EVILS OF THE NIGHT (1985) (Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray Review)

EVILS OF THE NIGHT (1985) 

Label: Vinegar Syndrome

Region Code: Region-FREE

Duration: 85 Minutes

Rating: Unrated

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English SDH Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: Mardi Rustam

Cast: John Carradine, Tina Louise, Julie Newmar, Amber Lynn, Aldo Ray, Neville Brand, G.T. Taylor, David Hawk, Bridget Holloman, Keith Fisher, Karrie Emerson

Mardi Rustam's truly oddball Evils Of The Night (1985) begins with a UFO landing in the middle of Nowheresville USA. The blood-drinking space vampires arrive on Earth to siphon off some life extending blood from the local horny teens who inhabit this particular area. The movie starts off much like a standard 80s slasher movie wherein we some young couples fornicating in the woods at night. Mardi was an awful director but he knew damn well what the kids wanted to see at the drive-in, and that was cheap horror and A LOT of nude women and this low-rent sci-fi schlocker delivers both in ample amounts. 

As the horny couples get busy they are dispatched by the blood-drinking aliens, my favorite kill from the beginning was a young man backed-up against a tree while his horny girlfriend backs her sweet behind right up against her crotch, right in the middle of his young lust bliss the poor guy is strangled while his unaware lady finishes up just in time to notice something is not quite right, you get the impression that maybe he turned soft and she's not too happy about it. The scene is also funny because despite the softcore action the young man is still wearing his blue jeans which are clearly not unbuttoned or unzipped. 

Anyway, a trio of aging aliens set-up a cheeseball laboratory at a local hospital and have hired a couple of slow-minded auto-mechanics to abduct young kids for them so they can drain them of their blood in an effort to somehow prolong their own lives through some science-y mumbo jumbo. The aliens are Kozmar (John Carradine, House of Seven Corpses), Cora (Tina Louise, Ginger from TVs Gilligan's Island), and Zarma (Julie Newmar, Catwoman from the Adam West Batman TV Show), there is also a pair of women who look like 60s go-go dancers decked on is cheesy sci-fi outfits. The murderous auto-mechanics the aliens have hired are played by Aldo Ray (Psychic Killer) and Neville Brand (Eaten Alive). Ray and Brand come off as a pair of weirdos, who are not quite menacing but certainly are strange and none to bright, Brand manages to elicits a tiny bit of the crazy he channeled for Tobe Hooper on Eaten Alive, but this is a dopey movie and he acts accordingly, also playing well of Aldo Ray. 

After the initial opening which is stuffed with copious amounts of nude women we are more or less focused on a group of young folks on vacation at the nearby lake. We have the Heather (Bridget Holloman) and her fiancé Ron (Keith Fisher), Nancy (Karrie Emerson, Chopping Mall), Connie (G.T. Taylor) and Brian (David Hawk). Between them they have about six movie credits all told, aside from Emerson none went onto to much of any career in the movies and even she disappeared after appearing in the TV horror anthology Dead of Night (1989). The remainder of the movie is these five pretty much running around the woods attempting to escape from the clutches of both the aliens and the murderous grease monkeys until the aliens are scared off.

Evils of the Night is honestly a turd of a movie, one that makes sci-fi drive-in drivel like The Being (1983) and without warning (1980) look like science fiction masterpieces by comparison. 

The movie has some backwoods slasher elements but the sci-fi stuff comes across like something from Plan 9, really awful stuff. The odd mixture of aging Hollywood and TV has-beens, a couple of 80s b-movie actors and a handful  of 80s porno stars make for some interesting viewing though, including a big-haired 80s porn star Amber Lynn lights up the screen with her charms, but the plot such as it is makes no sense whatsoever and the pacing is slow and painfully uneven. 

Evils Of The Night is not a movie you watch for story, you watch this for the 80s cheese, the porn star nudity and to see Aldo Ray and Neville Brand threaten to hump a few girls in the process. Cheap, wonky and weird, if that's how you you love your schlock then Mardi Rustam made a movie you just might fall in love with. So get out the nachos and a cold beer, you're in for a shlocky treat tonight! 

