Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

In 1983, "My Tutor" played up the fantasy of an older teacher seducing
her younger student. In 2013, that type of activity is typically greeted
with a felony sex offender charge. How times have changed. Of course,
"My Tutor" is only a movie, and a rather entertaining "teensploitation"
effort from 30 years ago, engineered to titillate teen audiences hunting
for a peek at naked breasts and horndog monkey business, employing a
common scenario of temptation to lure ticket buyers in, only to hit them
with a genuine sense of humor and an unusually muted seductress in
actress Caren Kaye. "My Tutor" is simple but effective, and if
approached on a lowered level of expectation, the picture captures all
the hormonal urges of adolescence, frosted with a permissive '80's
attitude that doesn't judge the taboo couple in question. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

How does one make a weird horror film weirder? Include footage from
three abandoned suspense pictures, tying it all together with a
wraparound story feature God, Satan, and a group of new wave rockers
from the 1980s jamming inside a locomotive. "Night Train to Terror" is a
pleasingly bonkers creation that doesn't even pretend to make sense,
instead providing genre maniacs with random images of violence, torment,
and nudity as it winds through four different stories of doom. The 1985
effort is a madhouse of ghoulish delights, boosted by performance
sincerity that turns a horribly dated musical number into a jubilant
lighthouse for a profoundly confused endeavor. It's coarse, gruesome,
and clearly created to relieve the financial pressure of someone tied to
the production, but it certainly isn't a boring movie. Watching "Night
Train to Terror" feels like sitting through a horror film festival with a
heavy finger resting on the fast-forward button, zooming to all the
grisly goodies before it's on to the next sinister story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's a stunning lack of trust running through "Laurence Anyways," and
it cripples what should be a searing portrait of self-worth.
Writer/director Xavier Dolan doesn't lead the feature through its
dramatic entanglements, he pushes it, spending the nearly three-hour run
time slapping symbolism and overwrought stylistics on the viewer,
eschewing subtlety to beat simple emotional concepts into the ground,
unaware that the audience doesn't need much to grasp the primal scream
burning within the lead character. "Laurence Anyways" is a beautiful
expression of a challenging life mummified by a filmmaker who could
learn a thing or two about the editing process, demanding an eternity to
articulate universal needs. For every sublime moment the movie has to
offer, there's a cinematic dead zone of indulgence that wipes it away,
generating a frustrating, occasionally intolerable sit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the realm of horror cinema, the "Friday the 13th" franchise is a
behemoth. It wasn't the first to dream up the concept of a masked maniac
slicing and dicing his way through a throng of idiot teenagers, but it
gave the concept pop culture enormity, with healthy box office and an
explosive home video presence to help guarantee longevity with its
rabid, fall-on-their-sword fanbase. Other movies have made more money,
displayed more gore, and showed more creativity, but nothing has touched
the genre omnipresence of this series. Without warning, "Friday the
13th" became a cult classic and Jason Voorhees grew into the Elvis of
slasher icons. Not bad for a picture that began life as a rip-off of
"Halloween." Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the curious career of writer/director Stuart Gordon, his dedication
to the work of author H.P. Lovecraft could never be called into
question. With cult classics such as "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond,"
the filmmaker has explored and cinematically transformed the celebrated
writer's fascination with depths of depravity and the hypnotic hold of
terror, turning fandom into a personal quest. Picking a 1926 short story
("The Outsider") as inspiration, Gordon returns to his Lovecraftian
cravings with 1995's "Castle Freak," a bluntly titled genre exercise
that provides the necessary amounts of lip-quaking panic and goopy gore,
gifted a mildly gothic touch by the picture's remote, forbidding
setting. It's a slim tale of redemption and survival, with excitable
acting that practically transforms the effort into 3-D, but the macabre
essentials are provided with skill by the helmer, who's clearly enjoying
this opportunity to romp around an empty castle, dreaming up way to
repulse and creep-out the audience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"An American Hippie in Israel" isn't most subtle of titles, and its
opening scene doesn't mess around with subtext. In a field of flowers,
we see a steamroller making its way across the land, crushing natural
beauty with its steely, heavy might. Amos Sefer's 1972 allegorical
extravaganza announces its tone right up front, leaving little to the
imagination as its threadbare plot and impulsive performances take over.
