BRIEF REMEMBRANCES OF THE RECENTLY RELEASED
ALL THE KIND STRANGERS (1974) - SCREAM OF THE WOLF - KILL CRAZY (1989) - DEADLY KUNG FU FACTOR (1975) - LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (2026)
ALL THE KIND STRANGERS (1974) BD-RLabel: Leomark Studios
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 74 Minutes 41 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD (1.33:1)
Director: Burt Kennedy
Cast: Stacy Keach, Samantha Eggar, John Savage, Robby Benson, Arlene Farber, Tim Parkison, Patti Parkison, Brent Campbell, John Connell
All the Kind Strangers (1974) was an ABC Movie of the Week directed by Burt Kennedy (Hannie Caulder), wherein photojournalist Jimmy Wheeler Stacy Keach (Road Games) is driving through the rural South when he see a young kid carrying groceries home. He takes pity on the kid and offers him a ride, the boys name is Gilbert (Tim Parkison ), who says he lives just a mile down the road. Following the kids directions he ends up on a dirt road for miles before crossing a shallow river, before ending up on his property. There Gilbert introduces him to his siblings, including teenager John (Robby Benson, Disney's Beauty and the Beast), the mute Martha (Arlene Farber, I Drink Your Blood), 12 year0old Rita (Patti Parkison), James (Brent Campbell,(Happiness Is...), and the infantile adolescent Baby (John Connell. The kids appear to be unaccompanied by an adult, and the kids seem a little weird. Eventually the oldest of the siblings show up, that being Peter (John Savage, Hair) as Peter, who is in charge of the younger siblings. He says that their father is away, and their mother has passed, inviting Jimmy to stay for dinner, then introducing them to their "mama" Carol Ann (Samantha Eggar, The Brood) who shortly after meeting Jimmy scrawl help in a pile of flour on the kitchen table. Uh-oh, something is not right... We have Jimmy trying to extricate himself from the house, but strangely his car stops working, then disappears altogether, having been submerged in the river, where it turns out there are more cars down in the mud. It seems this clan of kids is looking for a new dad, and they like Jimmy. Carol seems to be held there against her will, made their "Mama" some time ago, but there have been others, too, and it appears that things did not go so well for them, so Jimmy has to play things just right if he is to escape. This made for TV flick was pretty good, at just shy of 75 minutes it never wears out it's welcome, and the subject matter is pretty interesting, but it never gets as dark as it hints at, with a finale that was really sort of a let down, with Peter never living up to the murderous menace we know he's capable of. This has never had a legit home video release outside of VHS, and this BD-R release from Leomark Studios looks like a port of that VHS, looking just about as bad as the version you can find on YouTube, compressed, murky and ugly as sin with tinny, hissy audio. I have been enjoying the stream of made-for-TV flicks that Leomark have been releasing, I love 70's made-for-TV movies, even when they are slapped onto BD-R, but I do wish they were of higher caliber transfers, other than just slapping compressed YouTube quality video files onto BD-R. These have no menus, lossy audio and no subtitles, you just pop them in and it starts to play, when the credits roll, it just starts up again.
