“Welcome to the Blumhouse” makes another attempt to turn Blumhouse Productions into a household name for horror. Partnering with Amazon Studios, Blumhouse delivers four films for streaming distribution, looking to clear out a few older titles from the company closet. The second offering of the series is “The Lie,” which is a remake of a 2015 German production, with writer/director Veena Sub transferring austere European storytelling to snowbound Canada, hoping to get a little more atmospheric mileage out of the premise. “The Lie” asks some compelling questions about the evil nature of children and the reverberating destruction caused by a parental breakup, but Sub only has ridiculous answers to offer viewers with her remake. Instead of challenging her audience, the helmer manages to trigger major eye-rolls with the writing, destroying a picture with a provocative introduction. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Welcome to the Blumhouse” makes another attempt to turn Blumhouse Productions into a household name for horror. Partnering with Amazon Studios, Blumhouse delivers four films for streaming distribution, looking to clear out a few older titles from the company closet. First up is “Black Box,” a television movie that takes viewers into the depths of an unsettled mind as it attempts to understand the trauma it suffered and the memory loss that sustains. There are no particulars scares to be found in the endeavor, with co-writer/director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr. looking to make a more psychological impact with the picture, which tries to get something going with a talented cast and an initially intriguing exploration of a broken brain that perhaps shouldn’t be repaired. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The story behind the making of “The Planters” is perhaps more interesting than the film itself. In 2016, friends Hannah Leder and Alexandra Kotcheff decided they wanted to make a movie, only they weren’t interested in outside interference. Gathering equipment and a few additional actors, the partners became the crew, taking on camera and sound duties while providing lead performances. It’s a sort of DIY production, a rare one that isn’t a documentary, and “The Planters” emerges with a level of creative freedom that’s only born out of complete independence. The feature isn’t quite as bold as expected, with Leder and Kotcheff clearly enamored with Wes Anderson and his cinematic world of deadpan humor and decorated frames, working extremely hard to replicate the vibe for their own offering of strange things happening to stranger people. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sofia Coppola doesn’t strike me as a filmmaker who wants to repeat herself, but in the years since her grand success with 2003’s “Lost in Translation,” she’s struggled to find heart and soul that came so effortlessly with that picture. Recently, she’s pushed her abilities with the gothic chiller “The Beguiled,” and toyed with the unpleasant world of rich kids in “The Bling Ring,” but her latest, “On the Rocks,” seems like an attempt to get back to the aura of “Lost in Translation,” reteaming Coppola with Bill Murray for another melancholy look at relationships. It should come as no surprise to read that “On the Rocks” is the helmer’s best feature in some time, with Coppola finding a game cast and using the atmosphere of New York City to support a charming but pointed look at familial influence, marriage, and parenthood, finding new ways to examine traditional matters of the heart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Brandon Cronenberg is the son of celebrated director David Cronenberg, and he seems intent on maintaining the family business of creating bizarre features with incredible imagery. In 2012, Cronenberg made his debut with “Antiviral,” a sinister tale of obsession and extreme fandom that put him on the map in terms of macabre visions. He’s taken his time, but Cronenberg returns with “Possessor,” which builds on the educational experience of “Antiviral,” presenting a new story of characters altering their minds and bodies, only here there’s slightly more emotionality to the viewing experience. However, the helmer hasn’t gone soft, overseeing a sexually graphic and ultraviolent descent into sci-fi madness, kept fascinating through committed performances and Cronenberg’s wonderfully perverse vision for psychological and corporeal corruption. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Spontaneous human explosion isn’t a common subject for cinematic exploration, dealing with the horrible concept of life in full being snuffed out in the blink of an eye. Of course, there are offerings such as “This is Spinal Tap” that’ve used the event to add unusual comedic potential to projects, but “Spontaneous” isn’t interested in being silly. Writer/director Brian Duffield (“Underwater,” “The Babysitter”) hunts for a more human way to deal with heavy emotions pertaining to grief and new love, using a borderline sci-fi story to bring it all to life. “Spontaneous” is a strange feature, but one that successfully maintains a difficult tonal balance as it covers troubling areas of confusion. There are busting bodies everywhere in the movie, soaking the characters in blood, but Duffield maintains control of intimacy, which is exactly what this weird tale needs. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2020 has introduced some extreme weirdness into our lives, coming through with constant surprises. I doubt few could’ve predicted the film year would involve the release of a comedic remake of “Sudden Death,” a 1995 “Die Hard” riff starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Losing the original star, the producers bring in a different tough guy, Michael Jai White, to topline another tale concerning the terrorist takeover of a sporting event, forcing one security guard to protect an arena of spectators and his children. Van Damme’s thriller involved hockey playoffs, but “Welcome to Sudden Death” is about a basketball game – a sport that doesn’t even have a sudden death tiebreaker scenario. Careful attention to detail is missing from the do-over, which isn’t too concerned with polish, instead trying to give the VOD audience and their already lowered expectations a cheap-looking ride of fights and one-liners. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When it comes to low-budget horror entertainment, having a few familiar faces around certainly helps to keep attention on the screen. For “The Call,” the production hires Lin Shaye and Tobin Bell to handle acting duties for the endeavor, with director Timothy Woodward Jr. wisely using his stars as much as possible before the feature is handed over to a younger, decidedly less seasoned cast. The bump in professionalism helps, but “The Call” isn’t worth saving, with writer Patrick Stibbs doing an adequate job setting up a disturbing story of punishment from beyond the grave, but the payoff is limited at best, recycling haunted house ideas and thinly defined psychological trauma to launch a fright film that doesn’t have much of a bite. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“The Rising Hawk” takes its inspiration from an 1883 historical fiction book by Ivan Franco, a Ukrainian author, which was previously explored in a 1971 production. For a new take on an old tale, director John Wynn focuses on upping the intensity of the war story, simplifying conflicts to connect with the audience, giving the material a slight “Braveheart” makeover. While other productions have attempted to deliver sword-and-arrow adventure, “The Rising Hawk” is unexpectedly successful with its offering of violent action and tensions between Carpathian Mountain villagers and an invading Mongol army. It’s basic in many respects, but the picture has an appealing handle on B-movie action and emotional content, while the performances find the vibe of the production with refreshing ease, supporting the effort with enjoyable thespian intensity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Seth Larney offers some gloom and doom for today’s audience with “2067,” which represents his attempt to create an epic sci-fi story about the end of the world. Missing from the endeavor is scale, with Larney losing budgetary dollars after an evocative first act, soon transitioning the tale into a time travel mystery, hoping to satisfy viewers with a brain-bleeder concerning one man’s visit to his future. The helmer isn’t exactly achieving anything original with “2067,” which starts off strong while focusing on a ruined Earth and a relationship facing an incredible challenge of separation. Larney can’t sustain what works well for the picture, which eventually becomes a video game-esque adventure that loses interesting elements of discovery as it goes on for much too long and without proper thespian support. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Despite a 13-year-long break from box office performance, director Darren Lynn Bousman has managed to keep working, remaining in the horror genre, where the budgets are usually low and the distribution deals are marginally profitable. He’s not an inspired architect of doom, riding his early success with the “Saw” franchise into forgettable efforts such as “Abattoir,” “St. Agatha,” and “The Barrens.” He returns to spooky stuff yet again with “Death of Me,” and despite the presence of three screenwriters and 20 producers, Bousman is basically remaking “The Wicker Man,” hitting similar beats of dread and community coercion. “Death of Me” has the benefit of an exotic locale in Thailand and a story that details early confusion with a found-footage-y twist, but there’s little presented here that’s original or even all that interesting, with the script running out of ideas long before the movie reaches its climax. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s probably not the best time to release a movie that depicts frontline health care workers as corrupt, depraved individuals bent on harming their patients, but “12 Hour Shift” isn’t a documentary. It’s a low-budget, darkly comedic thriller from writer/director Brea Grant, who’s in the mood to deliver something slightly twisted with the picture, offering time with dim-witted, addicted, and diseased characters dealing with a particularly active night inside an Arkansas hospital. “12 Hour Shift” isn’t sharply made, missing a roaring engine of chills and near-misses that normally accompanies such a viewing experience. Grant is trying for something more offbeat and unsteady, clearly enjoying a chance to play around with bad people and buckets of blood. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Eternal Beauty” comes from writer/director Craig Roberts. He’s best known as an actor, appearing in the television show “Red Oaks” and movies such as “Neighbors,” “Submarine,” and “Tolkien.” He’s been in the business for quite some time, starting out as a kid, and now he’s trying to make something happen behind the camera, previously helming 2015’s “Just Jim,” and now he’s presenting the claustrophobic viewing experience of “Eternal Beauty.” A look at the winding ways of a paranoid schizophrenic woman and her family ties, the picture enjoys keeping the audience immersed in self-destructive behavior, with Roberts searching for the glory of empowerment in the darkest corners of the human mind. He hires top talent to realize such immense pain and confusion, and slams a visual stamp on the project, but this is a tough film to watch on many levels. It’s a respectable attempt to visualize mental illness, but asking people to sit through 105 minutes of restless hell is a big ask from Roberts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com