Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Martial arts activity hits the streets of Manila in 1975’s “The Black Panther of Shaolin” (also known as “Bamboo Trap,” which is the title on the print). The Philippines-based production is directed by Ernesto Ventura, who seeks to compete with all the action films of the era, mounting his own take on heroes and villains in the feature, looking to cash in on the frenzy for martial arts movies after the rise of Bruce Lee. “The Black Panther of Shaolin” intends to be a kidnapping drama of some sort, but Ventura isn’t that committed to storytelling, launching a somewhat baffling tale of escalation between the bad guys and the men hired to save the day, also working in a couple of cultural ceremonies, big turns of character, and oddball editing to bring the picture to life. It’s not a terribly exciting movie, and incoherence is a major issue, but as an offering of violence from the Philippines, the endeavor has select moments of excitement. Just not enough of them. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1974’s “The Black Six” certainly appears to be a movie set up for great success. It has a heck of a casting hook, bringing in six NFL players to populate a Blaxploitation picture, giving the endeavor interesting marquee value, just not thespian might. It’s a biker movie concerning the exploits of black Vietnam vets trying to distance themselves from their pasts, running into trouble in rural California, or “cracker country,” when a death goes without investigation, putting the gang on the hunt for the killer. It’s a low-budget endeavor, but one with great potential, using the football stars to offer an unusual level of screen intimidation and camaraderie, and for about 15 minutes, it works. It’s the rest of “The Black Six” that carries tremendous disappointment, watching director Matt Cimber and screenwriter George Theakos fumble (heh) the basics of investigation and revenge, going as slow as humanly possible with material that’s bizarrely uneventful. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Manny Coto, best know as the director of 1992’s “Dr. Giggles,” makes his helming debut with 1989’s “Playroom” (a.k.a. “Schizo”), establishing his love of horror with a story about a man confronting his past while reuniting with his insanity during an archaeological expedition in Yugoslavia. Coto and screenwriter Keaton Jones (the once and future Kelly Leak, Jackie Earle Haley, takes a story credit) arrange a small-scale inspection of an unraveling, keeping their budget low with a semi-slasher that struggles with psychological elements and basic suspense needs. While it has a cast who appear committed to the cause, “Playroom” just isn’t very thrilling, eventually settling on a few creative choices that border on the bewildering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriter Justic Piasecki makes his feature-length debut with “Relay,” and he offers a very interesting idea about a relationship the develops between two people involved in a whistleblower event gone horribly wrong. It’s a fascinating story that blends procedural action with deep characterization, at times recalling some of the better paranoia thrillers of the 1970s. Director David Mackenzie (who hit a career high with 2016’s “Hell or High Water,” only to come back down to Earth in 2018’s mediocre “Outlaw King”) is tasked with maintaining steady pressure on the audience, creating unusual tension from scenes of communication and surveillance. For the first two acts, “Relay” is excellent, hitting a few logic gaps while generating an impressive amount of suspense, promising a great conclusion to come. A satisfying ending doesn’t arrive, but Mackenzie and Piasecki get most of the way there, handling the nail-biting needs of the tale and its unique study of planning and pursuit. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The writer of “Stakeout” (and, well, “Another Stakeout”), Jim Kouf, tries his luck with a twisty tale of crime and paranoia in 1997’s “Gang Related.” Primarily known as the last film rapper Tupac Shakur worked on before his death, the picture tries to fit in as many tributes to the co-star as possible, even using his music on the soundtrack. However, Shakur is arguably the least compelling element in this examination of police corruption, with James Belushi enjoying the meatier part as things go from bad to worse for his character. “Gang Related” has a little trouble with its resolution, but overall escalation is terrific in this darkly comedic thriller, with Kouf clearly having fun arranging difficulties and inventing mistakes for his characters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Strange Affair” is an adaptation of a novel by Bernard Toms, and it certainly plays out like paging through a book. The picture explores corruption in many forms, and it follows a large community of characters