Special Features:
- None
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SCREAM OF THE WOLF (1974)
BD-R
Label: Leomark Studios
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 73 Minutes 44 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Director: Dan Curtis
Cast: Peter Graves, Clint Walker, Jo Ann Pflug
Next up, another ABC Movie of the Week on BD-R from Leomark Studios. This time it's Scream of the Wolf (1974), directed by Dan Curtis (Trilogy of Terror) and written by the legendary fantasy, horror, and science fiction scribe Richard Matheson (I Am Legend). In this one a former big-game hunter turned author John Weatherby (Peter Graves, Airplane!) is called out of retirement by Sheriff Vernon Bell (Philip Carey, Monstroid) after a series of savage and animalistic murders threaten a rural community, seemingly by an animal of some sort. Identifying the animal proves difficult, based on tracks it appears to be a wolf, but the tracks appear to go from four-legged to bipedal and with a changing scent that throws of tracker dogs. John is in over his head and he seeks the help of his estranged former big game hunting pal Byron Douglas (Clint Walker, TV Movie Killdozer!), who turns him down, stating that he thinks it's a good thing that the threat of death and attack has awakened the community, that they are alive and truly living for the first time in years. With all the clues pointing to a suspect that it isn't a wolf but an animal that can take human form, maybe even a werewolf, but the attacks continue, a local deputy is killed and John's girlfriend Sandy Miller (Jo Ann Pflug, the Kolchak TV movie sequel The Night Strangler) comes under attack as well. This one seems to broadcast who the killer/werewolf might be early on, there's talk of a wolf attack years earlier, so you think you have it buttoned-up early on, but keep in mind that Richard Matheson penned the script for it, and he's no slouch, he has a few trucks up his sleeve that keep things interesting. Clint Walker tuns in a terrific performance, he's quit stoic and menacing, steely eyed and mysterious, while Peter Graves is pretty milk toast. It's a fairly bloodless TV thriller, but we do get some decent POV attack sequences at least. This is a BD-R, and the quality it looks about the same as what you can find on YouTube, with specks and tears, some of the worst compression you will ever find on an HD format, looking soft, murky and ill-defined, totally sub-VHS quality with blow-out audio full of distortions. No menu, no extras, no subtitles, nada.
Special Features:
- None
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DEADLY KUNG FU FACTOR (1978) Blu-ray
Label: Dark Force Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 99 Minutes 12 Seconds
Audio: Mandarin DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Ta Chuan Hsu
Cast: Wai-Man Chan, Pui-San Auteung, Na-Na, Charles Hueng, Bobby Canacarro, Chuck Lui, Cheng Kei Ying, Ng Ka Yueng, Tong Lung, Ma Kim Tong, Kai Yuen
Deadly Kung Fu Factor (1978) aka The Delivery, is a 1975 Hong Kong martial arts/action film starring real-life Triad martial artists Michael Chan Wai-Man and Charles Heung (Mad Mad Kung Fu), blending kung fu action with crime thriller elements, wherein as a Japanese drug smuggler Kung Chun San Lang (Michael Chan Wai-Man, Broken Oath) who has come to Hong Kong to facilitate the transfer of heroin between the Yakuza and the Triad, and almost immediately finds himself perused by the cops whom he takes on a high-speed chase, losing them when they enter a roundabout he he drives around in circles until they are too dizzy to continue the pursuit, which is utterly ridiculous! From there is basically him travelling around Hong Kong, and romancing a women he knocked off her motorbike, I guess that's a meet-cute, , and then getting into various scrape-ups. It's much less a martial arts film as it is a slice of drug-trafficking exploitation chock full of more nude women than I ever recall seeing in a HK flick, the HK night life, and some beautiful Hong Kong scenery as well, and hey that entertaining, too, and it's set to a prog-rock score that wasn't as obviously "borrowed" as a lot of HK flicks, so it could be library music, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. The region-free Blu-ray from Dark Force Entertainment is barebones but loosk terrific, sourced from a brand new HD master from the original uncut Hong Kong 35mm negative its has nice depth and clarity, the only blemish are some white specks and an occasional scratch, but this is a terrific looking scan. The Cantonese Mandarin audio is a bit thin and has a couple of distortions, but nothing serious. If you're fan of gritty Honk Kong crime-thrillers I give this an east recommend, it's not top-tier, but the leads are pretty charismatic characters, and the guitar-smashing beach front finale is a banger.
