Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

"Stop-Zemlia" is a 2021 Ukrainian production that explores the world of teenagers facing the end of their adolescent experience. They're about to enter adulthood and all the confusion that inspires, still working out the finer points of communication and relationships as they endure days at school and nights of social gatherings. Writer/director Kateryna Gornostai departs from the usual routine of melodrama when it comes to the aching hearts of young people, arranging a docudrama feel to the endeavor, hoping to give it a more active sense of psychological inspection. Hallway aches and pains are present, but "Stop-Zemlia" offers different dramatic moves than most teen-centric offerings, setting a quieter mood of reflection and consideration as Gornostai hopes to make something human. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Long Walk" is an unusual feature from director Mattie Do ("Dearest Sister") and screenwriter Christopher Larsen. The story plays with time, establishing two experiences for the same character as he deals with life as he knows it and life as it once was, 50 years ago. It's a genre picture, but suspense isn't immediately identified, as Do takes the title to heart, enjoying the slow-burn nature of the tale, which is meant to sneak up on viewers. "The Long Walk" isn't ultimately effective as a chiller, but Do conjures some terrific atmosphere with the endeavor, and she has actor Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy, who delivers outstanding work in the lead role. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Slaughterhouse Rock" is an unusual title for a picture that offers very little music and spends limited time inside of a prison. However, it's catchy, and acquiring attention in any form is the goal of the production, with director Dimitri Logothetis ("Pretty Smart" and the recent Nicolas Cage actioner, "Jiu Jitsu") hoping to participate in the horror boom of the 1980s with this monster movie. "Slaughterhouse Rock" is the rare genre offering to open with some imagination and visual gusto before sliding into stasis during its second half, finding all the creature feature material less interesting than the nightmare realms Logothetis arranges for his introductions. The endeavor generally does away with clarity as it unfolds, but it manages to grab attention right away, which is enough to support the uneven viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's never a good sign when a film's origin story involves the development of 20 minutes of random footage into a full-length feature. 1985's "Hard Rock Zombies" was never meant to be seen in the traditional sense, originally created for use as a background visual in the little seen "American Drive-In," but director Krishna Shah had a change of heart, looking to join the horror gold rush of the 1980s with his own offering of MTV visuals and cartoonish violence involving the undead and, well, Nazis. He doesn't exactly have an idea of what he wants to do with "Hard Rock Zombies," but Shah is doing it anyways, coming up with a barely coherent comedy that delivers a few gore zone visits and plenty of musical performances, turning this endeavor into a particularly dark and unfunny episode of "The Monkees." Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The "Airport" series made a lot of money for Universal, who managed to stretch such profit potential over a decade. They churned out four installments of air disaster melodrama, finally putting the franchise to bed with 1979's "The Concorde – Airport '79." 1980's "Airplane!" managed to find an audience with its parody of "Airport" and similar disaster endeavors, successfully pantsing such formula and ridiculousness. However, there was still Hollywood interest in the details of mid-air danger, with 1983's "Starflight One" striving to best the competition by taking its unfolding nightmare into space while still adhering to audience expectations for this ensemble effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1989's "Slash Dance" (or "Slashdance," depending on the day, apparently) is an eye-catching title for a feature that struggles to hold viewer attention. The movie isn't a slasher experience in any traditional sense, and stage performance is limited to repetitive scenes of rehearsal. Writer/director James Shyman isn't entirely invested in any single idea for the production, electing to make something kinda-sorta campy and possibly menacing, with perhaps some action here and there. "Slash Dance" isn't confusing, but it doesn't try to do anything specific, with Shyman most interested in keeping his camera trained on actresses in tight dance gear. The potential for an exploitation romp is there, but the helmer doesn't have the energy to transform the material into a proper diversion. It's more of a filmed community theater production, sure to disappoint those expecting a more robust horror event. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Project Space 13" is possibly a comedy about the performance art world, but it's difficult to know exactly where director Michael M. Bilandic is hoping to accomplish with this production. There's a game cast and a setting that explores the dual experience of a world gone mad and an artistic vision disrupted, but laughs aren't readily apparent in the picture and a more dramatic journey isn't welcome. Bilandic puts as much as he can onscreen, ending up with a 66-minute-long study of pretentiousness and paranoia in the COVID-19 world that would've been better served in short film form. