THE EPITAPH VOL. 24
MOMMY (1995) & MOMMY'S DAY (1997)- EVER AFTER (ENDZEIT) (2018) - EXTRA ORDINARY (2019) - IRON FISTS AND KUNG FU KICKS (2019) - GET GONE (2019)
In the straight-to-video 90's thriller Mommy (1995) Oscar-nominated Patty McCormack, who played the killer-kid in Bad Seed, stars as murderous helicopter mother Mrs. Sterling, a terminator-mom who will straight-up kill anyone who dares disappoint young daughter Jessica Ann (Rachel Lemieux). The dying begins with a grade school teacher who refuses to give her daughter the 'student of the year' award for the the third straight year in a row. Mommy has her way and teacher ends up with a broken neck, also on the hit-list is a janitor and even her own boyfriend when both begin asking too many questions. The movie is a trashy bit of fun in peculiar sort of way, not without it's campy charm, but I've always thought this film and the sequel were absolute stinkers. This extras-laden three-disc set from VCI presents the film and the sequel on Blu-ray and DVD, the image is not pretty on either disc, both look to be sourced from a video tape master with lots of digital tinkering evident throughout, definitely not worthy of a 1080p HD presentation. The lossless audio is decent and there are over an hour's worth of extras including audio commentaries for the pair of film, but I cannot recommend this sight unseen unless you're a fan of the film already, and even then beware that it looks awful on Blu-ray.
EVER AFTER (ENDZEIT) (2018) (Juno Films/MVD Visual)
German zombie film Ever After (Endzeit) is an indie undead film that largely succeeds in keeping the undead genre somewhat fresh, taking place in a dystopian future where the world had fallen to the plague of zombies, we are about two years into the apocalypse, with the timid Vivi (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) and kzombie-killer Eva (Maja Lehrer) making the treacherous journey from one walled-city to another for various reasons, teaming up they make the journey together, with the film becoming a bit of a fairy-tale adventure with themes of ecology and feminism sprinkled throughout. The gore is a bit disappointing for a zombie film but the story is unique and the visuals are often dazzling. The film is slim on extras but looks and sounds great, German audio with English subtitles.
This is a delightfully whimsical Irish-made film about supernaturally attuned driving instructor named Rose Dooley (Maeve Higgins) who befriends widowed dad Martin Martin (Barry Ward) looking to expel the abusive spirit of his deceased wife. Together they run afoul of Satanic one-hit wonder looking to sacrifice a virgin, Martin's daughter Sarah (Emma Coleman) fits the bill, hoping that the Dark Lord will will secure him a hit record. It's all very fun and light-hearted, with Higgins and Ward making for a sweet would-be couple, while Will Forte is over-the-top and ineptly charming as the quirky black-magic dabbling Satanic crooner. The DVD from Umbrella Entertainment is region-free but also free of any extras.
IRON FISTS AND KUNG FU KICKS (2019) (Umbrella Entertainment)From the producer of 'Machete Maidens Unleashed', director Serge Ou, comes this kinetic and fast-paced kung-fu cinema doc covering the rise and influence of kung-fu movies starting at the beginning in Hong Kong, the rise of studios like the Shaw Bros. and their competitors Golden Harvest, plus getting into snafu's like Shaw Bros. shockingly passing over signing not just Bruce Lee , but later passing on Jackie Chan! It also gets into the popularity of king fu cinema in American beginning with Bruce Lee's supporting role in The Green Hornet TV series, and the film's being shown on 42nd Street in New York City, and eventually be re-run on TV, as well as the influence of kung-fu on hip hop culture and vice versa. It also gets into the resurgence of kung fu in Hollywood with stuff like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Ong Bak and more recent stuff like The Raid films. The film flies by at even nearly 2 hours long, maybe even a bit too fast to be honest, it's a very frenetically edited film, but there's still plenty of great clips from vintage film and some great talking heads including Fab 5 Freddy, stars Cheng Pei Pei, Sammo Hung, Cynthia Rothrock, and notorious 42 street film distributor
Terry Levene. I don't consider myself particularly well-versed in Asain cinema in general let alone the kung fu and chopsocky films, so this was a nice introduction and history of the genre and the notable films therein. No extras on this kung-fu ass-kicker of a doc but it is region-free!
Get Gone (2019) is a fairly standard indie backwoods slasher that throws in some The Hills Have Eyes-styled mutant meat into the stew, semi-starring Lin 'I'll cameo in any shitty horror film' Shaye (Insidious), who I love but when I see her in an indie horror film the red flags go up fast. The main idea here is that we have a group of Internet hoax debunkers coming into a remote area to investigate claims of a strange backwoods family, and they do find them, much to their own regret. It's well-crafted and attractively shot for low-budget film, but it's mechanical and uninspired, the gore is shot and the nudity is nil, so skip this unless you're real hard up for a backwoods slasher.
