Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

1972's "The Harder They Come" was a shot of authenticity from Jamaica, which was, at the time, beginning to establish itself, developing its culture and sound. Director Perry Henzell decided to share that magic with the world, creating a feature that celebrated movie storytelling yet remained verite in style, using a rough sense of filmmaking to pull viewers into island life, following the exploits of a character (portrayed by Jimmy Cliff) who experiences poverty, finds his voice in music, and ends up an outlaw. Henzell can't escape the low-budget stiffness of the production, but there's undeniable energy on display, with the picture soaking in the juices of reggae and smoked into a stupor, all the while providing a grand tour of life in Jamaica, with Henzell creating an enthralling travelogue. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Six months ago, writer/director Daniel Farrands revisited the true crime tale of Ronald DeFeo Jr., hoping to squeeze a little more misery out of "The Amityville Horror" franchise with "The Amityville Murders." It was a dud, but a strange one, turning to the supernatural as a way to explain mental illness and moral dissolve, with Farrands attempting to make a ghost story in a way, with hopes to approach well-worn material from a different, fictional perspective. Feeling good about his creative choices, Farrands does the same thing for the Tate Murders, reimagining a mass murder as some type of elongated descent into nightmares and premonitions, depicting Sharon Tate as somewhat aware of her horrible fate. Distasteful doesn't even begin to describe "The Haunting of Sharon Tate," with Farrands going the B-movie route with a delicate situation of death, toying with the details of the case to manufacture yet another crime tale situated deep in the cartoony unknown. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Poison Rose" is meant to be throwback entertainment, restoring an interest in noir entanglements that haven't been a staple of big screen entertainment in quite some time. The production isn't shy about its fondness for the genre, with the lead character living above a movie theater showing "The Maltese Falcon," while a cat is named Raymond and a character is branded Chandler. I'm sure there are more references to be found, and perhaps finding these touches is more entertaining than the actual film. Loaded with characters and motivations, "The Poison Rose" is a buffet of dangerous activity from untrustworthy characters, but director George Gallo doesn't show much enthusiasm for the construction of suspense, keeping the feature fatigued and overly expository, turning the central mystery into homework, unable to create a delicious cinematic stranglehold. The production wants the audience to know it understands the basics of classic noir, but it shows limited interest in becoming one. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1991's "Strays" was produced for the USA Network, with the channel hoping to provide some frights for the Christmas season, turning to the realm of feral cats and their special ways with torment to find necessary suspense. Cats are a common foe for animal attack features, offering a natural menace, especially when imagined as undomesticated villains only out to mark their territory and slaughter trespassers. The screenplay by Shaun Cassidy (the famous pop star from the 1970s makes his writing debut here) makes a game attempt to come up with something familiar yet sinister with the material, playing around with horror cliches as he concocts a rural battle between a pack of felines and an understandably overwhelmed family new to the area, unfamiliar with boundaries. "Strays" is mild when it comes to powerhouse frights, unable to reach beyond the confines of basic cable television and really go for broke when dealing with furry attackers, but Cassidy is working to make something spooky with the material, successfully dreaming up situations that either result in extended showdowns or painful death. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Gary Graver has gone on record saying that 1987's "Moon in Scorpio" is a compromised film. It was meant to be a low-budget chiller attempting to tie into Vietnam Veteran affairs, only to come up against a producer who wanted a slasher movie to help sell the effort to the home video market. Graver lost the battle, and "Moon in Scorpio" certainly plays like a compromised feature, making little sense while it attempts to survey murderous events and the reverberating horrors of post-war PTSD. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriter Paul Carter Harrison has something to say with 1978's "Youngblood," exploring the tale of a teenager in South Central, Los Angeles struggling to find his place in the pecking order of his neighborhood, exposing himself to troubling influences. It's not an especially fresh tale of poisoned maturation, but Harrison is trying to give the material a distinct sense of humanity as he works in more traditional elements of crime and family. "Youngblood" is certainly aiming to be exciting, but it's much more satisfying as a study of a troubled mind coming to realize the enormity of the world around him. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The director of "The Taint," Drew Bolduc returns with a less provocative tale of interplanetary conflict. "Assassinaut" is a futuristic story of four children sent to a space station for diplomatic reasons, only to find themselves stranded on an alien planet, on the hunt for the President. It's a mix of "Ender's Game" and "Escape from New York," only realized with very little budgetary might, forcing Bolduc to go low-tech as much as possible. Fans of practical effects and kid-centric adventures might get the most out of "Assassinaut," which periodically highlights bloody events and monstrous encounters to maintain interest, staying true to B-movie aspirations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A beloved horror icon, Paul Naschy's work ethic brought him to all corners of the genre. In 1975, Naschy elected to make "The Mummy's Revenge" with director Carlos Aured, not only taking a screenplay credit, but playing dual roles as well, including the monstrous Amenhotep, an Egyptian ghoul reawakened after centuries of rot, on the prowl for human blood. Naschy covers all the bases with "The Mummy's Revenge," striving to recreate some Hammer Film magic with his own vision of unholy resurrection. Unfortunately, the production doesn't focus exclusively on a case of the creeps, insisting banal exposition and absolute stillness take command of the viewing experience, which significantly dulls any potential scariness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriters Carlyle Eubank and David Frigerio apparently loved Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" and wanted to update the 1987 picture for today's audiences. "Crypto" doesn't have the sinister feel of Stone's endeavor, but it basically follows the same arc of moral and financial corruption, offering viewers a new playground of cryptocurrency and encrypted dealings featuring global criminal syndicates. The writing provides a deep dive into terminology and restless participants trying to make a fortune with digital loot, and "Crypto" isn't half-bad when focus turns to online detective work. Even some mild family dramatics are understood, but the material faces an uphill battle when transitioning from a cyber-thriller to a violent one, forcing director John Stalberg Jr. into helming stress positions that shut down the movie entirely. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Technically, Leprechaun has returned already, multiple times. 1993's "Leprechaun" was a genre lark created to offer oddity to curious audiences, and while success was desired, I doubt anyone associated with the production expected the brand name to carry on for five sequels and one dismal reboot. Now the pint-sized Irish demon is back and the spirit of ghoulishness is pleasantly revived in what's actually a direct sequel to the original film. While Jennifer Aniston and Warwick Davis have decided to sit out this homecoming (not a surprise), director Steven Kostanski tries his best to revive the magic(?) of the first chapter, delivering plenty of blood and quips, though his helming powers aren't impervious to lengthy stretches of screentime with obnoxious characters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With a title such as "Penguin Highway" and marketing that puts the titular animals all over trailers and posters, there's an implicit promise made for something adorable, even silly, to be offered to audiences. However, this picture is far from cuddly. Instead of putting together a romp starring a collection of runaway birds, director Hiroyasu Ishida tries to dig into the trials of maturation, overseeing this adaptation of Tomihiko Morimi's novel, which touches on the experience of a fourth-grader coming into contact with a fantastical event, only calmed by friendship, science, and the growing allure of female breasts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Created in the wake of the massive success of 1978's "Halloween," "Terror Train" (released in 1980) tries to replicate slasher-style encounters inside the cramped areas of a moving locomotive. While trains have been used many times for cinematic suspense purposes, "Terror Train" tries to play by then-current trends, pitting young college students against a masked killer who enjoys slicing and dicing its victims, picking them off one at a time. "Terror Train" doesn't win awards for originality, and there's not a lot of tension in the picture as well, with director Roger Spottiswoode ("Turner & Hooch") sweating to make tight spaces seem electric. In fact, the killings are perhaps the least interesting element in the effort, finding performances generally more compelling than the overall fear factor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" premiered in 1993, and it was never meant to be a sure thing. Issued while "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was ascending to beloved status, the third series in the franchise universe also elected to avoid intergalactic travel, containing action and drama to the confines of a space station, which offered little visual variance and warp-speed pacing. Not helping the cause was fan assessment, with many finding the show too limited in scope and dark in tone to delight Trekkers used to boldly going from one corner of the universe to the other. And yet, despite many shortcomings, "Deep Space Nine" managed to find an audience, with producers Michael Piller and Ira Steven Behr eager to challenge predictability and formula with their program, giving their slice of the "Trek" pie unusual intimacy, with hopes to make something different. "What We Left Behind' is Behr's (and co-director David Zappone) attempt to grasp the final product, returning to the cast and crew who helped to put it together, and the fans that remained with the show. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Gary Sherman is hoping to make something incredibly gritty and real with 1982's "Vice Squad." It's a film about the seedy underbelly of Hollywood Boulevard during the early 1980s, where the police struggle to maintain order as pimps and prostitutes take over the streets, offering services to a never-ending stream of disturbed johns. The feature even promises authenticity with an opening card that identifies cooperation with the LAPD, making it clear all the details in the picture are accurate. Sherman's push to make something heavy with "Vice Squad" is commendable and frequently effective, but he's not above constructing a cartoon for mass acceptance, making sure co-star Wings Hauser goes hog wild as the villain of the piece, keeping the effort in a cops-n-crooks mood while it surveys an oppressive parade of sin. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As 2019 becomes the year of Charles Manson and the revival of interest in all the chaos he created, "Charlie Says" (the second of three movies about the man this year) makes an effort to move away from some of the famous imagery and characterization that usually inhabits tales about the cult leader. The focus here is on the women in his life, with special attention on the ways of Leslie Van Houten, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Susan Atkins. Reteaming after their collaborations on "American Psycho" and "The Notorious Bettie Page," director Mary Harron and screenwriter Guinevere Turner endeavor to humanize those involved in barbaric crimes, striving to understand the brainwashed drive of three women who were caught up in something they didn't completely understand, chasing emotional needs to macabre extremes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2003's "Thirteen" was an American production that tried to convey the feral experience of being new to the teenage world of temptation and surging emotions. It made adolescence looks scary. "Tiger Milk" is a German production that basically explores the same obstacle course of juvenile mayhem, but it plays a lot lighter while delving into darker areas of experimentation. It's an adaptation of author Stefanie Muhlhan's novel, with writer/director Ute Wieland trying desperately to find focus and momentum with a sprawling saga of maturation, deportation, and murder. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For this third picture, writer/director Philip Kaufman takes a trip into American legend with 1972's "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid," examining the thin line between fact and fiction concerning the exploits of Jesse James and Cole Younger. The feature surveys the winding ways of the James- Younger Gang as they cross the country on a mission to collect a fortune from a small town bank, but Kaufman isn't making a matinee distraction. Instead, he works his way into troubling personalities and tempers, highlighting the power of reputation and the reality of poisoned behaviors, making a bank robbery movie that's more about psychological disease than straightforward horse-riding, guns blazing theatrics. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Play Dead" is part of the killer dog subgenre, but it isn't a tale of a frenzied beast prowling the streets on the hunt for human prey. It's more of a slasher picture in design, with the central pooch executing complex schemes to terminate targets, with a demonic force helping to motivate the canine into acts of murder. It's all fantastically ridiculous, but director Peter Wittman doesn't push for any sort of reality, creating a campy romp with a four-legged star who's very skilled at making life miserable for the lead character. "Play Dead" has a lot of laughs, most unintentional, but the entertainment value of the feature is high, with Wittman not terribly concerned with throttling foolishness, sticking closely to Lothrop W. Jordan's script as they merge the mystery of Satanism with the craziness of a Rottweiler who's capable of covering up her own murder scenes. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

What a time to be alive. Last November, Shout Factory released "The Critters Collection" on Blu-ray, bringing the original four-part Krite saga from the 1980s and '90s to fans clamoring for an HD franchise festival, stuffing the set with terrific supplements. Last spring saw the release of "Critters: A New Binge," a streaming series consisting of eight short chapters that played like a single film, returning the Krites to screens after being away for 17 years. And now, mere months later, there's "Critters Attack," which also seeks to return the brand name to pop culture awareness, even hiring Dee Wallace to return to the series after appearing in the first movie. It's been a "Critters" bonanza this past year, and while such interest is welcome, "Critters Attack" suffers from a serious lack of energy and creature feature imagination. It's not as cringe-worthy as "A New Binge," which was always chasing terrible jokes, but director Bobby Miller has a real opportunity to create something bonkers with the DTV endeavor, and he goes flat with it, unable to generate the type of gnarly nonsense the fanbase deserves. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1992's "Hellmaster" (titled "Them" on the Blu-ray) has a very ambitious story to sell, but not a lot of production time is devoted to really emphasize just what exactly is happening during most scenes. It's a convoluted picture from director Douglas Schulze, but he has a visual plan for the effort, working with cinematographer Michael Goi to make the endeavor as striking as a low-budget movie can possibly be. "Hellmaster" has a lot of problems, but it's engaging as horror eye candy, giving fans plenty of blood and strange sights to hold their attention as Schulze fights to explore a lukewarm plot. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com