Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

1974's "Spasmo" is a film about madness, and it successfully makes the viewer feel insane while watching it. Directed by Umberto Lenzi, the feature delves into acts murder and paranoia, with lines of reality blurred in a manner that reflects the characters and their concerns, and also the era in which the movie was made, finding sexuality head-spinningly random and motivations more of a puzzle than just pure cinematic escalation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Unwanted" is inspired by "Carmilla," an 1872 Irish novella about vampirism that predated Bram Stoker's "Dracula." A brew of lesbianism and domestic dysfunction, the picture is certainly ambitious, with director Bret Wood cranking up the Southern Gothic atmosphere to the best of his ability, filling the feature with smoke, shadows, and bloodletting. Unfortunately, "The Unwanted" can't shed its amateurish execution, with stiff performances trying to make sense of a confused screenplay, while editing woes and budgetary restraints tend to muzzle anything of worth in the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While writer/director/star Mel Brooks achieved his greatest career successes in the world of genre spoofs, he initially made his mark with original ideas and adaptations, including "The Producers" and "The Twelve Chairs." With efforts such as "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein" cementing his name as the go-to guy for cinematic replication with a side of silliness, Brooks returned to his first love with 1991's "Life Stinks," his first new idea after two decades of box office successes. Perhaps the vacation should've lasted longer. Although designed with Brooks's usual manic spirit and timing, "Life Stinks" is a feature that just doesn't work, no matter how hard it emphasizes punchlines or slaps around actors. It's an unpleasant, unfunny comedy that attempts to make light of the dire subject of homelessness, with Brooks somehow believing that gags concerning alcoholism and mental illness are enough to generate a level of social awareness that could justify the wince-inducing screenplay. Brooks has made his share of stinkers, but this picture is his worst, dragged to a full stop by uncharacteristic lifelessness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In America during the 1950s, serial killer Ed Gein became nightmare fuel for the nation when his horrific crimes were discovered. A seemingly mild man who murdered and skinned his victims, often wearing the peeled flesh, Gein's abominable acts of brutality launched a fascination with such severe mental disorder, inspiring numerous books and articles on the man, while his legacy was reshaped to fit the needs of the film industry, with productions such as "Psycho" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" taking beats from the criminal's life to inspire cinematic extremes. 1974's "Deranged" is one of the first features to really examine Gein's disease and simple-minded butchery. While it's hardly a thoughtful psychological examination looking to uncover the fiend's motivations, it does manage to convey the intensity of his existence, with star Roberts Blossom contributing fine work as the Gein stand-in, grounding the horror with unexpected dramatic sincerity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1972, Isaac Hayes won an Academy Award for best song with "Theme from 'Shaft'" — a significant achievement for the artist and a breakthrough for the blacksploitation genre. With such a massive success carrying him to new heights of fame, it was time for Hayes to take command of his own starring vehicle. Borrowing the "Shaft" formula and reviving its sound for a new character, 1974's "Truck Turner" endeavored to build a bigger, broader hero with Hayes at the helm, sent into the thick of trouble as a bounty hunter in deep with a nation of furious pimps. Featuring big action and hard dialogue, the movie is an ideal fit for Hayes's inexperience as a leading man, often urging the performer into physical altercations instead of dramatic ones, slowly figuring out the extent of his big screen persona as director Jonathan Kaplan arranges a surprising amount of chaos to help mask any thespian limitations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1968's "The Crimson Cult" invests in a psychedelic atmosphere to help its rather routine story achieve a cinematic identity. Venturing into dreamscape encounters and kaleidoscopic visuals, the feature gets by on oddity and a striking use of color. "The Crimson Cult" also boasts a cast capable to attracting any horror fan's attention, with Christopher Lee sharing the screen with genre legend Boris Karloff, in one of the final screen appearances. While the overall effort doesn't exactly thrill, there's enough artistry and personality collected here to make it worth a look. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The hard, unforgiving streets of New York City receive frightening attention in 1975's "Report to the Commissioner," which plays like a hybrid of "Law & Order" and "Training Day." Procedural in tone, but prone to chaotic bursts of emotion and action, the feature manages dysfunction and paranoia satisfactorily, with director Milton Katselas ("Butterflies Are Free") developing an atmosphere of hostility that's pinched by police duty. Adapted from a novel, "Report to the Commissioner" plays like one, investigating unhinged people embarking on dangerous missions that push them to the limit and blur the lines of duty. