Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

The career of director Arthur Bressan Jr. offers an unusual ride of dramatic intensity, going from documentaries (“Gay U.S.A.”) to narrative-driven features detailing troubling subject matters (“Abuse,” “Buddies”). Somewhere in the mix, there was time for more sexual adventures, including 1984’s “Daddy Dearest” and “Juice,” which explore an adult entertainment side to the helmer as he takes on two tales of fantasy, and, in many ways, the demands of daily employment. Bressan Jr. provides some intensity as the main characters deal with their wandering minds, but the pictures are primarily out to showcase bedroom encounters and lustful ways, putting on a display for viewers while Bressan Jr. works around the thinnest of plots to hold “Juice” and “Daddy Dearest” together. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Presence” is a ghost story. However, it’s a ghost story from director Steven Soderbergh, who’s usually not interested in giving viewers exactly what they expect, endeavoring to mix things up with his indie-minded ways. His latest is no different, but Soderbergh isn’t in an esoteric mood with the feature, heading in a more observational direction in a story about a spirit studying a dysfunctional family’s life inside an old house they’ve recently moved into. Scary business isn’t the focus of the offering, as screenwriter David Koepp is primarily interested in broken relationships and domestic issues, gradually working on a developing mystery involving a roving phantom. “Presence” isn’t going to please horror junkies used to more pressurized haunted house tales, but those with patience and some appreciation for Soderbergh’s filmmaking ways are offered an engrossing puzzle of death and household distance. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

An adult film director, Armand Weston was hunting for a mainstream effort to help change the course of his career. Inspired by the success of horror entertainment in the late-1970s, the helmer (joined by co-writer Daria Price) attempts to add to the genre gold rush with 1981’s “The Nesting” (titled “Phobia” on the disc), revisiting certain haunted house elements and peaks of madness from such films as “The Amityville Horror” and “The Shining.” Weston isn’t seasoned in the ways of suspense, and his inexperience shows in the endeavor, which drags along without much purpose for an entirely unearned run time of 110 minutes. Hopes for frights and mystery are drained out of the viewing experience quickly, as “The Nesting” simply refuses to engage on a suspenseful level, resembling more of a television movie with its punishing pace and limited dramatic rewards. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Gordon Honeycombe adapts his own novel, 1969’s “Neither the Sea Nor the Sand,” for the screen, trying to bring something of a horror story to life with material that feels intensely literary in design. Director Fred Burnley has the challenge of realizing the strange relationships found in the tale, which tracks the development of obsession between a woman and her lover who face a distinct challenge to their coupling. It’s not an easy film to describe and periodically difficult to sit through, offering an idea for some type of haunting and deeper psychological break in a mostly half-baked fashion, making for an uneven viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The radio game isn’t easy, with 1985’s “Tasty” a study of on-air personalities joining together to battle potential unemployment in their own special way. It’s an adult production from co-writer/director Bud Lee, while star Hyapatia Lee takes some control of the effort, enjoying co-scripting and possessory credits, making her the focal point of the endeavor. “Tasty” is a comedic look at professional desperation and mischief, offering a lighthearted view of happenings at a radio station, putting the Lees to work as they dream up carnal events and silly business, looking to create a fun ride for viewers while still delivering the basics in adult entertainment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s the end of the world, and characters are going out with a little song and dance in “The End.” Documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer (“The Act of Killing,” “The Look of Silence”) tries his luck with a narrative-driven feature, examining the strange ways of a wealthy family living out their days inside an enormous bunker during a climate apocalypse, determined to carry on as normally as possible before someone enters their lives to change everything. Oppenheimer has elected to serve up such grimness as a musical, allowing these cautious personalities to express themselves through songs, trying to give the endeavor a sense of the unusual and poetic while confronting deep emotional wounds. “The End” carries on for nearly 150 minutes, which is the first of many indulgences from the helmer, but he’s attempting to do something unusual in the work, addressing real-world ills and familial tensions in unexpected ways, helping to digest a somewhat unwieldy film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1985’s “Igor and the Lunatics” retains unusual credits. The director listed on the feature is Billy Parolini, but he shares the work with Tom Doran and Brendan Faulkner, who are responsible for “horror, action, and suspence (sic) sequences.” The film definitely reflects a production that was managed by multiple people, undergoing borderline random reshoots, with the final cut a wild mess of characters and ideas that, maybe, once made sense to those who created the picture. “Igor and the Lunatics” is meant to become a rough ride of violent activity tied to the persistence of a cult attempting to maintain power in rural New York. It’s a show of menace and physical brutality that’s been done before, but in this endeavor, ideas and people are placed into an editorial blender, and the resulting mush of genre highlights is offered as entertainment. There’s a lot of “huh?” and “what?” going on in the offering, and very little of it is amusing, intentionally or otherwise. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1972’s “The Possession of Joel Delaney” is an adaptation of a 1970 novel by Ramona Stewart, examining the panic of a woman trying to make sense of her little brother’s sudden violent decline, approaching the unreal to acquire answers. Screenwriters Irene Kamp and Matt Robinson are challenged to find some sense of reality for the genre picture, while director Waris Hussein is left to sell the literary ride, making detailed, internalized despair into a cinematic offering capable of frightening viewers. “The Possession of Joel Delaney” has a certain cinematic presence during its first half, and the story’s investigation into class and cultural divide is potentially interesting. Sadly, good work to build up this world of fear is basically destroyed in the final act, which gives in to needless cruelty and absurdity, on the hunt for a level of shock value the rest of the feature does just fine without. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Directors Janis Cole and Holly Dale seek to understand a situation of prostitution in Canada. “Hookers on Davie” is a documentary capturing the lives of many streetwalkers as they try to make a living in a Vancouver area branded the “prostitution capital of Canada.” It’s a neighborhood filled with businesses and residents, but also home to a community of sex workers trying to make it through the night, often relying on one another for companionship and safety. “Hookers on Davie” is a direct understanding of behavior and a fly-on-the-wall depiction of the profession, as Cole and Dale keep things relatively real while spending a significant amount of time with their subjects, slowly permitted access to their feelings and personal histories as filming carries on. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Hannah Pearl Utt impressed with her last endeavor, 2019’s “Before You Know It,” blending interests in comedy with something more sincere when dealing with character yearnings and foibles. Utt returns to a similar dramedy landscape with “Cora Bora,” following the misadventures of a young woman attempting to handle herself with care, only to end up in impossible situations of longing and awkwardness as she tries to reconnect with her past. The picture also offers a starring opportunity for actress Megan Stalter, who’s been particularly good about stealing scenes in recent efforts (including “Sometimes I Think About Dying” and “Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain”), and she’s terrific here, handling the turns found in the screenplay (by Rhianon Jones), which tracks a bumpy road of maturation. “Cora Bora” is a little lumpy at times with pace, and a few supporting characters seem superfluous to the odyssey, but the feature remains involving and empathetic, detailing a specific stretch of emotional unrest. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1983’s “Flashdance” came out of nowhere, hitting the scene with its style and soundtrack, which proved to be an irresistible package for ticket-buyers. The feature amplified growing interest in the MTV world of music-driven imagery, and such a mid-budget smash attracted a lot of imitators and rehashes. Director Lucio Fulci isn’t the first helmer that pops into mind when it comes to boppin’ cinema of the 1980s, but he attempts to compete with 1984’s “Murder Rock,” trying to stitch together a little flash-dancing of his own with the more familiar ways of an Italian giallo. Fulci actually gets fairly far with the big screen presence of the offering, cooking up as much dancing and dynamic lighting as possible. And there’s a good amount of chiller in the endeavor, exploring the destruction of bodies from a gloved killer. It’s not a particularly stimulating thriller, maintaining the usual in Fulci sluggishness, but it’s a colorful, soundtrack-driven effort that shows some thought with its dangerous ways. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1973’s “The Mansion of Madness” is an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.” Director Juan Lopez Moctezuma is tasked with taking a small amount of pages and turning it into a feature film, and the stretchmarks of this labor are visible throughout the viewing experience. Taking a surreal route to cinematic puzzling, Moctezuma goes the Jodorowsky way with the endeavor, which isn’t interested in the storytelling strengths of Poe’s work. The picture is more attracted to the theatricality of insanity, supplying an episodic journey into a special kind of Hell that’s not always interesting to watch, while some parts need to be endured. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Rats” comes from the minds of co-writers/directors Carl Fry and Maxwell Nalevansky, who make their feature-length filmmaking debut with the endeavor. And the partners are trying to stuff as much as they can into the offering, out to make a wild, absurdist comedy that follows the everyday insanity of Fresno, TX. It’s a town home to petty crime, unhinged people, and the site of a possible sale of nuclear weapons to terrorists. Those weaned on Adult Swim programming are the target demographic for the effort, which almost exclusively rides along on shock humor and pronounced oddity, putting Fry and Nalevansky on a journey to make an extreme movie on a minimal budget. “Rats” is definitely crazy, and there are laughs to be had along the way, especially when the helmers try for inspired lunacy. But even the most die-hard fans of cinematic nuttiness might find themselves checking the time during the viewing experience, as Fry and Nalevansky can’t quite sustain their vision for this explosion of egos and bodily fluids. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1976, writer/director Jeff Lieberman found himself with something of a hit with “Squirm,” his take on a “nature’s revenge” offering, involving the very slow violence of worms coming after people. In a smart career move, Lieberman tries something quite different in his follow-up, 1977’s “Blue Sunshine, which turns away from the horrors of the dirt to play into paranoia cinema of the decade. While still retaining some exploitation extremes and B-movie clunkiness, Lieberman does fairly well with his take on an LSD-fueled mystery, creating an engrossing detective tale that encounters a few enjoyably bizarre turns. There’s filmmaking growth, which is what really matters here, making this endeavor arguably the best picture of Lieberman’s career. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1994 was a big year for action movies involving skydiving. Sure, there was 1991’s “Point Break,” which did something special during its aerial ballet sequences, but three years later, two studios elected to release skydiving films within months of each other. “Terminal Velocity” arrived first, becoming part of Hollywood’s weird obsession to make Charlie Sheen a heroic cinematic presence. “Drop Zone” was part two of the genre experiment, returning Wesley Snipes to action figure status after the unexpected success of 1992’s “Passenger 57,” sending him into the sky once again as a U.S. Marshal hunting for a team of criminals trying to make a mess of DEA work in Florida. There should be a lot of fun here, especially with Snipes in badass mode, but “Drop Zone” visibly struggles at times under the supervision of director John Badham, who’s not the right fit for material that desperately needs a more aggressive approach. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s a tale of attraction and realization in 1983’s “Baby It’s You,” which is collected from the memories of co-producer Amy Robinson and brought to the screen by writer/director John Sayles. It’s a period piece, taking viewers back to the mid-1960s, following two characters as they deal with ideas of love and realities of life, trying to understand the impossible as these teenagers mature into young adults. Sayles pumps the picture full of music and does an excellent job capturing a time and place, but he’s not making a sentimental feature in “Baby It’s You.” There’s no gooey center to this understanding of deep feelings, and dramatic power is curiously missing from the offering, which lands some adolescent blues, but comes up a little short when trying to realize arcs of awareness facing the main characters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Known for his work on “The Singing Detective” and “Pennies from Heaven,” writer Dennis Potter loves to visit dark spaces of the human soul. He returns to such depths in “Brimstone & Treacle,” which was originally conceived as a BBC production before it was turned into a theater piece, and it lives again in a 1982 screen adaptation, directed by Richard Loncraine. The helmer has a particular challenge in this material, which veers into impossibly bleak territory as it offers a sizable psychological study, finding Potter in a mood to poke at religious belief and personal denial in the work. “Brimstone & Treacle” isn’t a raw feature, retaining the feel of a theatrical production, which isn’t always welcome. However, the offering is potent in spots, especially when concentrating on the Machiavellian ways of the main character as he tries to bring complete ruin to a family that’s already fallen apart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The mysteries of deep space are explored in 1967’s “The Terrornauts.” The material began life as a 1960 book by Murray Leinster and is turned into a B-movie event by Amicus Productions, who spare many an expense when bringing this tale of unreal contact to the screen. Facing a tight budget, director Montgomery Tully and screenwriter John Brunner aim to keep the picture small in scale and bright with performances, endeavoring to depict a special alien exploration without leaving the comfort of sets and dialogue exchanges. “The Terrornauts” doesn’t overwhelm in its pacing and plotting, but Tully finds ways to keep the viewing experience somewhat engaging, aided greatly by a cast committed to selling this sci-fi realm of radio communication and enemy encounters. A little enthusiasm helps tremendously here, along with a plan to reach an explosive finale, keeping escalation in play. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Filmmakers have to start somewhere, and for Ivan Reitman, horror was a chance to get his name out there, hoping to launch his career with a surefire hit. His second directorial effort, 1973's "Cannibal Girls" finds Reitman hoping to make something spooky and a little gross, joined by screenwriter Daniel Goldberg for a semi-improvised examination of slow-burn evil and human consumption starring two future comedy hall-of-famers, Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin. "Cannibal Girls" is a strange little movie, and Reitman has an overall idea to reach a certain level of creepiness with the picture. Sadly, he can't snap the endeavor out of its slumber, as nothing really happens in the feature, leaving the cast with dead-end scenes and very mild gore to manage as the offering struggles to locate any signs of suspense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Last of the Red Hot Lovers" opened on Broadway during the final days of 1969. The Neil Simon creation went on to become a hit on stage, attracting audiences with its humorous study of a man trying (and failing) to screw up the courage to have an affair, facing three women who challenge his life and behavior in different ways. There were Tony Award nominations, and soon a screen adaptation in 1972, with director Gene Saks hired to bring Simon's particular way of writing to movie theaters, having already managed the playwright's perspective in "Barefoot in the Park" and "The Odd Couple." The helmer doesn't really do much to Simon's material in "Last of the Red Hot Lovers," which maintains a steady filmed play appearance, sustaining focus on the actors as they work the frame and their coverage, replicating stage energy in the offering. But what a cast it is, as Alan Arkin leads the charge in this grand study of neuroses and panic, paired with wonderful supporting turns from Sally Kellerman, Paula Prentiss, and Renee Taylor, who help to generate enough buzzing energy to the endeavor to keep it mildly interesting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com