Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

A few years ago, writer/director Adam MacDonald made his helming debut with "Backcountry." There have been many killer bear pictures, but MacDonald's endeavor was one of the best, mixing the brutality of nature and the terror of survival, managing to do something thrilling with familiar genre elements. With "Pyewacket," an odd title for sure, MacDonald turns his attention to the pains of adolescence, with the main character dealing with social concerns, motherly influence, and good old fashioned dark magic. A slow-burn chiller with an excellent sense of creepiness, "Pyewacket" handles evil and angst with tremendous skill. MacDonald doesn't have much money to bring the nightmare to life, but he's an inventive moviemaker with a refreshing concentration on behavior, not overt shocks, giving the feature a dramatic foundation before it all goes to Hell. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's a lot of competition out there for the zombie lover's dollar, inspiring filmmakers to find new and interesting ways to refresh genre particulars, refusing to submit the same old stomp to moviegoers demanding a little more from their flesh-chewing entertainment. Making his directorial debut for "The Cured" is David Freyne (who also scripts), who twists the subgenre in a more allegorical fashion, using the menace of "infected" types to explore political history in Ireland and the violent extremism that plagues all corners of the world today. "The Cured" isn't light, bloody fun, retaining an impressively curated heaviness about it, with Freyne laboring to making something different with familiar working parts, coming up with an impressively forbidding tone and emotional urgency to reach beyond expectations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

1995's "Serpent's Lair" is marketed as another offering for the erotic thriller scrapheap, with its ready-made Blockbuster Video elements making it catnip for fans of the subgenre scanning the bottom shelf for something saucy. However, screenwriter Marc Rosenberg and director Jeffrey Reiner aren't committed to a prolonged display of bare skin and orgasmic faces, trying to bend the material into more of a horror experience, finding inspiration from the succubus, a demon who uses sexuality to attract victims. Rosenberg and Reiner aren't exactly making "Hellraiser" here, but they have the right idea for the first hour of the movie, keeping "Serpent's Lair" stocked with strange lustiness and potential threat, while using star Jeff Fahey's talents wisely, keeping the actor in eye-bulging meltdown mode. The film eventually takes itself a bit too seriously, but there's something resembling a ride provided here, working through crazy seductions and demonic paranoia with reasonable speed and enthusiasm. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

'70s cinema doesn't get more '70s than "Wonder Women." It's an ego-stroke production from 1973, with co-writer/director Robert Vincent O'Neill assembling a bizarre thriller that's steeped in weird science, loaded with scantily clad women, set in Manila, scored to thumpy funk jams, and delivers stunts where actual safety standards were set aside to capture the intensity of recklessness. Perhaps it's not the first movie that comes to mind when discussing the thickness of era-specific influence, but O'Neill initially tries to make something exciting, coming out the other end with a true curiosity that muddies empowerment displays and sexuality, but is frequently willing to endanger lives to provide some cheap thrills. "Wonder Women" is pretty much everything exploitation should be, with the production maintaining focus on sellable mayhem, not dramatic consistency. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1967's "Smashing Time" is a romp about Swinging London, and it does whatever it can to project a mood of comedic insanity, trying very hard to be the liveliest viewing experience of its release year. Director Desmond Davis offers no restraint here, giving the movie over to a moment in time when the city was exploding with fashion, music, and attitude, sending stars Lynn Redgrave and Rita Tushingham on an odyssey of thespian bigness that's remarkably exhausting to watch. "Smashing Time" is ready to loved and appreciated as a satiric overview of a cultural movement, but about halfway through the endeavor, it starts to feel like a runaway train that's run out of track. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Adventures highlighting the travel plans of rebellious truckers were all the rage in the 1970s, but only one production had the smarts to cast one of the greatest actors of all time, Henry Fonda, in the leading role. 1977's "The Great Smokey Roadblock" (titled "The Last of the Cowboys" on the disc) offers Fonda the part of a sickly man facing his mortality, taking off on one last mission across America to help friends new and old while avoiding trouble from local cops and younger rivals. Writer/director John Leone isn't making high-art with the endeavor, and his command of tone leaves a lot to be desired, with "The Great Smokey Roadblock" unsure if it wants to be deadly serious or slightly madcap. It doesn't come together with any sort of distinction, but the movie does have Fonda, who gives a little extra to the production, playing up the story's death march severity and its interest in wackiness with professional ease. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

