THE EPITAPH VOL. 19
AMERICAN GODS - SEASON 2 - BLOOD PARADISE (2018) - WHITE LINE FEVER (1975) - LA LLORONA (2019) - ROLLERCOASTER (1977) -ROXANNE (1987) - LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (1971)
The second season of the Starz series American Gods, based on author Neil Gaiman's novel, arrives on three-disc Blu-ray and digital from Lionsgate. The series follows ex-con Shadow Moon who has become the right-hand man/enforcer for the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, who at the end of the first season - SPOILER - is revealed to be the old world God of Thunder, Odin. The series pits Old Gods from mythology against the New Gods, which are represented by Mr. World (Crispin Glover), Technical Boy (Bruce Langley) and New Media (Kahyun Kim). Old Gods are also represented by Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones), Bilquis the Goddess of Love (Yetide Badaki) Jinn (Mousa Kraish), and Czernobog (Peter Stromare) among others. We also have the reanimated corpse of Shadow Moon's cheating wife Laura (Emily Browning) and a hulking leprechaun named Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), who is also in the employ of Mr. Wednesday/Odin. The series is a spellbinding and sprawling tale of the fantastical, there's a lot to take in but it tends to falter a bit without clear direction. I was absolutely down for the second season of the show after the intriguing first season, there were some satisfying revelations throughout the season, with hints of some bigger picture stuff yet to come, but the last episode while hinting at even bigger things, left me slightly unsatisfied, but not uninterested in a third season, which has already been green-lit. The themes and mythologies being played with here are what keep me tuning in though, plus the series is the blend of old and new mythologies, and the art direction and cinematography is truly gorgeous, which oftentimes is enough to keep me satisfied, even if the story itself is completely quenching my thirst. The three-disc set looks and sounds terrific in 1080p HD, the soundtrack is peppered with fantastic song selections, and the extras are plentiful, including a conversation with author Neil Gaiman, plus a behind-the-scenes piece about shooting at The House on the Rock in Wisconsin. If you're looking for something weird and different this comes highly recommended, here's hoping a third season will knock it out of the park.
BLOOD PARADISE (2018) Swedish thriller/slasher film Blood Paradise (2018) comes to us from adventurous world-cinema distributor Artsploitation Films. It's an offbeat bit of weirdness starring
Andréa Winter as a world-famous horror writer whose last book was a bust. In the aftermath her agent sends her to a farm out in the middle of nowhere of Sweden to regroup and start a new book. The people she encounters on the farm are strange indeed, beginning with her driver Hans (Christer Cavallius), but the guy who owns the farm and his hired help are also far from normal! I think the best way to describe the tone of this Swedish thriller would be offbeat and quirky, with a distinct Coen Bros. vibe. The kills are decent, but this is by no means a bloodbath, the quirkiness softening the harder slasher elements, but it looks great and starlet Winter turns in a solid performance as the oft-nude victim of writer's block and rural weirdness. This Blu-ray release from Artsploitation looks and sounds terrific, it's a very attractively shot film, and the extras include deleted scenes and a music video.
70's trucker action-flick White Lines Fever stars Jan Michael Vincent (TV's Air wolf) as an independent trucker in Tucson, Arizona just trying to live the American dream, but the local big-wigs wanna muck it up with smuggling and illegal activity. When the true-blue truckers refuses to play ball the big-wigs set out to make his life miserable, resulting in the trucker grabbing a shotgun and making the man pay for his meddling! The real appeal here for me is that this film is shot in and around where I live in Tucson, so on that level it had a lot of local appeal for me, I love seeing this pace in the 70's before I move out here. The film is a real blue-collar 'sticking it to the man' sort of film, but it's no great shakes, with hat said if you have a craving for a 70's trucker action-film this will fit the bill! This release is part of the retro-VHS style Blu-ray releases that Mill Creek Entertainment have been releasing, so it comes with a cool-looking VHS inspired slipcover with variant artwork on the wrap.
