1990's "Blood Games" offers one of the more peculiar set-ups for a thriller I've ever encountered. While the material eventually settles into formula, depicting a forest battle between backwoods predators and female prey, the path to such a showdown makes its first stop at a rural baseball game, with the visitors a team of scantily clad ladies that drive around the country, battling local opponents. It's an underworld of sports betting with a side of Hooters-style teasing that gently launches the feature, giving director Tanya Rosenberg multiple opportunities to arrange sexploitation shots and examine the horrors of uncontrollable men. It's so weird, and yet, it's actually a fantastic way to commence "Blood Games," earning viewer interest with the unexpected before Rosenberg gives in to the predictability of genre demands. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The saga of Patricia Hearst and her 1974 kidnapping has been explored in numerous media offerings, with journalists and dramatists drawn to the story's overt strangeness and ties to the Hearst legacy. For 1988's "Patty Hearst," screenwriter Nicholas Kazan goes straight to the source, adapting Hearst's 1982 autobiography, "Every Secret Thing." Director Paul Schrader takes the opportunity to probe into the mind of a kidnapped woman brought to her breaking point, examining days of imprisonment that eventually led to the birth of an unlikely "urban guerilla." Admittedly, the sheer oddity of the event is enough to fill a run time, but Schrader and Kazan struggle to locate the urgency of Hearst's transformation, getting lost in style without pinpointing compelling motivations, providing very little insight beyond what Hearst shares in her book. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Jordan Peele's "Get Out" received critical accolades, Oscar gold, and a sizable box office haul with its homage to "The Twilight Zone" episode, "The Trade-Ins." Imagine another pass at the premise, only without the social and racial commentary, the sleek cinematography, and the gradual rise of sinister business. 1989's "The Immortalizer" has rampaging mutants, it's that kind of movie, but it's interesting to examine another take on the premise of the old looking to be young again via surgery, with brain-swapping mischief offered more of a low-budget horror event from director Joel Bender, the man who gave the world "Gas Pump Girls." There's nothing subtle about "The Immortalizer," which largely gets by on scenes of wild behavior and mild chases, while Bender's periodic visits to the gore zone give the picture a kick when it needs it. It's not the maniac creation it could've been, but it has its moments, especially when the production embraces its sick side. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Michael Winterbottom has always held a great interest in highlighting troubled times around the world, with the growing issue of economic disparity a popular topic of his pictures. With "Greed," Winterbottom does away with any sort of subtlety, instead going for the throat with his vision of a billionaire celebrating his 60th birthday, with his grotesque life opened for study as a decadent party is planned in his honor. The material has its biting comedic moments, but Winterbottom is aiming for a more sobering depiction of the haves and have nots, constructing a briskly paced overview of unrepentant financial manipulation, workplace abuse, and the blind absurdity of privilege, reteaming with frequent collaborator Steve Coogan to assess the ruination of lives as the few retain everything they can get their hands on, while the many fight for survival. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Make no mistake: 1981's "Escape from New York" is an absolute classic. It's one of the best pictures from the decade and one of many jewels in director John Carpenter's crown, with the helmer putting in the work to turn a low-budget, western-tinged thriller into an insanely atmospheric triumph, overseeing star Kurt Russell's most iconic screen performance. Nothing is going to threaten that success, which is why it's a good idea to approach the 1996 sequel with a certain amount of understanding. "Escape from L.A." is meant to be a thrill ride with an old friend, with Carpenter suddenly flush with cash to make a Snake Plissken adventure, trying to compete with blockbuster standards with a brand name that, for extended portions of the original film, remained in the shadows. The reward for such patience is a semi-remake that's rich with anti-authoritarian attitude and big, loopy action, with Carpenter working out his weirdness while giving Russell another opportunity to project pure antihero ice as Snake. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the swinging sixties, Italian producers wanted in on the success of comic book properties brought to television and movies, but they ran into a fair share of trouble bringing "Danger: Diabolik" from the page to the screen. In a bind after dealing with production setbacks, Dino De Laurentiis pulled the effort out of a creative tailspin, passing the screen potential of the Italian comic series to director Mario Bava, who made it his personal mission to generate a stylish, strangely hostile take on the source material, finding ways to make the criminal the most enticing hero of 1968. Questions of right and wrong are blurred in "Danger: Diabolik," but Bava's work is crystal clear, delivering a wildly inventive display of filmmaking prowess, working all the angles to keep the endeavor visually interesting and the main character enjoyably corrupt. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1993, Andy Sidaris elected to step down from his position as the director behind Malibu Bay Films. He was in his sixties at the time, and perhaps a little weary of the production grind, especially at the rate he was churning out features, spending 1993 assembling "Fit to Kill" and "Hard Hunted." Instead of giving up the business, depriving fans of broad action and bikini-clad antics, he turned to his son, Christian Drew Sidaris, to take the moviemaking baton, with 1994's "The Dallas Connection" his second offering as a filmmaker. As semi-sequel to "Enemy Gold," the new Sidaris offering attempts to downplay ridiculous violence, aiming to be more of a spy picture filled with assassination attempts and double-crossing characters. The helmer tries to keep things familiar with his frequently topless cast, but "The Dallas Connection" suffers from a mild case of creative fatigue. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1993, Andy Sidaris elected to step down from his position as the director behind Malibu Bay Films. He was in his sixties at the time, and perhaps a little weary of the production grind, especially at the rate he was churning out features, spending 1993 assembling "Fit to Kill" and "Hard Hunted." Instead of giving up the business, depriving fans of broad action and bikini-clad antics, he turned to his son, Christian Drew Sidaris, to take the moviemaking baton, returning to video stores a year later with "Enemy Gold," debuting his new enterprise, Skyhawks Films. Already an important member of the family business, Christian makes a smooth transition to helming for "Enemy Gold," which doesn't stray far from the Malibu Bay Films to-do list of exploitation interests, offering the faithful a decent ride of violent encounters, sexuality, and hot tubbin'. It doesn't have the snap of previous chapters, but Christian makes an agreeable debut here, aiming for a mystery adventure in the exotic wilds of…Dallas. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As a playwright, David Mamet is a force of nature, always interested in the trouble characters create for themselves and others, often using frank dialogue to best examine the corrosiveness of people. Adapting his play for the big screen, Mamet protects as much venom as possible for 1992's "Glengarry Glen Ross," with director James Foley in charge of shaking the staginess out of the material, giving it a cinematic charge that respects Mamet's inherent fire-breathing powers and adds dimension when needed. Creative goals are mostly met in "Glengarry Glen Ross," which provides a safe space for amazing actors to unleash themselves with Mamet-ian authority, clawing their way into bleak psychological spaces with barely concealed excitement, while Foley works diligently to preserve the original rhythm of the work, doing an impressive job with the jazzy rush of testosterone and workplace hostility Mamet aimed to expose with his original work. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1999's "Idle Hands" tries to be something different, which is an admirable task, especially in the post-"Scream" horror marketplace, where everything was looking to be younger and hipper, aimed at a teenage demographic. It remains an adolescent adventure, filled with pot humor, broheim interactions, and sudden sexuality, but director Rodman Flender tries to buck a few trends by making his movie disgusting. He's brought a large amount of bodily harm to "Idle Hands," and that's the good news. The bad news is the feature's sense of humor and casting interests, which cripples what clearly wants to be a rip-roaring genre ride of unpredictable behavior and violent highlights. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For 1968's "The Lost Continent," Hammer Films endeavors to take viewers to a mysterious place on Earth where monsters live and dark civilizations have developed undisturbed. The excitement is all there, if viewers are comfortable sitting around for over an hour of screen time while dull edges of drama are polished by a production in no hurry to show off its horror extremes. Welcome to "The Lost Continent," which provides Hammer's customary padding to such a startling degree, the creature feature aspects of the story almost intrude on the interpersonal problems of doomed travelers on a danger-plagued ship. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com