At the height of his fame, a dramatic and action star known around the world, Sylvester Stallone wanted to change things up, trying on a comedy for size to expand his thespian horizons. 1984's "Rhinestone" bombed at the box office and scared the star away from pronounced silly business for years to come, retreating to the comfort of Rambo sequels and easy money from Cannon Films. While a cheeky turn in 1989's "Tango & Cash" permitted Stallone to showcase his snarkier side, it was 1991's "Oscar" that found him diving back into the challenge of funny business, this time paring with director John Landis, who was following up his successful work on "Coming to America." The helmer wanted to make a farce, only to be faced with the acting limitations of Stallone, who wasn't known for his fast mouth and limber movement. Landis works very hard to support his star through this endeavor, which tries to simulate the blazing speed and wit of a classic comedy from the 1930s, and achieves a good portion of its creative goals, giving Stallone plenty of co-stars to bounce off of, while Landis orchestrates fine timing for "Oscar," which isn't all that hilarious, but it's consistently entertaining. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It all began in the early 1970s when a gang of students at the University of Illinois decided they wanted to move from making short documentaries to a major motion picture. Devouring the supercop movies of the day, writer/director Mitch Brown and producer Nate Kohn settled on "Shot," which attempts to make a "French Connection"-style ruckus with only a $15,000 budget to work with, leaning on University resources to see the project to completion. Created solely by college students (one of them being Chuck Russell, who would go on to a wildly uneven directorial career) trying to create a calling card for Hollywood employment, "Shot" is a weird but engaging compilation of stunts, shootouts, and cops and robbers, watching Kohn and Brown working within their means to assemble a smashmouth actioner while in the middle of rural Illinois, giving the feature the first of many distinctive marks. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

"Zama" is a period piece, an adaptation of a novel by Antonio di Benedetto, handed over to respected Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel ("The Headless Woman," "The Holy Girl"), who makes a return to screens after a near-decade break from fictional storytelling. Perhaps fueled by her own career set-backs, Martel pours her perspective into "Zama," which examines the days of a Spanish officer (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) in colonial South America trying to get himself out of professional and psychological stasis, running into all kinds of problems as the surroundings start to poison his mind. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Responding to the growing crisis in the farmlands of America during the 1980s, Hollywood tried to identify the pressure put on farmers to protect their lands from predatory banking practices built on unrealistic business expectations. While the subject matter was timely and critical of government agriculture policies, stories of family upheaval and financial disaster also provided premium drama, offering filmmakers a chance to delve into rural lives that are rarely defined in full. In 1984 there was "The River," with Mel Gibson and Sissy Spacek, and "Country," which gifted Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard a chance to stretch by portraying a farming couple suddenly under siege by threats of foreclosure and a loss of their way of life. Scripted by William D. Wittliff ("Legends of the Fall," "Barbarosa"), "Country" pushes as far as it can with its bleak observance of failure and humiliation, trying to remain communicative about the human spirit while taking the central crisis as serious as a Disney production can. It's not a cheery viewing experience, but Wittliff grasps the hardscrabble living experience and household tensions, while Lange and Shepard deliver some of their finest work in showy but sincere roles that depict the death of the American Dream.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's no one way to start a comedy, but perhaps a cruel murder isn't the best way to commence 1992's "Blame It on the Bellboy," which wants to be a rip-roaring farce, only to spend its introductory period detailing loss of life. Of course, this is one of many issues hounding the feature, which intends to pay tribute to the wacky comedies of yesteryear, pitting a collection of characters suffering through life-altering misunderstandings against one another, setting them loose in the tourist paradise of Venice, Italy. Writer/director Mark Herman doesn't seem to be making a dark endeavor, but there's unshakable gloominess to "Blame It on the Bellboy," which works through violence, death, prostitution, and unbearable loneliness when it isn't trying to be hilarious with hoary jokes and painfully exaggerated performances. Herman's trying to replicate something specific here, but his timing and tone are way off. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Actor/stuntman Kane Hodder is primarily known for his work on the "Friday the 13th" series, portraying Jason Voorhees for four movies, starting with 1987's "The New Blood." He's celebrated for his reworking of Jason's monster stomp, taking a figure of horror cinema and turning him into an icon. "To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story" sets out to humanize Hodder, to expose his real side after decades spent behind mask and makeup. Director Derek Dennis Herbert strives to understand what makes Hodder tick, using guidance from the subject's 2011 autobiography to inspire this documentary, which employs a great number of famous faces and close friends to explore Hodder's personality and professional triumphs, while the man himself sits down to share harrowing tales of medical and social challenges while helped to shape the genre legend that remains today.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Tim Robbins starred in Robert Altman's "The Player," with the 1992 movie managing to boost his career critically and creatively. In 1999, Robbins attempted to repay the favor by making "Cradle Will Rock," an ambitious picture about politics, passion, and the arts that's clearly influenced by Altman's oeuvre, with Robbins trying to pull off a sophisticated cinematic braid that ties performance, music, and storytelling reach together. It's a messy film, taking a very long time to go nowhere specific, but the ride is what matters most to the helmer, who delivers an intelligent, intermittently charged journey into America during the 1930s, investigating the churn of class and political divide while creating an evocative look at the shining light of the theater scene in New York City as it's attacked by government forces trying to stifle radical thought. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Branded a star on the rise in the 1990s, Halle Berry graduated quickly to major studios roles, with Hollywood spending the better part of the decade figuring out just what to do with the actress, who achieved some visibility in "Boomerang," "Jungle Fever," and "The Flintstones." I'm not sure Berry was ready to carry her own movie with 1996's "The Rich Man's Wife," and the production basically agrees, with writer/director Amy Holden Jones left with little thespian oomph as she tries to manufacture a classic thriller for a modern age. Berry is limp here, backed by several key miscastings, leaving Jones with little room to take something traditional and give it significant personality, helping to up what are weirdly low stakes for a thriller. "The Rich Man's Wife" is a drag, but one with potential, working half-speed on a few promising ideas, only to have Jones weighed down by the actors and the feature's increasing reliance on ludicrousness to connect the dots.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There have been many movies trying to cash-in on the success of 1982's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," but few have been quite as obvious as 1988's "Mac and Me." The producers are determined to replicate Steven Spielberg's box-office-busting success, coming up with a slight variation on the formula of the lonely boy and his lost alien pal. However, instead of using creativity, money, and magic to shape the feature, co-writer/director Stewart Raffill marches forward with a highly bizarre rip-off that's hanging on for dear life, throwing anything at the screen to see what might appeal to the target demographic of young kids. "Mac and Me" is awful and infamously so, with longstanding cult appeal helping to cushion the crushingly bad ideas found in the endeavor.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Grace Jones has been a recording artist and general pop culture figure for over 40 years, but those who've stood outside her fame would probably find it difficult to identify what makes the icon tick. "Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami" isn't a career overview or a very in-depth biographical investigation, but director Sophie Fiennes makes it a priority to deliver a seldom seen side of the artist as she approaches the age of 70, following her as she records a new album, dominates the stage, does the promotional rounds, and pays a visit to her family in Jamaica. "Bloodlight and Bami" offers outstanding concert sequences to refresh appreciation for Jones's talents and blazing sense of style, but it's also an intimate study of temperament and trauma, with the subject unafraid to showcase her impatience with world as she quests to realize her art. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