Based on the Mexican folktale of the weeping woman who brings misfortune when she appears we have La Llorona (2019). This is a Conjuring universe entry set in 1970's Los Angeles where a widowed mom who works as a social worker has the misfortune of crossing paths with a child-snatching specter, putting her young sons in supernatural danger. The film manages some generic startles throughout, and I dig the make-up FX of the wailing woman, but it never got under my skin or gave me the chills. It all seems a bit too familiar to me, but I bet this has more traction for a younger teen audience and I'm an old fart, for real. If you're a fan of the film the Blu-ray offers a strong technical presentation with a decent array of extras, including deleted scenes, storyboards and a few behind-the-scenes featurettes.
The 70'S disaster flick Rollercoaster (1977) is a bit of a forgotten gem from the polyester-era, maybe because there's no swarming killer bees or towering infernos, it's a smaller scale sort of disaster film about an amusement park saboteur (Timothy Bottoms) who is threatening to blow-up amusement park rides, beginning with the derailment of a popular roller coaster. Planting an explosive device on the tracks which sends the cars hurling of the rails and sending people to their death crashing below! On the case is safety inspector Harry Calder (George Segal) who is the first to put the pieces together, as several amusement parks begin to experience horrifying accidents, with the saboteur then making ransom demands. The film plays out as the inspector and saboteur attempt to outsmart each other, culminating at another amusement park where a roller coaster is the target. The film has some good suspense and peppers in some humor, but falters a bit by front-loading the film's best set piece and never really rising to that level again. Still it' a solid 70's thriller, it's just too bad we do not the timber-rattling Sensurround track that accompanied this in the cinema back in the day, nor do we get any substantial extras - aside from a trailer - on this DVD. Rollercoaster arrives on region-free DVD from Via Vision presenting the uncut version of the film. It' looks solid for a DVD presentation, but be aware there is a U.S. Blu-ray from Scream Factory that has extras and the Sensurround audio!
ROXANNE (1987)
Steve Martin' farcical take on Cyrano de Bergnac has been a pleaser for me, a comedic tale of love about a rather big-nosed fire chief in pursuit of the ever-lovely Daryl Hannah (Blade Runner), who seems more interested in the lunkheaded but physically attractive new recruit than the poetic chief with the big nose. The film also features supporting roles from Shelley Duvall (The Shining), Michael J. Pollard (Grumpy Old Men), and Fred Willard (Salem's Lot). This is not a film that comes up a lot when discussing Steve Martin's body of work, but it absolutely should, I think it's one of the best of the 80's romantic-comedies out there! This is also part of the retro-VHS style Blu-ray with a cool-looking VHS inspired slipcover with variant artwork on the wrap.
This erotically-charged bloodsucker film from Hammer is the middle-film in the Karnstein Trilogy, following Vampire Lovers and right before Vampire Circus. I don't think this is a beloved entry in the series, or even within the Hammer filmography, but for me it hits a lot of the sweet spots I'm looking for when I watch a Hammer film. It's got the Gothic charms, the Hammer atmosphere and plenty of vampire tropes, including a blood ritual to resurrect a vampire! It's also got the plunging necklines and plenty of naked ladies, plus a lecherous horror writer who takes on a teaching position at an school for young women. He then proceeds to romance a young woman by the name of Mircalla (Yutte Stensgaard), who is really the resurrected
vampire Carmella, who in-between draining her co-eds begins to actually fall for the dark fiction writer. While this is my least favorite of the Karnstein Trilogy it is still plenty entertaining, and lives up to it's erotically charged title with a lovemaking scene at a graveyard! The Blu-ray from Scream Factory presents the film with a gorgeous new 4K scan in both 1.66: and 1.85:1 widescreen with a pair of commentaries and a new interview with actress Mel Churcher, plus a reversible sleeve of artwork. Another top-notch release for an under appreciated bloodsucker film from Scream Factory.
