DRIVE-IN DELIRIUM: WITH A VENGEANCE (2019) (Umbrella Blu-ray Review)

DRIVE-IN DELIRIUM: WITH A VENGEANCE (2019) 

Label: Umbrella Entertainment

Region Code: Region-FREE

Rating: R

Duration: 388 Minutes+

Audio: English Dolby Digital Mono 2.0 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen & Fullscreen

Director: Various

Cast: Various 

Synopsis: Locked and loaded with over 6 hours of handgun-happy vigilantes & badass babes of Blaxploitation, ultra-hip heists, spaghetti shoot 'em ups and bitumen burning post-apocalyptic carquakes (not to mention alien close encounters of the horny kind) - DRIVE-IN DELIRIUM: WITH A VENGEANCE is a two-fisted, take-no-prisoners high-def tactical assault that guarantees to make you feel lucky, punk! 

I have been a huge fan of Umbrella's ongoing genre film trailer compilation series Drive-In Delirium, these stacked sets offer hours of trailer viewing fun with usually high-quality presentations. The new Drive-In Delirium: With A Vengeance release is an action-film anchored set packed to the rafters with testosterone-fueled action film trailers and genre film mayhem.

The set starts of strong with a grouping of into some vintage non-horror Hammer, followed by some tasty heist and crime capers, cop thrillers, ninja flicks, spaghetti westerns, avengers, revengers, straight-up horror, sci-fi and even some apocalyptic exploitation
gems. It's a six-hour plus marathon of grisly grit, sweaty machismo and bad-ass vengeance, plus there's a bonus sixty minute VHS trailer compilation 'Son of VHS Delirium' that spans the exploitation spectrum from vintage supernatural forces to full-bodied sexploitation! It's got a little bit of everything, but on the whole this one really lays on the action-vengeance films with a thick brush, but it has a fantastic flow with solid groupings that make for a cinema-lovers wet dream.

Audio/Video: Drive-In Delirium: With A Vengeance arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment, presenting the trailer compilation in various aspect ratios, as is the nature of the trailer-beast. The quality of these trailers are generally superb, they look like they've been cleaned-up a bit, but still maintaining the inherent film grain and minor film imperfections that give it a movie proper house patina. The bonus VHS sourced trailer reel s in considerably worse shape, offering cropped fullframe presentations that are murky and dupey looking, but at the same time offering plenty of that intrinsic VHS nostalgia that  viewers of a certain age will look back on with a lost-youth fondness.

Audio on the disc comes by way of an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track that offers a mostly clean presentation, there's some minor audio hiss and imperfection audible on a few trailers, but like the video presentation, this is an absolutely solid listen.

The only extra is the aforementioned sixty-minute bonus VHS trailer reel in standard-definition, which is not insignificant. The single-disc release arrives in an oversized Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of artwork featuring a hodgepodge of images from the posters for Blue Thunder, Firefox, Supergirl, Coffy, The Blues Brothers, Revenge of the Ninja and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, it literally paints a picture of what yo can expect from this release. The back cover features more image culled from vintage illustrated posters for Gator, Forbidden World, Super Fly, Once Upon a Time in the West, and Savage Streets. The disc itself features the signature image of a dirty 35mm film can as do the other installments in the series.

On the flipside of the wrap you will find a complete listing of the 2-part main feature trailers on this set, minus the VHS bonus  trailers, plus an image/advertisement for the other Drive-In Delirium releases available on Blu-ray from Umbrella. 

Trailer Listing: 

