HOAX (2019)
Label: Epic Pictures/Dread
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 89 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Matt Allen
Cast: Adrienne Barbeau, Brian Thompson, Ben Browder, Cheryl Texiera, Shoshana Bush, Hutch Dano, Matt Reidy, Anthony Ray Parker, Christopher Soren Kelly, Ryan Lee, Max Decker, Brian Landis Folkins, Karen Slack, Shawn Rickel
Synopsis: An investigative team travels deep into the remote Colorado wilderness after a group of young campers are viciously murdered by what may be Bigfoot. While the highly specialized crew searches for evidence, they find themselves in a fight for survival against the legendary beast. What they encounter turns out to be more unexpected and dangerous than anything they could have ever imagined.
Hoax (2019) opens with that grandest of backwoods horror tropes, the campfire tale, with a group of college kids sitting around the campfire telling the tale of a killer Sasquatch said to roam the nearby forests. There's a goofy scare perpetrated by one of the group before they retire into their tents for some night-time fornication, only to be interrupted by what seems to be a hairy beast ripping open their tents and killing them.
Weeks later a down-on-his-luck reality TV show producer named Rick Paxton (Ben Browder, Farscape) pitches an idea for a reality show exploring the Bigfoot myth following the unsolved massacre of those teens in the Colorado wilderness. He sets up a research team, comprised of ex-military (Brian Thompson, Cobra), primate scientists (Cheryl Texiera), cryptozoologist (Schuyler Denham), vapid reality TV show host (Shoshana Bush), plus the father of a missing girl (Max Decker) and Paxton's cameraman Justin (Hutch Dano, of Zombeavers, and grandson of Royal Dano!).
The crew head into the Colorado wilderness and it soon becomes clear that producer Paxton is a scumbag who will do anything to revive his ailing career, while the possibility of a real Bigfoot presents itself, along with other more backwoods-type threats which present themselves toward the end of the film with a twist that turns back around on itself, with the film dipping it's toes into the realm of cannibalism with some fun, pan-frying torture scenes.
i thought the film is a fun indie Bigfoot adventure, while it sort of lays it's cards on the table with the title, it also manages to subvert some of those expectation with it's genre-mixing and a final stinger that turns the initial twist on it's head. A really good Bigfoot film is about as elusive as the Sasquatch itself these days, but this one has something to offer that I think goes above the usual indie Bigfoot fare, though it's not exactly perfection in a hair-suit either.
It's a bit long-winded in the middle after an opening that has a lot of what I want from a horror flick, that being horny teens, hairy beasts, carnage, but then it settles into reality TV crew venturing into the woods with in-fighting among the annoying characters - which is all of them, before settling into the proper backwoods horror with a twist.
The bloodshed seen here is a bit of a letdown for me, I wanted way more ferocious Bigfoot carnage, and on that level it is a bit disappointing, but I was a huge fan of Brian Thompson as the military vet who joins the group as a security detail, he's hilarious and by far the best part of the film for me.
That director Matt Allen was able to get Alan Howarth to do the score is pretty cool, the composer provides a moody and atmospheric score, plus his participation pulled in actress Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog) who appears in a very small cameo, a cameo with numerous references to her previous horror films. The film is heavy with nods to horror classics, which is not always a move that agrees with me, but I found the references here to be quite bit of fun. We even get a Sasquatch-suit designed by FX artist William Munns, who worked on Swamp Thing (1982) with Adrienne Barbeau, and it looks pretty good, though it's seen mostly in fleeting glimpses, which is probably for the best.
Audio/Video: Hoax (2019) arrives on Blu-ray from Epic Pictures/Dread framed in 2.35:1 widescreen in 1080p HD. The image generally looks good, the exterior shots in bright daylight looks wonderful and crisp, the greenery of the outdoors and mountainous areas are very pleasing, though some of the darker shots suffer a bit with compression and loss of fine detail in the shadows, but overall I found it a rather attractive looking indie feature.
