BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1989) / BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003) (Umbrella Blu-ray Review)

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1989) / BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003) 

2-Disc Collector Edition 
Beyond Genres: Worlds on Films Vol. 2 

Label: Umbrella Entertainment 
Region: Region B
Rating: MA
Duration: 97 Minutes (Bride)/ 96 Minutes (Beyond) 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo (Bride), English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 (Beyond) with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) (Bride), 1080p HD Widescreen (1.77:1) (Beyond) 
Director: Brian Yuzna
Cast: Jeffrey Cobs, Bruce Abbot, Claude Earl Jones, David Gale, Fabiana Udenio, Mel Stewart (Bride) / Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Santiago Segura, Simon Andreau (Beyond)

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1989) 
The events of Brian Yuzna's lunatic sequel to Re-animator begin eight months after the events of the first movie with both Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs, From Beyond) and Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott, Bad Dreams) working as medics in Peru where a bloody civil war is raging around them. The steady stream fresh corpses proves ideal for West and his continued experiments in reviving the dead with his green-glowing re-agent serum. When the medical camp is overrun by enemy soldiers the duo are forced to abandon their South American endeavor and return to Arkham, Massachusetts where they resume their former careers as doctors at Miskatonic University Hospital, where Dan seems content in making terminal patients comfortable during their finals days, while West just sort of wrings his hands with delight waiting for them to pass, at which point he can use their fresh corpses as test subjects for his coveted re-agent serum.   

Both Dan and Herbert West live together in a house on the property of the local cemetery which seems appropriate, though the two once again make for combative housemates, not exactly seeing eye to eye on all things. West is conveniently able to pilfer body parts from the Miskatonic University morgue, which is where he finds Dr. Hill's severed head and Meg's heart among other medical artifacts saved from the Miskatonic Massacre, Meg being Dan's former love interest from the first movie. West steals the heart and uses it to coerce Dan into helping him create a body from human parts, which when finished they will give life to by using the re-agent serum. This experimentation takes place in the basement of the home, a space that shares a wall with a cemetery crypt next door, which is where West conveniently disposes of his failed creations, which will come back to haunt him during the final moments of the movie.

Meanwhile, back at Miskatonic University the aptly named Dr. Graves (Mel Stuart, Dead Heat) has himself become obsessed with the work of the late Dr. Hill (David Gale, Ritual), and while using some of the re-agent serum found at the crime scene from the first movie is able to re-animate Hill's head, who then sets about exacting revenge on West, beginning by using his diabolical hypnotic powers to force Grave to sew a pair of bat wings to the sides of his severed head, which enables him to fly around! This has always brought to mind the winged skull mascot of the thrash band Overkill, and if the notion of a bat-winged severed head flying around seems a bit on the silly side that is because it certainly is, and it doesn't look much better than it might sound either. While the first movie was darkly comedic this one amps the comedy up quite a bit and goes right off the deep end of demented.

Also figuring into the story is police officer Lt. Leslie Chapham (Claude Earl Jones, Evilspeak) who harasses both Dan and Herbert whom he holds responsible for the re-animation of his dead wife nine months earlier. As Dan and West were the only survivors of the Miskatonic Massacre he knows that deep down they had something to do with it. His quest for deranged justice results in him becoming one of Dr. Hill's re-animated minions, joining the ranks of the formerly undead. This time around Dan has a new love interest, another doctor named Francesca Danelli played by Fabiana Udenio (Alotta Fagina from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)), her inclusion seems a bit jammed-in here but it's not ruinous.

The movie comes to a head with the completion of their Bride, a corpse stitched together from various cadavers, with the heart of Dan's beloved Meg within it, they inject it with re-agent and the re-animated bride arises, just as the winged head of Dr. Hill and his re-animated minions lay siege to the house, leading up to a fevered finale with a cat fight between the Bride and Francesca, but when Dan rejects the affections of the creature she rips out her own heart and begins to fall apart quite literally. There's some very cool Screaming Mad George created freaky looking creatures that have been kept hidden away in the crypt which come after West he and the others take refuge from Dr. Hill's mind-controlled minions in the crypt, which brings this weird and gory sequel to a proper close. This sequel solid, maybe a bit on the absurd side, with more comedic and slapstick moments than the Stuart Gordon original, but a worthy and gory entry with a nicely deranged performance from Jeffrey Combs as the beloved Dr. Herbert West, a sweet slice of '80s gore cinema loaded with humor and nicely shot. 