Audio/Video: Evils Of The Night (1985) arrives on Blu-ray and DVD Combo from Vinegar Syndrome with a brand new 2K transfer straight from the original 35mm negative and the movie looks surprisingly good in HD! The film grain looks nice and healthy, while a few of the darker night scenes can be a bit grainy the colors are vibrant and the image is crisp with a wealth of fine detail. VinSyn have definitely brought this sci-fi clunker some new life with the new transfer. The English DTS-HD Mono 2.0 mix won't win any audio awards but it dialogue, score and sound effects comes through with decent depth and clarity, the synth score sounds wonderfully cheesy and dialogue is never hard to understand, though some of what they say will have you rolling your eyes into the back of your head. 

VinSyn have included some decent extras on the disc including a new video interview with director Mardi Rustam who talks about the production of the movie and how a few of the cast came to appear in it. A nicely shot interview, well-produced stuff with some good content. Vinegar Syndrome have also included the TV cut of the movie which also appeared on the MPI/Gorgon DVD from a few years back, presented in standard-def. This version actually runs longer than the theatrical cut and omits all of the Amber Lynn scenes, which is a drag. It also trims a lot of the violence and all of the sweet nudity. However, it also adds a few extra scenes including a few more with David Carradine. I'll stick with the original cut myself with all the violence and nudity, but this is a nifty bonus. 

Other extras on the disc include an isolated score track highlighting the synth-driven score of Robert O. Ragland (Grizzly, 10 To Midnight), about twenty-five minutes of outtake footage, a work-in-progress original theatrical trailer, and a TV spot. The sleeve art advertises a reversible sleeve but that is not the case, there is however an image of Karrie Emerson (Chopping Mall) holding an ax on the flipside. The release is a DVD/Combo Pack offering both the movie and supplemental material on Blu-ray and DVD. 

Special Features:

- Alien Blood Transfusion – Video Interview with director Mardi Rustam (9 Mins) HD
- Alternate Feature Length TV edit (93 Mins)
- Isolated score by Robert O. Ragland
- Extensive outtakes (24 Mins) HD
- Work-in-Progress Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) HD
- TV Spot (32 Seconds) 

Yet another glorious sci-fi horror craptacular straight from the drive-in and onto Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome. A silly slice of weirdness with strange cast of Hollywood has-beens and loads of nudity, a tiny bit of gore and a whole lot of what-the-fuckery, if you love bad movies this is one worth celebrating on Blu-ray, another bang-up job from the VinSyn team. 

DVD Review: Oblivion (1994)

OBLIVION (1994)
Full Moon Features


RATING: Unrated
RUN TIME: 94 Min.
DIRECTOR: Sam Irvin
CAST: Richard Joseph Paul (Zack Stone), Jackie Swanson (Mattie Chase), Andrew Divoff (Red Eye), Meg Foster (Stell Barr), Issac Hayes (Buster), Julie Newmar (Miss Kitty), Carrel Struyken (Gaunt), George Takei (Doc Valentine), Musetta Vander (Lash), Jimme F. Skaggs (Buteo)


SYNOPSIS: On a frontier light years from OK Corral, a bizarre gang of futuristic desperados have their sights set on turning the tumbleweed town of Oblivion into their own private playground. Their lizard-like leader REDEYE (Andrew Divoff), pumps lawman MARSHALL STONE (Michael Genovese) full of lead in a deadly shootout just outside of MISS KITTY’S (Julie Newmar) Kat House and begins terrorizing the town’s inhabitants.

Meanwhile, Stone’s long –lost pacifist son ZACK (Richard Joseph Paul) and his “native” sidekick BUTEO (Jimmy F. Skaggs) are escorted into town by the eerie undertaker GAUNT (Carrel Struycken) to pay their respects at the Marshall’s funeral. Rendered helpless by Redeye, the tough as nails Cyborg Deputy (Meg Foster) and the Marshall’s old friend DOC VALENTINE (George Takei) team up with Zack to take back the troubled town in a final unearthly showdown… (from fullmoondirect.com)

FILM: Full Moon's Sci-Fi/Western/Comedy mash-up Oblivion (1994) caught me by surprise. First the casting is nutty, check it out. Andrew Divoff (Djiin from the Wishmaster series) is the reptilian outlaw Redeye. George Takei better know as Mr. Sulu from the 60's-era run of Star Trek as the town drunk Doc Valentine. Julie Newmar who played Catwoman in the '66 Batman series is brothel madame Miss Kitty, and Meg Foster the pale-eyed Holly from John Carpenter's They Live (1988) is the cyborg deputy Stell Barr to Marshall Stone (Michael Genovese). We also get Issac Hayes (Escape from New York, South Park) and Carrel Struycken who appeared in Twin Peaks and The Witches of Eastwick (1987) as the town's eerie undertaker Gaunt.  On just a "who is that?" level I found Oblivion a fun watch.

