THE EPITAPH VOL. 27 -: SWALLOW (2020) - SCOOB! (2020) - DEAD DICKS (2019) - SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO (2007)

THE EPITAPH VOL. 27 

Brief Remembrances of the Recently Released 

SWALLOW (2020) - SCOOB! (2020) 

- DEAD DICKS (2019) - SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO (2007)  

This week we have bite-sized reviews of a quietly explosive psychological thriller, a goofy Hannah-Barbara bit of digital nostalgia, some maple-blooded lo-fi sci-fi and a tasty Ramen-Western full of stylized operatic violence. 

SWALLOW (2020)
Label: IFC Films/Shout! Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 95 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 & 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
Cast: Haley Bennett, Justin Stowell, Elizabeth Marvel, Luna Lauren Velez, Zabryna Guevara, Laith Nakli, Babak Tafti, Nicole Kang

In the magnetic indie Swallow (2020) have a newly pregnant housewife named Hunter (Haley Bennett,The Girl On The Train) who on the surface seems have it made. She's married into a wealthy family having come from nothing, and her husband Richie (Austin Stowell, Whiplash) is a good-looking guy working his way to the top of a family business, but as Hunter settles into her new life the newfound time alone as a bored housewife begins to expose cracks in the young woman's psyche. It turns out it all stems from a traumatic origin story that is doused in sexual violence, issues now compounded by her struggle to find approval with not only her  new hubby but her in-laws, with the patriarch of the family being played by David Rasche from 80's TV show Sledgehammer! (1986-1988), which was a favorite of mine! She develops a strange coping mechanism, swallowing small foreign objects like marbles, safety pins and jacks, but as she further begins to unravel under the weight of her anxiety and escalating inner-struggle she starts swallowing larger objects with alarming frequency. Eventually a trip to the emergency room reveals the issue to her husband and his family, and they seem not so much concerned about her well-being as they are embarrassed that the illusion of perfection has been cracked. The film is deftly directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis and Haley Bennett's portrayal of a young woman struggling to take control of her own life is quietly explosive, leading her to an awkward and potent confrontation with her biological father, a scene that had me in tears. While it's not a horror film there elements, body horror among them, that are horrific on several levels, making for a powerful slow burning psychological drama, that I thought was fantastic. The Blu-ray from IFC Films looks and sounds great but there are no extras aside from a trailer. I would have loved a commentary from the director and Bennet, to accompany such a fascinating film. 

SCOOB! (2020) 

Label: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Region Code: Region-Free, A

Rating: PG

Duration: 94 Minutes

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 2160p UltraHD & 1080p HD Widescreen

Director: Tony Cervone

Cast: Will Forte, Mark Wahlberg, Jason Isaacs, Tracy Morgan, Simon Cowell

Scoob and the Mystery Inc. crew are back in feature-length digitally animated adventure, which kicks off with the origin story of the how Scooby met Shaggy (voiced by Will Forte, Last Man on Earth) as well as the rest of the Mystery Inc. crew. As an added bonus superhero Blue Falcon and his side-kick Dynomutt arrive on the scene and join forces with Mystery Inc. to battle baddie Dick Dastardly and his army of robot minions. I grew up watching vintage Scooby-Doo toons so I always have an interest in any new toons and live-action adventures that come along, and this digitally animated feature was plenty entertaining, if a bit choked with Hannah-Barbara cartoon character cameos. It's super kiddie but as I am still a big kid with much nostalgia at heart I had a ton of fun with it, but this might not have the same mileage for "grown-ups".  I loved that we get both Blue Falcon (voiced by Mark Wahlberg) and Dynomutt in it, I was a big fan of the series as a kid. Less exciting was an overwrought appearance from Captain Caveman (voiced annoyingly by Tracy Morgan), I could have done without that. I also thought it was a bit charming that villain Dick Dastardly's diabolical plan was to open the gates of Hell to free his beloved sidekick Muttley (voiced by the legend Billy West) who has been trapped in Hell. I usually love Will Forte but I thought his Shaggy voice was crap, they should have brought back Mathew Lillard! Another nugget I loved was that they recreated the original Scooby-Doo intro with digital animation, that was awesome. The 4K Ultra HD presentation is gorgeous, though there's no Atmos audio, and we do get a handful of extras including bloopers, deleted scenes, and some featurettes. 

