Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

1993's "Women on the Run" inspects a tight situation for two characters caught up in police corruption, romantic ruin, and drug dealers. It's meant to be an action event from director David Lai (joined by Corey Yuen), but the picture doesn't always remember to stay active and dangerous. It's more of a melodrama with occasional breaks for heated encounters, and Lai is never quite sure if he's making a movie about empowerment or exploitation, leading to a few disastrous storytelling detours. "Women on the Run" is brightly performed by leads Tamara Guo and Farini Cheung, and it offers periodic distractions in physical challenges. However, there's not enough momentum to the offering to keep it entertaining, especially with screenwriting that's determined to get ugly to pull a response out of viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Scooter McCrae ("Shatter Dead," "Sixteen Tongues") examines our A.I. future in "Black Eyed Susan." However, this is no tale of extraordinary intelligence or business threat. It's a story about sex doll technology, following the vision of an inventor looking to create a safe space for deviant behavior through the use of faux flesh and blood. There's an incredibly provocative idea brewing at the center of "Black Eyed Susan," and it's not developed in full, finding McCrae lacking the budget and writing to present a larger understanding of psychological erosion. The picture is interesting in spots and handled as well as possible by the cast, making McCrae's battle with pacing and climactic events all the more frustrating, disrupting a tale containing grim potential. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While moviegoers still clamor for comic book-based films, here's 1982's "Blonde Goddess," which is an adult movie aiming to replicate the page- turning event in its own special way. The feature explores a crisis unfolding at "Marble Comics," following the daydreaming experiences of a writer striving to maintain his composure while jumping through various scenarios involving high adventure, aerial encounters, and detective fiction. Director Bill Milling manages some ambition with the endeavor, trying to send viewers on an experience into different genres and visual approaches. He also tends to carnal activity, which, as to be expected, isn't nearly as interesting as the production's efforts to come across like a mainstream epic, playing with action, animation, and heroism as it hopes to sell big fun, not always heat, to viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Asif Kapadia is a documentarian, scoring some critical and commercial successes with 2010's "Senna" and 2015's "Amy." In 2024, he helmed "Federer: Twelve Final Days," examining the last stand for a popular professional tennis player. And now Kapadia is taking on the end of Earth in "2073," which merges worlds of fiction and non-fiction to best examine the downfall of humanity as matters grow increasingly grim for the planet and its inhabitants. The future's not bright in the picture, as it follows a woman and her experiences 50 years from now, attempting to find thinking and information in a land controlled by machines and the rich. "2073" isn't an easy sit, and perhaps it doesn't make for a complete film, but the ideas contained within it are valuable. Kapadia provides a warning about power and influence, presenting stories of oppression and destruction to help viewers grasp the dire situation we're in right now, making a few severe points worth understanding. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The cannibal subgenre is not known for producing works of art. This junky trend of ultraviolent pictures managed to have its moment in the sun during the late 1970s and early '80s, supplying cheap thrills for horror fans looking to test their endurance levels. For the majority of these offerings, a test of patience levels is a more accurate description of the viewing experience, and 1980's "White Cannibal Queen" (a.k.a. "Mondo Cannibale") is certainly one of the most tedious of the bunch. Credit director Jesus "Jess" Franco, who never met a real-time event he didn't like, and he brings his famous indifference to pacing and excitement to the endeavor, which offers next to nothing in plot, performances, and suspense. "White Cannibal Queen" is mostly about watching characters walk through a jungle or be devoured by the locals, and that's not enough to support the viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Looking for Mr. Goodbar" began its journey as a book by Judith Rossner, who was inspired by a true crime tale of murder involving a schoolteacher who was learning to experience life on her own terms. The story of Roseann Quinn and her violent end is extremely disturbing, tasking Rossner to best understand motivation, exploring the world of the victim and other professional and environmental influences. The 1977 film adaptation looks to dramatize this experience, putting writer/director Richard Brooks ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Elmer Gantry") on a mission to visualize an intense journey of self-exploration, and also sell the passage of time as the main character develops emotionally and sexually. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" is a tough sit, and not always for the right reasons. The core study of pressure and pain remains intact, along with an understanding of empowerment, but Brooks generates an incredibly unwieldy movie at times, often losing sight of the central journey to deal with broad performances and unnecessary dramatic detours, which fail to contribute to the psychological profile being created here. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Liam Regan is out to replicate the Troma Entertainment experience in 2022's "Eating Miss Campbell." It's a picture that's aiming to be outrageous at every turn, poking fun at topics such as teen suicide, school shootings, and sexual assault. Troma has built their empire(?) on such provocative releases, giving Regan a North Star to follow when it comes to compiling potentially offensive material, shot on the lowest budget possible. "Eating Miss Campbell" is a comedy, though one that's weirdly without any laughs, finding Regan pushing hard to make something wacky and painfully self-aware, trying to stay ahead of the joke…if there was an actual joke in the feature. Instead, the helmer throws in references to all kinds of cinematic achievements and pushes his untested cast to go broad with their performances. The offering is obnoxious, but that's the point. It's also poorly constructed, performed, and written, which doesn't seem quite as intentional. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