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Signal: The Movie" is a continuation of a Japanese television show that was originally created in South Korea. The programs are available on streaming channels, and watching them is sure to provide some much needed context as to what it going on. "Signal: The Movie" tends to throw viewers into the middle of the ongoing narrative, but it does clarify the premise of the series, where Sergeant Ooyama (Kazuki Kitamura) from the past magically connects with Lieutenant Saegusa (Kentaro Sakaguchi) of the present via a battery-less two-way radio. It's a police procedural meets "Frequency," with the big screen take basically resembling an episode of television entertainment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2006's "Pathogen" puts a film critic in quite a precarious position. On one hand, the movie is created by 12-year-old Emily Hagins, who pours her love of cinema, especially horror pictures, into the making of this no-budget production. On the other hand, the movie is made by a pre-teen perhaps unprepared for the technical challenges of the process. "Pathogen" is a riff on zombie outbreak endeavors, this time taking the action to the suburbs of Austin, TX, where the undead are rising, putting five middle-schoolers in a difficult position to save the world. It's a backyard effort from Hagins, who's sincere in her quest to follow her dream and realize her screenplay, but it's hard to imagine this feature being of any interest to someone who doesn't have a personal connection to the helmer. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2003's "The Core" aims to participate in the supercharged disaster movie movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s, where productions such as "Armageddon" and "The Perfect Storm" offered audiences the sheer power of visual effects, making an enormous amount of money in the process. With the dangers of space, sea, and land already explored on multiple occasions, screenwriters Cooper Layne and John Rogers aim to come up with something different, conjuring a doomsday scenario involving the center of the Earth. "The Core" hopes to be sincere with its science and characterization, which is laudable, but it's much more entertaining when it ventures into ridiculousness, trying to sell a nutty concept for planetary rescue while offering up the usual in disparate personalities and sequences of destruction. It's not a picture that welcomes a deeper inspection of scientific and technological particulars, but director Jon Amiel ("Entrapment," "Sommersby") gets the whole thing up and running with impressive speed, trying to build momentum capable of plowing through the layers of weirdness this endeavor provides. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Women in prison pictures already contain elements that border on parody, but co-writer/director Tom DeSimone offers a comedic take on the harsh realities of such an experience with 1986's "Reform School Girls." A veteran of two similar features ("Prison Girls" and "The Concrete Jungle"), DeSimone loses patience with playing it straight, going a bit wild with this offering of juvenile delinquency and institutional madness. The camp factor is dialed up just a bit from the usual women in prison routine, but it's clear DeSimone is trying to have fun with this one, playing to his appreciative audience with grand displays of overacting, intimidation, and chaos, endeavoring to throw a screen party with the movie, which plays right into cult film sensibilities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Masters of (many) disasters, Cannon Films wanted in on the growing trend of slasher movies, trying to make some "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" money with their own take on the horrors of mystery killers and the victims they hate. For 1980's "Schizoid," producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus turned to writer/director David Paulsen to come up with something scary and sellable, with the helmer already practiced in the subgenre, previously creating 1979's "Savage Weekend." Paulsen had mere weeks to come up with a workable screenplay for his latest endeavor, and speedy creative process shows in "Schizoid," which is more about select scenes of mental illness than a deeply considered whodunit. Paulsen has the basic shape of a decent shocker, but he gradually pulls pacing out of the effort, which grinds to a full stop on multiple occasions, creating a disappointingly dull viewing experience with extraordinary little power as a fright film. Unless you count actor Klaus Kinski's handsy approach to his visibly uneasy female co-stars. That's pretty horrifying. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Masters of (many) disasters, Cannon Films wanted in on the growing trend of slasher movies, trying to make some "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" money with their own take on the horrors of mystery killers and the victims they hate. 1983's "X-Ray" brings a nightmare scenario to a hospital setting, with Playboy Playmate Barbie Benton hired to portray a woman experiencing a night of horrors as a simple trip for test results turns into a game of manipulation and survival. "X-Ray" is a cheapie and a quickie from director Boaz Davidson and writer Marc Behm, who have a mission to make something scary and simple for producers Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, but they can't even get that right with this clumsy take on obsession and murder. The production manages to come up with some sense of style during the knowingly precise 90-minute run time, but suspense isn't invited to this endeavor, which mostly exists to prey on genre fans up for anything that involves occasional ultraviolence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In his quest to become part of the action movie movement of the early 1990s, producer/co-star Jalal Merhi