Audio/Video: Bride of Re-animator (1989) arrives on region B locked Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment, containing both the R-rated and unrated versions - and looking to be from the same existing source as used by Arrow Video for their Region A release, framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The image has a healthy looking grain field with good color saturation and nice looking blacks. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 audio, a well-balanced track with good separation, with Richard Band's score coming through with some nice depth and fidelity, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Extras fro Bride begin with three audio commentaries for the unrated cut of the film, the first with director Brian Yuzna moderated by David Gregory of Severin Films, the director right from the start reveals the influence of schlock-master William Castle on the movie with the floating head of Dr. Hill. I have not listened to the commentary with Yuzna, Combs and the special effects team yet, but the commentary with Combs and Abbott is a great listen, the two have a great chemistry onscreen and on the commentary, coming across as humorous, the two are always questioning the why and how of the absurd sequel.  

The disc also has two Severin Films produced featurettes, beginning with the 10-minute 'Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-animator' with the director remembering the origins of the sequel, unused story idea,making Society before getting to the sequel, the hurried start to the movie and selling the movie to Troma for distribution under the banner of 52nd Street Films, in addition to the critical and fan reception to the movie. 

The 15-minute 'Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-animator' features interviews with the many talented special effects creators who worked on the movie including Robert Kurtzman of KNB, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin, John Buechler and Brian Yuzna, these are great, I always love hearing about the creation of these '80s practical effects, it begins with Yuzna recalling the work on Stuart Gordon's Dolls, and is peppered with loads of behind-the-scenes footage.  

Other extras on the set included an archival making of featurette offering some great behind-he-scenes footage of the movie being made along with the set-up of the great gore gags, eight minutes of deleted scenes, a theatrical trailer, and a 12-minute radio play of the H.P Lovecraft source material. 

Bride of Re-Animator Special Features:
- Audio commentary with Brian Yuzna (Unrated Cut) 
- Audio Commentary with Brian Yuzna, star Jeffrey Combs, visual effects supervisor Tom (Unrated Cut) 
Rainone and the effects team including John Buechler, Mike Deak, Bob Kurtzman, Howard Berger and Screaming Mad George
- Audio Commentary with stars Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott (Unrated Cut) 
- Brian Yuzna Remembers Bride of Re-animator – brand new featurette in which the director looks back at the making of the first Re-animator sequel (10 Mins) HD
- Splatter Masters: The Special Effects Artists of Bride of Re-animator – Brand new FX featurette with a wealth of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Robert Kurtzman of KNB, Screaming Mad George, Tony Doublin and John Buechler (15 Mins) HD
- Getting Ahead in Horror – archive making-of featurette (24 Mins) HD
- Deleted Scenes (10 Mins) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) HD 
- Behind the Scenes: Special Effects Artists (15 Mins)  
- Dark Adventure Radio Presents: Herbert West: Re-Animator (12 min) 

BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003) 
Beyond Re-Animator opens up with a wonderful pre-credit sequence with a pair of kids having a sleepover in their backyard telling scary stories to each other in a tent, they go back inside the house to give one of the boy's sister a hard time when the trio are attacked by one of Herbert Wests re-animated corpses, apparently having wandered in from across the street. It's a stunning looking corpse that is missing it's lower jaw with it's tongue hanging out. It kills the teen girl and then begins drinking milk straight from the carton before a cop shows up and blows it away. The traumatized kid watches as the cops arrest Dr. West (Jeffrey Combs, From Beyond) and put him in the back of a police cruiser, then finding a syringe full of the glowing green re-agent and the opening credits begin to roll. 

Thirteen years later we catch-up with West in prison, still working away on his unnatural quest to defy death, but in the time passed he's begun working on a new key component of the re-animation process, something he calls "Nano-Plasmic Energy", an energy that can be extracted from the brain and stored in a glass capsule/fuse that can then be transferred into the body of another re-animated corpse, which when used along with re-agent can theoretically restore the re-animated to a more natural state, and not one of the near mindless zombie-types usually associated with the serum. As he's in prison his experiments have been rudimentary and relegated to the rat population, and he has no re-agent serum to further test his theories further, but all that's about to change. 

