Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Always on the hunt for a trend to exploit, Hollywood producers found unusual inspiration in the ways of high school antics involving cheerleaders and their never-ending battle with lust, love, and rivals. 1973's "The Cheerleaders" made some money, and that's all the industry needs to chase moviegoing habits, with 1974's "The Swinging Cheerleaders" also providing hearty drive-in entertainment and sizable profit, keeping the brand name going. 1976's "Revenge of the Cheerleaders" is yet another attempt to capture viewer imagination with a fresh presentation of excitable girls, dim- witted boys, and a school staff trying to maintain some sense of order with oversexed teenagers. Director Richard Lerner doesn't have a major creative challenge on his hands with the project, mostly employed to contain the inherent chaos of the shoot. "Revenge of the Cheerleaders" is pure zaniness, eschewing the shaping of a story to deal mostly with mischief and non sequitur scenes, also paying close attention to the needs of audiences who've come to watch characters disrobe and enjoy tomfoolery. It's tough to say if this even qualifies as an actual film, but Lerner's permissiveness with it all does have a certain period charm, with the picture happy to go anywhere it pleases. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2000's "At Dawn They Sleep" intends to rethink the concept of a vampire movie. Writer/director/star Brian Paulin hopes to disrupt typical horror happenings with this shot-on-video endeavor, which doesn't showcase any heroes, just villains, engaged in a battle of Heaven and Hell, which somehow involves the process of feeding on flesh, car chases, and John Woo-style shootouts. Paulin inhales a great number of cinematic influences to help breathe life into the picture, which is a backyard production, but makes some effort to be a little bigger than the average SOV offering. "At Dawn They Sleep" is ambitious, which is nice to see, and the Fangoria generation is likely the target demographic for the feature, as it's filled with blood and guts, scored to death metal selections. Refined filmmaking and decent performances aren't invited to the party, but Paulin makes a noticeable effort to do something askew here, which makes a difference. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2002's "Funny Ha Ha" is a movie about the wandering ways of youth confronted by the troubling demands of adulthood. It's largely credited as the introduction to the "mumblecore" movement, where a small group of indie filmmakers elected to forgo scripted dialogue and refined performances to deliver observations of human behavior, supported by the lowest emotional stakes imaginable. The "mumblecore" label has never made sense, as mumbling isn't even a feature of these productions, with stammering more prominent, especially in "Funny Ha Ha," with writer/director Andrew Bujalski primarily turning on his camera and letting amateur actors feel around scenes, looking to achieve a sense of life while focusing on nothing in particular. There's ennui and there's inertia, with Bujalski's helming debut trying to study love and listlessness, making for a dry viewing experience with little dramatic reward. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The 1980s were a big time for action cinema, with the heroes of the screen getting physically larger and productions were going overboard trying to give viewers an explosive good time with broad entertainment. There was brawn, and in some cases, an appreciation of the veteran experience connected to the Vietnam War, adding some sense of respect and compassion to the usual package of R-rated violence and big screen spectacle. There was Chuck Norris in the "Missing in Action" series, and Sylvester Stallone dominated the box office with his numerous "Rambo" films. For 1991, writer/director James Glickenhaus has…Christopher Walken. "McBain" tries to find a different kind of screen savior with the lauded actor, who makes a rare appearance in an action event, taking on the part of a psychologically stained man processing his Vietnam horrors through an act of honor and revenge, bringing American freedoms to Columbia. "McBain" looks to Stallone-ify Walken, giving him a simple tale of mercenary might to manage, and he offers a range of blank, sometimes confused expressions while Glickenhaus tries to summon a thunderous war epic, investing in fireballs and firearms to create enough screen chaos to please genre fans. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1988's "Shame" has the vague appearance of an exploitation film, taking on the subject of sexual assault and the ways of fighting back, with its setting a rural Australian town filled with angry men. It's the stuff of B-movies, but the screenplay by Beverly Blankenship and Michael Brindley doesn't go in any grotesquely voyeuristic direction, electing to approach the topic of physical and psychological horror in a softer manner, getting to understand a situation of fear instead of celebrating it. It's a unique approach, and while the endeavor slightly veers into unwelcome broadness at times, "Shame" retains a decent sense of fury, with star Deborra Lee-Furnace delivering strong work as a sharp woman suddenly in the middle of a male behavior mess in the middle of nowhere. Bottom-shelf cinema training has one expecting guns and gore, but director Steve Jodrell doesn't take the bait, crafting a more sensitive understanding of corrupt power plays and intimidation, hoping to reach viewers instead of battering them. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Adam Rifkin is a cult film director who's been making movies for the last 30 years, perhaps best known as the helmer of 1991's "The Dark Backward," 1994's "The Chase," and 1999's wildly entertaining "Detroit Rock City." He's not someone who's experience tremendous success in Hollywood, but he's kept going, making odd pictures and surviving quickie shoots, doing the work to remain employable. It turns out, moviemaking was always in Rifkin's blood, with "The Adam Rifkin Film Festival" collecting short endeavors created during his formative years. The release is obviously odd, but it does offer those who enjoy Rifkin's creative voice a chance to see where his sense of humor and love of visual chaos came from, with 22 offerings detailing a profound love of mischief, parody, and animation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2003's "Graveyard Alive" is meant to be a light take on the zombie subgenre, with the consumption of flesh blended with a little sexual energy in this black and white understanding of jealousy and seduction. Co-writer/director Elsa Kephart has the right idea with the material, but execution doesn't support intended brightness, with the helmer noticeably struggling to do something fun and free with the potentially campy ways of the picture. "Graveyard Alive" is leaden and propped up by strange creative choices (including sloppy dubbing), and it lacks a sense of fun, especially when dealing with extreme behaviors and horror movie formula. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1980's "Effects" is an adaptation of a book, "Snuff," by William H. Mooney, but it also represents a sustained sense of collaboration from Pittsburgh filmmakers trying to show their stuff after George A. Romero managed to break through regional boundaries and score global hits. The production team sticks with genre entertainment, but "Effects" isn't a horror movie in the traditional sense. Sure, there's creative involvement from Tom Savini, which raises expectations, but the endeavor is more of a psychological chiller, almost connecting as a paranoid thriller of the 1970s, exploring rising anxiety when a seemingly normal situation of professionalism transforms into something darker in the middle of nowhere. The effort is as slow-burn as a feature gets, intentionally keeping away from cheap thrills to reach more sinister reveals. It's not a picture that necessarily rewards the patience it requires to sit through it, but there's interesting atmosphere, and the grimness of it all is compelling. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Orson Oblowitz explores the ugliness of Los Angeles in 2017's "The Queen of Hollywood Blvd." It's a study of a woman who's spent too much time in the shadows, dealing with all the crime and perversion she can handle over the course of one special day. Oblowitz isn't exactly reaching for originality with the tale, as the seedy side of the city has been the focus of many productions, inspiring a push to make a more colorful and angry understanding of moral corruption and violence, hoping to wow viewers with bright colors and exaggerated performances while barely tending to storytelling needs. "The Queen of Hollywood Blvd." is all flash and little substance, and even the flash starts to wear thin in a hurry. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1969's "Prague Nights" is an anthology film, something like a "Tales from the Darkside" with a little sex comedy attitude. It's not out to frighten viewers, merely looking to beguile them with four stories of temptation gone wrong, each dipping into fantasy as a way to jazz up otherwise plodding morality tales. Directors Jiri Brdecka, Milos Makovec, and Evald Schrom attempt to conjure a magical mood for the picture, using all kinds of moviemaking tricks and artful heft to generate a surreal mood for the feature, which doesn't always win with storytelling intent, but remains fascinating with its impressive visuals. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Marital blues and relationship concerns are the focus of "Maybe I Do," which examines communication struggles between people trying to figure out what they want from life and love. Writer/director Michael Jacobs touches on universal feelings of uncertainty and fatigue, offering a dramedy that concentrates on the inner lives of characters and their stunted ways of self-expression. To help the cause, Jacobs has brought in a capable cast willing to explore the itchiness of such doubt, with leads Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, William H. Macy, and Diane Keaton offering committed performances to help Jacobs reach his larger points about the demands of trust. "Maybe I Do" is frequently supported by thespian strength, as Jacobs gets a little too windy with his dialogue exchanges, losing pace as he tries to make something meaningful while the natural flow of the material leads to a potentially farcical conclusion. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1987's "Lust for Freedom" marks the directorial debut for Eric Louzil, a B-movie man who would go on to help stock video store shelves with "Fortress of Amerikkka," "Bikini Beach Race," and "Class of Nuke 'Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown." Louzil isn't one to pay close attention to the fine details of filmmaking, and he comes right out of the gate with a blunt instrument of entertainment with "Lust for Freedom." It's a women in prison picture, following a grand tradition of exploitation entertainment, only Louzil doesn't have a big imagination for revulsion and revenge. He mostly stumbles through this tedious endeavor, receiving help from Troma Entertainment, who worked to bring the effort up to a sellable run time, giving the feature plenty of padding, which does little to make an already listless production exciting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With "Altered Innocence: Vol. 2," the label once again aims to find a fresh audience for a collection of short films with LGBTQ+ themes and atmosphere, also dealing with endeavors exploring the growing pains of adolescence and the curious ways of mystery. These are 11 offerings that vary in tone and creative approach, and a few of them dip into more surreal, sexualized territory, also reflecting on the filmmaking experience. "Altered Innocence: Vol. 2" hopes to share underappreciated or forgotten shorts from a wide variety of moviemaking voices from around the globe. Some of these selections aim for laughs or tears, while a few gradually expose the horrors of life, but they all offer a distinct creative fingerprint, delivering cinematic stories from burgeoning talent. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A lot of strange creative choices went into the making of "Mafia Mamma," which attempts to offer viewers some big laughs and acts of shock value, trying to turn underworld life into a sandbox for star Toni Collette. She's in Goldie Hawn mode here, asked to carry a story of a personal awakening that also touches on criminal management and broad romantic activity. Collette is more than capable of playing daffy, but her choice of material is underwhelming, with screenwriters J. Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon unable to master a balance of light and dark "Mafia Mamma" requires. The picture is all over the place, but it's never funny, which appears to be the primary goal of the endeavor. Instead of laughs, the effort grows tiresome, which only inspires director Catherine Hardwicke to hit harder when it comes to wacky misadventures in organized crime. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writers Alison Brie and Jeff Baena previously collaborated on 2020's "Horse Girl." They share a fondness for bizarre material and deep character work, playing with tonality and comedy as they visit some shadowy psychological spaces. The duo returns with "Spin Me Round," which has the initial vibe of an upbeat workplace farce, but Baena (who directs) and Brie (who stars) aren't committed to a straightforward tale of everyday pressures and absurdities, committed to strangeness that's slowly massaged into the material. Much like "Horse Girl," "Spin Me Round" has moments of greatness, but the work eventually runs out of inspiration, getting grabby with silliness and sinister business in the second half, which doesn't line up with the breezy peculiarities of the first half. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1995's "Party Girl" wasn't a box office success, but it managed to slip into "cool film" territory, making its debut at the Sundance Film Festival and raising the profile of star Parker Posey, who was in the midst of creating an acting career for herself. Co-writers Harry Birckmayer and Daisy von Scherler Mayer (who also directs) endeavor to use the actress's singular screen energy to power a look at a twentysomething character in New York City confronted with the waywardness of her life, creating a dramedy that awkwardly goes from slight wackiness to insignificant heart. "Party Girl" gets by with its NYC energy and club music soundtrack, providing a vivid snapshot of the scene as it was in the mid-90s, but it's not a terribly compelling character study, with the writing often unsure how seriously to take the main character and her seemingly insincere ways. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's easy to see how a film like 2004's "Highwaymen" made it through the development stage. The screenplay by Craig Mitchell and Hans Bauer offers a serial killer story in a post-"Seven" industry, and one with ghastly details and a mood of dread, dealing with an unusual murderer and his highly specific interest in making victims suffer. It's also car-based action from director Robert Harmon, who delighted many with his initial take on vehicular mayhem in 1986's "The Hitcher," returning to the world of revving engines and evildoing on the open road. The package is promising, but something went wrong in the execution. "Highwaymen" offers a premise that takes some effort to accept, following the mission of one man trying to stop a crazed, mangled individual using his car to slaughter innocents. It's pure ridiculousness sold with complete seriousness by Harmon, with the feature stuck between absurdity and solemnity, lacking a cast capable of selling the odd tonality of it all. The helmer delivers some car-smashing action and tries to make sense of screwy predators and prey, but the endeavor doesn't rage hard enough to provide a B-movie ride, stuck with heavy amounts of exposition to deliver and a cartoony antagonist to sell as an actual threat. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

During his interview on this Blu-ray release, co-writer/actor Jeff Kanew (who directed "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Troop Beverly Hills") credits his absolute love for Sergio Leone's 1966 epic, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," as the prime inspiration behind 1968's "The Wicked Die Slow." However, Kanew had no access to a budget and limited filmmaking experience, trying to replicate the ways of the sun-baked, Italian-born spaghetti western in rural New Jersey during the autumn season. It's a bad idea from conception, but co-writers Kanew and Gary Allen have their motivation, working with director William K. Hennigar to stumble through this patience-testing collection of real-time events and gratuitous violence, sold without a moment of style or tension. It's meant to celebrate the western genre, but nobody seems to have a clue what they're doing, making a backyard production that's unusually hostile to female characters and genuinely seems to hate viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the onslaught of holiday-themed entertainment that arrives every year, there's now "Christmas with the Campbells," which has the appearance of a typical Hallmark Channel distraction for viewers who can't get enough of the yuletide spirit or remain incapacitated in front of a television due to the consumption of too much egg nog. However, it's not just another anodyne offering of cheer and romance, but something approaching a mild parody of such small screen comfort food. Screenwriters Barbara Kymlicka, Dan Lagana, and Vince Vaughn (who co-produces with Peter Billingsley) hope to add a streak of naughtiness to the proceedings, getting rascally with this take on small town Christmas experiences and relationship tentativeness. "Christmas with the Campbells" is a little too permissive with improvisation and crudeness, but there are laughs to be found in this bizarre mix of earnestness and silliness, and the cast comes ready to play. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Few filmmakers enjoyed a wilder career ride in the 1980s than Martin Brest. In 1982, the helmer was set to follow-up his 1979 offering, "Going in Style," with "WarGames," guiding the project through development and the beginning of principal photography. A few weeks into the shoot, Brest was fired, with his vision for the picture not matching up with producer and studio expectations. This would be a career-ending situation for most, but Brest endured such public humiliation, eventually securing work on "Beverly Hills Cop," which already went through pre-production woes and tonal hesitation. Under Brest's command, "Beverly Hills Cop" found its creative footing, becoming the highest-grossing movie of 1984, a year with an insane amount of hits. Brest went from being canned to becoming king in a matter of years, with all eyes on his follow-up project. 1988's "Midnight Run" wasn't nearly the hot release many expected it to become, but it capably sustained Brest's ability to manage action and comedy, aiming to do something dense yet approachable with the screenplay by George Gallo (who's been milking this credit for the last 35 years). There are hearty laughs and some thrills and chills in the effort, and Brest certainly has an advantage with his cast, with Robert De Niro refreshingly itchy and Charles Grodin capably dry as they take the lead roles, offering an appealingly strange take on buddy comedy chemistry while supporting players all find their grooves in this assembly of angry people and road trip antagonisms. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com