It's been branded one of the worst films of all time by the guardians
of cult cinema, and it certainly has enough clunky moments to merit such
hyperbolic consideration. However, for all the nonsense and
pull-your-hair-out padding that's included in the feature, Sefer has a
weird vision for "Hippie" that almost works if one squints hard enough,
attempting to make an anti-war picture that's soaked in oddity and
nudity. It's an admirable effort, with periods of floppy B-movie
shenanigans that are surprisingly entertaining. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1973's "The Doll Squad" has all the ingredients for a rollicking B-movie
viewing experience. We have a diabolical villain bent on world
domination, a team of bikini-wearing secret agents brandishing cartoony
weapons, and a taste of chunky 1970's action choreography to sell the
hysteria. It's an ideal blend of escapist elements and a film some
suggest was a clear inspiration for the jiggling juggernaut known as
"Charlie's Angels." However, as enticing as "The Doll Squad" is, it's
also a strangely airless endeavor that's hampered by its no-budget
ambitions, finding writer-director Ted V. Mikels striving to make his
own Bond movie with mere pennies to spend, forced to rinse and repeat
every single scene. There's gold in the corners of the effort, but it
takes considerable patience to find the highlights of this strangely
chaste, frustratingly repetitive picture.
Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

What "The Unseen" aims to be and what it actually becomes are two
separate things. It's a horror picture exploring evil from an unusual
source, with all the requisite scenes of violence and hints of
perversion. There's another side to the work as well, a creative push
that seems like it wants to construct a substantial character drama out
of chiller materials, striving to instill personality into the effort to
increase the movie's lasting potential. Interesting in fits, but also
groggily paced and unsure of direction, "The Unseen" definitely has
moments of tension, but there's also plenty of dead space littering the
feature, reducing conflict and indulging oddity to a point of tiresome
repetition. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The American experience during the Vietnam War has been extensively
documented in feature films, leaving audiences with a developed
comprehension of the hardships, tragedies, and lost innocence of the men
and women who fought for the country. Australia's participation in
Vietnam hasn't enjoyed the same cinematic illumination, leaving 1979's
"The Odd Angry Shot" a valuable dramatic tool in a larger appreciation
of sacrifice and wartime temperament. Writer/director Tom Jeffrey cuts
to the heart of the Aussie mentality in this off-kilter picture,
electing to represent the narrative through chapters of boredom and
militaristic encounters. It's a flavorful movie with stout performances
and a distinct cultural atmosphere to help it maneuver through a few
passages of stagnant storytelling, but "The Odd Angry Shot" is best
appreciated as a snapshot of pride melting into disillusionment,
previously imagined as strictly an American perspective. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Located in the United Kingdom, Highclere Castle is an extraordinary
country house teeming with pure majesty in worlds of art and
architecture, constructed nearly two hundred years ago as a show of
wealth. It's also the current home and inspiration for the blockbuster
television series, "Downton Abbey," making its considerable history pale
in comparison to its current rank as a popular tourist attraction,
launching a million fantasies of elegance, order, and opulence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Produced two years before 1974's "Black Christmas," "Tower of Evil" has
built a reputation in recent years as one of the forefathers of the
slasher subgenre, which would go on to mainstream success in iconic
pictures such as "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th." While the effort
doesn't have much creative gas in its tank, it remains an interesting
sit due to its historical placement, detailing a reign of terror that
picks off victims in a most gruesome manner, often catching these poor
folks following sexual relations, thus making their exit from the film
all the more cruel. "Tower of Evil" is rough on patience levels, but
there's undeniable craftsmanship to study, displaying interesting
atmosphere that emphasizes oncoming doom, while the friskiness of the
characters is remarkable. In fact, there's so much attention paid toward
the sexual proclivities of the personalities, it's easy to forget the
stillborn fright feature antics that rarely add up to genuine chills. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Hands of the Ripper" sets the bar for gruesome violence high during its
main titles, where we witness Jack the Ripper murder his wife in front
of his young daughter. It's a horrifying moment that certainly
establishes the tone for the feature, suggesting that anything goes in
this Hammer production. Fortunately, in terms of "should I be watching
this?" ugliness, "Hands of the Ripper" doesn't match its vivid opener,
though it tries with multiple gory moments intended to give increasingly
demanding genre fans a jolt. What's actually here is a fascinating
psychological chiller that's artfully made on a low budget, trusting the
power of performance to carry a heavy workload of exposition and
suspense as the famed horror factory endeavors to breathe new life into
an oft-told tale of serial murder. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The mystery of Islam is a powerful puzzle of interpretation and emotion
that seem impossible to approach in our modern era, with the passions of
certain participants discouraging outsiders from acquiring a deeper
appreciation of the complicated religion. "The Life of Muhammad" isn't
the final word on the vast sea of experience found within Islam, but
it's an excellent starting point of understanding. Credit host Rageh
Omaar, a composed journalist who dares to work his way into the nuances
and controversies of the Prophet Muhammad's channeled wisdom, submitting
a fascinating overview of an extraordinary life that touches on diverse
acts of divinity, experience, aggression, and education. It's three
hours devoted to the opinions of scholars and participants, with Omaar
traveling around the Middle East on a quest to bring the intriguing
layers of Islam to those unaware of its profound significance in world
history and individual consciousness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's a tremendous challenge to make a movie about an unlikable
character, especially one who commits to unsavory business despite
enjoying all the opportunity in the world to avoid trouble. It takes a
special directorial touch to pull off such a juggling act, making sure
the viewer doesn't completely turn on the person intended to act as the
emotional through line for the entire picture. "The Oranges" almost
achieves a surprising stability when it comes to the dirty business of
its lead character, displaying refreshing comfort with repugnant
behavior that openly trashes numerous lives. That "The Oranges" hopes to
tickle a few funny bones along the way is a bit of a stretch, yet
helmer Julian Farino manages to corral a decent comedy about domestic
disorder, working through clichéd bits of toxic suburban unrest with a
modicum of dignity, keeping the effort light and approachable despite
subplots that would register as chilling in real life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff" is an uncomfortable viewing experience for
numerous reasons, though the secure melodramatic grip of the film is
undeniable, keeping attention on the screen as the screenplay details
some truly awful acts of sexual violence and psychological manipulation.