Audio comes by way of en English Dolby Digital 5.1 mix which sounds good, but I am surprised we do not get a lossless audio option, especially considering we get a score from Alan Howarth (Christine). That said, the mix does have it's share of favorable atmospherics, dialogue is crisp and the minimalist synth score sounds terrific, optional English subtitles are provided.
The extras for this one are plentiful, we get a pair of audio commentaries, one with the cast and another with the director, cinematographer, co-writers, and production designer. Then we get over an hour's worth of interviews with actors Cheryl Texiera, Ben Browder, Brian Thompson, Shoshana Bush, Hutch Dano, Max Decker, Adrienne Barbeau and Composer Alan Howarth, plus an overview of the film, a featurette abiout the existence of bigfoot, and the Colorado shooting location, plus a pair of trailers.
The single-disc release arrives in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork, the a-side being a riff on the iconic Friday the 13th (1980) silhouette movie poster.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Director of Photography and Co-Writer, Scott Park, Production Designer, Chris Canfield, Director and Co-Writer, Matt Allen
- Audio Commentary with Cast Members, Ben Browder and Cheryl Texiera
Featurettes:
- Hoax Overview (7 min) HD
- Bigfoot (11 min) HD
- Cheryl Texiera (3 min) HD
- Ben Browder (3 min) HD
- Brian Thompson (6 min) HD
- Shoshana Bush (5 min) HD
- Hutch Dano (2 min) HD
- Max Decker (3 min) HD
- Made in Colorado (11 min) HD
- Adrienne Barbeau (3 min) HD
- Hoax Composer Alan Howarth (6 min) HD
- Hoax Trailer #1 (1 min) HD
- Hoax Trailer #2 (1 min) HD
Hoax (2019) is a fun hybrid Bigfoot film, it suffers a bit because the tone is uneven, but it largely succeeds in doing the usual Sasquatch things with a bit of an interesting twist. It's also dampened by the fact that the Bigfoot carnage takes a bit to get going after an initially strong opening, but it finishes strong with some cannibal clan weirdness and a stinger that is a bit of u-turn. A definite recommend for connoisseurs
of Bigfoot-cinema, for all others it might be an acquired taste, but I dug it.
COBRA (1986)
Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 87 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: George P. Cosmatos
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, Reni Santoni, Andrew Robinson, Brian Thompson, John Herzfeld, Lee Garlington
In my youth growing up in a rural Upstate New York I would catch a lot of films screening at the local psychiatric center in nearby Willard, NY. My father worked there and informed me that the place would screen 35mm movies for the patients once a month, and if we showed up where they screened them the state employees would let us inside to watch the movies for free. About once a month on a Saturday my dad would drop us off nearby and we'd go in and sit in an darkened auditorium along with psychiatric patients. Inside there was a full size movie screen, the seating were fold-out metal chairs positioned in the front of the screen. We could opt to sit right there along with the patients or off on the perimeter of the auditorium where there were some stationary bikes and some Nautilus style weight benches. I would usually opt for the workout benches when possible, but sometimes there were older kids already camped out there I didn't want to hang out with and I would end up sitting nearby or alongside the mental patients. Every once in a while you would catch a glimpse or hear something you shouldn't see, like a man with tourettes involuntarily shouting profanity or a couple laying on the floor touching each other, all of which at twelve or so I found a little off-putting to say the least. Anyway, it couldn't have been too traumatic for me, the closest real cinema was thirty miles away and my parents rarely would take us, so I caught a lot of films there and kept coming back.
It was there I saw loads of 80's comedies like Fletch, Dragnet and The 'Burbs, films that were less than a year old, plus some occasional vintage sci-fi like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of the strangest experiences was watching One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest there, the irony of which was not lost on me, even at the tender age. I do not recall seeing many horror films there, but a few action films for sure, and Cobra is one I do seem to recall watching. The atmosphere of danger in the film really rubbed off on me during my viewing back then, there's a axe-wielding cult in the film, and it wasn't too long of a stretch for me to imagine the patients surrounding me were the same violent crazies seen in the film. Now I know that's insensitive and not a very nice thing to imagine, but I was young and sometimes when you're that age you don't see things correctly, let alone politically correct, but I do love thinking back to all the movies I saw at the psychiatric center, bemused by the strange looks I incur when during a movie conversation I'll occasionally say "oh yeah, I saw that one at the asylum", and I love bringing up that story every time one of those films gets a new Blu-ray release.
