Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

It's impossible to imagine at this point in its extensive exhibition and home video journey, but, in 1995, "Showgirls" was a very big deal and an extremely serious motion picture. Coming off the astonishing success of their smoldering thriller, "Basic Instinct," director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas paired up again to investigate that abyssal trench of sin: Las Vegas. Presented with a hefty budget, an eye-catching cast, and a no-questions-asked use of the NC-17 rating by a major studio, "Showgirls" was ready to break new ground in adult-minded cinema, making sex a major moviegoing event. But we all know how that turned out. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1961's "Gorgo" is largely remembered as the giant monster movie with a heart. There's plenty of destruction in the feature, and even human death, but the production attempts to soften kaiju motivation, making the film more about an angry mother than a more traditional raging beast. Directed by Eugene Lourie, "Gorgo" has a unique personality and interesting locations, taking the action to an Irish island before unleashing mayhem in London, and, as giant monster entertainment goes, there's some inviting man-in-suit work and miniature construction, acting to balance out some of the cruder special effects of the day. The endeavor certainly loses any sense of timing in the final act, but Lourie has command over the tone of the effort, creating genuinely compelling chaos in a subgenre that's often loaded with more generic pandemonium. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1989 was an incredible year for filmgoing, but it was also a strange year for releases. Suddenly, various producers and studios wanted to participate in a type of gold rush, with tales of horror and mystery involving an underwater setting all the rage. This wasn't a usual situation of competing productions (e.g. an "Antz" vs. "A Bug's Life" showdown), but a semi-quarterly event for movie theaters and video stores. The big one was James Cameron's masterful "The Abyss," which had a major budget and full studio support, gunning to be one of the major triumphs of a highly competitive summer. However, other efforts emerged, trying to capture the same audience, with "Deep Star Six," "Leviathan," and "The Evil Below" all attempting to bring the dangers of deep water to viewers perhaps slightly confused as to why there was suddenly a stampede of aquatic endeavors demanding their attention. Never one to leave a dime behind, producer Roger Corman wanted in on the trend, offering "Lords of the Deep" to the masses. Corman being Corman, little money has been spent on the feature, which boasts the talents of people involved with "Aliens" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" to deliver special effects, coming up with a small-scale understanding of an alien visitation, mixed with a little corporate menace. "Lords of the Deep" is very silly, but director Mary Ann Fisher (this being her sole helming credit) at least tries to do something with what little she has to work with, trying to summon suspense with minor moments of alarm, gradually building to a sci-fi payoff that's hilariously short on epic qualities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

If 1992's "Dr. Giggles" wasn't enough of a shocking viewing experience, die-hard horror fans are offered a slightly similar endeavor in 1995's "Sawbones," a Roger Corman production that originally aired on Showtime. Once again, there's a madman with daddy issues targeting special victims used for surgical purposes, with the creep indulging an interest in body horror to scratch a highly specific itch of human suffering. The pictures aren't identical, but they share the same idea, with "Sawbones" trying to be more of a detective story, setting up a young office clerk with instincts for investigation and the fatigued cop who's one step behind the carnage. The screenplay by Sam Montgomery ("U-571," "Breakdown") makes some effort to be a twisty, tortured chiller highlighting frustrated characters dealing with their issues in all the wrong ways, but director Catherine Cyran ("The Prince & Me II: Royal Wedding," "The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon," and "The Prince & Me: The Elephant Adventure") goes the B-movie route with the film. The helmer keeps the feature crude and deflated when it comes to suspense, and she's also struggling to fill the run time, padding the event with lengthy surgical nightmare sequences that always bring the tale to a full stop. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Teen horndog cinema goes to the afterlife in 1985's "School Spirit." Or, at least some of the way there. It's a ghost story from screenwriter Geoffrey Baere, who isn't making a horror film, but something incredibly sillier, using the post-death experience of a college student to dream up all kinds of high jinks, slapstick confrontations, and opportunities for nudity, trying to do his part for producer Roger Corman and his interest in the R-rated adolescent comedy market. "School Spirit" has everything one expects from this type of production, but there's a distinct lack of likability with the lead character and his strange determination to treat people like garbage, with Baere looking to make the man a hero of sorts. It's the first of many creative miscalculations with this feature, which isn't nearly as fun as it should be, caught trying to be a party animal movie without putting in the time to generate endearing goons to cheer on. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

