Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Robert Patrick has experienced an erratic career of highs and lows, and he spent most of the 1990s trying to find his place in the industry after scoring the role of a lifetime, portraying in unstoppable T-1000 in James Cameron's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." After reaching such a career triumph, Patrick became a working actor in need of employment, eventually finding his way to "Last Gasp," a strange 1995 DTV offering that blends indigenous tribal violence with a detective story, and one that also takes time to add some softcore sex scenes. Patrick puts in some effort, portraying a ruthless businessman undergoing a supernatural change, and he's the big draw of the endeavor, which often struggles to work up excitement over the lunacy it's selling. "Last Gasp" isn't a hoot, but it provides a few decent turns of plot to keep things passably interesting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In a slightly more playful mood, director Alain Payet strives to have a little fun with the oddities of the sex industry in 1975's "Prostitution Clandestine." Perhaps describing the endeavor as fun is overstating things slightly, but there's slightly less heaviness than "Furies Sexuelles," with Payet taking more of an episodic route with the feature, examining the experiences of photo models who also work as prostitutes, using this special cover to prevent exposure to authorities, leaving them at the mercy of the legal system. It's not exactly silly, but the Payet tries to keep things moving along, loading the effort with plenty of kinky connections and bedroom encounters, and its semi-lightness is welcoming. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1976's "Furies Sexuelles" is not a movie for a casual evening of adult entertainment. Director Alain Payet attempts to bring darkness to the picture, which concerns the psychological and physical destruction of a woman turning to prostitution to solve her financial problems, getting in too deep with distorted male sexuality and all the violence it contains. Payet endeavors to make a film that follows certain adult cinema demands, but he's also interested in creating a rough ride of kink play and disturbing behavior, offering more of a dramatic feature than one focused solely on titillation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Tom Paton has spent the last few years attempting to find his way through the film business with small-scale action and sci-fi endeavors ("Black Site," "G-Loc"), working with technology and small spaces to create escapism that favors some degree of excitement. With "400 Bullets," Paton (who also scripts) tries to remain earthbound, turning his attention to a double-cross story set during wartime troubles. The helmer wisely whittles down narrative complications to just a handful of pressure points, leaving the rest of the feature to mano a mano battles, shootouts, and light conversation. "400 Bullets" doesn't do anything new, but Paton handles familiar business with enthusiasm, looking to jazz up the norm with raw violence, eschewing tightly choreographed mayhem for screen hostility that reflects the urgent, confusing survival situation at hand. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Josh Becker aims to take his Hitchcock fandom to the next level in 1997's "Running Time," which attempts the same illusion of a long, single-take feature that was found in 1948's "Rope" (and various imitators). Instead of offering a dramatic examination of a crime, Becker and co-writer Peter Choi decide to put the audience into the middle of dangerous business, launching a real-time heist movie that follows star Bruce Campbell around the Los Angeles area, portraying a man with a plan facing an hour of his life where everything goes wrong. "Running Time" has an enticing gimmick, and it's superbly executed by Becker, who really sells the feeling of unbroken screen activity. It helps to have a supercharged premise filled with thinning patience and hostile characters, and when it's locked in suspense mode, the endeavor is riveting. Becker and Choi can't maintain such pace, even for a scant run time of 69 minutes, but they get the effort moving in a major way, earning viewer interest in the unfolding nightmare of mishaps. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1977's "Death Promise" is a martial arts-infused revenge story that might come across as very familiar to anyone who happens to be a fan of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." Perhaps the feature was a direct influence on the 2003 action bonanza, offering a similar tale of vengeance featuring an episodic climb to justice and a to-do list of targets, with the bad guys connected in a secretive chain of evildoing. It's easy to see how Tarantino improved on the idea, but "Death Promise" has a unique perspective of its own, examining the frustrations of life in New York City tenement buildings, where the poor live in squalor while rich landlords toy with the properties and the inhabitants. It's a terrific foundation for a ferocious thriller, and while the production can't exactly wind up all the way due to lack of filmmaking finesse and a lean budget, it does reasonably well as a B-movie offering of karate authority and inventive kills, giving the whole shebang some interesting enthusiasm. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The worlds of "Animal House" and slasher cinema collide in 1989's "Rush Week," which hopes to throw a big screen party while still tending to the slaughter of young characters. Screenwriters Russell V. Manzatt and Michael W. Leighton aren't invested in originality, dealing with sameness of suspects and a killer on the loose, but they have enthusiasm for genre filmmaking, creating a collection of odd personalities and professional drives, while Bralver (a longtime stunt man who worked on "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," "Road House," and "Battlestar Galactica") tries to make his feature-length directing debut something different, investing in as much style and physical activity as the limited budget allows. There's some genuine moviemaking hustle going on in "Rush Week," which isn't the norm for this type of entertainment, giving it a little extra emphasis while it manages horror formula. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After trying his luck with a more spectacle-oriented tale of a submarine disaster with 2018's "The Command" (a.k.a. "Kursk"), director Thomas Vinterberg returns to his indie roots with "Another Round." The filmmaker goes bleak with a story concerning four men and their abuse of alcohol for therapeutic purposes, creating a screenplay (with Tobias Lindholm) that examines the state of emotional stasis facing some middle-aged men, who play an extended game of justification just to feel again. Vinterberg make a semi-return to his Dogme 95 roots with the endeavor, going raw and real with the feature, which touches on a few areas of dark comedy before returning to the messiness of people dealing with personal issues and troubled relationships. In a career full of interesting movies, "Another Round" emerges as one of Vinterberg's finest efforts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Honor Killing" is a triple threat offering from Mercedes the Muse, who takes on directing, acting, and screenwriting duties, endeavoring to pay tribute to the underground cinema scene of the 1960s and '70s. She dreams up a revenge story to follow, and works with digital tinkering to create a "grindhouse" look to the film, which is meant to resemble a battered print. There's ambition to celebrate the power of feminist might in cult cinema, but Mercedes the Muse has no discernable artistic ability, content to make viewers suffer through the longest 67 minutes of their lives as she cooks up a dreary, incoherent, and amateurish picture about one woman's quest to kill all predatory men. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While 1985's "Barbarian Queen" was mostly an exercise to photograph topless women and stage swordfights, 1986's "Amazons" aims a little higher in the storytelling department. That's not to suggest producer Roger Corman is giving up his sexploitation ways, but the screenplay by Charles Saunders (adapting his own short story) tries to conjure a complex fantasy world to explore, laboring to become a "Lord of the Rings"-style epic on a meager Corman budget. "Amazons" is unexpectedly ambitious, but its imagination isn't always a participatory event, finding Saunders lost in own world- building while director Alejandro Sessa tries to make sense of it all, resulting in an intriguing but confusing odyssey into a sword-hunting, battle-ready Arthurian-tinged adventure that also makes time to watch actresses bathe. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Producer Roger Corman was never one to turn down a trend. For 1985's "Barbarian Queen," the idea was to ride the profitability of hits like "Conan the Barbarian" and "The Sword and the Sorcerer," with Corman launching his own line of warrior epics, this time selecting a female lead to help change the atmosphere of the picture. Star Lana Clarkson makes for an impressive hero in the feature, using his statuesque presence to liven up "Barbarian Queen," which dreams of becoming a violent tale of revenge and rescue, but lacks the cash to do something hugely impressive, forcing director Hector Olivera to scramble with limited resources. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Big Bust-Out" is a 1972 Italian production that found its way into the hands of Roger Corman. Sensing an opportunity to make a quick buck, Corman chopped over 20 minutes out of the movie and oversaw a marketing campaign that emphasized the film's displays of nudity, sexual assault, and action, attempting to lure exploitation fanatics into theaters. The idea was to add another "women in prison" picture to his growing roster of hits (joining titles such as "The Big Bird Cage" and "The Big Doll House") but Corman isn't working with homegrown material here. He's trying to transform "The Big Bust-Out" into a perfectly sleazy romp when the actual feature is more of a depressing viewing experience, highlighting all kinds of suffering and death, keeping things quite grim while the new edit gradually mangles the story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1883's "The Adventures of Pinocchio" is a beloved book from author Carlo Collodi, bringing a vivid tale of behavior and consequences to readers of all ages. It's also a public domain tale open to anyone with interest in adapting the work. Over the decades, numerous versions of the story have been manufactured for film, radio, television, and the stage, with no shortage of creative people looking to leave their fingerprints on Collodi's most famous creation. Perhaps sensing he has to come up with something memorable to compete in a crowded marketplace, co-writer/director Matteo Garrone ("Gomorrah") tries to respect the source material with his version of "Pinocchio," restoring Collodi's plotting and darkness while delivering a vivid study of animal kingdom activity. Those accustomed to the softness of previous takes might be overwhelmed by this picture, which is imaginatively made with amazing technical achievements, but not an endeavor that touches the heart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Graham Kolbeins finds an interesting subject matter for his documentary, "Queer Japan." He travels to the country to explore its burgeoning LGBTQ+ culture, getting past the image of a reserved, conservative Japan to detail the inner workings of what many hope is something of a revolution, offering an equal presence for all. Kolbeins captures the lives of those who crave the same ideal, exploring artists, politicians, and activists as they attempt to be seen in their own special ways. "Queer Japan" offers numerous interviews with a wide range of people, offering a heartfelt understanding of need and representation, with Kolbeins working to identify what makes these individuals and gatherings so special, offering exposure to subcultures previously concealed. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1982's "Nightbeast" was intended to be writer/director Don Dohler's return to sci-fi/horror after achieving some success with 1978's "The Alien Factor." Production challenges were plentiful, but Dohler managed to squeeze out another E.T.-on-the-loose adventure, this time focusing on action and sexploitation to keep audiences interested. As with "The Alien Factor," the appeal of "Nightbeast" isn't found with filmmaking polish, but general low- budget craziness, finding Dohler in an angrier mood this time around, ready to make something R-rated and ridiculous, offering scoring duties to a teenage J.J. Abrams, who comes armed with a synthesizer and a handful of genre ideas. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For his first screenplay, writer Ron Ford tries to get ambitious. For 1995's "The Fear," Ford hopes to examine the power of phobias and the pain of trauma, mixing deep-dive psychological scarring with the premise of a killer mannequin on the loose, attacking characters unwisely looking for a special weekend inside a cabin in the woods. There's one half of the picture that's aiming to be a sensitive study of broken people and their problems, and the other half is a slasher-style event featuring a menace carved out of magic wood. "The Fear" is definitely weird, and its level of oddness helps the viewing experience, as Ford struggles to create suspense with the effort, more interested in knotted character business than essential shock value. While some form of vision is there, keeping the feature compelling in a small way, the movie still struggles to define itself, with director Vincent Robert visibly struggling to manage a plethora of subplots, creating confusion along the way as the material throws a lot at the audience, hoping something will stick beyond the central image of a malevolent mannequin. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Forest" is a 1982 release looking to participate in the great horror movie gold rush of the early 1980s. Writer/director Don Jones collects a small amount of money and heads to the Sequoia National Park in California to create a genre picture that plays into slasher trends of the era, but also wants to try a few different ideas, including the addition of a ghost story to a tale of outdoor survival. Jones doesn't have the time or coin to provide hospital corners on the effort, which is prone to padding and pausing, but he has a strange vision for "The Forest" that's almost worth a sit, working to change a few elements of intimidation to help the material reach different areas of fear. That's not to suggest anything in the feature is suspenseful, but Jones takes a different route to scares at times, ending up with a lumpy oddity that merges the afterlife, cannibalism, and camping, making for a passable bottom shelf offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2016, there was so much pre-release hype collected over "Raw," which shocked some audience members to a point of physical illness during its film festival debut, offering the type of "dare to see it" publicity every movie studio dreams about. The reality is, "Raw" isn't that extreme, and those who embrace the horror genre on a regular basis are likely going to feel underwhelmed by the grisliness of the effort, which is regulated to only a few brief scenes. Thankfully, the rest of "Raw" is interesting enough to pass, with writer/director Julia Ducournau picking apart femininity and sexual awakening with this tale of cannibalism, constructing a stylish coming-of-age chiller that's big on bodily fluids and Italian cinema worship. The endeavor is certainly graphic, but it's also patient with its reveals, which doesn't always mesh with its shock value intent. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Widow" is a Russian film from director Ivan Minin, who oversees a dark journey into the thick of a Saint Petersburg forest, tracking the panic of a search and rescue team and their encounter with a dangerous spirit known as the "Lame Widow." The screenplay tries to summon a spooky mood for the picture, but it's pulling from a lot of different movies to do so, with "The Blair Witch Project" clearly an influence on the endeavor. It's difficult for a genre feature to emerge with complete originality, but "The Widow" isn't even trying at times, once again presenting a group of hapless victims who find themselves in deep in the middle of nowhere, fighting a force they don't understand. Minin isn't exactly making something special here, mostly concerned with creating any sort of fear factor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Filmmaker Stephane Riethauser offers personal therapy with "Madame," a documentary exploring his relationship with his grandmother, Caroline, identifying the parallel journey of their lives. It's a relationship saga first and foremost, but Riethauser is also using screen time to deal with his own baggage as a young man raised to fear his sexuality, which complicated a search for identity for decades. It's an intimate collection of feelings and desires, and "Madame" has a lot to say about the pain of conformity and the bravery of resistance, spotlighting a woman who managed to survive the stress of expectations, sharing wisdom with her beloved grandchild, who was right there with a video camera to capture their special relationship. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com