Directed by George P. Cosmatos (Of Unknown Origin) Cobra (1986) is a star vehicle for 80's man of action Sylvester Stallone, appearing as LAPD's Lieutenant Marion Cobretti, a member of an elite squad of crime-stoppers known as the "zombie squad". He goes by the handle "Cobra", and his favorite weapons are a laser-sighted sub-machine gun and a Colt .45 with a Cobra emblazoned on the pearl hand grip. Even more bad ass is his custom ride, a sweetly modded '50 Mercury Monterrey.
The film opens with a nut job (Marco Rodriguez, The Crow) taking hostages at the local supermarket, shooting up the produce section before blowing a guy away in cold blood. Cobra is called in when negotiations fail, sneaking his way into the market he chugs a can of Coors beer, and spouts off a few tasteful 80s one-liners like "you're the disease, and I'm the cure", before ventilating the guy with a knife and blowing him away. This sets up Cobretti as a bit of a loose canon, not liked by his peers, and hounded by the media for his brutal take downs of criminals.
Turns out that the supermarket killer was part of a larger group, a cult set on ridding the world of what it considers vermin, the group is known as The New World Order, and is lead by a guy who calls himself The Night Stalker (Brian Thompson, The X-Files), who has set his sights on a model named Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen, Red Sonja) who was a witness to one of their crimes. Cobretti and his sweets-munching partner Sergeant Tony Gonzales (Reni Santoni, Dirty Harry) are assigned to protect her, and then the violent shit really hits the fan.
This is a big, bad-ass slice of 80's action that is dripping with excess force, and some tasty slasher-ish tendencies with the cult members regularly stalking and knifing their victims. Stallone is in fine form, his one-liners are some of his best, his character doesn't have a lot of depth, but he has lots of weird quirk. A health conscious eater who cuts his pizza into bite sized pieces with a pair of scissors. It may not be The French Connection but it is a wonderful piece of hyper-violent 80's cinema stylishly shot by director George P. Cosmatos and cinematographer Ric Waite (The Long Riders).
The cult is a strange element in the film, there are scenes throughout of them meeting up in a warehouse, clanging axes together and chanting, ominous stuff that doesn't really jive with the rest of the film, but it looks cool for sure. Brian Thompson as the Terminator-esque baddie is imposing and scary, there's not a lot depth to it, but on a surface level he does what he needs to do, and he has a bad-ass looking knife with a spiked handle that is pretty damn cool.
Audio/Video: Cobra arrives on Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a new 2K scan from an archival inter-positive performed by Warner Bros.. Having not seen the previous Blu-ray I cannot compare but the film look fantastic, grain is well-managed, the source is clean and free of dirt and blemishes, colors are nicely saturated and the blacks are deep and inky, a great looking presentation with an impressive amount of clarity, depth and fine detail..
Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo and 5.1 with optional English subtitles. I preferred the stereo track but the surround does spread around that score nicely, and that awful 80's soundtrack with cuts from John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band and the Miami Sound Machine, terrible music selections on this film, love the film, hate the music.
Scream Factory come through with some great new extras here, sadly no interview with Stallone, but we do get over 80-minutes of new interviews, beginning with Brian Thompson who gives a rather fun and candid interview, describing how his tiny role in Terminator opened up some doors for him, working on this film with one of his action heroes, including a bad experience filming a fire stunt, and being punched by Stallone, and noting that star seemed to be doing a lot of directing, while saying Cosmatos was a bit of a tyrant on set. Be speaks about being confused about his characters motivations, what sort of movie they were making, and getting little to no input from Stallone or Cosmatos when he asked about character development.