A new prison doctor arrives and requests that Dr. West be assigned to the sick ward as his assistant, it turns out that the new doc Howard Phillips (Jason Barry, Titanic) was the kid whose sister was murdered by one of West's creations thirteen year's earlier, He's been obsessed with the Dr.'s work ever since and the two begin almost immediately working on a new batch of re-agent, while also trying out that syringe of re-agent the kids kept all those years ago, it's degraded some but the results are as problematic as you might expect. 

This movie is a bit of a departure from the previous entries, gone is Bruce Abbott as Dan Cain, West's former partner turning state's evidence against him, and it's set in a prison so it has a different feel about it, also being shot in Spain but set in America. The tone may be different, but Jeffrey Combs is still the quirky over-serious doc we've loved for years, and Howard Phillips makes for a good stand-in for the Dan Cain-type character for West. The new doc even has a tragic love-interest by way of gorgeous local reporter named Laura (Elsa Pataky, Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt) who arrives at the prison to do a story about the prison and it's sadistic Warden Brando (Simón Andreu, The Blood Spattered Bride), who turns his eye onto Laura, which ends with her violent death when she refuses his come-ons. Of course this leads to Phillips ill-advisedly using the re-agent on his doomed lover, which only further damns everyone involved with the expected results when the prison breaks out into a riot, with the re-agent being spread around in liberal doses.

    
The special effects in this one are realized by Screamin’ Mad George (Society) and look very good, we get a handful of re-agent zombies, including a rat-like  variant, a man cut in half, the jawless zombie from the beginning of the film, tit-munching and some digital effects that aren't too shabby for the time period, mostly relegated top small touches, but it looks like all the gore is practical, so that's cool. 

The movie is third in the series and is last in terms of quality for the franchise, the story is an interesting examination of the evolution of the re-animation process and there's some keen practical effects but the acting is a bit uneven and the tone is inconsistent, but I will say this gets better with each consecutive watch. 

Audio/Video: Beyond Re-Animator (2003) makes it's worldwide HD debut from Umbrella Entertainment on a region B locked Blu-ray in 1080p HD framed in 1.77:1 widescreen. The image on this one is problematic in that it's been heavily DNR'd, looking overly smooth with the fine detail being lost, with facial detail appearing slightly waxy. Colors look decent but there's an overall softness and lack of depth combined with the grainless image that just makes for a lackluster HD presentation. Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 that sounds very good, there are no issues with distortion or hiss, and the Xavier Capellas score heavily references Richard Band's scores for the first two films and gets some nice depth to it, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Onto the extras we get that have appeared on previous home video versions from Lionsgate in the U.S. and Arrow Video in the U.K., these include an insightful commentary from director Brian Yuzna, an 18-minute making of featurette with interviews from the cast and Yuzna, plus 18-minutes of interviews from Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Santiago Segura, Simon Andreau, a lot of which was incorporated into the making of featurette. There's also a music video, 18-minutes of behind-the-scenes footage and a trailer for the film. 

This is the second release from Umbrella's Beyond Genres: World's On Film imprint following the wonderful release of Re-Animator, the 2-disc release comes housed in an over-sized Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork with four panels of artwork, though there's no text/logo on any of the artwork options, but the spine is logo-ed, and it comes with a handsome slipcase which which like the branded with the Beyond Genres design, the spine is numbered, this being volume 2. The discs themselves features excerpts of the artwork from the four-panel sleeve.    

Beyond Re-Animator Special Features: 
- Audio Commentary with Director Brian Yuzna 
- The Making of Beyond Re-Animator  (18 min) 
- Dr. Re-Animator: Move Your Dead Bones (4 min) 
- Interviews with Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Santiago Segura, Simon Andreau (18 min) 
- Behind The Scenes (12 min) 
- Trailer (2 min)

Umbrella's Blu-ray release of Bride of Re-Animator/Beyond Re-Animator is a fun double-feature, Bride looks fantastic in HD, while Beyond is marred by a dated HD master and some excessive DNR, but it's great to have both on Blu-ray in HD with loads of extras. I do wish that the Beyond had been afforded a new restoration for it's  worldwide HD debut, but I give kudos to Umbrella for the presentation of Bride and the sweet-looking packaging on this one. Both of these sequels sequels continue to age with a gory grace I wouldn't have guessed when I first watched them years ago, more so for Bride, but Beyond is still growing on me. 