Special Features:
- None
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KILL CRAZY (1989)
Blu-ray
Label: Dark Force Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 94 Minutes 19 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: David Heavener
Cast: David Heavener, Rachelle Carson-Begley, Danielle Brisebois, Burt Ward Robert Hegyes, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs
Kill Crazy (1989) is a direct-to-video slice of late-80s vetsploitation written, directed and made-for-cable-TV ace starring David Heavener (Prime Target), wherein a group of 'Nam vets suffering PTSD, Puckett (Heavener), Rubin (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Cooley High), Malox (Steve DeVorkin, Hellbent), and Harry (Robert Hegyes, TV's Welcome Back Kotter) are on a weekend leave from the VA for a retreat into the wilderness when they accidentally stumble up on a militant group of white supremacists lead by Mallerd (Bruce Glover, Chinatown), who are planning a domestic terror attack, so they decide to use the vets as human target practice. The men are picked off one by one by the sadistic paramilitary outfit, leaving Puckett to full-on Rambo against them! Two female campers, Rachelle (Rachelle Carson-Begley, Cobra Kai) and Libby (Danielle Brisebois, TV's Archie Bunker's Place) find themselves caught up in the life or death survival exercise, the former of whom falls for Puckett while they are running for their lives, and killing the sadistic militia members. I had a fun time with low-budget slice of vetsploitation, Heavener is a solid lead and his directing chops aren't too shabby for a DTV cheapie with some solid action set-pieces and some low-rent hand-to-hand. The cast is all over the place, ep an eye out for Burt Ward, Boy-Wonder Robin from the '60s Batman TV show, as well as Gary Owens, who viewers of a certain age will recognize from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, or maybe as the host of the Pig-In-A-Poke game show from National Lampoon's European Vacation, as the sheriff. I'll watch anything with Bruce Glover in it, he's deliciously diabolical here if super one-dimensional, he's just fun to watch. The Blu-ray from Dark Force Entertainment looks really terrific, great depth and clarity, and colors are dialed in. The source is in great shape, just a few minor white specks and faint vertical lines, and the audio presentation is clean and free of distortion, plus we get a 2023 interview with writer-director-star David Heavener.
Special Features:
- Brand new 2K scan from the original uncut 35mm camera negative with extensive color correction
- 2023 Interview With Writer/Director/Star David Heavener (24:44)
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LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (2026) 4K Ultra HD + Digital
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 134 Minutes 33 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision/HDR10 2160p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Lee Cronin
Cast: Jack Reynor, Laia Costa, May Calamawy, Natalie Grace, with Veronica Falcón.
I liked the Brandon Frasier The Mummy movies well-enough back in the day, and I even thought the 2017 reimaging with Tom Cruise was actually entertaining, I though Cruise was channeling his inner Bruce Campbell-ish for that role, which I thought was pretty entertaining. Now we have writer/director Lee Cronin (Evil Dead Burn) take on the bandage-wrapped horrors with no less than Lee Cronin's The Mummy. Well, I think it's a fairly terrible mummy movie to be bluntly honest, however, it is a pretty entertaining unofficial entry in the Evil Dead series, in my humble opinion. I think it's pretty obvious that Cronin did not get the rot of deadites out of his blood, and took the next gig offered to exercise those leftover deadites from his blood. It really does come across as an Evil Dead film wrapped in the linen bandages of The Mummy, with a side helping of The Exorcist for good measure. It's spooky, horrific, and well-made, and there are scares galore, and it's vicious as heck, but it's just barely a mummy movie. That's okay, I think it's a terrific alternate universe Evil Dead entry. The 4K UHD presentation is fantastic, crisp visuals, the gory effects looks wonderful, it's a very crisp and sharp looking transfer, and the Dolby Atmos audio is both creepy as Hell and impactful, plus we get some
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Writer/Director/Executive Producer Lee Cronin
- The Making of Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: Director Lee Cronin reveals his striking vision for a terrifying new mummy tale of heart and horror. Explore the film’s claustrophobic atmosphere and meticulous filmmaking as it delivers emotion and relentless terror! (10:57)
- A Bloody and Grotesque Spectacle: Blood, bugs and toenails fuel this inside look at the film’s wild SFX and practical filmmaking magic! Cast and crew also reveal how Natalie Grace transforms into a demon-possessed vessel through intense prosthetics and chilling physicality. (7:47)
- Possession and Ancient Demons: Explore the story’s Egyptian roots and demonic rituals. Detective Zaki and the family investigate Katie's disappearance as the cast reveals the visceral reality of filming possession and terror while building the film's many unforgettable scenes. (5:41)
- Deleted Scenes (10:03)
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