HELLIONS (2015) (Blu-ray Review)

HELLIONS (2015) 

Label: Scream Factory I IFC Midnight 
Region Code: A 
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 82 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA .1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Bruce McDonald 
Cast: Chloe Rose, Luke Bilyk, Peter DaCunha, Rachel Wilson, Robert Patrick, Rossif Sutherland

Synopsis: Strange trick-or-treaters plague conflicted teenager Dora Vogel (Chloe Rose) at her isolated home on Halloween. Under siege by forces she can't understand, Dora must defend both body and soul from relentless Hellions, dead-set on possessing something Dora will not give them. Set in a visually haunting landscape and featuring "genuine moments of spookiness" (Filmbook) and a score that's "fun, terrifying and inventive" (soundonsight.org), Hellions redefines the boundaries of horror with its potent brew of Halloween iconography, teenage angst and desperate survival.

We have the lovely Chloe Rose as a troubled-teen who finds out she is knocked-up on Halloween, which I imagine would sort of suck all the fun outta the night. While her mom and little brother head out for a night of trick or treating she is stood up by her stoner boyfriend, and ends up staying home to hand out candy to the masked kids in the neighborhood. Its a pretty standard night of handing out sweets until a group of creepy kids show up on her doorstep wanting more than just bite-sized candy bars, the trick or treaters turn out to be demonic creepers intent on snatching her unborn child.

What at first seems like a home invasion type scenario with baby-snatching tendencies turns a bit odder with the introduction of a supernatural element, as a pink haze of unreality descends over the movie, giving this Halloween night a surreal, nightmarish quality. The desaturated pink hued scenes carry with them a certain amount of atmosphere but the whole pink-tinting left me cold, in short it  seemed a rather cheap effect. Up to this point I had enjoyed the cinematography and tone of the movie, but the pink-tinting rubbed me the wrong way if for no other reason that it drew attention to itself. I can see what they might have been going for, a certain amount of pink hued surreality, but it just  didn't work for me. 

On the plus side actress Chloe Rose as our preggers teen is very good in the role, she's a teen in a harrowing place who rises to the occasion, a strong young woman in a weird place, set upon by demonic trick or treaters out for her unborn child. Rose is joined by Robert Patrick (X-Files), who seems to pop up in quite a few indie horror movies these days. I love the guy to death, but he doesn't have a whole lot to do other than to drop some expository dialogue, adding a little to the mythology of the masked-creeps, but he does very little else other than carry a shotgun around. What were left with is basically our teen protagonist trying to survive the night while under attack from the masked-kids, all the while the child within her is developing at an alarming rate, by the end of the movie she has come full term, and I was left scratching my head wondering what the fuck did I just watch, and why?

I did enjoy the design of the demonic trick or treaters, there's  sack-headed scarecrow which brought to mind Sam from Trick 'r Treat, a creepy bucket-headed menace, a doll-faced terror and a few others, the kids were good stuff. If these little bastards showed up on my doorstep on Halloween I would be alarmed, particularly if one was carrying a hatchet. There's also a pretty eerie score for this one, a chorus of children, which added to the creepiness, and the Halloween vibe is strong which I can certainly appreciate. 

The disc from scream Factory looks good, a solid A/V presentation all the way around with an effective surround sound audio mix, unfortunately the disc does not have any extras. As much as I think the movie is a miss I would have liked to hear director Bruce McDonald speak about the movie and what his intentions were. The release does come with a sleeve of reversible artwork and a slipcover. I loved the Halloween vibe of the movie but when the color was sucked out of the picture so too was my enthusiasm. The underlying teen pregnancy anxiety is a good kernel of an idea for a horror movie but this is a bit of a confusing mess of a movie. While I I usually go to bat for horror movies that prefer style over substance I struggled with this pink nightmare of a movie.  2/5

LOST AFTER DARK (2015)

LOST AFTER DARK (2015) 

Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment 
Release Date: September 1st 2015 
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 85 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with Optional English SDH Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Ian Kessner 
Cast: Robert Patrick, Ian Kessner, David Lipper, Sarah Fisher, Justin Kelly, Jesse Camacho, Kendar Timmins, Eve Harlow, Elise Gatien

Director Ian Kessner does a lot right with retro 80's slasher Lost After Dark beginning with the tone and feel of it, this one feels like a low budget early 80's horror slasher for the most part, beginning with a cast of easy to recognize stock characters who love smoking weed, drinking beer and engaging in pre-marital teen sex. There's the sweet girl Adrienne (Kender Timmons), her all-American best friend Jamier (Elise Gatien), the rocker-Goth chic Marilyn (Eve Harlow), the uptight bitchy blond Heather (Lanie McAuley) and her douchey over privileged boyfriend Johnny (Alexander Calvert), the nice quarterback Sean (Justin Kelly), the token black dude Wes (Stephan James) and the tubby stoner who cracks wise and pines away for the slut of the bunch, Tobe (Jesse Camacho). 