Part One: The Final Chapter 

• Pre-show
• Shaft
• Superfly 
• Hammer 
• Hell Up In Harlem
• Blackenstein 
• Coffy
• Foxy Brown
• The Human Tornado
• Drum
• Penitentiary
• Kiss Me Deadly
• Never Take Candy From A Stranger
• Underworld U.S.A.
• The Candy Web
• The Killers 
• Harper
• Cop-Out 
• The High Commissioner 
• Bullitt 
• Otley
• Get Carter
• Revenge
• Dirty Harry 
• Magnum Force 
• The French Connection
• The French Connection II
• The Seven-Ups 
• The New Centurions 
• Serpico 
• Busting 
• The Destructors
• The Gauntlet
• The Sweeney
• Sweeney 2 
• The Big Sleep 
• Saint Jack 
• The Long Good Friday 
• The Salamander
• 48 Hours
• Deadly Force 
• Blue Thunder 
• Savage Streets 
• Certain Fury 
• Naked Vengeance 
• Tenement 
• Remo Williams - The Adventure Begins 
• The Park Is Mine 
• Cobra
• Best Seller 
• Shakedown
• Messenger Of Death 
• The Presidio
• Blue Steel 
• Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects 
• Lock-Up
• Roadhouse
• The Camp On Blood Island
• Ten Seconds To Kill 
• The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
• Dark Of The Sun
• Ice Station Zebra
• Hornet's Nest
• Three Days Of The Condor
• The Eagle Has Landed 
• Force 10 From Navarone 
• Seven 
• Firefox
• Wargames
• The Package
• The Italian Job
• The Hot Rock 
• The Getaway
• The Great Train Robbery 
• Le Mans 
• White Lightning 
• Gator
• The Gumball Rally 
• The Blues Brothers 
• The Stunt Man
• Intermission

Part Two: A New Beginning 

• The Stranglers Of Bombay
• The Sword Of Sherwood Forest
• The Pirates Of Blood River
• Mozambique
• The Vengeance Of She
• The Million Eyes Of Sumuru
• The Castle Of Fu Manchu 
• Wonder Women
• Terminal Island 
• Gold 
• The Wilby Conspiracy
• Raise The Titanic 
• The Wicked Lady
• Frog Dreaming
• Firewalker 
• Flesh+Blood
• River Of Death
• The Yakuza
• Force Five 
• Kill And Kill Again 
• Enter The Ninja 
• Revenge Of The Ninja 
• Comanche Station 
• The Magnificent Seven
• Fistful Of Dollars
• For A Few Dollars More 
• The Good, The Bad And The Ugly 
• Navajo Joe 
• Django
• Django Kill 
• Return Of The Seven 
• Hang'em High 
• Once Upon A Time In The West
• 100 Rifles
• More Dead Than Alive
• Barquero 
• Duck You Sucker! 
• Lawman 
• Hannie Caulder 
• The Revengers 
• The Life And Times Of Judge Roy Bean 
• Billy Two Hats
• Get Mean 
• Mad Dog Morgan
• Return Of A Man Called Horse 
• It Came From Outer Space
• Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
• Village Of The Damned
• The 3 Wonders Of Gulliver
• G-A-S-S-S-S-S
• Beneath The Planet Of The Apes
• The Omega Man
• The People That Time Forgot 
• Time After Time
• The Chain Reaction
• Alien 2
• Battle Beyond The Stars 
• Galaxy Of Terror 
• Forbidden World 
• Heavy Metal - The Movie 
• Looker 
• Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
• Brainstorm
• Strange Invaders 
• Yor: The Hunter From The Future
• Dune 
• The Last Starfighter 
• Supergirl 
• Desert Warrior 
• The Adventures Of Hercules 
• Sinbad Of The Seven Seas
• Highlander
• Masters Of The Universe
• Innerspace
• Killer Klowns From Outer Space
• The Sisterhood 
• Leviathan
• Post Show
• Also Available

Bonus: Son of VHS Delirium 

• Beyond Evil 
• Superstition
• Maniac 
• Evil Dead
• Sweet Sixteen
• Mutant
• Vampyres
• Torso
• Amityville 3-D 
• The Dead Zone
• Tattoo
• To Kill A Clown 
• For Apache The Bronx 
• The Bounty 
• Caged Heat
• The Retrievers
• Raw Force
• Conan The Destroyer
• Loving Couples
• Splitz
• Hollywood High
• Gas Pump Girls
• Hot T-Shirts 
• Gosh (Alice Goodbody) 
• The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood
• Charlotte's Web 
• Follow The Sun
• Master Of The Game 
• Flying High
• The Keeper 
• The Intruder Within 
• Secrets of A Super Stud
• Sweet Savage
• The Yum Yum Girls
• Girls At The Gynecologist 
• Mustang the House That Joe Built
• Incoming Freshmen 
• French Nympho 
• Flesh Gordon 
• Diary of A Space Woman 
• Fairy Tales 
• Fantasm
• Fantasm Comes Again

THE WIND (2018) (Umbrella DVD Review)

THE WIND (2018) 

Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: 4 (PAL Format)
Rating: M
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (2.40:1)
Director: Emma Tammi
Cast: Julia Goldani Telles, Ashley Zukerman, Dylan McTee, Miles Anderson

The Wind (2018) is a western-horror set on the prairie in the 19th century where Lizzy (Caitlin Gerard, Insidious: The Last Key) lives with her hard-toiling husband Isaac (Ashley Zukerman), it's a hard life on the remote frontier, but they make the best of it. we come to see that Lizzy is troubled by the presence of what she believes are demons, though her husband assures her it all a trick of the wind on the prairie. The arrival of an Illinois city-couple Emma (Julia Goldani Telles) and Gideon (Dylan McTee) at a nearby homestead ends their isolation, but having neighbors doesn't exactly improve Lizzy state of mind. 

