Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

In 1973, the state of the teen movies was still being defined. After time with juvenile delinquent and party time endeavors, the subgenre enjoyed a major evolution in the 1970s, with "Jeremy" part of a movement to make pictures for younger audiences about the highs and low of being young. Writer/director Arthur Barron looks to create something intimate with the endeavor, using his experience in documentary filmmaking to capture the nuances of new love as it develops over a few weeks, marrying such excitement with the bustle of life in the center of New York City. Barron's efforts are helped by his eye for casting, with Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor providing startlingly unaffected performances, capturing raw emotion the helmer is hoping to communicate. "Jeremy" is simple, comfortable in its limited storytelling goals, with Barron looking to replicate a specific feeling of awakening hormones and new encounters, and he manages to do so with unsettling authenticity at times. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While credited as "Humphrey Humbert," 1989's "Hitcher in the Dark" is the work of Umberto Lenzi, the man who gave the world "Cannibal Ferox," "Ghosthouse," and "Spasmo." A helmer who always favored quantity over quality, Lenzi liked to move fast and collect whatever footage he could, and that professional drive is most apparent in "Hitcher in the Dark," which plays like a community theater workshop session, only with more lurid writing to power hysterical performances. The general idea here is to offer a serial killer story with deep psychological grooves, turning an encounter between predator and prey into an extended dance of insanity. Lenzi isn't a refined moviemaker, happy to make something goofy as long as it's finished, and that's what happens here, gifting viewers a wild ride of the unsavory and the unintentionally hilarious. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Vinegar Syndrome hopes to do the world of B-movies some good by offering 1977's "Crazy Desires of a Murderer" to larger Blu-ray audience, pulling the feature out of obscurity after it was denied distribution in North America for decades. Now that it's here, the picture provides a weird ride of tonal changes, with director Filippo Walter Ratti trying to develop a murder mystery with sexploitation asides, also working in some extreme gore and mild perversion. There's a lot to unpack with the endeavor, which never finds true storytelling stability, but there's just enough oddity to enjoy as Ratti tends to try everything to see what sticks in his film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1975's "Autopsy" is engineered to capture audience attention right away. The first 15 minutes of the movie offer strange visuals and gruesome events, with director Armando Crispino refusing to delay his vision for horror, commencing the endeavor with multiple suicides, vicious acts of sexual harassment/assault, and the procedural particulars of a morgue. Good luck finishing your popcorn with this initially brutal effort, which eventually settles down into a more palatable mystery, providing its most outrageous actions in the first reel. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Why introduce individual characters when they can all join the picture at the same time? That's the general vibe of 1972's "Murder Mansion," which is an Agatha Christie-esque take on the dangers of suspicious people staying inside a spooky dwelling that's also home to a murderer. Director Francisco Lara Polop isn't trying to reinvent the wheel with "Murder Mansion," which offers a routine set-up of evil events and a slow-burn fear factor. The helmer tries to win audiences over with some sense of style, fighting the inherent inertia of the production with a few effective suspense sequences. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Unlike a lot of bottom shelf actioners, "Money Plane" actually has a promising premise. It takes viewers to a casino in the sky where anything goes involving the worst people on Earth, giving them a free space to indulge their awfulness in games of skill and chance. Writers Tim Schaaf and Andrew Lawrence (who also directs) provide a solid reason to track such unrepentant ugliness, which retains a delicious camp factor, but they're mostly interested in following heist movie formula, aiming for suspense that never emerges. There's a circus there for the taking, but "Money Plane" plays it safe, delivering familiar beats of intimidation and brutality, trying to wow viewers with twists and turns when they might be better off with a blunt study of evildoers taking to the sky to make a fortune. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The world was a vastly different place 45 years ago, and 1976's "The Bad News Bears" is both a film of its time and timeless in many ways. It's the screenwriting debut for Bill Lancaster (son of Burt), who provides saltiness and silliness with this underdog comedy about a California little league team, but he also has something to say about the ways of guardianship and parental influence. Put into the hands of director Michael Ritchie (who was on a roll at the time, building career momentum with "Downhill Racer," "Prime Cut," "The Candidate," and "Smile"), and "The Bad News Bears" is transformed into a true sports cinema classic, with the helmer finding a way to celebrate the rougher edges of the writing while still making an approachable picture about baseball, offering a vivid understanding of the little league experience. Ritchie does a remarkable job keeping the endeavor invested in character and mindful of abrasiveness, never slipping into mean-spiritedness when dealing with loudmouthed kids and their learned behavior. It's a heroic directorial effort, with Richie finding just the right tone to make a crunchy movie lovable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Bert Dragin didn't have much of a filmmaking career, but he tried his luck with scary movies in the 1980s, making his debut with "Summer Camp Nightmare" before quickly jumping into 1988's "Twice Dead." Dragin, along with co-writer Robert McDonnell, attempt to create a haunted house experience with the feature, which follows two siblings as they deal with the violent history of their new home. The helmer puts in the work to generate a modest level of suspense and a surprising amount of style, but his focus isn't strictly aimed at the supernatural. "Twice Dead" is more of a "punks at war" viewing experience, keeping the endeavor from living up to initial expectations for a creepy event involving a malevolent spirit and its determination to disrupt domestic peace. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Rent-A-Pal" is set in 1990, but it's a relevant picture for today's world of frustrated people dealing with isolation. This isn't what writer/director Jon Stevenson initially intended, but he's found a way to make a movie about today's increasingly isolated world, creating a slow-burn chiller about one man's decent into madness due to suffocating domestic experiences and his own distance from a functional relationship. While other filmmakers have touched on the toxic relationship between man and machine, Stevenson gets oddly specific with his writing, which turns a simple quest for VHS attention into a downward spiral of insanity. "Rent-A-Pal" has flashes of originality, and Stevenson has a good eye for casting, finding actors capable to doing something memorable with a shapeless threat. It's not the tightest feature around, in need of more editorial pruning, but when it focuses on blurred lines of reality, it's vividly executed with a wonderfully dark sense of humor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sometime during the production of 1989's "The Terror Within," star Andrew Stevens took a moment to consider his professional situation and thought, "Yeah, I could make one of these movies easily!" Stevens makes his directorial debut with 1991's "The Terror Within II," also claiming a screenplay credit while resuming his acting duties as David, a scientist crossing America to save the world from a growing mutant threat. Stevens doesn't have a new vision for the story, which remains an "Alien" rip-off, but he brings a stronger cast, different monster madness, and hires cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who, in two years' time, would go from shooting this no-budget endeavor to Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." So yes, kids, don't give up on your dreams. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A full decade after the release of 1979's "Alien," and producer Roger Corman was still in the business of ripping it off. The concept of a malevolent beast from beyond attacking characters in a confined space gave director Ridley Scott a classic movie, but Corman views "Alien" as an unlimited resource, with 1989 "The Terror Within" another knock-off from his company. To be fair to the Hollywood legend, the feature does take place on Earth, and the creature causing all the trouble is a mutant, but the rest of the effort is the same old xenomorph-ian stuff, this time finding Andrew Stevens in the hero role, taking on a grotesque beast who enjoys killing survivors of a deadly plague. The villain also does other stuff to the locals, which manages to drain any possible fun factor out of this incredibly dull endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Futurists promised a tomorrow with flying cars, food in pill form, and colonies on the moon. Instead, we now have adult entertainment in 4K. Continuing their efforts to bring more titles to UHD, Vinegar Syndrome returns to one of their biggest adult titles, "SexWorld," giving it an upgraded viewing experience after its initial, successful release in 2015. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Promotional materials for "On-Gaku: Our Sound" celebrate the feature's very existence, with director Kenji Iwaisawa putting in a heroic effort to simply complete the picture, which was seven years in the making. It's also completely animated by hand, with use of the rotoscoping process to bring to life a rather small story of adolescent awakening via the power of music. The material takes its inspiration from a manga written by Hiroyuki Ohashi, giving Iwaisawa a storytelling direction to follow while the production cooks up its own wonderland of attitudes, musicianship, friendship, and personal expression, sold with an exquisite dryness that pulls humor out of the strangest of places. "On-Gaku: Our Sound" loves its stillness (probably for financial reasons), but it's a marvelous exploration of an askew liberation. It's as small in scale as an animated film gets, but it delivers such a wonderful understanding of character, detailed through inventive and unusual artistry. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1974's "Devil Times Five" (a.k.a. "The Horrible House on the Hill" and "People Toys") rides the line of good taste as it offers a story about mentally ill children who enjoying killing adults, spending a weekend at Lake Arrowhead murdering a collection of couples who've settled in for a nice vacation. The "Evil Kids" genre is a tough one to deal with, as it takes a special filmmaking touch to extract the horror of the situation without making the whole endeavor mean-spirited. While "Devil Times Five" isn't a polished picture, with plenty of dim directorial and editorial choices, it's also not an endeavor that's looking to destroy viewers with scenes of cruel behavior. There's plenty of violence to satisfy genre fans, but the movie isn't a complete chore to get through, helping it to rise above the competition. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Devil's Express" is a 1976 release that attempts to be a martial arts extravaganza, a police procedural, and a horror movie. These are not three subgenres that coexist peacefully, and director Barry Rosen is not the guy to pull off such a tonal challenge. "Devil's Express" throws everything at the viewer with hope that something sticks, looking to dazzle with bursts of violence and a murder mystery involving a supernatural serial killer. The picture simply doesn't work, but Rosen is determined to at least put something together, struggling with basic storytelling competency and editorial finesse in his quest to contribute to filmmaking trends of the era. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Stephen Traxler has a vision for 1978's "Slithis" (a.k.a. "Spawn of the Slithis"), but he doesn't have a movie to back it up. Inspired by genre classics such as "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "Jaws," Traxler tries to create his own little corner of horror, taking the action to Venice, California, playing into growing environmental concerns of the era to inspire a mutant monster effort that barely features the titular menace for a good portion of its run time. Weird creative decisions are common in the picture, which devotes time to inane conversations, wild overacting, and the seductive powers of a potential sexual predator, keeping away from the basic enjoyment of a man in a rubber suit gobbling up local idiots. Traxler is hanging on for dear life with "Slithis," almost going out of his way to generate a painfully dull viewing experience, finding it more comfortable to do nothing with his production. After all, violence costs money, and there's not a lot of that to be found in the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it probably wasn't intended to be this way, 1987's "Some Kind of Wonderful" represents the end of writer/producer John Hughes's streak of teen-centric entertainment. He scored a hit with 1986's "Pretty in Pink," joined by director Howard Deutch, but he was allegedly unhappy with the conclusion of the movie, which was reworked to satisfy audience demand, not Hughes's original vision. With "Some Kind of Wonderful," a second pass at adolescent ache is made, this time with a gender switch involving the leading actors and a clearer view when it comes to the needs of the heart. What Hughes and Deutch offer for their second go-around is another extraordinarily charming and sincere examination of insecurity and powerlessness, with casting achievements doing something special with Hughes's lived-in material, creating a superb companion piece to "Pretty in Pink," though it retains a distinct personality of its own. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Looking to mature as a storyteller after a few years exploring the pitfalls of adolescence in pictures such as "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," and "Weird Science," writer/director John Hughes elects to make a movie about himself with 1988's "She's Having a Baby" (which was shot before 1987's "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"). It's not a bio-pic, but Hughes cherry picks parts of his life for the screenplay, exploring his early years of love, cohabitation, employment demands, and, eventually, pregnancy. It's the helmer's most personal statement on the ways of relationships and fears, and his most scattered endeavor, failing to wrangle a narrative to help line-up all his vignettes on domestic life and workplace frustrations. That's not to dismiss the feature, which is filled with sharp observations on partnership and conception. Hughes's ideas are crystal clear at times, resulting in hilarious scenes that reflect a pained reality about maturity. There's just not a straight line to grasp in the work, giving it an episodic feel, with Hughes and his team clearly wrestling in the editing room to find some sort of shape to the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the great push to find cult films worthy of celebration and mockery, I'm not sure how 1984's "Panther Squad" has fallen through the cracks. It's pure ridiculousness from director Pierre Chevalier, a longtime exploitation helmer who, in his last feature, decides to go nuts, pitting Sybil Danning against an armed space protection organization bent on trying to stop a global communication device from escaping Earth. Or something like that. "Panther Squad" has a lot of action and assorted distractions, but secure storytelling isn't a top priority for the production. Technical expertise is also politely refused by Chevalier, who elects to march forward with whatever he's got, out to create a global adventure with only a few locations, a limited cast, and Danning's sheer determination to deliver an Eastwood-ian lead performance of pure attitude and physical might. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1978's "The Norseman" offers a "based on fact" take on the saga of the Vikings, that "lusty horde of blonde giants" who traveled from Norway seeking adventure and treasure, ending up in a place they called "Vineland," which we know today as America. And when one thinks of a typical Viking, the image of a mid-'70s Lee Majors comes to mind, seen here wearing a snazzy little disco mustache, sweating under the Tampa sun, refusing to cover his southern accent and brunette hair (blonde giants!). Director Charles B. Pierce ("The Town That Dreaded Sundown," "The Legend of Boggy Creek") promises a historical picture at the opening of "The Norseman," but he doesn't really bother with any of that, looking to create a pulpy, low-budget actioner for drive-in audiences perhaps too sleepy to care about the fine details of the time period. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com