Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

There are cinematic monsters for every star in the sky, but there comes a time for every horror fan when a break from malicious creatures is needed. 1957's "The Monolith Monsters" aims to provide a different kind of fright feature, eschewing matters of the flesh to offer sheer power from deep space. Meteor fragments are the major source of destruction in the picture, with little black shards scattered around a California desert town becoming a real issue when they get wet. In a way, "The Monolith Monsters" is a precursor to Joe Dante's "Gremlins," only instead of cuddly Mogwai turning into a reptilian menace, the film offers the strange sight of tiny rocks transforming into deadly towers, offering just the right amount of instability to threaten life on Earth. The production certainly wins points for originality. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Taking an educator position in Alabama, filmmaker RaMell Ross elected to carry a camera during his time in the community of Hale County. The documentary "Hale County This Morning, This Evening" has little linear momentum, with Ross electing to stitch together a feeling of the town in motion, dropping in and out of the lives of various citizens, but focused on the passage of time and how it changes everything is subtle ways. The feature strives to be present in the best way possible, capturing remarkable beauty and wonder in everyday events, while identifying pressures facing people just trying to make their way through life, dealing with dreams and crushing realities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Video game adaptations aren't easy to master, forcing filmmakers to invent ways of taking a participatory experience and changing it to a passive viewing event. Many of these productions have failed, but for most gamers, 2006's "Silent Hill" stands out as the rare success story, with director Christophe Gans and screenwriter Roger Avary trying to master a specific approach that respects the exploratory origins of the original games, transferring that sense of mystery and approaching malevolence to the big screen. There's undeniable artistry to the movie, with Gans lovingly detailing this world with surreal touches and ultraviolence, trying to craft atmospheric immersion without resorting to cheap scares. However, such attention to the specifics of gaming delights results in a largely inert picture, and one that has major issues with dreadful dialogue, disappointing performances, and stabs at exposition that are not inclusive to those who haven't spent weeks of their lives in front of a television, mastering this macabre maze of blurring realities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For their final movie together at Universal Pictures, stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi barely share any screen time in 1940's "Black Friday," which features the men prominently billed, while the actual lead role is handed to Stanley Ridges. It's a strange situation of expectations not being met with the picture, which promises to present something more substantial with the Karloff and Lugosi, fitting them for a gangster effort with mild macabre happenings. It's weird science yet again for the duo, but the screenplay isn't very interested in Lugosi, who struggles with a lesser role in a minor film, with Karloff supplied with more screen time to showcase his range, portraying a doctor who's managed to stuff part of a criminal's mind into his best friend's dying body. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Much like 1934's "The Black Cat," 1935's "The Raven" takes inspiration from the world of writer Edgar Allan Poe, refusing any direct adaptation to simply embrace the author's macabre imagination. However, "The Raven" goes to the next level of celebration, turning its lead character (portrayed by Bela Lugosi) into a demented fan of Poe's, building recreations of torture machines to use on unsuspecting dinner guests. It's the rare picture that actually pulls real-world creativity into its own fictional realm. Such a boost of madness is enough to keep the feature interesting when, at times, it feels like the production doesn't really care about storytelling details. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Downplaying their success with horror entertainment, Universal Pictures turns to weird science to fuel 1936's "The Invisible Ray." The movie's opening card tries to sell the story as possible futureworld reality, but the basics of the production remain with genre tastes, reteaming Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in a tale of galaxy power and damnation. However, instead of horrible monsters unleashed on society, "The Invisible Ray" offers a glowing Karloff on the verge of detonation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Although both actors made their name in the cinematic realm of monsters, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi attempt a different style of menace for 1934's "The Black Cat." Director Edgar G. Ulmer has two incredible faces to utilize for this adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe short story ("suggested by" is the actual credit), and he gives the talent a little more room to detail distorted personalities with their distinctive styles, infusing the picture with a remarkable level of menace as the tale swings into unexpectedly bleak areas of revenge and higher power. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For his directorial debut, Fred Dekker is determined to share his love of B-movies from the 1950s. "Night of the Creeps" is a creature feature from 1986 that tries to play modern with a cast of young characters dealing with love and bullying on a college campus, but the heart of the endeavor remains in past, as Dekker serves up a valentine to horror history with the production, doing whatever he can to celebrate his influences, which are numerous. "Night of the Creeps" is about a space slug takeover of a college campus, but Dekker only visits terror periodically, having more fun playing up the cinematic excitement of it all. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When encountering a movie about the relationship between lions and human, thoughts of 1981's "Roar" immediately come to mind. "Mia and the White Lion" isn't created out of chaos, with director Gilles de Maistre trying to make something similar to an old-fashioned Disney film with the effort, shooting the feature over three years to generate a natural relationship between the lead character (played by Daniah De Villiers) and Thor, a white lion who matures with his co-star. It's like "Boyhood," only with lions, and while the production's patience is fascinating, "Mia and the White Lion" isn't always dramatically sound, as de Maistre can't quite make storytelling as exciting as natural behaviors. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

He's battled robots, M. Bison, Dolph Lundgren (multiple times), and he almost, in the mid-90s, went head-to-head with the abominable snowman. And now Jean-Claude Van Damme is going after the MS-13 gang. It's a sobering change of pace for the action star, as "We Die Young" intends to be a grittier endeavor, with a streetwise sense of horror from writer/director Lior Geller. Van Damme isn't the traditional hero here, but a broken man barely clinging to life, inspired to stand between the street gangs that control America's capital and the young lives threatened by violence. "We Die Young" isn't going to blow minds with its offering of chases and intimidation, but Lior sustains credible peril while examining an urban fight for survival. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's always room for a heist movie. It's an evergreen genre that's recently been tended to by the likes of "Ocean's 8" and "Widows," and now returns in "King of Thieves," which offers an English take on heavily planned criminal endeavors. From the outside looking in, the picture seems to have it all, submitting a story that takes place around London's diamond district, and the cast couldn't be better, with Michael Caine leading an ensemble of older actors playing up age-related issues as their characters participate in an elaborate theft. At least half of the film seems to understand the feisty appeal of Grumpy Old Men dealing with a new world of surveillance and security, but "King of Thieves" (based on a true story) doesn't stay lively long enough, suffering some dramatic balance issues as director James Marsh ("The Theory of Everything," "Man on Wire") peaks too soon with seemingly surefire material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Andrew Bujalski is currently entering a strange position in his career, newly in charge of movies that people are actually seeing, achieving some success with last year's "Support the Girls," and also taking a screenwriting credit on the upcoming Disney+ live-action remake of "Lady and the Tramp." Of course, Bujalski wasn't always in such a people-pleasing mood, launching his career with 2002's "Funny Ha Ha" (which featured intentionally distorted sound) and 2005's "Mutual Appreciation," which welcomes audiences into the world of three characters who spend their time conversing with one another. And that's it. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Winona Ryder was the "It Girl" of the early 1990s, participating in a succession of wonderful films from a wide range of directors, building a reputation for fine work and tasteful creative choices. There's was Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence," Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula," Gillian Armstrong's "Little Women," Ben Stiller's "Reality Bites," and Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands." But the actress's reign had to come to an end, and it did with 1995's "How to Make an America Quilt," which provided Ryder with her last hit movie for quite some time, soon losing her sharpness in endeavors such as "Boys" and "The Crucible." Of course, it would hard to flop in "How to Make an American Quilt," which finds Ryder joined by an ensemble of uniquely talented actresses questing to portray the idiosyncratic members of a quilting bee struggling with relationship woes and stained memories. It's an adaptation of a Whitney Otto novel (scripted by Jane Anderson), and director Jocelyn Moorhouse crafts a literary- minded feature that attempts to replicate the flow of a book, moving from chapter to chapter to explore the pain of silenced spirits and uncontrollable passions. Ryder's great here, but so is everyone else, contributing to a sensitive, expansive picture with an atypically honest assessment of mistakes made in the name of love. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's not easy to introduce a new superhero in an already packed marketplace. "Valentine: The Dark Avenger" is an Indonesian production with American filmmaking interests, finding the producers eager to create their own take on "The Dark Knight," only without the iconic battle between Batman and Joker. Instead of DC Universe familiarity, there's Valentine, a plucky amateur crime-fighter looking to make her presence known when baddie The Shadow rises to take control of Batavia City. "The Dark Avenger" doesn't have the budget or depth of a typical modern comic book adaptation (the material is credited to Skylar Comics), and it really doesn't have much drama either, preferring to do much of its speaking through martial art battles, which are often edited into a visual mush. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Slashers in a post-"Scream" world are difficult to digest. The self-referential approach doesn't quite work for horror movies, which needs a sense of sincerity and surprise to truly generate a proper fear factor. "Shredder" is a 2003 release that tries to be both aware and immersed in murderous intentions, with co-writer/director Greg Huson attempting to provide a gore fest for genre fans, but also one that's semi-comedic, hunting for a tone that permits him to be silly and scary. "Shredder" doesn't connect on multiple levels, but being humorous is one of its greatest failures, with Huson forcing his stale sense of humor on viewers, trying to find the "fun" in the middle of what should be a proper slaughterama in the snow. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's a great, big zombie-infested world out there, and co-writer/director Chee Keong Cheung is trying to do something with it. "Redcon-1" has the disadvantage of being yet another tale of an undead uprising (or viral plague), taking the action to Britain with hopes to shake up expectations with atypical locations and a military approach to monster warfare. There's ambition to "Redcon-1," which strives to be a bit more emotionally grounded than the competition, but the helmer has serious issues with editing and cinematography, making things overlong and too shaky-cam, which works to lower viewer interest as the story unfolds. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One day, someone is going to write a book about the career of Christopher Lambert, hopefully titled, "Why Him?" Here's an actor with a positively bizarre filmography, achieving his greatest success with 1986's "Highlander," where the Frenchman played an immortal Scotsman, showing proper physicality for the part, but never slam-dunking its emotional potential. Hollywood tried to do so much with Lambert, casting him in plenty of B- movies (such as "Fortress," "Gunmen," and "Knight Moves"), with the actor ultimately reaching the peak of industry support in 1995, with the release of "Mortal Kombat" and "The Hunted," with the latter returning the star to the dangerous ways of swordplay. Lambert remains well out of his range in the feature, but "The Hunted" is perhaps the second best of his Americanized efforts, adding some hard stares and mild comedy to what's largely a deadly serious investigation into honor and revenge concerning two rival ninja clans. Writer/director J.F. Lawton does relatively well with Lambert, but one can sense he's had enough of the actor as the picture unfolds, slowly pushing his character into the background when the opportunity arrives to deal with some wonderful Japanese actors. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1980's "The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood" is the third chapter of a most unlikely franchise, following 1975's "The Happy Hooker" (starring Lynn Redgrave) and 1977's "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington" (starring Joey Heatherton). The movies are based on a best-selling memoir by Xaviera Hollander, who cashed in on the sexual revolution, sharing tales of lust, love, and financial transactions, fueling fantasies for those on the outside of the prostitution business. Martine Beswick takes over as Xaviera for "The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood," which receives the full Cannon Films treatment as the series steps into the 1980s, bringing with it a farcical tone and strange supporting cast of television talents from the 1960s. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

From Anthony Harvey, the director of "The Lion in Winter," 1979's "Eagle's Wing" hopes to give viewers a taste of the True West, going beyond simple frontier conflicts to delve into complex situations of deep psychology. It's a meditation on survival and connection, but Harvey also orders up chases and stunts, while cinematography by Billy Williams protects the glory of wide open spaces in their purest, untouched form. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Ethan Hawke wanted to make a movie about a country singer who isn't widely known. The subject's name is Blaze Foley, and a portion of his life and times is recreated for "Blaze," which is co-written by his ex-wife, Sybil, giving the production a potential level of authenticity as it explores a deeply flawed man with special musical gift. Hawke takes the blessing and runs with it, delivering a picture that's not precisely a bio-pic, but a tone poem to a man who lived a very insular and problematic life. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com