in the process, with the screenplay trying to braid multiple subplots into a single understanding of ruination. The 1968 feature is a little wobbly as it attempts to juggle motivations and mistakes, but director David Greene (“Godspell,” “I Start Counting”) maintains a steely view of bizarre developments in the tale, and he has an incredible cast to help bring such oddity to life, selling the emotional moods of the endeavor. “The Strange Affair” remains a compelling sit as it details crooked behavior and bad decisions, managing to maintain focus on the basics of desperation as it works its way to an ice cold conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Life of Chuck” is based on a Stephen King novella from 2020, and we’ve been here before. Works from the iconic author, especially shorter ones, have inspired a few of the finest King adaptations around, including 1994’s “The Shawshank Redemption” and 1986’s “Stand by Me.” That same level of cinematic magic isn’t quite present in the new picture, but writer/director Mike Flanagan (a King Country vet with work on “Gerald’s Game” and “Doctor Sleep”) remains ambitious with the effort, out to scramble minds and soothe souls with the movie, which looks to fold time and space in an attempt to address the human condition. “The Life of Chuck” is all over the place, and Flanagan’s lyrical approach to the endeavor might feel like itching powder to some viewers. It’s a deeply flawed offering of mystery, but the helmer fully commits to the strangeness of it all, which is impressive, clearly out to deliver an inscrutable feature that’s meant to connect in a heartfelt manner. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Victor Danell is part of a filmmaking collective known as “Crazy Pictures.” “Watch the Skies” is their second feature (after 2018’s “The Unthinkable”), with Danell (and co-writer Jimmy Nivren Olsson) attempting to launch an alien conspiracy thriller for a family audience, going a bit softer with the material’s depiction of paranoia and pursuit. Released in Sweden three years ago, “Watch the Skies” attempts to crack the North American market with its presentation of emotional wounds and physical endangerment, using a special A.I. program to help match lips to the English dub, hoping to attract more than the usual specialty cinema crowd. It’s a lively endeavor, and one that benefits greatly from its engaged acting, which lifts an occasionally familiar screenplay that’s often trying to replicate the Spielberg Experience without a truly inspired story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Darkness isn’t immediately apparent in 1999’s “The Woman Chaser,” but it arrives eventually in the feature, which is an adaptation of a Charles Willeford novel. It’s a slice of noir-ish cinema from co-writer/director Robinson Devor, who’s tasked with creating an odyssey into filmmaking and madness, managing a darkly comedic tone that’s accentuated by the casting of Patrick Warburton in the lead role, then fresh off his career-defining turn as David Puddy in “Seinfeld.” “The Woman Chaser” offers a strange look into the mind of a driven man, playing with masculine fantasies and Hollywood dreams, and the picture connects for the most part, finding Devor achieving a sense of style with a very limited budget. The last act isn’t quite as confident, but there’s interesting psychology on display in the offering, and odd behaviors to study. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2018’s “Commando Ninja” was an amusing riff on action cinema of the 1980s. The French production was looking to have some fun with the cartoon nature of the genre, with director Benjamin Combes inhaling Schwarzenegger and Stallone fumes to launch his own butt-kicking adventure featuring crazy characters and their quest for heroism. It was 68 minutes of passable fun, with Combes seemingly understanding the expiration date for this type of goofiness. “Commando Ninja II: Invasion America” runs 148 minutes (that’s not a typo), finding Combes intentionally ignoring the power of editing to offer a horrifically overlong sequel that’s basically out to make the same jokes, same references, and offer the same low-budget insanity as before, only it now takes what feels like a calendar year to finish the film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Paul Morrissey, the director of “Flesh for Frankenstein” and “Blood for Dracula” looks to understand the strange community of Alphabet City in “Mixed Blood,” taking viewers back to a much different time in New York City. The 1984 release follows rising violence between two gangs, tracking the concerns of their leaders and personal relationships as turf conflicts and all kinds of trouble come for the characters during a particularly heated season. “Mixed Blood” is all about locations, with Morrissey trying to remain as authentic to the situation as possible, delivering a sobering examination of urban decay and destruction. The movie has atmosphere. What it doesn’t have is a sense of thespian polish, as the helmer hopes to get raw with a mostly amateur cast, ending up with an ensemble where most of the performers can’t act, while the rest struggle to make sense of Morrissey’s semi-ridiculous screenplay. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1966’s “Castle of Evil” is written by Charles A. Wallace, who looks to pair the suspense of a spooky castle movie with a whodunit of sorts. The tale explores a group gathering inside a remote dwelling, with the visitors confronted by evil events, giving Wallace enough room to develop specific personalities and build a sense of the unknown as danger begins to take shape. Horror seems to be on the menu for the picture, but the material doesn’t make a defined pursuit of terror. Instead, “Castle of Evil” is more conversational, almost registering as a play when handling the private lives and desires of the characters. Director Francis D. Lyon has the oddness of the premise to work with, and there’s effort made to liven up the offering through lighting and performance choices. Highlights remain in the endeavor, but it’s not something that speeds along, determined to sell macabre touches. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the future of 2036, global control will be decided by giant robot combat. That’s the general idea of 1998’s “Robo Warriors,” though screenwriter Michael Berlin doesn’t exactly develop the central concept, preferring to ignore the details of this new world order to simply use the selling point of big brawling bots, spending most of the feature on more personal matters involving troubled characters. It’s actually surprisingly to find how little robo- warrior-ing is involved in “Robo Warriors,” giving viewers only a few conflicts to enjoy. The rest of the endeavor is tasked with building up to these fights, finding Berlin attempting to create a dire world of tomorrow while director Ian Barry only has a Duran Duran music video budget to bring an entire alien conflict to life. The result is a somewhat impressive display of filmmaking hustle, watching Barry work like crazy to sell the sense of scale Berlin imagines. However, this isn’t a particularly exciting offering of sci-fi conflict, and those coming to the title for red-hot robot action might walk away incredibly disappointed in the lack of mayhem. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It worked once for Troma Entertainment, why not try again? After the success of 1984’s “The Toxic Avenger,” another superhero saga was created for the company to help with mainstream appeal, with “Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.” taking a more cartoon approach to askew heroism. Japanese culture is the inspiration for the offering, but co-directors Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz spin the material in their own Troma-like manner, creating another scattergun-style comedy that emphasizes cartoon extremes and strange violence. Working with their largest budget to date, the helmers certainly attempt to pull off some highly unusual visuals in the movie, and while production polish isn’t welcome here, there are moments of imagination that make for an intermittently engaging sit. Overall, “Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.” isn’t as strong as it could be, with all this crazy energy and attention to special effects trapped in a poorly edited endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The world of tomorrow is often used to power the imagination of cinema. But what happens when such futurism actually becomes part of daily life? “So Unreal” is a visual essay that explores the pursuit of technological advancement in moviemaking, with co-writer/director Amanda Kramer endeavoring to track the history of media prediction as she examines two decades of productions that set out to understand the changing world of technology. Computers are the key to it all in “So Unreal,” and Kramer is joined by music legend Debbie Harry, who provides narration for the odyssey into examples and moods, focusing on cinematic adventures that tried to make sense of the previously unthinkable, and optimism was certainly not a priority. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Ritual” is a little late to the party. Over the last few years, there’s been an abundance of films released concerning the powers of Satan and his insistence that the only way to disrupt faith and humanity is to emerge through possession. There was “The Pope’s Exorcist,” “The Exorcist: Believer,” “The First Omen,” “The Exorcism,” and “Immaculate.” Hollywood loves their demon tales, but “The Ritual” hopes to distance itself from the pack, labeled as “based on true events,” examining the case of Emma Schmidt (a.k.a. Anna Ecklund), an alleged victim of possession who battled evil with help from Father Theophilus Riesinger nearly 100 years ago. Co-writer/director David Midell seems to think there’s dramatic potential in an extremely well-worn topic, and he tries to find the urgency of the story. However, there’s no suspense to be found in this offering, which looks cheaply made and isn’t concerned with creating a fear factor as it slowly reheats scenes from subgenre classics. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While Blu-ray packaging lists “Samurai Priest: Vampire Hunter” as a 2025 release, there’s a bit more to this film’s history. The endeavor began life as “Live Evil,” a 2009 release written and directed by Jay Woelfel, who wanted to explore the well-tread terrain of exploitation cinema, looking to make his own drive-in offering in a tale of a “warrior priest” questing to destroy vampire colonies in the American southwest. The feature didn’t attract much attention, fading into obscurity after being pulled from distribution, but it didn’t fully go away. Years later, producer Mark Terry wanted a crack at reworking “Live Evil,” recruiting editor Michael Hoffman Jr. to return to the original footage to create a new tale from an old story, emerging with “Samurai Priest: Vampire Hunter.” Fans of the original offering are treated to a fresh take on the central premise, and those new to the endeavor are probably going to be left scratching their heads. As hard as Terry (who takes over as the credited director, eliminating Woelfel) and Hoffman Jr. try to manufacture something fresh out of the work, they come up short when it comes to excitement and narrative clarity in “Samurai Priest: Vampire Hunter,” which plays too messy at times, fighting for its own identity without having enough footage to work with. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s difficult to make a movie about the end of the world when there’s very little budget to power the production. “Revealer” is the latest attempt to highlight an apocalyptic event without actually showing much of anything, with director Luke Boyce basically sticking to two sets while the screenplay (by Michael Moreci and Tim Seely) suggests a major event is happening around the globe, forcing viewers to use their imagination as a much smaller dramatic event unfolds indoors. The chance to go big with the endeavor isn’t possible, but Boyce looks to do something with a very little he has to work with, investing in cinematographic ideas and terrific casting to bring this strange take on the chaos of the Rapture to life. “Revealer” doesn’t add up to much, but it retains effective moments of conflict and mystery to get the feature through some slower patches of limp exposition. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s been a little while since we’ve heard from co-writer/director Eli Craig. His last release was 2017’s “Little Evil,” an entertaining follow-up to his raucous debut, 2011’s “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.” Craig is a talented helmer and someone who clearly loves genre moviemaking, heading right back into the darkness with “Clown in a Cornfield,” which is an adaptation of a novel by author Adam Cesare. It’s a YA title handed the R-rated treatment, as Craig transforms a potentially self-aware concept into a bloody but amusing ride of slasher cinema, paying tribute to the traditions of the subgenre while also exploring a little more characterization than what’s usually pursued. “Clown in the Cornfield” has substance, which is impressive, and strong performances, which is rare, and while the writing fights a feeble climax, the build to a payoff is exciting and intentionally funny. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Rodney Ascher is a filmmaker. He’s created several documentaries over the last 13 years, but he’s primarily known as the director of 2012’s “Room 237,” which explored various forms of analysis and conspiracy theories surrounding the making of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” Ascher went deep into the 1980 release, working with interviewees to generate an odyssey into insanity, offering access to the far reaches of the human brain as these “experts” and admirers were offered a chance to share their fixations, trying to solve a cinematic puzzle that’s intentionally missing many pieces. The world of obsession is key to Ascher’s work, also examined in 2015’s “The Nightmare” and 2021’s “A Glitch in the Matrix,” and that grip of compulsion carries into “An Evening with Rodney Ascher.” It’s a mixtape of sorts, presenting various short films, videos, and visual essays, investigating the labor of passion and its all-consuming ways. Ascher doesn’t get too serious with the offering, but for those who enjoyed his previous adventures into fascination, there’s more of the same here, presented in bite-sized helpings of lunacy and artistry. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com