The film begins with a nice set-up from 1977 with a quick death scene that establishes the killer and the farmhouse location, then we move ahead to the year 1984 at a high school dance with the Vice Principal Mr. C (Robert Patrick) hassling students in the hallway. Our main cast have the only-brilliant-in-the-eighties idea to hotwire a school bus and driving off to a cabin in the woods owned by Adrienne's father, but they have the awful luck of snagging the one bus with a busted fuel gauge, which leaves the stranded on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, you know... just Lost After Dark!

They head on down the road and happen upon a dilapidated old farm house and decide it looks suitably creepy and would definitely be a great place to look for search for gasoline, and just maybe make-out and get stoned. What they don't know just yet though is that the farmhouse once belonged to a family of cannibal-killers who were shot dead by te cops years earlier, only problem is that one of them survived, a Madman Marz type character named Junior Joad, and he's not too keen on having horny teens on his property, so some heads are gonna have to roll. 

The movie takes a bit of time getting to the sweet kills, establishing the characters somewhat as they pair off into couples and explore the property, we get a bit of chemistry, some making-out, and then the kills properly start-up. Once the first victim is strung up with barbed wire everyone knows right away that they are on the menu, from here it's scene after scene of kids fleeing for their lives from the murderous madman with the death scenes being quite good, not glorious, but above average.  Being a retro eighties slasher the filmmakers wisely chose to execute these with bloody practical special effects, keeping the use of digital blood to a minimum, or just used tastefully to the point that it didn't make itself obvious.

We have a good range of murder set-pieces, a bear trap to the face, an auger twisted through a spine, a pickaxe and then a pitchfork through the gut, a head bashed against a tree, a car dropped atop someone and a Fulci-esque shard of glass being driven through the eye in a slow fashion-- it's good stuff, and as a slasher fan from way back I appreciated the variety of the ways that the kids are dispatched one after the other.  Even Heather's "rat fucking dog" gets offed, and if you know me at all you know that anytime a movie is willing to kill off kids and domesticated animals I am pleased as punch I'm just sick that way.. 

The kills are fun and the cast of characters are actually likable, far too often slashers nowadays are just a parade of assholes being killed, but with Lost After Dark you actually feel for them a little bit when their time comes around, even the bitchy blond. Kessner and crew has not made a jaded or ironic send-up of the slasher movies we grew up with, they're going for b-level slasher authenticity, the humor is situational and not of the winking 'were making a retro 80's slasher' variety. They do seemingly change-up the order of the kills a bit, in that the characters which you are used to seeing offed in a particular order sorted by stereotype is skewed, which was a nice touch and will keep your toes. 

The character of Junior Joad comes straight from the 80s slasher playbook, I can see some of the Sawyer clan from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in there and a bit of Madman Marz from Madman thrown in, a bearded wild man with a monosyllabic vocabulary, and one without a signature weapon. In a nice touch Junior used whatever was at his disposal - from stringing someone up with barbed wire to chopping off their head with whatever is within arms reach.

The 80s aesthetic is further realized by the addition a faux-grain and print damage gimmick, which is used tastefully but inconsistently, they're aiming for that aged look that conveys print damage and it works pretty well, but they did step over the line just one time in my eyes. As one of the young women are about to die they slip in a "scene missing" insert which sort of pissed me off, even more so when a later scene referenced it in a way. I hated it in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and I have no love for it here either, it's not authentic and it just draws attention to itself, but it didn't ruin the movie for me, just irked me. 

Otherwise the film does a rather excellent job of capturing an early 80s slasher feel with appropriately vintage eighties fashions and a pretty awesome soundtrack with vintage sounding new-wave, new romantic and old school rap songs, a soundtrack begging for a cassette-only release. The way they shot the film feels retro too with some classic POV shots early on, a few modern camera techniques betray the aesthetic from time to time, but the vibe is typically spot on. 

I do love the addition of Robert Patrick to the cast as Vice Principle Mr. C (Patrick) who later arrives on scene in a canary yellow Camaro blasting disco, the 'Nam vet of course takes on the killer, but we're cheated to a degree, after Mr. C delivers a very non-PC monologue about how many VC he killed in the 'Nam a brief battle ensues just off screen, but Patrick gets to chew the scenery up nicely here, and is one of the few characters that is allowed to take it to the next level. A brief cameo from Halloween II director Rick Rosenthall at the end of the film is perhaps the only wink at the audience, and the final shot of the movie is a classic 80s freeze frame.