DVD Review: Faust: Love of the Damned (2000)

Faust: Love of the Damned (2000)

Label: Arrow Video
Region Code: 0 PAL
Duration: 97 mins
Video: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
Director: Brian Yuzna
Cast: Mark Frost, Isabel Brook, Jeffrey Combs, Andrew Divoff
Tagline: There are some contracts you shouldn’t sign...

Synopsis: John Jaspers was an artist and a happy man until some thugs snuffed out his girlfriend... Now he’s been driven near insane with the need for vengeance. Aid comes in form of “M”, a mysterious figure who offers him the help he needs for a price... His mortal soul. Jaspers is transformed into a horned demon whose only emotions are the need to slay and the drive to murder. Out of control and out of his mind, the demonic Jaspers cannot be stopped until his lust for the kill is satisfied and those who wronged him have been ripped to bloody pieces...

Film: This film was the first project from Brian Yuzna's Fantastic Factory imprint, it's an ambitious feature based on the graphic novel of the same name by David Quinn and Tim Vigil. Originally the film was offered to director Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond) but eventually it fell to Brian Yuzna.

Faust: Love of the Damned is centered around a painter named John Jaspers (Mark Frost)  who witnesses the murder of his girlfriend Blue. Distraught and unable to cope with the loss he's prepared to throw himself to his death from a bridge when he is approached by a Devilish man named M (perhaps short for Mephistopheles?) played by Andrew Divoff of the Wishmaster films and his femme fatale assistant Claire (Minica Van Campen) who offer him the means to take revenge against his lovers murderers in exchange for his soul. Thus a Faustian contract in signed in blood. Upon signing he is given a set of retractable claws not dissimilar to Marvel's Wolverine, only he has two blades per hand, not three. He tracks down the thugs and takes his bloody revenge. Afterwards Japsers discovers there is more to his Faustian deal than expected, imagine that. M's sends Jaspers to perform assassinations on his behalf, it is during the killing of a roomful of foreign diplomats  that Jaspers is apprehended by Lt. Margolies (Jeffery Combs, Re-Animator, Castle Freak) and incarcerated in a prison psyche ward. It's here that the young psychiatrist Jade De Camp (Isabel Brook, Razor Blade Smile) coaxes him back to reality with music therapy and the two develop an very unlikely relationship during their sessions, how very Harley Quinn.

Jasper's escapes the ward but M is angered by Jaspers refusal to further do his bidding. M kills and buries him but he is resurrected from the grave by Death (?) ...I think, it was a bit confusing but cool to watch. The resurrection imbues him with supernatural strength, horns and a suit that seemed rather Spawn-like in design right down to the billowing cape. I haven't read the comic the film is based on but here the character looks an awful lot like the Marvel/DC crossover character Dark Claw which was an amalgam of Wolverine and Batman. The suit is a bit rubbery and and the claws seem a bit wobbly to be truly menacing onscreen but overall it looks pretty bad ass. Jaspers sets out to stop M's plan to summon a demonic entity known as The Homunculus that will bring about Hell on Earth.

Yuzna chose a very ambitious project to launch his Fantastic Factory imprint and I think he bit off a bit more than he could chew. It's kind of an entertaining mess. Frost is handed some rather cartoonish dialogue and eschews some painfully bad puns, sounding like Wolverine spouting Freddy Kreuger one-liners, it's not as cool as it sounds, trust me. Divoff is pretty decent as the devilish M but De Camp as his vamp assistant painful to listen to at times, luckily she disrobes several times allowing us a brief respite. Brooks also gives a solid performance as the psychiatrist and while it's always a pleasure to watch Jeffery Combs he just doesn't muster up enough bad ass to pull of the tough-as-nails Lt. character.

Bad scripting, terrible dialogue and spotty acting. Okay, it may read like I hate this film, but that's actually not true. The film is quite entertaining and we get some great special effects work from Screaming Mad George, real gooey stuff, too. When M is angered by Claire he turns her into a creature that is nothing but tits and ass, literally. Grotesque, lowbrow and awesome. The cinematography looks great, the set design is ambitious and there's an outstanding Roadrunner Records fueled soundtrack featuring Fear Factory, Sepultura, Type O Negative, Machine Head and Obituary among others though I think it's overused in place of filmscore, I would have liked to heard more of Xavier Capellas' score. The music video editing is pretty rough too, it's too frantic, and not particularly stylish.

