BUTT BOY (2019) (Epic Pictures Blu-ray Review)

BUTT BOY (2019) 

Label: Epic Pictures

Region Code: Region-FREE

Rating: Unrated 

Duration: 99 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 & 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Tyler Cornack
Cast: Shelby Dash, Tyler Cornack, Tyler Rice, Austin Lewis

Schlubby loser Chip Gutchel (director Tyler Cornack) works at a soulless office IT job, at home he's in passionless relationship with is disinterested wife Anna (Shelby Dash), further complicated by the arrival of a new baby. The only pleasure he seems to find is an unexpected one, when a routine prostrate exam at the doctor's office turns him onto a new kink, anal-play!

Soon chip is stuffing his hungry anus with small objects from around the house, eventually working his way up to a TV remote control, then his family dog, and even a small child he at the local park! After the park incident the film moves ahead a few years, it seems Chip has been attending AA meetings, seeking help for his own anal-addiction under the guise of alcoholism, and it seems to have been successful, he even becomes a sponsor to others struggling with their own addiction issues. 

One such individual is Russel Fox (Tyler Rice), a hard-boiled detective who joins AA with Chip as his sponsor. Over dinner while getting to know each other Russell describes his cravings for alcohol, inadvertently re-igniting Chip's own cravings for stuffing things into his booty-hole, returning home that night he crams a Sorry game token up his butt. Not long after Chip's work has a bring your kid to work event, during which one of the kids goes missing, and yep, he's stuffed the kid right up his ass. Russell ends up being the cop investigating the missing kid report, and he becomes convinced that Chip had something to do with it, coming to the conclusion that somehow he is disappearing things into his sphincter, which of course is hard to prove and even more difficult to explain to his superiors. 

Butt Boy certainly has a nutty premise but it doesn't go too graphic, with actual  sphincter action coming in short supply, for better or worse depending on your tastes for bad-taste. It leaves a lot to the 
imagination, but it does have the good sense, and bad taste, to actually go into the interior of Chip's posterior, revealing a gaping and cavernous repository where everything he has ever stuffed up his butt resides in a poop-stained limbo, including that kid from he park, still very much alive! 

The cast play it pretty straight, with Tyler Cornack as Chip playing it a bit too restrained for my tastes in the role of the secret butt-stuffer, but Tyler Rice as the hardened cop is more fun, he has a certain Robert De Niro quality about his portrayal, the way he squints his eyes and tilts his head, it's a fun bit of homage and I dig his intensity. I also dig the way that tensions build between the pair, the dynamic changing from friendly to adversarial, culminating in the a way that seemed inevitable, and then resolved in a delightful burst of gore that had me laughing. Special mention to actor Austin Lewis who plays Chip's overly-caffeinated office manager who holds rapping rap-sessions at the start of each day, his somewhat spastic performance is a lot of fun, I've worked with managers like him,  I admire their energy but hated working for them, especially if you already hate your job.

Audio/Video: Butt Boy (2019) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Epic Pictures
 framed in 2.39:1 widescreen in 1080p HD, colors are vivid and well-saturated throughout, this is a tight-looking presentation that takes full advantage of the color spectrum, making this indie look fantastic in HD. Skin tones look natural, lack levels are good and blacks are nice and deep, it's a great looking Blu-ray with plenty of fine detail in the digital cinematography. 

Audio on the disc comes by way of English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1, sadly no uncompressed audio, but what we get is absolutely serviceable. The 5.1 is not the most immersive mix but dialogue is always crisp and clean, and there are some slight atmospherics and score that bleed into the surrounds, but it's mostly front-centric, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Extras begin with a lively audio commentary with actor/co-writer/director Tyler Cornack, co-writer Alan Cook and actor/co-producer Tyler Rice, plus a 12-min making of featurette that includes rehearsals, storyboards and planning for shots, its a cool featurette that offers plenty of insight into the preparation and planning needed to make an indie film. We also get a pair of 2-min trailers for the film and 6-min of trailers from Epic Pictures. 

The singe-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork, and I do appreciate that Epic Pictures are using sturdy, heavy-duty keepcases, noy light-weight eco-cases.    

Special Features: 

- Audio Commentary with Actor/Co-writer/Director Tyler Cornack, Co-Writer Alan Cook and Actor/Co-Producer Tyler Rice

- Behind the Scenes (12 min) 

- Official Trailer (2 min)
- Green Band Trailer (2 min)
- Epic Pictures Trailers: Tainted (2 min), Transference (2 min), Torpedo: U-235 (2 min)  

Butt Boy began as a 1-min short film, and as often happens with shorts stretched to feature length it definitely feels overly padded to get it to feature length. It does at least attempt to flesh out the characters a bit to escape the one-dimensional feel of the short, I just didn't find that it all worked gangbusters, but I did like the movie, I just don't love it. It's interesting
enough and just culty enough that it appealed to my appreciation of weird, potentially gross, cult cinema, and I absolutely applaud it for going for it, though for my own tastes I would have appreciated a bit more scatological humor.