War is Hell. And it's potentially profitable for moviemakers. Stepping away from their usual "mockbuster" routine (including "Top Gunner," "Planet Dune," "Battle Star Wars," and "Independents' Day"), production company The Asylum looks to celebrate U.S.A. heroism in World War II with "Assault on Hill 400," which attempts to recreate the spirit of an endeavor from the 1940s, but retains the appearance of a low-budget effort from 2023. Director Christopher Ray ("3-Headed Shark Attack," "Dick Dickster") and writer George Clymer ("The Rebels of PT-218") strive to offer a respectful understanding of military danger and camaraderie, and that intent gets the movie to a certain level of engagement. However, silliness is unavoidable with some creative choices, and the general backyard atmosphere of "Assault on Hill 400" doesn't provide an epic cinematic quality to help bring the story to life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Anthology horror comes to the world of shot-on-video entertainment with 1997's "Guilty Pleasures." Directors Joe Zaso and Joseph F. Parda bring a pair of short stories to life with "Nocturnal Emissions" and "Method to the Madness," which lean toward a "Twilight Zone"-style approach to twists and terror, but mostly serve as a way for the helmers to celebrate the work of Dario Argento and deliver some sexploitation. It's a double feature of sorts, but the material certainly doesn't earn the run time, with the filmmakers generally ignoring the art of editing as they drag out simple ideas for psychological breakdowns, believing the longer the movie, the better it is. That's not the case here, as some genuine SOV ambition is slowly buried by punishing overlength. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Brad Sykes goes the shot-on-video route with "The Pact," which was created in 1995 and released in 2013. It's a ghost story in a way, with the tale examining a young woman's experience with an inherited house, trying to learn more about its previous inhabitant and her own family history with the property. Sykes isn't too ambitious with the endeavor, aiming to keep things modest in terms of story and scares. There are technical limitations as well, with the push to be spooky greatly diminished by the severely limited look of the movie, which resembles a student project. "The Pact" isn't frightening, but worse, it's not interesting, as Sykes is simply trying to put the effort together, not refine it in any way, leading to a glacial viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Horror doesn't have a home, but it has a vacation destination in Florida, with the state providing a setting for genre moviemakers to raise some hell. It's been going on for over 60 years, and perhaps nobody has noticed, but director Sean Donohue is eager to identify such a legacy with his documentary, "Blood, Guts, and Sunshine," which explores the history of the Florida horror scene and identifies many of its participants, looking to boost awareness of filmmakers and films that aren't known beyond cult appreciation, and even that's a stretch for some of these titles. Donohue is serious about his details, asking viewers to spend 127 minutes on the topic, winding through the years as he highlights certain creative achievements and the behind-the-scenes characters that bring them to life. It's a wild ride for about an hour, with fatigue eventually overtaking the viewing experience as self-promotion starts to seep into the feature. Donohue still has plenty of highlights to share about the state and its participation in genre events, offering just enough interesting information to pass. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The world is in ruins in 2003's "Sixteen Tongues," but we don't get to see it. It's a shot-on-video production from writer/director Scooter McCrae, and he doesn't have the money to explore just how awful things have become for humanity. Instead, he remains in the tight confines of hotel rooms with the picture, which follows three characters in extreme states of agitation, each dealing with their own psychological and corporeal corruption as they navigate a corrosive reality that's soaked in pornography. "Sixteen Tongues" has some ambition to be wild with characters and explicit with its visuals, but it's hard to shake the inertia of the endeavor, with McCrae trying to stretch what appears to be an idea built for a short film into a feature-length presentation of madness. Some spikes of extremity work as intended, but the helmer doesn't have enough story to carry the viewing experience, and the general vibe of the shot-on-video effort tends to register more as a private fetish video than a bold creative statement. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1990's "Undeclared War" is something of a take on "The Day of the Jackal," with the material exploring the ways of an assassin and his elusive presence on the international scene, inspiring law enforcement types to find him before he kills again. There's an opening for a political thriller, but director Ringo Lam doesn't have the patience for that, going after big action and short tempers with the endeavor. Guns blaze in "Undeclared War," which has a defined villain and a clear quest for its protagonist, and the violence of the feature is periodically thrilling, sold with attention to mayhem and bodily destruction. Dramatically, the effort lacks focus, dealing with cop cliches and a tangled sense of allegiances, with the central drive for a revenge story losing its potency as the movie makes its way through an overlong tale of rage and terrorism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