It goes without writing that this is a bizarre picture, adapted from a
1970 book and released in 1979, issued during a time of racial
sensitivity and bedroom liberation, yet utterly old-fashioned in its
design of conflict — think Douglas Sirk meets Melvin Van Peebles and
you're halfway there. "Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff" is an unusual feature
for unusual tastes, but the acting is brave and the darkness of the
material is routinely confronted without blinking, forcing the viewer to
work through this smorgasbord of Freudian probing and sexual awakening
as the movie escalates its illness, often in a most captivating manner. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's difficult to be truly offended by "Street Trash" because the
picture is designed to repulse. It's not a movie for the faint of heart
or the easily disturbed, spending 100 minutes running through all sorts
of grotesqueries, sticky incidents, and nasty behavior, forging a
subgenre known as "melt," which is exactly what the brand promises. The
film is vile and frenzied, but it's also shockingly well made, crafted
by a production team taking the challenge of a splatter film seriously,
generating an outstandingly designed and photographed effort that's
beguiling in its screen toxicity. Nobody's going to mistake "Street
Trash" for Shakespeare, but saddled with a low budget and a premise that
all but demands immediate dismissal, the endeavor somehow emerges
slickly crafted and darkly comic, only overstepping its authority
occasionally, perhaps just to make sure the viewer doesn't grow
complacent with this phantasmagoria of carnival-colored death. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Tomboy" is a bizarre teen comedy from the 1985, revealing a
surprisingly limited sense of humor while sending a confusing message of
female empowerment. It's not stellar cinema by any means, but for those
who have an affinity for a simpler time, when guys could get away with
being unrepentant cads and donuts were sold on pure sex appeal, might
take to the movie's moderate charms. At the very least, "Tomboy"
provides an amiably earnest performance from star Betsy Russell, a
bushy-haired actress who manages the screenplay's unsteady view toward
the objectification of women with grace, communicating a fleeting sense
of innocence and a more charged tone of exploitation as well. Russell's
fun to watch in this ephemeral feature, with her natural spunk going a
long way to even out directorial distraction from Herb Freed, who
displays more interest in photographing naked breasts than he does
massaging the heartfelt potential of the picture. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1969's "Naked Violence" doesn't waste any time digging to extremes of
violence and character. The picture uses its main title sequence to
detail a sexual assault and murder, taking time poring over the details
of lustful gazes and bodily harm. It's blunt and coarse, attempting to
establish unease in record time before the material chases more
investigative interests, and its effectiveness is questionable at best.
Despite a troubling opening, "Naked Violence" does manage to locate a
dramatic equilibrium, embarking on a satisfactory dissection of police
procedure and teenage indifference before it plunges back into the deep
end of exploitation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Massage Parlor Murders" opens with a scene that finds a lowly, frugal
john negotiating with a comely working girl for special clothes-removing
enhancements to his anticipated rubdown (scored to Tchaikovsky's "The
Nutcracker," natch). The scene has nothing to do with the rest of the
picture, yet it's an apt start to the feature, which continues down a
path of incoherence and slapdash filmmaking. Right from the start
there's sleaze, a general reluctance to spend money, and naked breasts,
which sums up the viewing event extraordinarily well. Exploitation
cinema with a side serving of New York City travelogue, "Massage Parlor
Murders" isn't much of a movie, but it's a heck of a viewing experience,
packing in enough violence, vague confrontations, and nudity to satisfy
those in the mood for gratuitous, no-budget entertainment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The intimacy of "Into the White" is fascinating, helping to move a
routine tale about sworn enemies coming together in the face of certain
death along. It's based on a true tale of survival and unexpected
companionship at the outset of World War II, and the feature gets plenty
of mileage out of tense confrontations occurring in the freezing cold,
with a sharp, expressive collection of actors chosen to embody national
pride as it's tested in a most unforgiving environment during a time of
complete intolerance. Dramatically rewarding and geographically vivid,
"Into the White" generates a satisfactory amount of suspense and thawing
personality to achieve its limited goals, successfully spinning the
familiar with welcome attention to character. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com