Audio/Video: The movie arrives on Blu-ray looking like a somewhat beat-up 35mm print and considering that is what they're going for it is a success on all fronts, colors are strong, details are mostly crisp and the black levels are consistent. The Dolby TrueHD surround audio is pretty decent, not the most surround-centric experience you could hope for but the sweet retro-eighties soundtrack sounds fantastic and dialogue, effects and score are nicely balanced. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided. 

Unfortunately there are absolutely no extras on the disc, not even a commentary from first-time feature Director Ian Kessner and the cast and crew, which I would have appreciated, I loved the movie, and I wanted to know more about the making of it - that's a missed opportunity, though director Ian Kessner has indicated that a commentary with him and co-writer/producer Bo Ransdell will be forthcoming via an mp3 that will be made available.

Lost After Dark is a blast of retro slasher goodness from start to finish and a high recommend to fans of eighties horror. This is definitely one of the more successful retro horrors I can recall recently, it captures the vibe and atmosphere of the classic b-movies we know and love and does so without winking at us. 3/5

Blu-ray Review: THE FACULTY (1999)

THE FACULTY (1999) 

Label: Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Region Code: A
Duration: 105 Minutes
Rating: R
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0, 5.1
Video: 1080p Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Cast: Jordana Brewster, Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Shawn Hatosy, Famke Janssen, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Patrick, Usher Raymond, Jon Stewart, Elijah Wood

If you're a mind controlling race of parasitic aliens how would you go about invading the planet? Obviously you'd start at a Mid-West high school, right? Maybe not, but director Robert Rodriguez's trashy invasion film cleverly riffs on the sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and is way more fun than it has any right to be, in retrospect it's a highlight of 90's horror that's ripe for re discovery. 

The fun script was doctored by Scream (1996) writer Kevin Williamson and the cast is pretty talented, we have a lot of young talent onscreen, beginning with our main protagonist Casey, a nerdy school paper photographer played by Elijah Wood (the Maniac remake) who starts to suspect the staff at Herrington High just might be aliens after he discoverers an alien parasite on the football field. His theory is confirmed when the faculty and staff start turning the student body into aliens! On the run from the aliens Casey must align himself with an unlikely array of high school archetypes with a twist. You have the super-smart drug dealer (Josh Hartnet, The Virgin suicides), the wanna-be intellect jock (Shawn Hatosy, Alpha Dog), the shy Southern girl (Laura Harris, Dead Like Me), the head cheerleader who moonlights as the school newspaper editor (Jordanna Brewster, Fast Five), and the outcast lesbian (Clea DuVall, HBO's Carnivale). It's an entertaining bunch to be sure, and expectantly they turn on one another as personalities clash and paranoia builds. 

Onto the teaching staff we have the smoking hot principal played by Bebe Neuwirth who played Frasier Crane's wife on the TV sitcom Cheers, I had such a hard-on for this woman as a young boy and she's still total turn-on here, am I alone in thinking this? Speaking of total foxes we have Famke Janssen (Goldeneye) as a mousy language arts teacher who transforms into a total vamp when infected with the alien parasite. Plus Salma Hayek (Frida) plays the school nurse, when isn't she gorgeous? Never, that's when. Okay, now that we have the cuties outta the way we can talk about Piper Laurie (Carrie) who is perfectly creepy here as one of the first teachers to come under the spell of the alien parasites  alongside Robert Patrick (The Black Waters of Echo Pond) as the intense small town football coach. There are even appearances from The Daily Show's Jon Stewart who appears as Prof. Furlong and comedian Lewis Black is in there alongside uber-geek Harry Knowles. Just the cast alone is pretty great even if we don't get a lot of depth to anyone, it's pretty shallow and that's alright. This is a trashy slice of high school paranoia  with some dumb action and decent special effects with a rocking 90's soundtrack - what's not to enjoy? 

Blu-ray: Echo Bridge Home Entertainment bring The Faculty (1999) to Blu-ray with a AVC encode and it looks pretty sharp in 1080p widescreen (1.78:1). Nicely saturated colors, decent black levels and a pleasing amount of depth and clarity, the film's natural grain structure is intact. There are three English audio options including Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 plus a robust DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that makes good use of the surrounds, dialogue is crisp and the score and the fun 90's alternative rock soundtrack sounds quite nice. No subtitles and no special features sadly, a commentary, featurettes or deleted scenes would have been appreciated. 

