What writer/director Frank LaLoggia is reaching for with 1981's "Fear No Evil" is an epic showdown between demonic threats and heavenly forces. It's an antichrist tale, exploring the arrival of evil in the form of a teenage boy, tapping into industry Satanic Panic trends of the 1970s as LaLoggia figures out a way to bring a complex religious story to the screen on a tiny budget. To help entice potential ticket-buyers, LaLoggia elects to pair biblical fury with a high school saga about a bullied kid. The merging of genres isn't ideal, and "Fear No Evil" often struggles to balance both sides of the screenplay, which always plays like a first draft that lucked its ways into production. The helmer has some intriguing ideas to share on the state of Godly might, and a few B-movie ideas are appealing, but this isn't cohesive effort, often playing like two separate features competing for screen time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the early 1980s, actress Jamie Lee Curtis found herself in a difficult career position. She broke through with 1978's "Halloween," and continued to collect work in horror, starring in "Prom Night," "Terror Train," "The Fog," and "Halloween II," becoming a "scream queen" to many, developing her screen presence in a typically permissive genre. For 1983's "Love Letters," Curtis elects to step away from maniacal pursuit, testing her dramatic chops with a dark tale of romantic obsession, written and directed by Amy Holden Jones, who was also dealing with reputation issues, having previously helmed "The Slumber Party Massacre." Curtis visibly works on her dramatic potential in the picture, doing well with Jones's writing, which imagines a crisis of the heart when a woman in need of magical love finds a partner who denies her everything except pleasures of the flesh. Stalker cinema eventually receives a workout in the third act, but "Love Letters" is a surprisingly effective take on desperation, with Curtis offering a welcomingly reserved take on a nervous breakdown. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

2015's "The Case of Hana & Alice" is actually a prequel to 2004's "Hana and Alice," which tracked the developing friendship between the titular characters as they experience love, obsession, deception, and ballet. Aiming to revisit the pair from a slightly earlier time in their lives, director Shunji Iwai elects to combat the ravages of time by turning to animation, more specifically rotoscoping, which works as a time machine of sorts, permitting stars Anne Suzuki and Yu Aoi a chance to return to their youthful roles without revealing how many years have passed between installments. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The history behind the young detective Nancy Drew is vast, dating back to her literary debut in 1930. Every now and then, Hollywood endeavors to revive the franchise, with many television and film adaptations striving to update the character for modern audiences, giving old-fashioned sleuthing a trendy twist. "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" is no different. The production works to keep things current to best engage an easily distracted audience, and they have a special star in Sophie Lillis, who contributed greatly to the monster success of 2017's "It." Lillis picks up the flashlight and unstoppable curiosity for this fresh round of clue gathering, and she's the brightest thing in the feature, which is best appreciated with lowered expectations, offering mildness for the target demographic, while Lillis comes ready to play. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

One might expect 1988's "Hell Comes to Frogtown" to be an irresistible mix of the violent and the bizarre. It's a ready-made cult offering that's blessed with an unmissable title, a wacky premise, and the bruised charms of its leading man, the great pro-wrestler, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (who sadly passed away in 2015). While Piper brings his wildman attitude to the endeavor and screenwriter Randall Frakes does his part by inventing a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated with mutant frogs, director Donald G. Jackson (shadowed by R.J. Kizer) practically refuses to transform the effort into an unstoppable showcase of the absurd, struggling to overcome what appears to be a painfully underfunded production that doesn't do enough to secure a rip-roarin' pace with plenty of unusual encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Credited to director Muscha, 1984's "Decoder" is a look at the ways of West German society as it struggles with issues of surveillance and unrest, doing so by examining the behavioral control aspects of muzak. The production endeavors to become experimental cinema, working closely with abstract imagery and loose storytelling to immerse the viewer in the sights and sounds of the time and place, playing games with underground cinema techniques and interests. If Dieter from "Sprockets" had a favorite movie, it would be "Decoder," which doesn't particularly care for mainstream execution, doing whatever it can to be visually striking and thematically elusive. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Garth Davis won accolades and reasonable box office for his last feature, "Lion," which detailed a young man on a special emotional and spiritual journey. Now Davis tackles unfinished business with the Bible, examining a more famous story of self-inspection, giving the saga of Jesus a special spin with "Mary Magdalene," which sets out to right the titular woman's wronged reputation, isolating her origin story, giving her a modern appreciation in line with current filmmaking trends. Davis doesn't do explosive, keeping this drama extremely mild, aiming more for poeticism and reflection than prolonged suffering, approaching familiar stories from the Bible with a more artful perspective. "Mary Magdalene" isn't a fiery collection of characters and their struggles to define faith, with Davis keeping the effort crawling along, electing to make something visually appealing and insular than traditionally dramatic. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Josh Lobo doesn't have many professional credits to his name. He's a newcomer who's taking the same path as many first-time helmers, turning to horror to figure out his big screen vision, trusting in a genre that's typically very kind to such low-budget ambition. Thankfully, there's little to forgive about "I Trapped the Devil," which is accomplished work from Lobo, who bathes the feature in mood and style to dress up traditional suspense in different ways, pulling up a handsome effort with pockets of genuine unease. Labeling the movie slow-burn is being kind, but Lobo on a mission to make his contractually obligated run time, moving through the Christmastime nightmare inch-by-inch, making sure every corner of the endeavor is tended to. "I Trapped the Devil" takes its sweet time to get where it's going, but the reward is a chance to see an obviously talented director take his first step with an eerie endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Author Scott Spencer isn't a lucky guy. Here's a writer who's had two film adaptations made from his 1979 novel, "Endless Love," and both endeavors deliberately fly over his dramatic intentions, preferring to turn a tale of dangerous obsession into cinematic bubble gum for a pre-teen audience. The 1981 version arrived first, with director Franco Zeffirelli looking for material that might return him to the box office power he found with 1968's "Romeo and Juliet," sniffing around for another tale of forbidden love and scorching passions. There's something along those lines in Spencer's book, but writer Judith Rascoe doesn't pay close attention to obvious behavioral issues present in the original text, transforming a story about the disintegration of the young man into a gauzy saga of relationship denial, with Zeffirelli electing to turn such enticing distortion into melodrama. It's hard to stay with "Endless Love," which is determined to ignore the reality of the central pairing, striving more for tragedy instead of analysis. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For 1970's "Scars of Dracula," actor Christopher Lee tries to make a part he's played four times before interesting for himself. This Dracula isn't quite the hair-raising monster of menace as previously seen, emerging in this Hammer Films production as more of a talky antagonist, imagined as a threatening host for a weekend of horrors inside his own castle. There should be more frights to "Scars of Dracula," but there's little room in the budget for a consistent run of intimidation. Instead, there's conversation, with the movie more about padding than applying genre pressure, though Baker does manage to get some proper hits of shock into the feature. There's just not enough of that to carry the viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There are aliens. Young people. A European setting. And it was made in the 1980s. "Alien Predators" (titled "Alien Predator" on IMDB and "The Falling" on the disc) has everything going for it, created with prime ingredients for a wild genre ride that pits hapless humans against an extraterrestrial threat. And yet, the film is terrible, showing a frustrating lack of interest in creating any sort of fear factor, with writer/director Deran Sarafian unable to decide if he wants to make a goofy movie or a seriously haunting one, ending up with a mess of different tones, supported by a largely incapable cast. That "Alien Predators" chooses to do so little with its premise is almost maddening, with Sarafian clearly lost at sea, unable to decide what he wants from the production or how to steer it to scares. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I'll admit, the lure of Bigfoot as a big screen mystery is bewildering, but there are filmmakers out there who clearly appreciate the cinematic value of hunting a creature of legend. Co-writer/director Matt Allen is one of those deep woods warriors, putting his time into the creation of "Hoax," which tries to launch a John Carpenter-style adventure as a team of experts march into the wild to find Sasquatch, only to receive more than they bargained for. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com