DVD: Faust: Love of the Damned is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks good. The film is very dark and the black levels are decent, a bit murky at times but overall solid. There's English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 audio with optional subtitles. It's a good surround mix that at times is overcome by the grinding metal soundtrack, it's a bit too loud at times. So, the film is only okay but the special features are awesome, honestly better than the film. A commentary with Yuzna who offers quite a few anecdotes about the film, it's production, it's shortcoming, etc., not sure if this is a port from the Region 1 Trimark DVD. 'Director of the Damned' is a fascinating interview with the director who recalls pitching the idea of a series of films called the Seven Deadly Sins to Dimension films, based around the seven deadly sins each film directed by a know 'master of horror', hmmmm, sounds familiar. He then goes onto discuss his inspiration for Fantastic Factory in the films of Roger Corman and Hammer Films, the idea of a series of disparate films all under one branded banner which is what he envisioned for FF which he then founded with the Spanish film distributor Filmax. Yuzna's a very modest man and readily acknowledges himself as a niche b-movie filmmaker.The second featurette 'The Pain in Spain' is a half hour interview with the director of the Sitges Film Festival Angel Sala who gives a brief but informative history of Spanish horror cinema beginning with Jess Franco's The Awful Dr. Orloff right on thru to Paco Plaza's [REC]. It's great stuff with tons of vintage film posters and movie stills. It's the kind of interview you watch with pen and paper in hand scribbling down names of films and directors, intensely interesting stuff. A trailer rounds out the special features.

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with director Brian Yuzna
- Director of the Damned: Brian Yuzna, Faust and the Fantastic Factory (26:26)
- The Pain in Spain A History of Horror in Hot Weather with Angel Sala, director of the Sitges Film Festival (29:15)
- Original Trailer (1:56)
- Double-sided fold-out poster featuring new Tom Hodge artwork
- Collector’s booklet ‘Brian Yuzna: Maestro of Mayhem’ by author and critic Calum Waddell
- Reversible sleeve featuring brand new Tom Hodge artwork and original artwork

Verdict: I feel like I cut the film apart a bit with the review but as a gory, low-budget film it works, it's an entertaining film with some great gore effects, set design and humor. Plus there's a Cthulu feel to the Satanic ritual summoning of The Homunculus, which I'm a sucker for. 2.5 outta 5

Faust: Love of the Damned is available as a single disc edition DVD or you can grab the Fantastic Factory Presents 4 DVD boxset which includes Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt, Arachnid and Yuzna's Beyond Re-Animator.

DVD Review: Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt (2004)

Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt (2004)

Label: Arrow Video
Region Code: Region 0 PAL
Rating: 15 Certificate
Duration: 94 mins
Video: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio: English 2.0 Stereo, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
Director: Paco Plaza
Cast: Julian Sands, Elsa Pataky, John Sharian
Tagline: Based on the true story of Spain’s most gruesome Werewolf murders.

Synopsis: In 19th Century Spain, a travelling seller with a woman in every town is the keeper of an ancient secret. This handsome, charming ladykiller may also be leaving a trail of bloody murder in his wake that the locals attribute to “the Werewolf of Allariz”. Barbara lives with her sister, isolated in the deep forest. Her happiness comes when the mysterious seller comes to call, but why has he no fear of the wolves that lurk under the darkening trees and what does he keep hidden from view inside his wagon?

Film: Paco Plaza's Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt is based on a "true story" of "the Werewolf of Allariz" a mid-1800's serial killer named Manuel Blanco Romasanta who was tried for the murder of over a dozen people. In a turn that echos elements of Perfume: The Story of Murder (2008) he would use his victims fat to manufacture soap. When tried for the heinous murders he claimed to be the victim of lycanthropy. Yup, he said that he was a werewolf. Okay, I'll allow it. 

The Romasanta of our story is portrayed by Julian Sands, an actor who comes with baggage, not all of it good either. I find him a bit much typically but fondly recall his work in Warlock (1989) and Boxing Helena (1993) but then I remember Dario Argento's torturous The Phantom of the Opera (1998) and suddenly I don't feel so charitable. Thankfully Mr. Sands is quite excellent here and tosses us a winningly restrained performances.