Verdict: A pretty trashy 90's sci-fi entry with just the right amount of cheese, aliens are invading a mid-western high school, it's just as silly as it sounds but it's an entertaining romp with a great cast, a perfectly trashy popcorn watch. The Faculty (1999) gets a definite recommend and it's pretty cheap on Blu-ray, I say add this one to your collection. 3 Outta 5 

Blu-ray Review: THE BLACK WATERS OF ECHO'S POND (2010)

THE BLACK WATERS OF ECHO'S POND (2010) 

Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 93 Minutes

Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with Optional English and Spanish Subtitles

Video: 1080p Widescreen (1.78:1)

Director: Gabriel Blogna

Cast: Danielle Harris, James Duvall, Mircea Monroe, Walker Howard, Electra Avellan, Elise Avellan, Nick Mennell, M.D. Walton, Arcady Golubovich, Robert Patrick 

Tagline: Where Your Deepest Secrets Are Revealed

Well, this took it's sweet time finding it's way to DVD and Blu-ray, which is not always a good sign, but it's not always a fatal blow either. I remember that Trick 'r Treat (2007) took quite a while to emerge on Blu-ray, and that's one awesome Halloween watch so going into this I wasn't put off by that fact, just curious why it languished so long without a release. . 

In The Black Waters of Echo's Pond (2009) young couple Anton (Arcadiy Golubovich, Autopsy) and wife Erica (Elise Avellan, Grindhouse) invite a group of friends to stay the weekend on a remote island of the coast of Maine at a Victorian home with a history that's owned by grizzled family friend Pete (Robert Patrick, T2: Judgement Day). We get an average group of annoying horror stereotypes, there's Erica's twin sister Renee (Electra Avellan, Grindhouse), her fiance Josh (Nick Mennell, Friday the 13th), Kathy (Danielle Harris, Halloween), the brown guy Robert (M.D. Walton), the black dude Trent (Walker Howard), the slutty blonde Veronique (Mircea Monroe) and the guy no one likes Rick (James Duvall, (Donnie Darko), there's some real friction between him and Kathy whose brother died in a car wreck that involved Rick in some way, it's further explored as the film roles along. 

The party rolls on until the power goes out that night, by chance Anton 
discovers a century old board game sealed up behind a wall and the group set down for some game play by candle light. It's sorta like a Greek mythology version of Life or Monopoly, with each role of the dice they move a said amount of spaces and draw a card of chance that instruct each player to reveal a secret, voice a buried jealousy or dare another player to perform some indecent act, sounds like fun so far, right? What the game does is tap into the fears, jealousies and desires of each of the players and what had previously been a minor annoyance, lust or insecurity between friends starts to turn violent and deadly real quickly as tempers start to flare, things start to get quite bloody. 

What's happening seems to be possession of each player by the demonic mythical creature called Pan through the board game, the hoofed beast of myth even makes a few small appearances but perhaps not to the degree some might hope for, this isn't a film about Pan axing his way through a group of 20-somethings, though that would have been awesome. The design of the horned, red-eyed beast is pretty great, I wished to see more of him but I  think the film works quite well as just a group of friends turning against each other.

My main issue with the film is that I think the cast is a bit to large for it's own good, we don't get a lot of character development, I think they could have whittled this down this cast by about half and given Robert Patrick a bit more to do, but nor do I mind watching nine friends turn nasty and do awful things to each other, in that respect it's not unlike a Friday the 13th film, a large cast of annoying folks dying one by one, this is a bit more twisted, it's nine friends killing each other and that's a fun time, too.  

Disc: The Blu-ray from Anchor Bay presents the film in 1080p with an MPEG4-AVC encode in widescreen (1.78:1) with Dolby True HD 5.1 audio and it looks quite nice, a pleasing hi-def image with some modest depth and clarity. The 5.1 is nice but not overly active, some decent use of the surrounds but it's not gonna blow-up your speakers. The only extra is an Alternate Opening (2:36) offering up a subtlety different variation on the film's opening pre-credit sequence which takes place in Turkey in the year 1927. There are no deleted scenes, commentaries or featurettes. 

Verdict: It's not a oozing gore but it's pretty bloody, there's even a damn decent chainsaw dismemberment scene once things start to churn.  Truly, it's just not that original, aside from Greek mythology angle it's your basic pretty people in peril story but it's  fun with some decent grue and some breasts. I'd recommend this as a Netflix or Redbox purchase, perfect Friday night fare for a group viewing with a few tasty brews. Watching this brought me back to those heated nights of Monopoly with the family that ended in a cacophony of shouted f-bombs and hurt feeling, fun stuff. 3 Outta 5