1998's "Deep Rising" didn't have an easy time finding an audience during its initial theatrical release. It came out a year after "The Relic" (which delivered a similar monster-in-a-contained-area premise), a month after "Titanic" (which satiated audiences hungry to see a massive ship endure a slow destruction), and two weeks after "Hard Rain" (which also enjoyed some Jet Ski action in tight hallways). The planets didn't align for writer/director Stephen Sommers, but this noisy ode to B-movies of the past eventually found something of a following on home video and basic cable, and it's not hard to see why, with the helmer arranging plenty of mayhem, quips, and gore to delight those in the mood for something violent but cheeky. Though the true comedic value of "Deep Rising" is up for debate. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Love can be a complicated thing, especially when it involves dead people. Necrophilia is not a common subject for a horror film, but there are a few notable examples, including 1987's Nekromantik," but "Love Me Deadly" doesn't play the fetish for scares, instead offering a soap opera take on a woman's relationship with the deceased, rooting the illness somewhere personal, avoiding pure shock value for something slightly softer. Director Jacques Lacerte seems to be on mission to make a slightly more accessible tale of unimaginable trauma, but his restraint doesn't mesh well with the feature's assortment of half-realized ideas and B-movie construction. "Love Me Deadly" isn't ghastly or enlightening, it's just slow and silly, working itself into a lather as a way to display some level of emotional value for a picture that's essentially about a woman who turns to the touch of the dead to deal with childhood issues. Now where's the fun in that? Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The whimsy and fixation of the teenage heart is explored in 2015's "John From," a production from Portugal which eschews American obsessiveness for something a little weirder. Co-writer/director Joao Nicolau picks a focal point in his main character, an adolescent girl, and remains there for the duration of the feature, investigating the daily experience of the age and personality, with the rituals of a summer crush seeping into the deceptive normality of this average existence. "John From" is deliberate, which takes some getting used to, but Nicolau's observational instincts are strong, finding ways to address normal teen habits and tweak them with oddity, burrowing deeper into a casually obsessive mind.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2002, Jim Carrey wasn't entirely interested in being the Jim Carrey audiences wanted him to be. By this time, he was branching out with dramas like "The Truman Show" and "Man on the Moon," beginning to leave behind a career in broad comedies, requiring Hollywood to scramble like mad and find a new guy to make a proper big screen mess. The suits at Disney settled on Dave Sheridan, an unknown actor who generated some interest with turns in "Bubble Boy" and "Ghost World." Sheridan wasn't Carrey, but that wasn't going to stop the Mouse House from trying to pull off a successful makeover, fitting Sheridan for a wacky character in "Frank McKlusky, C.I." Carrey certainly made his share of duds, but he's never been involved in something this atrocious, finding Sheridan lost at sea trying to make a DOA script (by Mark Perez) and clueless direction from Arlene Sanford resemble something functional. While there are plenty of curious additions to the movie (which offers a supporting cast that includes Dolly Parton and Chyna), there's not nearly enough oddity to aid digestion of this cruelly unfunny disaster. It's one thing to mimic a Carrey comedy, it's another to completely misunderstand why people loved the star in the first place.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com