Romasanta is a travelling salesman who roams the countryside in a covered wagon peddling trinkets from village to village, winning the hearts of women and then tearing them out. In his wake he leaves behind a bloody trail of corpses so savaged that the locals assume it is the work of wolves and place a hefty bounty on their skins decimating the animals. Things are going well for him until the cunning Professor Phillips (David Gant) discovers scapel marks on the victims corpses and things start to fall apart. Romasanta is involved with a woman but the darkness within him consumes her as well. Afterwards he persues her younger sister, Barbara (the stunning Elsa Pataky from Fast Five) who comes to suspect Romasanta in not one but three of her sisters deaths. 

So, is this a werewolf film? Well, it's definitely not a traditional one like I've ever seen. He's a serial killer afflicted with lycanthropy, there's little doubt he believes this and while there is a pretty fantastic werewolf transformation it's something that could be left to interpretation. While it's not the most gore-tastic film it is satisfying bloody and twistedly horrific. It's tense, artfully shot and gorgeous to watch though it does stray into the realms of courtroom  thriller and romantic melodrama fear not for this is a very entertaining film. If you, like I, let this film slip by unnoticed do yourself a favor and check out this elusive Gothic werewolf flick, you can thank me later. 

DVD: The film gets a very nice 2.35:1 anamorphic scope aspect ratio transfer with great colors and black levels. This is a nice looking film with an amber hue throughout, definitely a visually pleasing film of. We get both English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 options. For the purpose of this review I did not check out out the Spanish 5.1 but the English 2.0 sounded great, no distortion and nice separation. A bit perturbed by the fact there's no English 5.1 but I digress. There's a nice selection of supplemental materials including 2 reversible sleeve art options with original artwork and new Tom 'The Dude Designs' Hodge artwork. Check out a post from the DD blog where Tom writes about the illustration HERE. There's a fold-out poster with the DD artwork plus an 8 pg. booklet with new writing from author/critic and Arrow regular Calum Waddell all housed in a white keep case. Okay, that's the packaging extras, but what do we have in the way of special features? I'm pleased to say there's a nice array of High Rising Productions features including a 20+ minute interview with executive producer Brian Yuzna who discusses the early success of Fantastic Factory and it's demise once things got rolling, interviews with the director, cast and composer, deleted scenes, and a S/FX design featurette. A very well stocked DVD.

Special Features:
- Romasanta: Lycanthropes, Lunacy and the Last Days of The Fantastic Factory (21:49) 16:9
- Making Romasanta: Interviews with Paco Plaza, Julian Sands, Elsa Pataky and John Sharian. (5:22)
- Interview with composer Mikel Salas (3:22)
- Deleted Scenes with intro/commentary by director Paco Plaza (12:25)
- A featurette on the S/FX design in Romasanta (8:51)
- Original Trailer(1:40) Letterboxed
- Booklet ‘Sex, Sun and Sinful Celluloid’ by author/critic Calum Waddell
- Reversible sleeve of original and commissioned artwork by Tom Hodge.
- Double-sided fold-out posters with commissioned artwork by Tom Hodge

Verdict: I do love a good lycanthropy film and Paco Plaza's take on the genre is fairly unique. The Gothic period setting, great cinematography, the psychological thriller elements, a very fine transformation scene and good acting really push this film along. It goes from horror to thriller to court room drama pretty adeptly and manages to be quite entertaining along the way. This is a film that will grow an audience over time, particularly after the success of Plaza's [REC] (2007) and [REC] 2 (2009). The question remains how would I rank this among my werewolf werewolf films? I'll say it's more entertaining than Wolfen (1981) while not ascertaining the glory of either An American Werewolf in London (1981) or The Howling (1981), it rips the throat from The Wolfman (2010) and howls at the moon alongside Dog Soldiers (2005). 4 outta 5

 
Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt is available as a single disc edition or you can grab the FANTASTIC FACTORY PRESENTS 4 DVD boxset which also includes Faust: Love of the Damned (2000), Beyond Re-Animator (2003) and Jack Sholder's creature feature Arachnid (2001).