DEAD DICKS (2019) 

Rating: Unrated
Duration: 83 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 & 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080P HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Chris Bavota, Lee Paula Springer
Cast: Heston Horwin, Jillian Harris, Matt Keyes, Kristina Sandev, Leyda Aleyli, Dave Campbell

Artsploitation continue to scour the world for strange, offbeat and visceral world cinema, and this time they've brought us a suicidal sci-fi thriller coming from our neighbors to the North, Canada.  In it a troubled young guy name Richie just cannot seem to kill himself in any sort of permanent way, each time he dies, in a myriad of creatively fatal ways, he reemerges from a strange Cronenbergian-looking vaginal opening that has mysteriously appeared on the wall of his dingy apartment. Each time he offs himself he leaves behind a corpse of himself that must be disposed of, but a kink in the process prevents him from leaving the apartment, so the bodies are piling up. Eventually his younger, more responsible sister, shows up and is shocked to find multiple dead versions of her demented brother! The bickering siblings set their minds to figuring out what's happening, why it's happening, and what can be done about it, if anything. All the while they having to contend with a irate neighbor and unresolved sibling issues that go back years. The slice of oddball sci-fi is not only inventive and fun but it's got a lot of heart. Artsploitation do not release a ton of sci-fi films, but when they do it's usually something with a spark to it, I am thinking of their release of time travelling sci-fi film Counter Clockwise (2016), and this is of the same cloth. If you're a fan of lo-fi indie sci-fi cinema definitely check it out. The Blu-ray includes a director's commentary, video diaries, FX featurette and Artsploitation trailer.

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO (2007)
Label: MVD Marquee Collection
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: R
Duration: 98 Minutes, 120 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 & 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Takashi Miike
Cast: Hideaki Ito, Kôichi Satô, Yûsuke Iseya, Masanobu Ando, Takaaki Ishibashi, Quentin Tarantino

Back in 2007 prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike (Audition) brought us a bloody spectacle with his genre mash-up Sukiyaki Western Django (2007). The film was his homage to the epic spaghetti westerns of the 60's and 70's with a madcap infusion of samurai swordplay alongside the lever-rifles and six-shooters. Highly stylized and dripping with operatic violence the film opens with a cool prologue starring director Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) in a scene strikingly shot on a sound stage, with Tarantino's gunslinger shooting an Eagle with a rattlesnake in it's talons right out the sky, with a neat little pay-off. It's a totally bad-ass scene, but as cool as that is there's just no getting around Tarantino's shit acting  that somewhat diffuse he introductory scene, his cowboy accent is comically bad, and then he inexplicably slips into a travesty of a Japanese accent that's damn near unforgivable. That flub aside Tarantino is only in it for a bit and then the story gets underway proper, with Hideaki Ito starring as a nameless gunslinger who wanders into a gold mining town, and right into the middle of a turf war between two warring gangs seeking a hidden treasure of gold. We have the red-clothed Heike and the white-clad Genji, both of whom attempt to recruit the dead-eye gunslinger, both promising to split the gold with him, but he chooses to go his own way while playing both sides against each other. The story gets a bit convoluted after a bit, I always lose my way about half way through it, so the plot and narrative are not the strongest attributes of this film, but the it still packs in a bullet-drenched wallop with it's high-contrast, gritty visuals and operatic and bloody violence, so much so that it borders on the cartoonish, but in the best possible way. The Collectors Edition Blu-ray from MVD includes both the theatrical cut and the longer running director's cut in HD, a 52-min making of doc, 6-min of deleted scenes, a 3-min sizzle reel, 3-min of promotional clips, trailers, TV spots and a reversible sleeve of artwork with a slipcover.

If I have to give one of these the higher recommend over the others I would say go for Swallow. It's such a fascinating and truly unsettling watch, while it's not gonna be for all tastes it's a gem of a film that got under my skin.