Chuck Berry is often referred to as the "Godfather of Rock 'n' Roll," enjoying a major career as singer and guitar player, with his influence reaching across the industry, with The Beatles personally citing Berry as inspiration during their early years. The Chuck Berry on display in 1987's "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll" isn't quite as god-like as some respected musicians suggest, with director Taylor Hackford not exactly filming the legend as he prepares for his 60th birthday concert at the Fox Theater in St. Louis. The helmer is mostly chasing the subject, seemingly one step behind as the man who gave the world songs like "Nadine," "Johnny B. Goode," "Rock and Roll Music," and "Roll Over Beethoven." Berry is a complicated man, as strange as can be, and Hackford uses this bizarre energy for the concert picture, which attempts to blend sections of personal history with rehearsal time, working toward the big Fox Theater show, where Berry is joined by a list of all-stars to help him bang out the hits. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The intent of 1979's "Prophecy" is to generate awareness of environmental damage, with "The Omen" screenwriter David Seltzer returning to horror to help inspire an understanding of industrial pollution, using the threat of a mutated bear running wild to ease viewers into the writing's message. What director John Frankenheimer ultimately offers with "Prophecy" is a B-movie filled with lackluster special effects and a confused sense of thematic importance. It's not a messy film, more of a non-starter, with Seltzer's ideas hammered into place by Frankenheimer, who brings in a capable cast, an important subject, and gorgeous Canadian locations, only to tank the entire endeavor through editorial inertia and a climatic monster that should inspire a complex range of emotions, but only triggers unintended laughs. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Bunuel and the Labyrinth of the Turtles" began life as a graphic novel by Fermin Solis, providing inspiration for co-writer/director Salvador Simo to bring this odd story of a filmmaker in crisis to the screen. However, instead of a live-action realization of the tale, Simo retains a certain level of artistic fluidity through animation, giving the tale, which works through heavy doses of reality and the depths of the subconscious, a chance to come alive. While it examines Luis Bunuel and his journey to make his 1933 documentary, "Land Without Bread," there's more to "Labyrinth of the Turtles," exploring the moviemaker's relationships, passions, and drive to develop as a cinematic artist. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The director of "Winter Sleep," Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns with another extended look at the personal problems of Turkish characters in "The Wild Pear Tree," this time exploring rising tensions and dashed dreams within a troubled family. With a 188-minute-long run time, Ceylan clears a massive amount of screen space to detail his modest dramatics, with "The Wild Pear Tree" unfolding like a novel, examining various personalities trying to make sense of limitations and especially disappointments, with Ceylan creating a compelling portrait of generational divide and relationship obligations challenged by the realities of life itself. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Co-writer/director Terry Gilliam has been dreaming of making "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" for 30 years, craving the chance to bring Miguel de Cervantes's novel to the big screen. Famously, in 2000, Gilliam almost managed to make such a miracle happen, with stars Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp joining forces to give the helmer's unusual vision dramatic life. However, a disaster ensued, with schedules, location problems, and actor unreliability shutting down the shoot, crushing Gilliam's plans to make one of his weirdest movies to date (the experience was chronicled in the 2002 documentary, "Lost in La Mancha"). The project was left for dead, branded cursed, but such toxicity didn't bother Gilliam, who remained obsessed with the material, emerging in 2019 with a completed interpretation of "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," finally freeing himself from the burden of having to prove himself. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1983's "Nana" tries to class itself up by taking inspiration from Emile Zola's 1880 novel, only to credit itself as "loosely adapted." Indeed, screenwriter Marc Behm and director Dan Wolman aren't trying to craft a cinematic understanding of Zola's work, only taking bits and pieces of salacious material to expand for sexploitation purposes, helping Cannon Films with one of their many subgenre pursuits. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I'm sure when Ridley Scott directed "Alien," he had no idea what kind of influence his film would have on B-movies from the 1980s. There have been many riffs on the 1979 classic throughout the decade, with co-writer/director Fred Olen Ray trying his luck with 1988's "Deep Space," which merges elements from "Alien" and "Aliens" to help inspire a supercop adventure that involves a monstrous menace. Ray doesn't have much in the way of a budget to bring serious ghoulishness to life, but he does have actor Charles Napier, with the veteran character actor attempting to deliver swagger and cynicism to his role as the detective on the trail of a violent biological weapon. Napier is fun to watch, along with the rest of the cast, but creepiness is certainly not there for Ray, who seems happy just to piece together a coherent picture with multiple creature encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1987's "Berserker" supplies an unusual antagonist in a 10th century Viking who dresses as a bear and devours human prey. Or something like that. The screenplay isn't exactly clear what's going during the run time, but it has a potent visual in the titular menace. Director Jefferson Richard is armed with a small amount of money and the expanse of Utah woods, striving to cook up a reasonable B-movie with recognizable genre ingredients. He's a little cheeky, permissive with actors, and open to whatever ideas are presented to him, but he's not much of a scary movie architect. "Berserker" lacks in the fright department, doing much better with character shenanigans and local color. It's not the way to a sufficiently terrifying viewing experience, but "Berserker" is the rare endeavor that actually loses steam once violence arrives. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1989's "Unmasked: Part 25" carries a title that appears to lampoon the state of horror franchises in the 1980s, where everything was sequelized to a point of audience exhaustion. One might expect a ZAZ-like take on the genre, but writer Mark Cutforth and director Anders Palm pull their punch when it comes to a full pantsing of the film business. Instead of raising hell with a sharp, silly comedy, the men go straight with a semi-dramatic take on boogeyman blues, weirdly trying to be sincere when asking the question, "What if Jason Voorhees was lonely?" Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Eli Roth adores the cannibal pictures of the 1970s and '80s, and he wants to share that appreciation with his own take on the subgenre, "The Green Inferno." His enthusiasm for this grisly, borderline irresponsible series of movies is understood throughout the endeavor, but his natural instincts toward jocularity and uninspired casting work to dial down the true terror of the feature. It's a blood-soaked ride into the jaws of Hell, but "The Green Inferno" is too frivolous to score as nightmare material, finding Roth displaying habitual timidity when it comes to truly shocking encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1975's "Conduct Unbecoming" is based on a play written by Barry England, and the film version retains much of its theatrical atmosphere. Director Michael Anderson ("Logan's Run") has assembled a magnificent cast to explore the material, hiring the likes of Michael York, Stacy Keach, Richard Attenborough, Trevor Howard, Christopher Plummer, and James Faulkner to help explore what's essentially a courtroom thriller, though it eventually transforms into a whodunit for suspense purposes. "Conduct Unbecoming" is stiffly realized, but it's difficult to deny its thespian power, with wonderful talents permitted room by Anderson to find their unique rhythms and detail the endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While primarily known as the founder of New Line Cinema, Robert Shaye has taken a few stabs at film direction over the years, helming 1990's "Book of Love" and 2007's "The Last Mimzy." Shaye hasn't found much success behind the camera, and his streak continues with "Ambition." Looking to generate his own take on Hitchcockian suspense, Shaye doesn't have the visual chops, writing, or acting to best support whatever nail-biting reactions he's looking to conjure. "Ambition" isn't frightening, and it doesn't even want to be, registering more as a Freeform Network original where bland young characters deal with modest challenges to their sanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Scoring a surprise hit with 1981's "Private Lessons," producer R. Ben Efraim quickly set out to capitalize on the success. While he couldn't put together a sequel (that would eventually come in 1993), Efraim managed to assemble "Private School" for a 1983 release, hoping to give young audiences a suitable R-rated distraction for the summer moviegoing season. The pictures have almost nothing in common (except the appearance of "Private Lessons" star Sylvia Kristel), but they share a common interest in titillation. With the teen horndog subgenre in full swing at this time in marketplace history, Efraim aims to play into the trend, with "Private School" more of a sketch comedy film, offering a string of pranks, mistakes, and tomfoolery to fill the time between topless activity. There's nothing to the endeavor, and that contributes a great deal to its modest appeal. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Looking to update the high school rebellion picture, director Allan Arkush tries his luck with punk rock, bringing in the Ramones for 1979's "Rock 'n' Roll High School." It's teen antics from executive producer Roger Corman, who gives Arkush and his screenwriters (Richard Whitley, Russ Dvonch, and Joseph McBride) a chance to go crazy with this semi-satire of the subgenre, with the production team packing in as many gags as possible as they send-up educational hell features. What the helmer really has here is a scrappy, lovable ode to the freedoms and curiosities of youth, while the Ramones deliver their signature sound to support the endeavor's sonic dominance. "Rock 'n' Roll High School" is a pure delight, partially because Arkush allows it to roam wherever it wants to, and his timing with the Ramones, then at their peak of their powers, couldn't have been better. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The good news is that one doesn't have to see 1974's "Beyond the Door" to fully understand anything in 1989's "Beyond the Door III." Producer Ovidio Assonitis is merely trying to cash-in on a brand name he helped to create, using the title to attract audiences to a production that could use all the marketplace help it can find. The original endeavor was an Italian "Exorcist" rip-off that managed to make some coin (and trigger a lawsuit from Warner Brothers), while the second sequel tries to continue a theme of demonic possession, this time finding a train in Yugoslavia trapped by an evil power. It doesn't get any sillier than that, but director Jeff Kwinty ("Iced," "Lightning in a Bottle") is trying to craft something approachable with "Beyond the Door III," turning to stunt work and runaway train suspense to add some excitement to yet another offering of cult influence in an isolated corner of the world. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com