Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

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

It's not easy out there for a World War II story. English television and PBS productions have cornered the market on "lost" tales of heroism and struggle, especially when exploring female achievements during a devastating time. Writer/producer/star Sarah Megan Thomas tries to add something to the mix with "A Call to Spy," which examines three real-world personalities involved in the Special Operations Executive, an organization committed to infiltrating France during WWII as a way to disrupt Nazi movement across Europe. Thomas has a vision to celebrate such courageous actions, but "A Call to Spy" isn't much more than a miniseries compacted into one film, never cinematic enough to rise above the competition. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's an odd opening for "Satan's Blood" that introduces the audience to the teachings of Professor Vasallo, an expert on dark magic and the occult. The picture promises "accuracy and authenticity" when dealing with black mass particulars, leading to an additional prologue that observes a Satanic ritual where the head priest, an old man, is offered an opportunity to grope and lick a young woman prepared for sacrifice. It's at this point where any possibility for an evocative understanding of occult worship ends, pushed aside by the real creative goal of the movie: sexploitation. Director Carlos Puerto doesn't dream big with "Satan's Blood," keeping things intimate with this study of evil influence and nudity. It begins like a college lecture and ends with Argento-style insanity, and somewhere in the middle is a mildly engaging chiller featuring at least two characters who have no concept of danger. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A director with a long history in genre entertainment, Juan Piquer Simon ("Pieces," "Slugs," "The Rift") attempts to do something with the static location of a house that's being taken over by a demonic force. Taking pieces of "Poltergeist" and trying to play tribute to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, Simon offers 1992's "Cthulhu Mansion," which pits cocaine-dealing punks against the forces of evil during one long night in Madrid. Simon isn't blessed with a major budget for the endeavor, but he tries his best to create something memorably macabre, providing genre fans with loathsome creeps and bizarre deaths to help fill the run time. More exotic elements of supernatural menace aren't quite as enchanting, but "Cthulhu Mansion" delivers compelling weirdness as Simon creates a war between generations and highlights building pressure from beyond. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While the team at Lionsgate is surely trying to find anything to entice viewers into watching "Rogue," the cover of the Blu-ray offers a note that the picture is "from the director of 'Silent Hill: Revelation'," and provides images of star Megan Fox and a snarling male lion, which isn't even featured in the film. There's little on the outside that seems promising about the production, and it turns out there isn't much to embrace about the movie, which presents itself as some type of actioner with a conservation message buried beneath layers of tepid plotting, bad screenwriting, and weak performances. "Rogue" begins with a bang, announcing itself with big guns, bad guys, and pogo stick cinematography (credited to Brendan Barnes), but it soon settles into a "Jaws" situation of survival on an African lion farm, only writers Isabel Bassett and M.J. Bassett (who also directs) don't push hard enough on animal activity, making the effort more about exposition than exploitation, which dials down the potential fun factor of the material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Centigrade" is a survival picture that's based on true story, though the specifics of the inspiration are vague at best. It's better to put the reality of the story aside and approach the feature as a two-hander drama, where the participants are stuck inside of a car buried in the snow for 85 minutes of screen time. Screenwriters Daley Nixon and Brendan Walsh (who also directs) have quite the creative task, trying to make near immobility into a nail- biting experience of panic. "Centigrade" doesn't achieve a few of its limited goals, but the movie is largely successful as a claustrophobic mission of self-preservation and logic. It's not the easiest film to sit through, presenting all sorts of anguish and argumentative behavior, but Walsh believes in the endeavor's importance as an offering of emotionality and perseverance, even when he can't communicate such urgency to the viewer. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It seems the late 1980s was a big time for supernatural horror films set in tall buildings. In 1988, there was the ill-fated "Poltergeist III," and for 1989, producer Sandy Howard brings terror to a Barcelona office complex in "Dark Tower." The picture didn't enjoy an easy road to completion, with original director Ken Wiederhorn possibly replaced by Freddie Francis (Weiderhorn denies this, so who knows), and, apparently, Roger Daltrey and Lucy Guttridge were set in leading roles before Michael Moriarty and Jenny Agutter stepped in to complete the film. While watching "Dark Tower," one can sense behind-the-scenes issues emerging, as the effort's strong start with strange, violent happenings in an office building is gradually turned into semi-random events involving a ghostly presence and his apparent love of elevator antagonism. There doesn't seem to be anyone helping to guide the events of the feature, but B-movie appeal and committed performances end up saving the day in this endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's difficult to describe 1974's "The Girl in Room 2A" has a giallo, especially as viewers understand the subgenre today. It's a pulpy mystery featuring the hunt for missing people, and it's more of a fetish film, highlighting the dungeon punishment of naked women by a man dressed in a deep red executioner outfit. It's not a movie that's looking to startle its audience, aiming to be more kinky than macabre. The production almost resembles a Hammer Horror event at times, which works best for the endeavor, finding success with mild sleuthing, not terrifying encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1972's "French Sex Murders" appears to have a plan to deliver lurid entertainment for murder mystery fans, delving into an underworld of prostitution and maniacal male behavior to best stir up some evil encounters. Director Ferdinando Merighi doesn't push himself when it comes time to crank up tension and provide horrors, but there are