Marco Rodriguez gets a 24-min interview discussing his career, how due to a miscommunication he thought he had landed the main baddie role in the film, his experience making the film and it's initial success at the box office. He also speaks about being recognized from his small but memorable part on the film, and ends with him leafing through his original script, reading his own character notes written on it.
Andrew Robinson gives a 14-min talk about the film, admitting he didn't care for the script much - which was written by star Stallone, commenting that he thought Stallone was accessible and friendly, the duality of his nature, some difficulty between Cosmatos and Stallone, and what he feels are the shortcomings of the movie, summing it up as just not his sort of movie, he really gives a fun and candid perspective of the film, telling stories he says he dines out on all day.
Actress Lee Garlington gives a 9-min interview, beginning by describing the audition, playing Scrabble with Brian Thompson in between set-ups, Stallone's security detail, lots of yelling on set, and knocking Stallone down during one of their scenes together.
Actor Art La Fleur who plays hot-tempered Captain Sears shows up or an 8-min interview, he speaks about getting the call for the while he was shooting Zone Troopers (1985) in Italy, meeting Cosmatos, working with him and director Cosmatos, and getting the feeling that both the star and the director were co-directing the film, and working with Andy Robinson, Ren Santoni and Brian Thompson.
The disc is finished-up with a teaser trailer, theatrical trailer and a vintage 8-min EPK style featurette with interviews with Stallone, Nielsen, director George P. Cosmatos, with clips from the film and behind-the-scene video of the making of the film. There's also a vintage commentary with the late director
The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with the same standard one-sheet artwork that;'s been associated with this film for years, it's rare that we get a Collector's Edition without new artwork or at least a reversible option, but I do think that this image of Stallone on a red background is damn iconic, it would be hard to improve upon in my opinion so I am okay with that.
I am very pleased with the new interviews, but it's too bad we do not the deleted scenes for the film, when the film first went before the MPAA it was rated X for violence, so about 30-40 minutes of violent footage and character building stuff was trimmed from it. A lot of these cuts are detailed by the director in the vintage commentary included on this release. To my knowledge these have never been released on an official home video release. When this release was first announced many including myself were hoping these would finally land on a disc, but nope, didn't happen.
Special Features:
- NEW 2K Scan Of The Original Film Elements
- NEW Stalking And Slashing – An Interview With Actor Brian Thompson (26 min) HD
- NEW Meet The Disease – An Interview With Actor Marco Rodriguez (24 min) HD
- NEW Feel The Heat – An Interview With Actor Andrew Robinson (14 min) HD
- NEW Double Crossed – An Interview With Actress Lee Garlington (9 min) HD
- NEW A Work Of Art – An Interview With Actor Art LaFleur (8 min) HD
- Audio Commentary With Director George P. Cosmatos
- Vintage Featurette (8 min)
- Teaser Trailer (1 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- Still Galleries: Stills (54 Images)
- Still Gallery: Movie Posters, And Lobby Cards (63 Images)
Cobra (1986) is a total bad-ass 80's action film with some fun cult and slasher tendencies. Stallone cuts quite a figure in his mirrored glasses chewing on a matchstick, armed to the hilt with an arsenal of gunnery and enough quotable one-liners to please any lover of over-the-top action cinema. The new transfer on the Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory looks amazing and the extras are excellent, if you're a fan of the film I think you will be impressed.
DOCTOR MORDRID (1992)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: All
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 74 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.9, Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: 1080 Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Charles band, Albert Band
Cast: Jeffrey Combs, Yvetter Nipar, Jay Acovone, Brian Thompson
DOCTOR MORDRID stars the always fantastic Jeffrey Combs (RE-ANIMATOR) as a wizard sent to Earth from the fourth another dimension to guard us against the evil Kabal (Brian Thompson, X-FILES). Kabal has been imprisoned for centuries but has escaped and is now on Earth where he plans to unleash a demonic horde - it's up to Mordrid to save us all.
