Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

1987's "Berserker" supplies an unusual antagonist in a 10th century Viking who dresses as a bear and devours human prey. Or something like that. The screenplay isn't exactly clear what's going during the run time, but it has a potent visual in the titular menace. Director Jefferson Richard is armed with a small amount of money and the expanse of Utah woods, striving to cook up a reasonable B-movie with recognizable genre ingredients. He's a little cheeky, permissive with actors, and open to whatever ideas are presented to him, but he's not much of a scary movie architect. "Berserker" lacks in the fright department, doing much better with character shenanigans and local color. It's not the way to a sufficiently terrifying viewing experience, but "Berserker" is the rare endeavor that actually loses steam once violence arrives. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1989's "Unmasked: Part 25" carries a title that appears to lampoon the state of horror franchises in the 1980s, where everything was sequelized to a point of audience exhaustion. One might expect a ZAZ-like take on the genre, but writer Mark Cutforth and director Anders Palm pull their punch when it comes to a full pantsing of the film business. Instead of raising hell with a sharp, silly comedy, the men go straight with a semi-dramatic take on boogeyman blues, weirdly trying to be sincere when asking the question, "What if Jason Voorhees was lonely?" Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Eli Roth adores the cannibal pictures of the 1970s and '80s, and he wants to share that appreciation with his own take on the subgenre, "The Green Inferno." His enthusiasm for this grisly, borderline irresponsible series of movies is understood throughout the endeavor, but his natural instincts toward jocularity and uninspired casting work to dial down the true terror of the feature. It's a blood-soaked ride into the jaws of Hell, but "The Green Inferno" is too frivolous to score as nightmare material, finding Roth displaying habitual timidity when it comes to truly shocking encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1975's "Conduct Unbecoming" is based on a play written by Barry England, and the film version retains much of its theatrical atmosphere. Director Michael Anderson ("Logan's Run") has assembled a magnificent cast to explore the material, hiring the likes of Michael York, Stacy Keach, Richard Attenborough, Trevor Howard, Christopher Plummer, and James Faulkner to help explore what's essentially a courtroom thriller, though it eventually transforms into a whodunit for suspense purposes. "Conduct Unbecoming" is stiffly realized, but it's difficult to deny its thespian power, with wonderful talents permitted room by Anderson to find their unique rhythms and detail the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While primarily known as the founder of New Line Cinema, Robert Shaye has taken a few stabs at film direction over the years, helming 1990's "Book of Love" and 2007's "The Last Mimzy." Shaye hasn't found much success behind the camera, and his streak continues with "Ambition." Looking to generate his own take on Hitchcockian suspense, Shaye doesn't have the visual chops, writing, or acting to best support whatever nail-biting reactions he's looking to conjure. "Ambition" isn't frightening, and it doesn't even want to be, registering more as a Freeform Network original where bland young characters deal with modest challenges to their sanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Scoring a surprise hit with 1981's "Private Lessons," producer R. Ben Efraim quickly set out to capitalize on the success. While he couldn't put together a sequel (that would eventually come in 1993), Efraim managed to assemble "Private School" for a 1983 release, hoping to give young audiences a suitable R-rated distraction for the summer moviegoing season. The pictures have almost nothing in common (except the appearance of "Private Lessons" star Sylvia Kristel), but they share a common interest in titillation. With the teen horndog subgenre in full swing at this time in marketplace history, Efraim aims to play into the trend, with "Private School" more of a sketch comedy film, offering a string of pranks, mistakes, and tomfoolery to fill the time between topless activity. There's nothing to the endeavor, and that contributes a great deal to its modest appeal. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Looking to update the high school rebellion picture, director Allan Arkush tries his luck with punk rock, bringing in the Ramones for 1979's "Rock 'n' Roll High School." It's teen antics from executive producer Roger Corman, who gives Arkush and his screenwriters (Richard Whitley, Russ Dvonch, and Joseph McBride) a chance to go crazy with this semi-satire of the subgenre, with the production team packing in as many gags as possible as they send-up educational hell features. What the helmer really has here is a scrappy, lovable ode to the freedoms and curiosities of youth, while the Ramones deliver their signature sound to support the endeavor's sonic dominance. "Rock 'n' Roll High School" is a pure delight, partially because Arkush allows it to roam wherever it wants to, and his timing with the Ramones, then at their peak of their powers, couldn't have been better. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The good news is that one doesn't have to see 1974's "Beyond the Door" to fully understand anything in 1989's "Beyond the Door III." Producer Ovidio Assonitis is merely trying to cash-in on a brand name he helped to create, using the title to attract audiences to a production that could use all the marketplace help it can find. The original endeavor was an Italian "Exorcist" rip-off that managed to make some coin (and trigger a lawsuit from Warner Brothers), while the second sequel tries to continue a theme of demonic possession, this time finding a train in Yugoslavia trapped by an evil power. It doesn't get any sillier than that, but director Jeff Kwinty ("Iced," "Lightning in a Bottle") is trying to craft something approachable with "Beyond the Door III," turning to stunt work and runaway train suspense to add some excitement to yet another offering of cult influence in an isolated corner of the world. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Fan" was intended to be a calmer, more character-oriented endeavor at one point during its development. However, marketplace demands contributed to a tonal overhaul of the production, with producer Robert Stigwood interested in transforming a mild piece on the dangers of stalkers into a De Palma-esque freak-out featuring graphic violence, looking to attract more attention. Perhaps this is why "The Fan" plays so unevenly, as director Ed Bianchi has difficulty managing the extremes of the effort, with one side of the material dealing with sliced skin and vulgar threats, while the other explores the creation of a Broadway musical. It's a very strange picture, and not intentionally so, but outside of occasional ugliness, the film is reasonably entertaining, helped along by a supporting cast of acting veterans and the pressure point of obsession, which is always good for a few cheap thrills. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While Hammer Films has taken on the wrath of the Devil before, they go all-in on Satanic happenings in 1968's "The Devil Rides Out" (aka "The Devil's Bride"). Directed by Terence Fisher ("Frankenstein Created Woman," "The Hound of the Baskervilles"), the feature takes the world of black magic seriously, as the adaptation of a 1934 novel by Dennis Wheatley strives to build a world where such evil exists and remains determined to become the dominant force of the world. However, matters start small in the story, and Fisher does a fine job expanding early suspicions into all-out panic, joined by star Christopher Lee, who receives a rare shot at playing a hero of sorts, taking on darkness with a reliably focused performance in what turns out to be a surprisingly eventful picture from Hammer. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Hamlet" is a 400-year-old play that's been interpreted in many ways, with some taking great liberties with the source material, working to reconsider writer William Shakespeare's original text and find ways to reach a different audience. That's the thinking behind "Ophelia," which revisits the events of "Hamlet," only here a key supporting part into turned into the lead role, with Ophelia's perspective intended to refocus concern on the female characters. It's not exactly a daring undertaking, but the screenplay by Semi Chellas is trying to do something very specific, keeping things involving by altering Shakespeare's plotting and sense of power in Elsinore Castle. "Ophelia" isn't the most dynamic feature to be made with the concept, but director Claire McCarthy isn't in this for the pace. She wants to make a beautiful picture about a misunderstood young woman, and with those goals in mind, the effort is satisfactory. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Red Joan" knows exactly how to play to its target audience. This is not a procedural spy thriller or a dissection of World War II political gamesmanship. There's nothing particularly edgy about the production. Instead, screenwriter Lindsay Shapero takes a more soap opera-ish approach to the subject, turning this tale of secrets and lies into acts of heartbreaking exposure to all-consuming love. For some, such mushiness is going to be a turn-off, with director Trevor Nunn (who hasn't helmed a big screen feature since 1986's "Lady Jane") creating a softer push of melodramatics to buffer a tale of treasonous behavior and patriotic confusion. For others, "Red Joan" will be cat nip, especially for older art-house crowds who enjoy their global conflict reduced to areas of romantic indecision, blended with some mild espionage action. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Michael Keaton broke big with 1982's "Night Shift," emerging as a fresh comic talent in need of suitable material. With 1983's "Mr. Mom," Keaton found himself with a real hit (starring in the 9th highest grossing feature of the year, besting "Risky Business" and "National Lampoon's Vacation"), becoming a hot commodity in Hollywood, but he couldn't capitalize on sudden fame, losing momentum with some efforts (including "Johnny Dangerously" and "Touch and Go") that couldn't do much with his unique screen presence. Part of the problem was 1987's "The Squeeze," which endeavored to stuff Keaton's jittery rhythms into a semi-noirish caper that tries to be twisty and mysterious, but also makes room for Keaton's on- brand tomfoolery. "The Squeeze" isn't a mess, but it doesn't feel complete, putting immense pressure on its leading man to cook up some sizable laughs while working on a production that's a bit more interested in noise than performance. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The director of "The Lords of Flatbush," Stephen Verona returns to the concerns of young men and their inherent impatience with 1987's "Talking Walls," which finds the helmer in charge of making horndog cinema, only to fight this reality every step of the way. While it's credited as an adaptation of a Mike McGrady novel (1977's "The Motel Tapes"), the picture certainly doesn't play like literary cinema, working between a comedic overview of voyeurism involving improvisational play from a collection of actors and a dull romance between the lead character and the French woman he can't seem to possess in full. I'm not sure what the production history is on "Talking Walls," but it plays like a feature that was second-guessed days into production, with Verona scrambling to make something sellable on the VHS market when his original dramatic vision was quickly exposed as pure tedium. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A celebrated author in her native New Zealand, Janet Frame decided she didn't want others to tell her own story, eventually issuing three autobiographies to sufficiently cover the extent of her experiences in her homeland and beyond. With the release of "To the Is-Land," "An Angel at My Table," and "The Envoy from Mirror City," Frame offered a full understanding of the horrors and personal awakenings she experienced as she became a woman, richly detailing her memories and the perceptions. For direction Jane Campion, the opportunity to dramatize these tales was irresistible. Working from a screenplay by Laura Jones, Campion creates a "trilogy" with "An Angel at My Table," which was originally created as a television mini- series, soon reworked into a chapter-based feature film, bringing the scope of Frame's life to the screen with the lengthy run time it deserves. Protective of the subject's work, Campion shows extreme care for Frame's journey, providing remarkable casting and locations for the story, while Jones has the decidedly more pressurized job of condensing such extraordinary turns of fate into a cohesive endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Framing John DeLorean" emphasizes early on that Hollywood has spent decades trying to figure out a way to bring the titular icon's story to the screen. And yet, with all these competing projects and various completed screenplays, nothing has come of it. Directors Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce ("Batman & Bill") step up to the plate with "Framing John DeLorean," but the duo isn't interested in a straightforward bio-pic of the automobile designer, electing to mix things up a bit by turning the production into a semi-documentary, blending informational stretches with dramatic recreations and behind-the-scenes activity during the shoot. It's a bizarre cocktail of perspectives and realities, but not an unappealing endeavor, with the helmers using such unconventional storytelling to showcase an unconventional man, finding a fresh way to chart the rise and fall of John DeLorean. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Hoping to participate in the supernatural horror craze of the late 1970s, co-writer/director Herb Freed delivers 1980's "Beyond Evil," which takes soul- possession horrors to the Philippines. However, such a location is the only exotic element of the production, which offers a fairly routine chiller about an evil spirit infiltrating a fresh body. Freed tries to fill the endeavor with some new age magic, but scares are limited here, as Freed often goes the pedestrian route when exploring a household haunting. Thankfully, there's a cast assembled here that works very hard to inject some life into the endeavor, but blandness tends to win out in the end, even with the presence of some slightly goofy B-movie violence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Tom Botchii Skowronski is aiming to put his own stamp on comic book cinema with "Artik," merging the brute force of a serial killer story with a fantasy face-off, only here the opposing forces are a murderer and a straight-edge soldier trying to do something right in his life. It's stylish picture, doing so much with very little in the budget department, and when approached in the right mood, "Artik" engages to certain extent, with Skowronski trying to remain creative and aggressive with the little room he's given himself to explore this showdown between light and dark. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director George Roy Hill was in a rare industry position in 1975. Two years earlier, he delivered "The Sting," which went on to collect a fortune at the box office (ending up the second highest-grossing feature of the year) and multiple Academy Awards, including Best Picture of 1973. Hill could suddenly do whatever he wanted, and with the power of multiple hits (including 1969's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"), he elected to bring a personal project to the screen, funneling his own experiences as a pilot into "The Great Waldo Pepper," his valentine to the world of early aviation, with all the dangers and glory it contained. It's inspired work from the helmer, who secures strong characterization from screenwriter William Goldman, but absolutely dives into aerial sequences, which provide the production with genuine moments of suspense and some jaw-dropping stunt work. "The Great Waldo Pepper" has some issues with pacing consistency, but Hill gives the effort a wonderful specificity, providing viewers with a peek into the psychology of daredevils gradually being denied the thrill of danger. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Fraternity life doesn't need much embellishment to become perfect fodder for horror entertainment, and screenwriter Joyce Snyder sets out to be as authentic as possible when exploring the humiliations of a New Jersey university's Hell Week in 1990's "Pledge Night." Snyder has divided the viewing experience into two parts, examining frat house rituals and a supernatural terror, working to blend the different tones into a one scary event, playing into genre expectations while adding enough realistic grotesqueries to unnerve viewers who may be only prepared for a traditional haunt. "Pledge Night" doesn't strive to upset expectations, but it's better film when exploring the reality of fraternity terrors, with Snyder's effort to transform the movie into a sequel-ready production getting in the way of some genuinely disgusting moments. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com