More screenshots from the Blu-ray: 

HOAX (2019) (Dread Blu-ray Review)

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. 

BLACK SITE (2018) (Dread Presents Blu-ray review)

BLACK SITE (2018) 

Label: Epic Pictures/Dread Presents
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated  
Duration: 87 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 & Surround EX 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 
Director: Tom Paton 
Cast: Angela Dixon, Bentley Kalu, Kris Johnson, Mike Beckingham, Phoebe Robinson-Galvin, Samantha Schnitzler, Sophia Del Pizzo 

Black Site (2018) is an occult/sci-fi actioner with an intriguing Lovecraftian premise, that Earth has long been visited by a race of ancient beings, the Elder Gods. Through magic these ancient gods were banished to another realm, but in the 1920's they were able to find their way back, sparking the creation of an elite occult/military protection unit known as Artemis. This unit has been tasked with capturing the Elder Gods, and transporting them to a fortified military base known as Black Site, where they are ingterogated and deported/banished from Earth into a Hell-ish dimension.

In recent years most of the Elder Gods have been captured and the Black Site runs on a minimal crew, which is where we find Officer Ren Reid (Samantha Schnitzler), who twenty years previous lost her mother and father when they were killed by an Elder God named Erebus (Kris Johnson), who as it so happens has just been captured by Artemis and is transported to the Black Site. 

The general wisdom is that Ren and her parent's killer should be kept separate until this particular Elder Gods deportation, but when Erebus's human cult-followers, lead by the dead-eyed swordsman Ker (Phoebe Robinson-Galvin), who wipe out most of the skeletal military personnel in a surprise attack. Now it's up to Ren and a decidedly non-military spell-caster named Sam (Mike Beckingham) to thwart what looks to be an Elder God jail break!

Black Site (2018) could have gone so wrong on many levels, rarely have I seen a indie film that manages to combine the Lovecraftian with sci-fi/action and have it work on any real level. Those that do attempt it usually feel like million dollar ideas executed on a torn $20 bill budget, but director Tom Paton has managed to craft a low-budget indie that style, charisma, and a story that has some good twists and characters with interesting arcs, including a bad-guy by way of Elder God Erebus who is very charismatic and villainous, with Kris Johnson giving off a bit of a Brad Dourif vibe in his performance.

The film wisely isn't centered around dazzling special effects, though the film is peppered with some arresting visuals, including full-on Lovecraftian god floating in the sky, but for the most part is stays rooted in military-style reality with some slight augmentations like an energy field used to contain the Elder Gods at the Black Site. Big FX are used sparingly, just enough to give it some sci-fi/occult flavor without straining the budget and the belied of the viewer, which is something I think a lot of indie sci-fi films do, they tend stretch their budget and capabilities a bit beyond, and that's when you begin to see the cracks in the veneer, and the illusion begins to crumble.  

If you're a fan of Hellboy I think Black Site will absolutely ring a little bit familiar, reminding little bit of Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), what with the blending of sci-fi and Lovecraftian occult themes, it's fun stuff, and it makes for a very entertaining watch.       

Audio/Video; Black Site (2018) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Epic Pictures, the 1080p HD widescreen (2.35:1) image looks solid with some limitations, the blacks aren't always the deepest, and some of the visuals are soft, but overall this is a sharp looking film with vibrant colors punctuating the prevailing blacks. Audio chores are capably handled by Dolby Digital Surround EX 5.1 and stereo options with English subtitles, dialogue is clean and crisp even without the benefit of a lossless audio option, and the retro-synth score from Max Sweiry that hits all the right dark wave notes for me.  

Extras include a director's commentary, a handful of deletes scenes, a behind-the-scenes featurette and a half-hour's worth of Dread trailers. The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring a cool-looking design by artists Johnny Tabor (The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot).

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with writer/director Tom Paton
- Behind-The-Scenes Featurette (13 min) 
- Deleted Scenes (7 min) 
- Trailer (2 min) 
- DREAD Presents Trailer Reel (27 min) 

Black Site (2018) offers some cool John Carptener-esque sci-fi visuals infused with a Lovecraftian occult themes that really hit the spot for me, plus the swordplay and fight-scenes are pretty damn decent, offering a lot on a limited budget. This comes recommended for fans of indie sci-fi and occult cinema with a retro-80's flavor.