a few promising elements to the feature. It's not a striking giallo, with "French Sex Murders" keeping a low profile when it comes to the basic ingredients of the subgenre. Morris aims for a blunt viewing experience, more comfortable teasing human perversion than actually delivering it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The unfortunate reality about 1972's "My Dear Killer" is that its best scene also happens to be its first scene. It's a reverse climax for the feature, which opens with a man being decapitated by a giant excavator, killed in a uniquely gruesome way, launching the movie with a surge of murder mystery energy that gradually weakens at the production transitions to a detective story that's primarily about conversations and interrogations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Sputnik" is an unsettling picture. It's a Russian production that's out to challenge expectations for an alien invasion story, providing a more sinister ride of paranoia and panic without expanding to epic size. It also marks the return of actress Oksana Akinshina to American screens, having made her breakthrough in 2002's "Lilya 4-Ever," a shattering feature about human trafficking that promised great things from the young talent. While she made an appearance in "The Bourne Supremacy," Akinshina has largely remained in Russian films, returning to western view in "Sputnik," where she delivers a commanding performance as a medical mind put into contact with an extraterrestrial experience that overwhelms her before it begins to threaten her. Akinshina's part of a strong cast that gives director Egor Abramenko a firm dramatic foundation while the tale explores close encounters and government control with sharp cinematic highlights. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Actor Bruce Willis and director Matt Eskandari have a friendly relationship, as "Hard Kill" is their third collaboration in a short amount of time. And by collaboration, I mean Eskandari is in charge of creating low-budget mayhem while Willis sits comfortably somewhere away from the action, collecting what I assume to be a sizable paycheck. They teamed for "Trauma Center" and the reasonably engaging "Survive the Night," but they press their luck with "Hard Kill," which puts in next to no effort when it comes to creating even basic suspense or excitement. It's a siege picture in a way, with the helmer in charge of making pennies spent on the production look like dimes. The production doesn't have any fresh ideas or, at times, basic competency, staying weirdly small with a plot that welcomes a grander feel for B-movie escapism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1991's "Martial Law" turned out to be a hit in the VHS marketplace, immediately triggering plans for a sequel. However, for 1992's "Martial Law II: Undercover," star Chad McQueen is replaced by Jeff Wincott, with producers aiming to bring more power to the party, but, once again, they don't value contributions from co-star Cynthia Rothrock nearly as much. The actress returns to fight form for a new adventure into the L.A. underworld, and once again Rothrock emerges as the most exciting element of the movie, giving "Martial Law II: Undercover" entertainment value as her character takes out nasty men and bad guys. I'm not sure why the moneymen insist the series is about anyone else but her. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1990's "Martial Law" is meant to be a vehicle for Chad McQueen, showcasing his steely screen presence and martial arts capabilities. What director Steve Cohen actually finds is screen magic with co-star Cynthia Rothrock, who's meant to support McQueen, but ends up stealing the movie with her lightning-fast fight skills and icy supercop stare. "Martial Law" doesn't add up to much without Rothrock, finding the screenplay laboring to assemble a story of criminal activity that's just as compelling as simple scenes of McQueen and Rothrock taking on waves of bad guys. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While trying to participate in the growing trend of slasher entertainment in the 1980s, director Jeff Lieberman ("Squirm," "Blue Sunshine") aims to do something slightly different with 1981's "Just Before Dawn." It's a low-budget chiller concerning innocents trying to outwit evil in the deep woods, and while it features a killer with a large machete hunting young things, Lieberman is more interested in creating a survival thriller, dealing with hiking and climbing challenges instead of giving the whole thing over to genre expectations. The effort is appreciated, but such ambition doesn't magically make "Just Before Dawn" exciting. Pacing and limited incident are real problems for the picture, which often equates stillness with suspense, triggering tremendous impatience as Lieberman gets around to suspenseful encounters, which are few and far between here. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2019, "The Current War" finally made its way into theaters after a lengthy release delay. It explored the story of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla and their battle to control the future of electricity. It was a flashy feature that didn't generate much interest from the public, but now there's "Tesla," which also details power plays between two men devoted to the energy cause, but for entirely different reasons. While "The Current War" tried to get up and running with broad screen style, "Tesla" is more of a filmed play, with director Michael Almereyda inspecting the inner life of the titular character, using a theatrical presentation and anachronistic touches to provide creative fingerprints on a story that largely exists in legend. Almereyda remains true to his vision with the endeavor, which has its imaginative moments, but largely broods itself to a full stop on a few occasions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After scoring a commercial success with 2012's "Chronicle," director Josh Trank lost almost all of his critical and industry goodwill with his follow-up endeavor, the disastrous "Fantastic Four" do-over. While such a public flameout would kill most careers, Trank has managed to hang on to his employability by his fingertips, returning five years later with "Capone," a much smaller picture for the helmer. While there was a lot of speculation as to who was really behind the colossal failure of "Fantastic Four," "Capone" basically underlines Trank's shortcomings as a storyteller, getting lost in his own unpleasant whims with the feature, which gradually becomes a prison sentence for viewers as it tracks the steady decay of Al Capone — a tale nobody asked for, especially from Trank. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com