returns with 1992's "Talons of the Eagle," which strives to give viewers a swift, slamming offering of physical harm and dented heroism, while a buddy cop film attempts to break out every now and then. Director Michael Kennedy is in charge of this picture, and his vision is simple, endeavoring to put Merhi and co-star Billy Blanks (the Tae Bo king) into some sense of danger every ten minutes, forcing the characters to fight their way out of trouble. "Talons of the Eagle" isn't complex, but that's what makes it mostly appealing, watching the production set limited creative goals as it concentrates on feats of strength and self-defense. It's a fun sit, but it definitely requires a general relaxation of expectations when it comes to thespian skill and spectacle, with the feature happy to get away with the least amount of effort at times, trusting in body blows to guide the viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While there have been a few lengthy explorations of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, "Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street" doesn't have much interest in the screen wrath and pop culture influence of Freddy Krueger. Instead, filmmakers Roman Chimienti and Tyler Jensen quest to spotlight the life of Mark Patton, the star of 1985's "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge," who was set to hit the big time with his turn as Jesse, the boy tormented by the razor-fingered menace, only to find himself crucified by viewers for the gay overtones of the movie created by screenwriter David Chaskin. Patton was destroyed by the experience, erasing his desire to continue acting, but "Freddy's Revenge" wouldn't go away, growing in popularity and analysis as the years passed, giving the feature a second life, while Patton was singled out as the first male scream queen, complicating his relationship with a despised horror sequel he thought would rocket him to the big time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Few filmmakers have enjoyed a creative streak like Dario Argento, who found his footing with 1975's "Deep Red" and tore through a series of murder mysteries, supernatural horror, and surreal freak-outs for the next 12 years, creating movies with incredible visual power and genre authority. 1985's "Phenomena" arrives just before Argento lost his way, acting a potent reminder of his talents during his heyday, merging growing Americanization with his Italian filmmaking instincts, coming up with a completely bizarre but terrifically nutso chiller that somehow incorporates insect friendship, heavy metal, family woes, and a knife-wielding chimpanzee without falling apart. It's the Argento way, and he scores with this intensely atmospheric and brazenly bananas serial killer story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When 1982's "The Sword and the Sorcerer" went into production, the plan was to put the film together quickly, on a mission to beat "Conan the Barbarian" to theaters, hoping to siphon some ticket sales from the big Universal release. The scheme worked, helping the picture achieve box office glory in a way few could've imagined, making it the 18th highest grossing feature of the year (just below, wait for it, "Conan the Barbarian"), doing its part to make the sword and sorcery subgenre a powerful draw at theaters, at least for a brief period of time. The actual quality of "The Sword and the Sorcerer" is debatable, as co-writer/director Albert Pyun tries to keep his low-budget endeavor together for most of the run time, managing monetary limitations and storytelling disappointments as he attempts to make a grimy swashbuckler that often takes on more than it can handle. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1988's "The American Scream" is frequently compared to "Troll 2" by horror fans, with the pictures sharing a love for…well, production completion. Logic isn't a guest at this table, and while "Troll 2" conjures its own sense of insanity, "The American Scream" barely comes together as a complete idea. Writer/director Mitchell Linden wanted to make a genre film, and he has one with the endeavor, but he forgets to add important things like coherency and pacing to the effort, which often plays like collection of R-rated ideas thrown together without much in the way of planning. Linden has gore, nudity, and characters in dangerous situations, but it's difficult to find the rhythm of the film, which is loaded with filler and whiplash-inducing tonal changes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Charles Pinion made a weird movie in 1993's "Red Spirit Lake," paying passable attention to storytelling needs as he worked in many fetishes and freak-outs, hoping to pay his respects to the great gods of underground cinema. 1996's "We Await" mostly does away with a traditional plot to keep viewers in the toxic sludge of mental illness, with Pinion striving to melt a few brains with this endeavor, which combines the power of crystals, the wonders of cannibalism, and penis torture in a surprisingly sluggish 54-minute-long run time. And there's a giant, obese Jesus attacking a car worked into the mix, because why not? Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Charles Pinion attempts to conjure a special sinister mood with 1993's "Red Spirit Lake." It's an offering of underground cinema that's captured on video, with Pinion striving to create a disturbing viewing experience involving elements of evil in a rural setting. It's not exactly a fresh take on the same old hellraising, but the helmer hopes to darken the endeavor with grisly acts of violence and focus on torture, sold with surreal touches and defined moments of shock value. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com