play Motel" is a confusing picture from director Mario Gariazzo, with its focus mixing the terror of a traditional giallo endeavor with the sleaze of soft-core pornography. Somewhere in the mix is a story, though any level of dramatic engagement is cast aside for exploitation highlights. There blood and bare skin in "Play Motel," which struggles to build momentum as a chiller, stopping every ten minutes to assess the visual potency of naked women. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After finding success with "The Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke 'Em High," Troma Entertainment decided to get serious with 1988's "Troma's War." At least as serious as director Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz are willing to get while still clinging to fart jokes. Attempting to simulate political commentary in the midst of Troma-branded slapstick carnage, "Troma's War" emerges as a particularly confused production, lost somewhere between a need to play the entire movie as broadly as possible and a desire to communicate the fallibility of the military-minded 1980s, with Kaufman and Herz manufacturing a response to Regan's America that never gels as imagined. A loud, bloody, unfunny display of tastelessness, the picture has its moments of Troma-stamped shenanigans, but the overall effort is missing clarity of plot and a more devious display of satire. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1966's 'Navajo Joe" is a straightforward revenge picture questing to create an icon out of the titular character, portrayed by Burt Reynolds. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by Sergio Corbucci, "Navajo Joe" is all action and intimidation, striving to generate an agitated tone of boiling rage as it details failed heists and southwestern chases, emerging as a wonderfully entertaining adventure that's Quentin Tarantino approved, with the filmmaker lifting sections of Ennio Morricone's wily, anthemic score to breathe a special cinematic life into his masterpiece, "Kill Bill." Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A variation on "The Dirty Dozen" set during the Civil War, 1972's "A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die" is an admirable attempt to launch an adventure starring a cast full of grizzled, beefy men, each scripted with quirks and a secretive history. While James Coburn takes top billing, the feature makes room for its ensemble, making up for a lack of action by emphasizing juicy personalities colliding in a spaghetti western-style production. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In his follow-up to "The Big Gundown," director Sergio Sollima continues to mine his fascination with gray areas of conscience and loyalty, instilling 1967's "Face to Face" with moral complexity that helps to support the picture's occasionally iffy dramatics. It's a western with meaning, using a history of Italian politics to inform its plot, and it when it settles down and explores character, it proves itself to be intelligent, lacking some needed urgency to work up necessary suspense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1957's "The Monster That Challenged the World" is one of many horror features created during the rising years of the Atomic Age, using paranoia and progress to feed B-movie requirements, giving audiences something to be frightened of besides the daily news. Of course, the film now registers as pure silliness, witnessing the discovery and wrath of a giant mollusk at it rises out of the Salton Sea to devour those curious enough to go near it. However, the production shows creative effort rare to the era, working on characterization between attack sequences, trying to shape a personality to the picture instead of simply working through the kills. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1962's "Burn, Witch, Burn" is an unusual combination of a witchcraft thriller and a workplace drama, with both sides of the story managing to generate all the proper pressure the production needs to build tension. Wonderfully performed and inventively made, "Burn, Witch, Burn" (a.k.a. "Night of the Eagle") offers quite a compelling commotion, with style and bursts of anarchy welcome in a tale that's always on the prowl for suspense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Like a giant layer cake of self-awareness, camp is piled on top of camp in 2000's "Psycho Beach Party," which looks to pants various genres of the 1960s, committing to a broad style of silliness to achieve its goals. Adapting his own theatrical production, screenwriter/co-star Charles Busch wins points for enthusiasm, trying to massage a spirited take on bikini-clad high jinks and serial murder for as long as possible, aided by wonderful performances from the cast, who give themselves completely to the low-budget endeavor, playing loud and lively. However, a little of "Psycho Beach Party" goes a long way, and the feature has trouble maintaining manic energy, with obvious dips in inspiration throttling the merriment Busch is eager to summon. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There are moments when "La Sapienza" is a hypnotic, gracefully made piece of filmic art, and there are moments when it feels like a parody of one. From writer/director Eugene Green, the feature is a specialized viewing experience that invests in stillness to such a degree, the effort stops moving entirely at times. It's gorgeously made, with absurdly beautiful cinematography by Raphael O'Byrne, but "La Sapienza" is often caught trying to pass as a sophisticated assessment of loneliness and marital connection, intentionally abandoning the human experience to play out like experimental theater, set within the walls of architectural mastery. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1971's "A Town Called Hell" (titled as "A Town Called Bastard" on the Blu-ray) sets out to define four different perspectives on guilt, loss, and redemption. It's more than most movies establish to fuel tensions, and the production is not up to the challenge. Disjointed and anticlimactic, "A Town Called Hell" goes through the motions of genre intimidation, urging its cast to communicate unease and threat to the best of their ability, as the story never supports them as securely as it should. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com