THE EPITAPH VOL. 31
SLEEPLESS BEAUTY (2020) - BEASTS CLAWING AT STRAWS (2020) - HALF BAKED (1998) - TREMORS (1990)
Label: Epic Pictures
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: Russian & English 5.1 & 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Pavel Khvaleev
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: Russian & English 5.1 & 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Pavel Khvaleev
Cast: Polina Davydova, Maria Olsen, Nancy Wolfe, Paulie Rojas
HALF BAKED (1998)
TREMORS (1990)
Russian psychological torture flick Sleepless Beauty is a throwback to the gritty exploitation of yesteryear with a slant that should appeal to fans of Hostel and pain-inducing films of that variety. In it a blogger chic named Mila (Polina Davydova) is abducted by an organization known as Recreation. She wakes up in a dingy looking room, her captors speak to her through loudspeakers, under constant surveillance, she is not allowed to sleep, she is put through a series of torturous tests, forced to endure bizarre VR sessions and generally subjected to harsh, sanity destroying conditions by her anonymous captors. I admit that I had to restart the film about three times over a period of a few days before I finally gave in and watched it, and while the first third of it did not do much for me I did find where the film headed was quite intriguing, exploriing the limits of brainwashing and mind-control. A mean-spirited and un-fun watch from start to finish Sleepless Beauty should appeal to fans of uncomfortable exploitation, but go into it expecting American Guinea Pig levels of gore and depravity, it ain't that but it is an unsettling psychological torture flick that is well-made and hard to endure, if that is your thing this is a recommend. The region-free Blu-ray from Epic Pictures has solid A/V with some solid extras, including deleted and alternate scenes, behind-the-scenes footage, and trailers. The alternate "Hallucination" scene found in the extras is a mind-bending collage of disturbing clip art that is the stuff of naughty nightmares!
Special Features:
- Deleted Scene: Day 3 (2 min)
- Behind The Scene Film (6 min)
- Alternative Scene - Hallucination (3 min)
- Russian Trailer (2 min)
- English Trailer (2 min)
- Epic Pictures Trailers: The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, Bleed With Me, Nail In The Coffin, La Cosa, Uncle Peckerhead (9 min)
BEASTS CLAWING AT STRAWS (2020)
Label: Artsploitation Films
Region Code:
Rating:
Duration: 108 minutes
Audio: Korean DTS-HD MA 5.1, Korean Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Kim Yong-hoon
Cast: Jeon Do-yeon, Jung Woo-sung, Bae Sung-woo , Yun Yuh-jung, Jung Man-sik, Jin Gyeong, Shin Hyun-been, Kim Jun-han, Jung Ga-ram, Park Ji-hwan, Heo Dong-won
When a Luis Vuitton bag stuffed full of cash goes unclaimed at a local gym it sends a group of disparate, hard-luck lowlifes on a violent spree to claim it as their own, at any cost! This Korean crime thriller is a pitch-black slice of Tarantino-esque noir that never let's up from the get-go, I had such a great time with it, watching with my jaw on the ground at the events spiraled out of control before coming together in a mad-cap and over-the-top finale chock full of double-crossing and scheming. This might be one of the best discoveries of the year for me, an intricate and tightly spun tale of greed that is stylish, well-acted and deftly directed, by first time filmmaker Kim Yong-hoon, who is gonna be one to keep your eye on based on this knock-out debut feature film, highly recommended!
Special Features:
- Trailer (1 min)
- Artspoiltation Trailers: Happy Times (2 min), The Prince (2 min), Dick Heads (1 min)
Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: MA 15+
Duration: 108 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen
Director: Tamra Davis
Cast: Dave Chappelle, Harland Williams, Jim Breuer, Guillermo Diaz
The nineties stoner-comedy Half Baked (1998) is still not available on Blu-ray in the U.S., but the good blokes at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia have come through with a new region-free Blu-ray of the Dave Chappelle comedy, complete with all the extras from the "Fully Baked Edition" DVD. If you have not seen this one we have three goofy stoner buds in Thurgood Jenkins (Dave Chappelle, Robin Hood: Men in Tights), Scarface (Guillermo Díaz, High School High) and Brian (Jim Breuer)who band together to bail their friend Kenny (Harland Williams, Sorority Boys), who accidentally killed a mounted policeman's steed, out of jail. Chapelle's character Thurgood Jenkins works as a custodian at a lab with a large supply of magic weed, to get the money to raise the legal funds they begin selling it around town, along the way their weed earns them a reputation, gaining the admiration of a weed-loving rapper named Sir Smoke-a-Lot (Chappelle in a dual-role) and the score of a demented weed dealer named Sampson (Clarence Williams III, Tales from the Hood) who does not appreciate being made the second best weed source in town. We also get a string of fun cameos from the likes of Tommy Chong, Steven Wright, Tracy Morgan, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Jon Stewart, Stephen Baldwin, Willie Nelson and Bob Saget. The humor and gags are juvenile and low-brow, and that's what I love about it. If you're down with the Cheech & Chong and Harold and Kumar franchises chances are you are probably already a fan. Kudos to Umbrella Entertainment for offering up this stoner-platter as a region-free disc and bogarting the fun for themselves!