DVD Review: Arachnid (2001)

Arachnid (2001)

Label: Arrow Video
Release Date: June 6th 2011
Region Code: 0 PAL
Rating: 15 Certificate
Duration: 92 mins
Video: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
Director: Jack Sholder
Cast: Chris Potter, Alex Reid, José Sancho
Tagline: Prepare to be eaten inside out!

Synopsis: Alien spiders threaten the very existence of man in Arachnid, only a team of scientists and mercenaries stand in the way of eight-legged doom for humanity. Trapped on an island with a nest of hungry enemies, time is running out before the eggs were laid in every last one of them...


Film: Who doesn't love a giant spider creature feature? This one has the added bonus of being from director Jack Sholder, a man with a few films worth mentioning beginning with Alone in the Dark (1982) which is
a pretty fantastic siege-slasher, the underrated science-fiction actioner The Hidden (1987) and the film he's probably best known for A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Dead (1985) with it's wonderfully homo-erotic subtext, it's much maligned but it just ain't that bad a film in my opinion. He's done a ton of other stuff I've haven't seen so there goes my credibility but the point is he's done some mighty fine genre pictures and I was fairly excited to check out Arrow Video's treatment of Arachnid.

The film opens in the South Pacific as a Naval jet fighter is in pursuit of a
UFOwhich goes into stealthy cloak mode. The pilot encounters mechanical failure forcing him to eject just as before the fighter collides with the cloaked craft. The pilot parachutes to safety landing on a tropical island where he discovers the wreckage of the alien craft and it's pilot who seems to be trying to warn him of something when a only briefly glimpsed alien arachnid kills both the alien and naval pilot. Let me just say these sequences contained some of the worst CGI special effects I've seen in awhile. Granted the film is a decade old which must be about a century in CGI years, but it was distracting to say the least. This is the kind of stuff we were seeing in Roger Corman produced Syfy originals five years ago, oh yeah it was bad.

Next thing we know we're in Guam and meet the totally smokin' hot charter pilot Loren Mercer (Alex Reid, The Descent) whom arrives at a hospital to meet Dr. Leon (Jose Sancho) and his assistant Susana (Neus Aseni) from the World Health Organization. Dr. Leon is there to treat a tribesman suffering from necrotic paralysis stemming from an insect bite of unknown origin. The WHO require Mercer's services to fly them and  a trio of well-armed jarheads to the island where the man was bit to discover the source of the bite. The Marines are lead by Valentine (Chris Potter of TV's Kung Fu: The Legend Continues) and the muscle bound grunts Bear and Reyes. Also joining the expedition is a native tracker named Toe Boy, entomologist Dr. Henry Capri (Ravil Isyanoc) who was a total Ted Raimi clone and several unnamed islanders who kinda like the red-shirted ensigns in Star Trek are
total spider-bait, y'know? En route to the island the prop engine plane loses power and Mercer makes an emergency crash landing on the beach. It's a fairly unsatisfying "crash landing", pretty laughable in fact.The crew rocking back and forth in the cockpit, a brief shot of the landing gear skimming the water and someone obviously throwing sand at the plane from off screen. So far the effects are rather unimpressive but I promise you they get better once the team arrive on the island and the alien-arachnid action begins.

Wouldn't you know it the same interference that inexplicably downed the plane also prohibits radio communication. With no communications and no plane the group press forward with the expedition forging their way through the thick jungle where they encounter smaller and mostly harmless insect mutations. Things really begin to go awry when jarhead Reyes is attacked by larger than normal ticks which burrow beneath his skin. Shots of parasites crawling just beneath the skin always give me the creeps it's no different here. As the ticks burrow deeper Reyes is overwrought with pain and begins to vomit blood and then parasites and then the fun really begins when they erupt
from his neck and chest and his eye socket, which was very reminiscent of what we've seen in many Lucio Fulci films but not as stylish as all that, good stuff. Bear ends up putting Reyes outta his misery with a shot to the head. Great effects works that looked to be mostly practical with some digital enhancements.

That night the expedition reach Toe Boy's village which they find deserted, seems the spider has been mighty busy. A mutated serpentine creature that appears 1/2 python and 1/2 centipede attacks the camp killing a one of the red-shirts. Valentine realizing that the expedition is clusterfucked calls off the mission and decides to head back to the plane come first light. The next morning as the group head for the plane Dr. Capri strays from the expedition and discovers the remains of the creature that attacked them the night before but he falls victim to the alien-arachnid. The arachnid webs him into a cocoon and injects him with neurotoxin and spider eggs. The group find him but it's far too late for the doctor who actually seems morbidly intrigued by what's happening to him as he describes what is happening to him with a scientific curiosity. As the eggs within him start to hatch Susana injects the entomologist with a lethal dose of poison ending his suffering but theirs is just beginning.