The year is 3031 in a town called Oblivion on a distant frontier planet with a population of 459 it looks an awful lot like the American Old West only populated with gigantic stop-motion Scorps and aliens that look like extras from the Cantina scene in Star Wars. I have to believe that this was intended as a tongue-in-cheek homage to both sci-fi and western because this is so eye-rollingly campy you gotta laugh. The story is a typical western revenge flick, the dialogue is cliched but enjoyable for what it is. George Takei utters some of the worst Star Trek puns ever, just awful stuff. Divoff as the villainous outlaw Redeye looks good and I enjoyed his reptilian look but he displays none of the charm we've seen from him in the Wishmaster series, which weren't great films but fun nonetheless. A lot of that has to do with the stilted scripted dialogue. Jimmy F. Skaggs as the Zack Stone's "native" friend Buteo was painful to watch. He's stereotypically stoic and full of Yoda type nonsense. It's a very Lone Ranger-esque dynamic. Speaking of painful, the cyborg-deputy Stell Barr is an obvious attempt to mirror Star Trak: The Next Generation's Data. One character that really popped for me though was Musetta Vander's baddie Lash, RedEye's leather-clad right-hand. She looked mighty familiar to me and after some research I realized she is one of the gorgeous Siren's from the Cohen Bros. O Brother, Where Art Though? (2000), good stuff and a deliciously villainous character. The worst aspect of the film in my opinion is that Richard Joseph Paul as the empathic son (don't ask) of the deceased Marshall Zach Stone gives a thoroughly wooden performance as does Jackie Swanson as Mattie Chase. A lot of the acting in the film is campy but their performances are lifeless and they're the focus of the film. Every other character in the film is more interesting than these two.

Featured far to briefly in the film were the awesome  stop-motion creatures created by the late David Allen who also animated the puppets of the Puppet Master 1-5 and did a lot of work on the early Full Moon film, really enjoyable stuff. They play heavily into the finale of the film but I would have loved to seen more. Also enjoyable is Redeye's band of outlaws, a typical bunch of all muscle no-brainers found in westerns.

I can see how this was designed as a campy comic homage mixing genre cliches from both western and sci-fi with a healthy dose of comedy but it's a bit of a jumbled mess. The sci-fi western is a rare mash-up indeed and I can't recall too many off the top of my head. There's Westworld (1973), Back to the Future 3 (1990), The Adventures of Brisco County,  Jr. TV show starring Bruce Campbell and more recently Joss Whedon's Firefly series and the post-series Serenity film, all of which I loved. It's been done and done well, but it is not attempted often. While Oblivion is a fun and I give it points for effort it truly is a lesser entry in the sci-fi western genre.

DVD: Oblivion is advertised as being first-time ever on DVD but I recall seeing an edition online from Artisan, not sure what that's about. Regardless, this edition is less than prestigious in it's presentation. A full frame 1.33:1 aspect ratio transfer with 2.0 stereo audio. The image is watchablebut marred by ghosting and artifacting. On the plus side there are quite a few vintage Full Moon trailers included: Oblivion, Oblivion 2: Blacklash, Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, Dollman, Skull Heads, Demonic Toys, Arcade, Bad Channels, Crash and Burn, Laserblast, Meridian, Netherworld, Robot Wars, Seed People, Shadowzone and Subspecies. That's a lot of trailers and it really whetted my appetite for some classic Full Moon films.


VERDICT: A fun but wildly uneven film populated by a crazy cast of characters. The story is a typical western revenge flick, the dialogue is cliched but the film is enjoyable for what it is -  pure Full Moon cheese.  ** (2 out of 5 stars)

- McBASTARD