We all know the story. In 1975, "Jaws" was released, becoming a box office sensation, thrilling summer audiences with spills and chills, rich characterization, and a premise virtually guaranteeing a thrill ride at the theater. The movie helped to change the way Hollywood did business, and it introduced the world to the directorial mastery of Steven Spielberg. The classic's legacy carries on to this day, with rereleases common and merchandise plentiful, giving generational lift to the endeavor, which has been a popular, in-demand feature for nearly 50 years. Global film industries took notice, and they quickly began work on knockoffs, desperate to sweep up the coins Universal Pictures left behind when dealing with the unexpected explosion of "Jaws"-mania. 1979's "Crocodile" (a.k.a. "Crocodile Fangs") is a Korean-Thai production hoping to bring monster-from-the- deep energy to the screen once again, this time using a giant reptile juiced up on atomic radiation to bring horror to fishing communities. "Crocodile" has more in common with "Godzilla," but finding a specific moviemaking approach to this absolute mess of a picture is the real viewing challenge here, with the effort sloppily stitching together vague story ideas and not-really-special effects with hopes that something resembling a coherent product will materialize in the end. It doesn't. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

High school can be a special time for some students. It can be Hell on Earth for others. For creators Ethan Eng and Justin Morrice, life in Cawthra Secondary School is somewhere in the middle, with the teenagers looking to capture their final year of education and camaraderie by showcasing the "truth about high school," with "Therapy Dogs" sold to staff and students as a "senior video" project, allowing them to roam the halls with cameras. It's a simple idea, but a question of reality remains with the endeavor, which isn't a documentary and doesn't qualify as drama, with the feature primarily built out of horseplay and staged incidents. There's no profound understanding of adolescence, and artfulness is limited at best, with Eng and Morrice basically making a skateboard video with occasional breaks for honest observation, trying to sell a scattered, occasionally tedious study of low impulse control as an epic examination of what it's like to grow up, get real, and enjoy one last year of educational and social opportunities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1980's "Motel Hell" entered the box office race at a special time in horror history, trying to find an audience for the Halloween holiday after "Friday the 13th" managed to dominate the early summer, inspiring studios to scramble for similar low-budget endeavors. Writers Robert and Steven-Charles Jaffe weren't looking to crank out yet another slasher offering with the picture, trying to infuse the material with as much humor as they could get away with, delivering a screen nightmare that's more about oddity than offing victims. Studio interests eventually tried to bend "Motel Hell" into a more generic direction, but the feature, while not really a laugh-out-loud viewing experience, is quite inventive in the ghoulishness department, representing a last gasp of storytelling eccentricity before the industry demanded nothing but "Friday the 13th" knockoffs. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Jessie Ventura went from being a professional wrestling personality to being an actor, and during his transition phase, "The Body" managed to find himself acting alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. The pair made a fine mess of things in 1987's "Predator" and "The Running Man," and while Ventura was regulated to supporting roles, he managed to make an impression with his size and steely line delivery. Ventura's dramatic career didn't exactly take off, but he was offered a chance to follow in Schwarzenegger's footsteps, with 1990's "Abraxas: Guardian of the Universe" giving him a chance to play a "Terminator"-type, stepping into the role of an alien cop on the hunt for a villain looking for ultimate power in a tiny New York town during the Christmas season. Helping to reinforce the mood is the casting of Sven-Ole Thorsen as the villain, who also worked alongside Schwarzenegger (even doing time on "Predator" and "The Running Man"), giving the production a battle of size to go along with writer/director Damian Lee's vision for sci- fi/action entertainment. "Abraxas" is a little too knotted with terms and fantasy touches, especially when Lee barely has money to make the movie, but as an offering of bottom shelf entertainment, one could do worse than a weirdly detailed battle for the future highlighting bulky characters and their struggles with chases, showdowns, and enunciation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

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