Mordrid lives in New York City in a sweet apartment festooned with ancient relics and shelves of books on demonology, sorcery and alchemy. There's definitely been a few pages torn from Marvel's Doctor Strange playbook as Mordrid astral projects himself to other dimension where he communes with an entity known as The Monitor. The sorcerer also wears a magical cloak and derives his power from a mystical amulet.
Combs classes up every movie he appears in and this is no different. His turn as a slightly cold demeanored sorcerer battling evil is good stuff. The effects work is standard for an early nineties Band directed film with plenty of low budget in-camera and visual effects but they work quite nicely. The miniature and stop-motion effects from the late David Allen are a lot of fun - from the floating prison to the animated dinosaur skeletons it's just fun stuff.
Brian Thompson who played the menacing alien bounty hunter in nine episodes of the X-FILES appears as the evil mulleted wizard Kabal and he strikes an imposing figure. On Earth he enlists a couple of metal-heads burnouts to do his bidding. The dude is a dud but his female companion at least offers up some fun nudity to the proceedings.
They do squeeze in a love interest into the story in the form of TV actress Yvette Nipar as Samantha Hunt a NYPD special consultant and Mordrid's neighbor with an interest in the dark arts. The performances are pretty decent with Combs playing it quite cool while Brian Thompson gets to chew the scenery as the villainous sorcerer.
The film was co-directed by Albert and Charles Band and moves along nicely but is quite short at just under 75 minutes with a rushed ending. Points deducted for a final battle that was less than epic but for a first time watch without the benefit of nostalgia this was quite an entertaining watch .
Audio/Video: The picture quality is nicely crisp and with good color saturation, the print used for the HD Master is in great shape with very little wear and tear, just a smattering of white specks. I am not certain but I believe this was shot in the open-matte format and has been cropped for this release to create a proper widescreen presentation. which means we lose information on both the top and bottom of the frame but the framing is done quite nicely. Would love it if they would offer both the cropped and original open matte versions like we saw on the EVIL DEAD Blu-ray.
None of the Full Moon Blu-rays have offered HD audio and the disc is no different. The film relies on a capable English Dolby Digital presentation with both a stereo and surround option. It handles the dialogue and effects quite nicely and Richard Band's score comes through cleanly but I would love to see Band's score get a DTS-HD Master Audio option with an isolated music track - that would be fantastic. This particular score is quite familiar to me and is used for a lot of the FM promos. There are no subtitle options provided.
Onto the special features we have a lively commentary from Charles Band and star Jeffrey Combs that is never dull - these two keep it interesting with tales from set and the origin of the story. The vintage Videozone featurette has interviews with co-director Charles and Albert Band, stars Jeffrey Combs, Brian Thompson and Yvette Nipar plus visual effects artist David Allen parsed with behind-the-scenes footage and clips from the film.
The Uncut Behind-the-Scenes footage starts with outtakes from a vintage promo and then into extended filming of the Videozone segment including some for what appears to have been for the making-of BAD CHANNELS. It's pretty neat to hear these segments being set-up and to hear the interviewer ask the questions with flubs and interruptions intact. The David Allen stuff is awesome as he explains the process and we see some fun shots of him setting up the stop motion shots used in the film.
The William Shatner Interview with Jeffrey Combs, Stuart Gordon and Barbara Crampton can also be found on the CASTLE FREAK Blu-ray and is fun, it's just weird to have Captain Kirk interviewing these three. Finishing up the extras are HD trailers for REEL HORROR, OOGA BOOGA, TROPHY HEADS, and UNLUCKY CHARMS.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Jeffrey Combs and Charles Band
- Original Videozone featurette ( 9 Minutes) SD
- Rare William Shatner Interview with Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton (12 Minutes) SD
- Uncut Behind-the-Scenes Footage from the Full Moon Vault (133 Minutes) SD
- Trailers HD
With the exception of the TOURIST TRAP release and the mystery of the missing five minutes I think that Full Moon have done a fine job of remastering their films for the HD crowd. A fun watch oozing with sorcery and that special brand of b-movie charm.
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