What a time to be a horror fan in 1974, with two features using the gruesome story of Ed Gein and his special shut-in nightmare to fuel cinematic endeavors. Of course, there was "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," transforming the Gein tale into an adrenalized survival story, becoming an enduring classic that's still capable of shocking viewers to this day. And there's "Deranged," which is a more direct take on the Gein saga, welcoming viewers to the horrible tale of "The Butcher of Woodside" and his descent into madness and murder. While a polar opposite viewing experience from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre," "Deranged" has a distinctly creepy tone as directors Jeff Gillen and Alan Ormsby try to visit the ruined mind of the main character, moving carefully into extra dangerous and demented behavior. There's excellent atmosphere in the offering, which successfully delivers a case of the creeps while dramatizing some of Ed Gein's more heinous activity for drive-in audiences. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Michael Mann pulled himself out of a career in television, transitioning to features in the early 1980s. His first release was 1981's "Thief," helping to define his major cinematic style, but the effort did minor business. Undaunted by the career setback, Mann goes incredibly ambitious in his follow-up, 1983's "The Keep," which trades the intimacy of crime for a period horror offering loaded with characters and motivations, also slipping into a special effects show. There's an extensive production history behind the endeavor, as Paramount eventually took the film out of Mann's hands, whittling the effort down from its original 210-minute-long intent to just 96 minutes, effectively destroying whatever vision was initially in place. The storytelling damage is obvious, and manages to hurt the viewing experience. However, while a mess, "The Keep" remains intensely atmospheric, always prepared to supply striking imagery and synth support from a score by Tangerine Dream. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The unrelenting brutality of Los Angeles is explored in 1989's "Crack House," finding director Michael Fischa ("Death Spa," "My Mom's a Werewolf') on a quest to sell the horrors of gang life and drug addiction in the gritty feature. However, exploitation interests are prioritized in the Cannon Films endeavor, keeping the helmer on a short leash when it comes to addressing the real sins of the big city. "Crack House" isn't out to change the world, which is something of a shame as any message-minded intent dissipates after the first act. The rest of the offering is devoted to sleaziness and arcs of personal corruption, inspiring Fischa to capture the end of innocence for a few of the characters, while others are faced with the bleakness of life itself, trying to endure its casual cruelty. And, if there's time, the production is ready to train camera focus on as many bare breasts as possible. It's all about priorities, people. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Slasher cinema heads to the home improvement aisle in 1988's "The Carpenter," as writer Doug Taylor ("In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale," "Splice") looks to turn a tale of household renovations into a bloodbath. The material has a little more than simple violence, inspecting a psychological meltdown and all the trouble it provides for the main character, who retreats to a weird place of comfort to deal with her issues. For a low-budget offering, "The Carpenter" is competently assembled by director David Wellington, who puts care into shots and at least a few of the performances. The picture is missing a killer instinct, refusing to go wilder with a premise that invites screen craziness, but it scores in small amounts, aiming to be a little stranger than the average genre endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Relationships and torment drive 1996's "Female Perversions," which is an adaptation of a book by Louise J. Kaplan. The female mind is dissected in the picture, putting screenwriters Julie Hebert and Susan Streitfeld to work investigating the depths of feelings and fears that swarm the characters as they deal with different stages of panic. The helmer looks to make an artful film, and one that taps into intimacy of thought while trying to sell a story about sisters coming to terms with their past. "Female Perversions" is insightful and undoubtedly relatable for many viewers, and while Streitfeld battles to maintain a tale worth investing in, she delivers an uncompromising feature filled with provocative ideas and visuals, aiming for an offering that inspects the Female Experience in a complex manner. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1969, The Who unleashed "Tommy," their electrified stab at a rock opera after years of tinkering with the complex creative format. A musical achievement of impressive ambition and crunchy stacked-amp rock theatrics, "Tommy" understandably became a sensation with critics and fans, justifiably branded the defining album of the band's extensive career. The material soon embarked on a marathon tour of different interpretations, eventually making iconic leaps to Broadway in 1992 and a feature film event in 1975, handed over to cinema's most persistent rascal, daredevil director Ken Russell, who's never shied away from offering excess and volume, always delighting in some form of chaos. It was a match made in cinema heaven. The official tagline for the picture stated simply: "Your senses will never be the same." In this world of "Tommy," which touches on religion, violence, and insanity, it was a promise delivered in full. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Joy of Sex" was released in 1972, offering an illustrated manual for carnal activities to help illuminate taboo subjects. It was a popular sex education tool and literary event, billed as a "gourmet guide to love making." It wasn't built for a screen adaptation, but Hollywood had to try, especially during the post-"Porky's" rush of teen horndog cinema, attempting to bend the material into an R-rated comedy for adolescent audiences. 