Up till now the main arachnid has been only briefly glimpsed but now it
is finally revealed and we see the
awesomely realized alien-arachnid in it's full grotesque glory. The practical creature design and effects in the film were done by a talented guy named Steve Johnson who's done a ton of great work. Watch the special features, there's fantastic interview with him, he's quite a character. Aside from the lame CGI effects at the top of the film most of the rest of the film is crammed with old school practical effects and animatronics and are pretty
awesome. Our remaining member find shelter in an WW2-era Japanese bunker while the giant alien-arachnid lays siege, I don't wanna spoil the whole damned film so that's all you get from me.

The cast is quite good for a silly b-movie creature feature. All were pretty one-dimensional stereotypes but not bad for what it is. The worst acting comes from the beefy jarheads Bear and Reyes, oh Christ they were bad. Our two main protagonists were fine if generic. Alex Reid's Mercer seems like a cookie cutter Lara Croft caricature and Chris Potter as the Valentine was also pretty solid with good comic timing with a Nathan Fillion vibe about him. Isyanoc's portrayal of the bookish entomologist Capri was my favorite character, perfectly cast and deliciously annoying. I am a big proponent of the films practical effects, the digital stuff not so much. My hat is off to Steve Johnson for the impressive creature design and animatronic effects. Grotesque well done gore on a budget. A few bits of shitty CGI at the start of the film don't ruin the show. What could have been better? The CGI enhanced prologue could have been nixed in my opinion without affecting the film, and I would
have liked to have seen more of Alex Redi's character if you know what I mean but c'mon, while it's not a great film it's definitely a fun b-movie creature feature.

DVD: Arachnid is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, it's a good
looking transfer with bright, vivid colors, the jungle scenes really pop with luscious greens offering up decent detail and consistently good black levels. On the audio side we get English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 plus Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 with optional English subtitles. It sounds great, the 5.1 delivers on Francesc Gener's film score and the films effects tracks spring to life once inside the jngle canpy. When the film was initially released on the Region 1 home market from Lionsgate it was a bare-bones edition. Arrow Video have sweetened the deal with reversible artwork, an 8 pg. booklet with a Jack Sholder interview, a fold-out poster with some great Tom 'The Dude Designs' Hodge artwork, a theatrical trailer and two interviews. One with Brian Yuzna who recalls the founding of Fantastic Factory and why they chose to do Arachnid plus a very interesting interview with special make-up effects designer Steve Johnson who recalls striking out on his own in the industry with Night of the Demons (1988), making Arachnid and an experience designing animatronics for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are (2009) only to have the project to have collapse on him and pretty much cause him to throw in the towel. A very nice array of supplemental features and while a Jack Sholder commentary would've been grand what we do get is pretty informative and enjoyable, especially the Johnson interview.

Special Features:

- Reversible sleeve featuring brand new and original artwork
- Double-sided fold-out poster featuring new artwork
- King of the Spiders – Brian Yuzna remembers Arachnid (20:21) 16:9

- Creature Comforts: The Monster Mayhem of Steve Johnson (26:02) 16:9
- Original Trailer (2:23)

- 8 pg. booklet with Jack Sholder interview by author and critic Calum Waddell

Verdict: A very enjoyable throwback to the atomic creature features of the 50's and 60's with some great special effects (and some not so great). There's some nods to Mimic (1987) and Alien (1979) here, original it ain't but it is quite enjoyable. If you've enjoyed Deep Blue Sea (1999) or Eight Legged Freaks (2002) there's no way this is not gonna be a blast. Sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn and a beer and enjoy. 3.5 outta 5

Arachnid is available June 6th 2011 as a single disc edition or you can grab the currently available Fantastic Factory Presents 4 DVD boxset which also includes three other films from Brian Yuzna's Fantastic Factory Presents studio; Faust: LOve of the Damned (2000), Beyond Re-Animator (2003) and Paco Plaza's Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt (2004).