Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Kinks and murder compete for screen attention in 1974's "Help Me…I'm Possessed," which isn't completely committed to a story of the supernatural or monster happenings, preferring to spend more time with bluntly photographed scenes of suffering. It's an odd one from director Charles Nizet, who aims to use weird science as a way into a creature feature of sorts, with the mystery ghoul depicted as a batch of wet licorice strings coming after innocent and not-so-innocent souls. There's entertainment value in that alone, making one wonder why Nizet works so hard to make his ridiculous story seem important. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1972's "The Night of the Strangler" doesn't feature a single strangulation. There's a drowning, a snake bite, several shootings, and even a Monkee, but nobody is murdered via strangulation. So why the title? A marketing hook is the most likely answer, promising ticket-buyers a chance to watch gruesome acts of death executed by a variety of killers. Sadly, "The Night of the Strangler" isn't a lurid production sliding neatly into grindhouse-style entertainment, but something a bit more static from director Joy N. Houck Jr., who battles inert storytelling while the writing actually touches on some interesting ideas concerning racism. Strangulation fans will have to seek their thrills elsewhere. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1970's "Carnival of Blood" is a maddeningly repetitive, low-budget shocker from director Leonard Kirtman. The helmer has access to select areas of a carnival and a loose idea for a horror movie, trying to present a ghoulish study of mental illness and male rage. However, if there's an idea here for genre entertainment, it's buried under pure padding, with Kirtman working especially hard to get "Carnival of Blood" to 90 minutes, offering viewers the tedium of various real time events. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2007, writer/director Michael Dougherty set out to redefine Halloween horror with "Trick 'r Treat," a clever anthology effort that emphasized eeriness over pounding terror. For his follow-up, the helmer looks to shake up another holiday with "Krampus," a Christmas-set chiller providing scares for the season of giving. Again avoiding cheap thrills, Dougherty creates an entertaining monster mash with the picture, which blends yuletide sensitivities involving dysfunctional families and the wrath of ghoulish creatures. Strangely, the production doesn't aim to create a roller coaster ride of oddity, preferring to step carefully with its genre offerings, leaving the endeavor feeling slack at crucial moments, but it's still satisfying overall. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"National Lampoon's Animal House" was released in July 1978, and went on to become a massive success, delighting audiences with its raunchy sense of humor and nostalgic groove. It was the second highest grossing picture of the year (coming in below "Grease" and above "Jaws 2"), putting National Lampoon in a unique position of power, capable of doing anything they wanted to with their follow-up project. The company had a prime opportunity to showcase their talents, creativity, and abundant supply of mischief. And so they made 1982's "National Lampoon's Movie Madness" (a.k.a. "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies," with this title still included on art in the feature), which is a complete and utter dud, even shelved for over a year while studio executives decided how to deal with a surefire bomb. Whatever audience goodwill developed with "Animal House" was wiped out by "Movie Madness" (and 1982's equally lame, "National Lampoon's Class Reunion"), which is shockingly awful at times, with the end product resembling a production largely fueled by cocaine (this was actually the case) and zero vision for what this oddball collection of non-ideas was supposed to be. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1995, "Outbreak" was rushed into release, hoping to capitalize on growing interest in deadly virus stories. It was a Hollywood production meant to frighten and thrill a mass audience, and it found its way to box office domination, giving viewers a glimpse of body horrors from the comfort of a multiplex seat. 1996's "Ebola Syndrome" isn't nearly as polished or interested in charming outsiders, launching a tale about a horrible man doing horrible things while a horrible virus spreads across the land. Director Herman Yau delivers a big-time mess with the feature, which revels in ugliness, living up to is "Category III" classification with a steady display of contemptible and murderous human behavior, also showing just as much enthusiasm for gore zone visits, going splatter-esque with its vision for bloody encounters. "Ebola Syndrome" is a blunt instrument, but when Yau isn't indulging his taste for screen chaos, he manages to provide a decent detective story at times, keeping things clear enough for recognizable conflicts to materialize, but only for brief amounts of time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Frida Kempff doesn't simply want to revive the Hitchcock experience with "Knocking," though she doesn't turn down any opportunities for suspense. It's a simple premise concerning a woman haunted by unexplained noises in her apartment, but Kempff and writer Emma Brostrom strive to make a meaningful study of trauma and manipulation from a feminine perspective with "Knocking," adding as much subtext as possible without sacrificing the escalating tension of the picture, which is an effective offering of freak-out cinema. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When a small collection of indie filmmakers started making hits in the early 1990s, it created a gold rush for small-time producers hoping to bring oddball projects to the screen. The success of Quentin Tarantino and the Miramax Films team is clearly evident in 1996's "The Grave," with co-writers Josh and Jonas Pate (who also directs) cooking up a twisty, violent, and loquacious thriller that's also greatly influenced by the Coen Brothers and their particular way of bringing low-key insanity to a seemingly simple situation. The Pates pay careful attention to character and language with their endeavor, their first moviemaking opportunity, and that hunger to impress is the most memorable element in an otherwise adequate picture that's almost undone by obvious casting and one too many turns after a decent first act of intriguing introductions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Scooter McCrae has some big ideas to help fill his filmmaking debut, 1994's "Shatter Dead," and he keeps all of them to himself. This is McCrae's take on the zombie genre, only instead of flesh-munching monsters, the undead are basically the same as before, scattered across rural New York like homeless people, trying to live their best life without actually living. It's a concept with promise, but McCrae is too busy trying to impress viewers with his Euro-cinema influences, going abstract with his collection of visuals and scenes. The movie opens with a bewildering moment that has nothing to do with the rest of the endeavor, and "Shatter Dead" doesn't really improve from there. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Censor" brings viewers to a time when the British Board of Film Classification went to war with "Video Nasties," or graphic genre offerings that were subjected to intense scrutiny, edits, and even rejection. Co-writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond has something original and wonderfully specific with this idea, but she's not interested in pursuing the numbing experiences of a censor, aiming to make a horror movie with the premise, which isn't nearly as compelling as a study of a moral high ground and extreme filmmaking content. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To help boost box office potential for 1988's "Too Beautiful to Die," the feature was marketed as a sequel to 1985's "Nothing Underneath." While both endeavors explore the world of modeling and all the horrors it contains, "Too Beautiful to Die" isn't a follow-up, offering its own journey into darkness of human behavior. The first film was a Brian De Palma tribute, and the second one becomes more of a Dario Argento experience, with heaping helpings of Alfred Hitchcock tributes added for flavor. It's also more of a giallo, tracking a crisis involving the well-being of professionally pretty people and the black-gloved killer trying to do them all harm with a comically exaggerated weapon. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Repeated throughout the supplementary features on the "Nothing Underneath" Blu-ray is the production's quest to replicate Brian De Palma's 1984 thriller, "Body Double." Director Carlo Vanzina isn't messing around with this tribute to the filmmaker paying tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, hiring "Body Double" composer Pino Donaggio to replicate his score, going the sound-alike route to maximize the mood, and harsh violence is awfully familiar, slipping into Dario Argento territory. 1985's "Nothing Underneath" is an adaptation of a book by Marco Parma, but it's not big on originality, trying to deliver expected acts of horror and seduction to best capture audience interest. Vanzina isn't De Palma, but he assembles a functional chiller with the déjà vu endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1989's "The Laughing Dead" wasn't exactly created by amateurs, but the production comes close. Involving numerous first-time filmmakers and a cast of acting novices, the picture looks to generate a decent screen nightmare involving dreamscape horrors, Aztec brutality, and demonic visitation. Writer/director Somtow Sucharitkul has something big in mind with his helming debut, but he's not big on tight pacing, allowing "The Laughing Deal" to stand around for about 40 minutes before it gets something going with gruesome events. It's a patience-tester, but the endeavor finally gets around to conjuring some blood-and-guts mayhem, creating a climax that's almost worth the long journey there. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A $55,000 budget doesn't buy much, and such financial limitations are on display in 1982's "Trick or Treats," which is writer/director Gary Graver's chance to participate in and lampoon the horror gold rush of the decade. It's a cheap chiller from the Orson Welles collaborator/adult film helmer, who's basically trying to slap together a simple slasher offering for the masses, putting very little thought into the details of the production. "Trick or Treats" isn't scary, but it's not always trying to creep viewers out, remaining in a weird holding pattern around potential areas of entertainment, determined to be about nothing when more ambitious writing could make something out of this weirdly inert endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Shit & Champagne" originated on stage, with writer/director/star D'Arcy Drollinger hoping to offer audiences a wild ride with a drag-themed superspy parody that took on corporate culture and weird relationships. Feeling ambitious, Drollinger takes his writing to the big screen with a slicker version of "Shit & Champagne," offering a cinematic take on an unfortunate title and big comedy energy, securing a significant amount of broadness to best support this exhaustively silly endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Raya Martin tries to reconnect with his past in "Death of Nintendo." It's a coming-of-age dramedy, and a particularly soft one at that, with Martin and screenwriter Valerie Castillo Martinez delivering a minor adventure through adolescence with characters craving different experiences. The gaming of the title is present for the '90s time period, giving viewers a few chances to fondly recall lost afternoons of console competition, but "Death of Nintendo" aims to be as human as possible when dealing with the tender emotions and universal experiences of childhood. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Warner Brothers went hunting for another kooky, crazy horror-esque comedy with 1991's "Nothing but Trouble," hoping to deliver another "Beetlejuice" with its blend of nightmarish imagery and slapstick encounters. The studio gave writer/director Dan Aykroyd a lot of money to bring his vision to life, entrusting the "Ghostbusters" architect to create an approachable viewing experience for a wide audience, believing in his bottomless imagination for the bizarre. What eventually made its way to theaters is a feature that's certainly out of its mind, with Aykroyd manufacturing a bizarre endeavor that revels in weirdness, offering unsettling extremity with what appears to be the helmer's idea of a live-action cartoon. "Nothing but Trouble" ultimately bombed at the box office, but the movie remains a highly curious blend of wacky creative decisions and lumpy funny business. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1973's "Flesh for Frankenstein" offers writer/director Paul Morrissey an opportunity to play with genre elements and wiggle out of past collaborator Andy Warhol's shadow, turning this take on Mary Shelley's original novel into a slightly campy, mostly sexualized celebration of gore and broad acting. A battle is being waged between seriousness and silliness during the run time, with Morrissey enjoying the messiness of it all, looking to provoke viewers with a presentation of artful madness that's incredibly well-constructed, with outstanding technical achievements helping to support unsteady storytelling and performances. It doesn't always connect, but "Flesh for Frankenstein" is certainly memorable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director John Wintergate had a dream, looking to join the horror movie gold rush of the early 1980s with his own take on bodily destruction. The problem was, Wintergate didn't have money for film, electing to use video equipment instead, taking advantage of new leaps in technology. The result is 1983's "Boardinghouse," which has branded itself the first theatrical feature to be shot on video and released on 35mm, hoping to give audiences a decidedly muddy looking ride into the powers of telekinesis and the "Amityville Horror"-ish activity of a cursed house hungry for new victims to slaughter. Wintergate has all the ambition in the world, even starring in the endeavor, alongside his wife, Kalassu, but his aspiration doesn't translate to a riveting effort filled with style and cleverness. "Boardinghouse" is junky and often irritatingly random, with Wintergate trying to make sense of his own footage at times, putting his faith in creepy events and bloodshed to help viewers work through often incomprehensible creative decisions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Quentin Dupieux was recently seen on American screens with "Deerskin," his ode to strange masculinity, insanity, and filmmaking. It was another creative success for the helmer, who enjoys the playfulness of absurdity, asking viewers to hang tight as he creates unusual dark comedies with deliberate pacing and plenty of surprises. Produced before "Deerskin," "Keep an Eye Out" is a Dupieux offering finally making its way to the U.S., giving fans a chance to catch up with the creator's oeuvre as he pursues a consistent moviemaking rhythm (his latest, "Mandibles," was released in the U.S. last summer). "Keep an Eye Out" is perhaps his most contained endeavor, largely taking place inside a police station, but it retains all the delightful mischief Dupieux is known for. He masterminds an especially long night of interrogation for a cop and a suspect, working with a limited space and budget superbly, conjuring a fascinating game of panic that triggers big laughs and a few gasps along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com