Just last month, director Marc Meyers helped to bring “Human Capital” to the screen. It was a somber look at pained relationships and grim secrets, with Meyers working to find emotional truth in the midst of a semi-soap opera, showing some hustle to keep the picture afloat. He’s back a few weeks later with “We Summon the Darkness,” which is a significant change in genres, leaving behind a faint sense of reality to make a small-scale horror romp featuring a cast of screamers and bleeders. Playfully using the Satanic Panic movement of the 1980s heavy metal scene to develop his own nightmare scenario, screenwriter Alan Trezza (“Burying the Ex”) offers initial cleverness before the feature becomes a showcase for panicky interactions. “We Summon the Darkness” doesn’t have a strong enough fear factor, but it’s a tidy presentation of evil behavior, with a few surprises to keep viewers glued to a story that’s big on prolonged scenes of suffering. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Sea Fever” doesn’t have the best release timing. It’s coming out a few months after “Underwater” failed to attract any attention at the box office, sharing a similar fondness for oceanic horror. And the screenplay details one character’s struggle to maintain a level of quarantine on an isolated ship while the rest of the crew is in a mad dash to return to civilization, capable of spreading a terrible disease. That’s a little too close for comfort as well. The good news is that “Sea Fever” isn’t exploitative or all that concerned with cheap scares, electing to do major character work instead, striving to find the personalities involved in a strange situation of survival instead of simply hammering on viewers with screen aggression. While it has some pacing issues, the picture is accomplished work, with writer/director Neasa Hardiman (a television veteran) looking to bend a genre offering in unusual ways, disrupting some expectations. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s a lot of competition for “The Lost Husband” out there. Aiming to appeal to a more sensitive audience with trials of the heart and mind, the feature’s premise seems pre-mixed for a Lifetime Movie, while its execution is more in line with a Nicholas Sparks endeavor, complete with tragedy, secretive pasts, and slow-burn romance. However, the material is based on a Katherine Center novel, with writer/director Vicky Wight tasked with adapting something that seems very familiar, left to find elements of the tale that might offer a little more emotional emphasis than the story is capable of delivering. Wight is moderately successful, but she does particularly well with casting, finding appealing actors willing to go where all this mildness leads. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Kirill Sokolov makes his feature-length debut with “Why Don’t You Just Die!” It’s one of those creative introductions that’s engineered to attract plenty of attention, and while Sokolov doesn’t make a horror film, he generates enough blood and bodily harm to best even the most potent scary movies. It’s a showy endeavor, delivering all sorts of technical gymnastics to keep the eye engaged, and it’s Russian to the core, offered as a slab of black comedy from a country that’s practiced in the tradition, with the writing getting extraordinarily dark at times. It’s the humor aspects of the endeavor that are debatable, as “Why Don’t You Just Die!” makes a distinct pass at being funny, but the jokes are strictly for those who find macabre games of power and intimidation amusing. It’s meant to be a cartoon, and one dripping with gore, but there are one too many moments where Sokolov is more attentive to cinematographic precision than inspired twists and turns. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The directorial career of Michael Dowse has been difficult to follow. The helmer has made a few distinct impressions over the years, delivering the interesting “It’s All Gone Pete Tong,” and he built a genuine cult classic with the hockey comedy, “Goon.” He’s also had some duds, including last summer’s bomb, “Stuber,” which tried way too hard to be funny, ending up a laugh-less noise machine. Dowse’s sensitivity to silly business goes almost completely numb with “Coffee & Kareem,” which basically reheats the formula of self-aware action and riffing galore that ruined “Stuber,” only here the screenplay (credited to Shane Mack) falls apart right from the first scene. Profane and insipid, “Coffee & Kareem” is a bad title stuck with a worse film, making very little effort to become the semi-parody it wants to become, held back consistently by lame jokes, air horn performances, and Dowse’s inability to tighten the reins on the production and squeeze out some decent wackiness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Longtime actor Mike Doyle makes his feature-length directorial debut with “Almost Love,” concocting a small-scale relationship drama (he also scripts) that examines a collection of characters all experiencing relationship troubles in one way or another. Doyle plays to his strengths with the film, which is an actor-driven production that gives plenty of room to the ensemble to explore personalities and showcase their gifts in ways other helmers wouldn’t allow. While it has a tendency to lose focus on the group effort, “Almost Love” has feeling, with the writing and the performances going deep to examine the fragility of the human heart and the work required to make and sustain connections in the world. Sincerity certainly supports the endeavor while it slowly slides away from its initial concept of a community in distress movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Jon Abrahams has been a working actor for a few decades now, with his most notable credits including “Scary Movie,” “House of Wax,” and “Meet the Parents.” Over the last few years, Abrahams has been taking back some control of his career, becoming a director with 2016’s “All at Once,” a post-9/11 drama, and now there’s “Clover,” which is a more direct shot at audience acceptance, delivering a mob movie for the Spring thaw. Screenwriting duties belong to Michael Testone, who’s seen his share of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Guy Ritchie endeavors, hoping to take the goodfellas subgenre for a spin, presenting a series of violent misunderstandings with “Clover,” keeping Abrahams busy as he tries to butch everything up. It’s not a tremendous distraction, but the helmer has the right idea for screen energy, keeping things on the move before the whole endeavor tries to aim for cleverness instead of directness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

To successfully examine lost souls struggling with a sense of emotional isolation, it makes perfect sense to visit Minnesota, with “International Falls” using the titular town to explore the wants and needs of characters dealing with heavy psychological burdens. A trip to the “Icebox of the Nation” proves to be an evocative choice from director Amber McGinnis, who’s gifted a seldom-seen location for her movie, while all the freezing temps, snowfall, and distance supports screenwriter Thomas Ward’s vision for personal connection in the midst of dire living situations. That’s not to suggest “International Falls” is a bummer, as McGinnis is careful to avoid such complete darkness, leaning on stars Rachael Harris and Rob Huebel to explore their characters with a sense of humor and atypical vulnerability for two actors used to playing more sarcastic personalities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s likely one reason while “Banana Split” is finding a release nearly two years after its initial film festival debut. While last summer’s “Booksmart” didn’t break box office records, it did find an appreciative audience who welcomed the feature’s sense of humor and respect for female relationships, with director Olivia Wilde managing to make something very funny and genuine when it came to characterization. And thank goodness for “Booksmart,” which has brought “Banana Split” into distribution, offering a similarly enjoyable tale of adolescent panic, decorated with distinct personalities, big feelings, and occasional blasts of silliness. Director Benjamin Kasulke finds the right rhythm for the picture, while writers Hannah Marks and Joey Power put in the effort to give the players in this game of maturation and romantic need a bright sense of confusion and camaraderie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Lorcan Finnegan and writer Garret Shanley strive to create a major brain-bleeder with “Vivarium,” which presents a puzzle of isolation and antagonism that mixes elements of satire and sci-fi to come up with something supremely odd. There’s success with the production’s limited goals of disorientation, as the movie provides a decent ride into confusion and paranoia, offering viewers a sense of uneasiness similar to a “Twilight Zone” episode, only without the tidiness of television storytelling. Finnegan and Shanley come up with a terrific short film in “Vivarium,” conjuring a genuine sense of the unknown. It’s their efforts to transform the endeavor into a feature that proves to be problematic, as pacing eventually slows to a crawl and the core mystery loses appeal. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com