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Released 42 years ago, "Cops and Robbers" is just as relevant today as was back then. A tale of class envy wrapped up in a heist film, the feature has a hunger to explore the disparity between the haves and have-nots, setting out to address the drudgery of middle-class stasis with a mildly humorous script that emphasizes the thrill of robbery as it absorbs the sting of need. Leads Joseph Bologna and Cliff Gorman are pitch-perfect in their roles as exasperated cops looking for easy money on the wrong side of the law, but the true star of "Cops and Robbers" is director Aram Avakian, who displays a gift for timing and streetwise intensity that conjures a perfect motivation for the lead characters. It's funny work, but the movie is more persuasive as an examination of desperation tied to limited incomes, big dreams, and observation of an unfair world. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In February, there was "Focus." Starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie, "Focus" endeavored to tell the story of a team of pickpockets coming up against the law, one another, and sexual temptation. Turns out, the picture was a little late to the party, with 1973's "Harry in Your Pocket" essentially covering the same dramatic terrain. Interestingly, both efforts are similarly flattened in the characterization department, trying to find sympathy with sincerely unpleasant people. "Harry in Your Pocket" is the stranger of the two features, attempting a melodramatic approach to the art of the steal, working to build a framework of personal tensions while still indulging a jaunty look at the methods of thievery, scored spiritedly by Lalo Schifrin. What should be lively fun is instead something of a drag, finding the screenplay cutting corners with personalities and the direction more invested in quick hands than lasting impressions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Located off the coast of Australia, The Great Barrier Reef has been referred to as one of the natural wonders of the world, with its enormous size and fragility home to an array of creatures that help support a colossal tourism industry. The Reef is also a place to study man's impact on the Earth, with teams of scientists and nature workers laboring to discover inhabitants great and small, with hopes to understand migration and mating patterns. "Life on the Reef" is a three-part series that showcases daily activity around the Reef, and how such a place of beauty has changed over the years. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Aleksey German passed away in 2013, just as he was putting the finishing touches on "Hard to Be a God." Illness shadowed his life in later years, with the filmmaker funneling what was left of his energy into an adaptation of a complex Russian novel, which took six years to shoot and another six to finish. A herculean effort has been put into the creation of "Hard to Be a God," and artful passion shines throughout this bewildering, intoxicating picture, which provides a unique test of viewer endurance for those interested in a challenge. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While George C. Scott was already a respected actor who consistently worked in Hollywood, his post-"Patton" run of pictures reads like a to-do list of genres and career opportunities that couldn't be passed up. After famously refusing at accept the Academy Award for his turn as the iconic WWII general, Scott was transformed into a bankable star, filling the 1970s with oddball career choices, perhaps to keep himself (a notoriously humorless man) entertained. One of the silliest professional detours is 1974's "Bank Shot," which is actually an adaptation of a Donald E. Westlake novel, with the central character John Dortmunder transformed into Walter Upjohn Ballentine, set loose in a bank caper that's all about broad antics. "Bank Shot" is a strange update of classic comedies from the 1930s, with a sizable cast supporting Scott as he strives to play weird as quietly as possible, letting the rest of the feature lose itself to periodic chaos and exaggerated performances. The film doesn't always come together as a hilarious joyride of colliding personalities, but it does find occasional inspiration, especially when it explores its snappy timing in full. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Produced by the BBC, "The Crimson Field" is a hospital drama set during World War I. It's a time period popular to costume dramas right now (both "Downton Abbey" and "Mr. Selfridge" have set seasons during these volatile years), giving the show a boost of confidence as it strives to create a riveting depiction of wartime strife, romance, and uneasy camaraderie. It's a surefire formula that somehow eludes the production, which spends six episodes with uninspired characters caught in the middle of tedious conflicts, barely using the potential of the premise. Instead of WWI intensity and passion, "The Crimson Field" sticks closely to melodrama to best comfort its audience, yet the writing doesn't dream up heated adversity, instead paging through familiar beats of longing and secretive behavior that never quite adds up to anything compelling. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The band KISS doesn't have a particularly encouraging history with theme park mysteries. In 1978, the group starred in "KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park," a fantastically ridiculous television movie that attempted to rebrand the creatures of the night as comic book heroes, with their shared superpower apparently being complete acting inability. Decades have passed, blockbuster tours have rocked the world, and KISS has finally found a place of professional stability. Returning to the hero realm, the unit has teamed up with cartoon legends for "Scooby-Doo! And KISS: Rock and Roll Mystery," which brings back the roller coasters, the themed property, and underground evildoing from an enigmatic villain. Wisely avoiding a live-action extravaganza, KISS makes a fine transition to animation, contributing songs, one-liners, and artful spectacle as the musicians befriend a talking dog and his sleuthing friends for an adventure that travels through space and devours churros, making theme parks safe again for highly decorated rock bands. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Paul Maslansky is perhaps best known for producing the "Police Academy" franchise, helping to guide the series through numerous film and television incarnations, keeping the slapstick alive even to this day, with threats of a remake popping up on a yearly basis. He only directed one movie during a lengthy career, the 1974 blacksploitation effort, "Sugar Hill," challenging his early years producing Euro horror pictures to help create one of few black-centric zombie features. As a novelty, "Sugar Hill" is acceptable, highlighting strange happenings with silver-eyed undead soldiers under the command of a woman seeking revenge for the death of her boyfriend. As an endeavor with dramatic purpose, the effort lacks gusto, with concentration on ghoulish murders pulling attention away from pace and excitement. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1969's "Pit Stop" is, at its core, a racing film. Entering the gladiatorial arena known as Figure-8 racing, writer/director Jack Hill has a specific idea of screen excitement, pulling off an impressive display of the demolition derby-style sport with a limited budget, using large sections of the movie to capture the smashing and crunching of metal, set to a rock and roll tempo. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Hollywood has been fascinated with "The Island of Dr. Moreau" for a long time. The 1896 H.G. Wells novel has been adapted time and again, dating back to a 1913 French silent film and a 1932 production starring Charles Laughton, titled "Island of Lost Souls." Perhaps most infamously, the book inspired a messy 1996 endeavor that starred Marlon Brando as the titular madman, with its nightmarish shoot recounted in a documentary from last year, "Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's The Island of Dr. Moreau." Joining the roster of interpretations is a 1977 effort that favored action over science, with heavy emphasis on the chaotic community of animal and man, striving to whip up a frenzy with dangerous stunts and ghoulish make-up effects. Directed by Don Taylor ("Damien: Omen II"), "The Island of Dr. Moreau" suffers the same fate as most adaptations, with the limitations of Wells's story unable to fill the needs of a feature film, thought the movie certainly has its share of eye-popping moments, most born from era-specific recklessness when dealing with live animals. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1973's "Some Call It Loving" is an expansion of a John Collier short story. A reimagining of "Sleeping Beauty," the feature erases all fairy tale hope to toy with sexual and emotional gamesmanship, studying the psychological fallout of love when it confronts the submission of fantasy. Written and directed by James B. Harris ("The Bedford Incident," "Cop"), "Some Call It Loving" attempts to conjure a mood of mystery and seduction, gradually revealing its illness as the story unfolds. It's an odd one, designed with esoteric intent to fit an experimental decade of filmmaking. However, it's richly made with a true sense of allure to go along with its equally impressive handle on repulsion, making it a sure bet for cineastes who crave the feeling of a honeyed submersion into idiosyncrasy and kink. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Setting out to create a true crime tale, author Joseph Wambaugh found deeper psychological wounds to explore when he wrote the 1973 novel, "The Onion Field." A former cop with intimate knowledge of the law enforcement system, Wambaugh understood the emotional spaces of his characters, while fascinated with the ways of evil. Planning to bring the work to the big screen, Wambaugh secured creative freedom by partially funding the feature himself, hiring director Harold Becker to craft a version of "The Onion Field" that would respect the source material and help flesh out the corroded personalities of the players. The 1979 picture is successful in this respect, delivering a literary atmosphere of procedural events and troubling intimacies that help to comprehend the case at hand. Certain cinematic elements slip out of Becker's control, but Wambaugh's core interests in crime and punishment are heartily respected. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Samurai Avenger: The Blind Wolf" emerges from the mind of co-scripter/actor/director Kurando Mitsutake, and he probably wouldn't like any comparison to the 2007's two-feature time machine, "Grindhouse." However, it's hard to believe the 2009 release wasn't informed in some way by the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez extravaganza, as it details classic exploitation elements, sold with faux film scratches and assorted visual limitations. Unlike "Grindhouse," "Samurai Avenger" isn't inspired by excess, oddly weighed down by the demands of an Eastern take on the spaghetti western, with Mitsutake too caught up in his design minutiae to really have fun with the premise. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com