1984's "Joy of Sex" brings in director Martha Coolidge (fresh off 1983's "Valley Girl") to help add some dimension to inherently flat material, but there's not much she can do with the project, which is a lifeless offering of juvenile antics and concerns, at times barely even making sense. "Joy of Sex" is a DOA offering of shenanigans, and while a bit of effort is made to disrupt the usual in this type of entertainment, it's not enough to support a mess of a movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Rock and roll will never die! Unless, of course, the band chooses a remote area of Sweden to shoot a music video in, triggering the rage of feral locals desperate to defend their terrain. Then, obviously, rock and roll will die. And painfully too. 1985's "Blood Tracks" is a riff on Wes Craven's "The Hills Have Eyes," putting director Mats-Helge Olsson in the mood to generate some sex and violence in the middle of a snowbound location, using musical trends of the day to keep things hip while going through the same old stalk-n-kill business. It's not inspired work, as the production deals with tired material and thin characterizations, and while horror isn't known for its stunning displays of drama, "Blood Tracks" is too routine and bland to make an impression, even for exploitation entertainment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1989's "Iced" brings slasher cinema to a ski resort, giving director Jeff Kwinty a playground of snow and cabin action to help deliver a lively feature. And yet, there's very little spirit found in the picture, which intends to be a mystery and a horror film, but spends most of its run time dealing with uninteresting characters and their personal problems. It's not a terribly satisfying adventure into genre moviemaking, finding Kwinty generally reluctant to participate in an alert endeavor that's heavy with violence. Exploitation interests are there, but the execution of the offering isn't, keeping "Iced" quite glacial as it waits for over an hour to really summon more active screen experiences. It's a long wait for extraordinarily little payoff. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With the development of the internet and virtual reality in the early 1990s, Hollywood wasn't about to let such futuristic fun simply walk on by. Instead, producers dabbled in tech-thrillers, trying to make sense of difficult concepts while playing to the mass audience. One of the most successful of these odd pictures was 1992's "The Lawnmower Man," as co-writer/director Brett Leonard endeavored to transform a bizarre Stephen King short story into a VR nightmare, generating unusual visual effects to create a film that strived to be scary and sensual. The approached clicked at the box office, giving Leonard a career to manage, making himself a valuable player in uncharted cinematic territory. 1995's "Virtuosity" provides Leonard with a bigger budget to examine the ways of digital horrors, but instead of creating another creeper, he goes the action route, working with a promising manhunt tale from writer Eric Bernt that explores the wrath of an A.I. entity in the real world. The feature has the potential to be real fun, and the work has a few moments of B-movie clarity, but Leonard isn't the proper fit for a bruising thrill ride. His vision tends to turn "Virtuosity" into a cartoon, which might connect for certain viewers, but promise of something more suspenseful and demented isn't met in this mediocre offering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Eat the Night" has crime story momentum, observing rising tensions between drug pushers looking to protect their territory, but it's also an interesting study of isolation in the digital age. Co-writer/directors Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel (who made their helming debut in 2018's "Jessica Forever") attempt to merge more visceral encounters with intimate ones in the endeavor, as it details a collection of characters trying to find some form of stability and love as human connection enters their lives. "Eat the Night" goes a little deeper into private thoughts and feelings, giving it a fascinating understanding of the personalities as they deal with so much in their lives. There's texture to the writing to sustain the viewing experience, and gaming elements to help create a diffe Read the rest at Blu-ray.comrent appreciation of loneliness, especially when it comes to an end-of-life situation occurring in a virtual world. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writers/directors Alexi Pappas and Jeremy Teicher were previously focused on the wide world of sports. They explored the troubles of a long- distance runner in 2016's "Tracktown," and spotlighted an outbreak of love for a cross-country skier in 2020's "Olympic Dreams." They ditch athleticism for a different kind of competition in "Not an Artist," which follows the general anxiety and collision of personalities that occurs at a retreat for creative minds and all the insecurities they can carry. It's another winner for Pappas and Teicher, who do very well with characterization and mood, exploring the semi-comical ways of the getaway and all the internal chaos it inspires. "Not an Artist" eventually moves too far away from humor, but up to this point, it connects, presenting an amusing take on self-imposed pressures and life woes, sold with terrific performances that capture a few complex emotions. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's been no shortage of "The Count of Monte Cristo" adaptations across all forms of media. The 1854 adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas offers a lengthy and intricate revenge story to dramatize, making it irresistible to storytellers, and many have tried to construct excitement with the material, which was notably adapted in a 1975 television movie starring Richard Chamberlain, and a 2002 feature with Jim Caviezel. A plan of vengeance returns in the new "The Count of Monte Cristo," and directors Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patelliere take the filmmaking challenge very seriously. The helmers intend to go epic with the offering, overseeing a nicely produced, three-hour-long take on the return of Edmond Dantes and the many scores he plans to settle after being imprisoned for crimes he didn't commit. The French production hopes to bring a little more action and psychological gamesmanship to the screen, and while the run time is a bit much, the effort is polished and strongly performed, finding a few peaks of suspense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com