Special Features:
- 10 Deleted Scenes (10 min)
- Alternate Ending (6 min)
- 5 Minutes with the Guy on the Couch (5 min)
- Different Types of Smokers (2 min)
- Granny's Guide to Bakin' (6 min)
- Audio Commentary with director Tamra Davis
Label: Arrow Video
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: R
Duration: 96 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo, 4.0 Surround, 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p UHD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director:
Cast:
When handymen Val (Kevin Bacon, Death Sentence) and Earl (Fred Ward, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins) grow tired of their stale one-horse desert town of Perfection, Nevada (population: 14) they pack up their truck and hit the road. But a series of odd happenings prevent them from doing so, the only road out of town is blocked by a rock slide, half-eaten corpses litter the road and the phone lines stop working. There's something eating people in the town of Perfection, something no one has ever seen before, a strange breed of gigantic worm is out to eat them all, with the remaining citizens of the town teaming-up with Val and Earl to survive an attack from the underground dwelling threat. The first Tremors is still the best of the bunch, which I would attribute to the Bacon and Ward team-up, these guys are fantastic as the sun-beaten handyman who dream of a life beyond Perfection, they are the heart of the film and the reason I think this film, even though it bombed at the box office, went on to win the hearts of genre fans. It's a creature-feature that blends heart, humor and horror in equal measure with a great cast and some still fantastic special effects work that bring the subterranean worms to life. Arrow Video bring this 90's horror-comedy to 4K UHD with a gorgeous presentation that includes a new Dolby Vision HDR10 color-grading. The image looks spectacular, the grain levels look natural throughout, the details come through like never before, you're seeing individual grains of sand and strands of hair that just were not visible on the previous Blu-ray release, the film has always looked like shit on home video, and this gorgeous UHD fixes all the issues. On top of that you get a ton of extras, the centerpiece of which is a new 31-minute making of documentary, plus you get all the raw interview footage used to make the doc which adds up to over five hours of raw interview footage! That's not all though, we also about 85-minutes of new interview with the producers, the special FX team, the composer, and the cinematographer, plus TV edits, gag reel, archival making of extras and interviews, trailers, radio spots, short films and so much more. Arrow knocked it out of the park with this 4K UHD of Tremors.
Special Features:
Disc 1: Feature & Extras
- 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
- Restored DTS-HD MA original theatrical 2.0 stereo, 4.0 surround, and remixed 5.1 surround audio options
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- New audio commentary by director Ron Underwood and writers/producers Brent Maddock & S.S. Wilson
- New audio commentary by Jonathan Melville, author of Seeking Perfection: The Unofficial Guide to Tremors
- Making Perfection, a brand new documentary by Universal Studios interviewing key cast and crew from the franchise (including Kevin Bacon, Michael Gross, Ariana Richards, Ron Underwood, among many others) and revisiting the original locations (31 min)
- The Truth About Tremors, a newly filmed interview with co-producer Nancy Roberts on the film's rocky road to the screen (22 min)
- Bad Vibrations, a newly filmed interview with director of photography Alexander Gruszynski (11 min)
- Aftershocks and Other Rumblings, newly filmed on-set stories from associate producer Ellen Collett (13 min)
- Digging in the Dirt, a new featurette interviewing the crews behind the film's extensive visual effects (21 min)
- Music for Graboids, a new featurette on the film's music with composers Ernest Troost and Robert Folk (14 min)
- Pardon My French!, a newly assembled compilation of overdubs from the edited-for television version (16 min)
- The Making of Tremors, an archive documentary from 1995 by Laurent Bouzereau, interviewing the filmmakers and special effects teams (44 min)
- Creature Featurette, an archive compilation of on-set camcorder footage showing the making of the Graboids (10 min)
- Electronic press kit featurette (4 min) and interviews with Kevin Bacon (2 min), Michael Gross (2 min) and Reba McIntire (2 min)
- Deleted scenes, including the original opening scene (5 min)
- Theatrical Trailer 1 (2 min)
- Theatrical Trailer 2 (2 min)
- TV Spots (1 min)
- VHS Promo (1 min)
- Radio Spots (4 min)
- Tremors Franchise Trailers (7 min)
- Image galleries: Production Stills, Behind-The-Scenes, Laserdisc Image Gallery, Screenplay Draft (draft 6, 1988), Ssreenoplay (draft 8b, 1989), Storyboards, Posters and Video Artwork
Disc 2: Interviews & Short Films (Blu-ray, Limited Edition Exclusive)
- Extended hour-long interviews from Making Perfection with Ron Underwood (48 min), Brent Maddock (63 min), S.S. Wilson (72 min), Nancy Roberts (51 min) and creature designer Alec Gillis (60 min)
- Outtakes with optional introduction and commentary by S.S. Wilson (11 min)
- Three early short films by the makers of Tremors, remastered in high definition, including Dictionary: The Adventures of Words (16 min), Library Report (25 min) and S.S. Wilson's stop-motion horror/comedy classic Recorded Live (1975) (8 min)
- Arclight Hollywood 2015 Q&A (71 min)