The film is told with a fractured time line and narrative, opening with a scene of Lizzy covered in blood, holding a baby on the front porch of her home, with both Gideon and Isaac standing outside. The child is dead and the corpse of Emma lays inside, with Lizzy having performed an impromptu cesarean on her neighbor's corpse in an effort to save the baby, the woman having apparently committed suicide by shooting herself in the head with Lizzy's shotgun. The child dies soon after and is buried with it's mother on the prairie. in the aftermath Isaac is set to journey back to the city with the grieving Gideon, leaving Lizzy alone on the prairie, her husband telling her to prepare for the coming winter.

The film then settles into a fractured
timeline, moving from the current timeline to past events that examine the arrival of the new couple, the jealousies and betrayals their arrival signals, and examining both women's state of mind, including the possibility of a demonic force that haunts them both while seemingly passing unnoticed by their husbands. 

The film has an unreliable narrative told from the perspective of Lizzy, a strong frontierswoman, but someone we come to believe is either plagued by a cracked psyche or demonic forces, maybe even both. It's an eerie film, the American frontier is a gorgeous setting, but also one fraught with hardship, the inherent isolation and incessant prairie winds play with the mind, particularly when one is left on their own, suffering from postpartum depression,  assailed by phantoms real or imagined.

Audio/Video: The Wind (2018) arrives on region 4-locked PAL formatted DVD from Umbrella Entertainment framed in anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1). The scope lensed film looks gorgeous, each shot evoking classic westerns films and even a bit of the American Gothic film The Reflecting Skin. I wish Umbrella would have given this one a Blu-ray release, but it looks solid for a DVD, but some of the darker scene are murky and not as finely resolved and crisp as an HD format probably would have afforded it, thankfully for US fans their is a Blu-ray currently available from Scream Factory/IFC Midnight - but which is also seemingly bereft of extras. 

Audio comes by way of an English Dolby Digital 5.1 mix with plenty of sweeping winds and whispering demons to keep surrounds active, plus the tense score from Ben Lovett (The Signal) adds a bunch of atmosphere to the film. There are no subtitle options available for this release.

No extras on this one, not even a trailer, not even a start-up menu. The single-disc DVD release comes housed in a standard DVD keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. I found the text on this one a bit hard to read, the dull grey-ish lettering against the dark earth-tone background really made it a chore to read the small-type synopsis and credits.    

The Wind (2018) is a creepy and atmosphere heavy slice of western folk-horror that offers up some cabin-on-the-prairie chills with a Repulsion (1965)-ish cracked narrative that I found completely enthralling from start to finish, this comes highly 
recommended for fans of slow-burning folk-horror. 

MA (2019) (Blu-ray Review)

MA (2019) 

Label: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 88 Minutes
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1,  Spanish and French DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 
Director: Tate Taylor
Cast: Octavia Spencer, Juliette Lewis, Diana Silvers, Corey Fogelmanis, Luke Evans

Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer (Bad Santa) finally gets top-billing in the Blumhouse produced psycho-thriller Ma (2019), with Spencer playing the seemingly quiet veterinarian technician Sue Ann. A lonely woman whose kindly veneer just barely obscures a bit of the crazy sparkle in her eye, it's the sort of glint that screams potential insanity is looming right around the corner, and that's what's happening here. 

Sue Ann befriends a group of local teens when new-girl in town Maggie (Diana Silvers, Glass) asks Sue Ann to procure some alcohol for her new found group of friends. Sue Ann tells the kids she feels bad about buying them the alcohol, that she would hate for them to be involved in an accident and get hurt, so she invites them to her house, where they can party down in the basement. She tells the teens they just have to follow a few simple house rules, no swearing, there needs to be a designated driver... and never go upstairs into her house, uh-oh. 

The teens take her up on her offer and soon Ma becomes a bit of a naughty den mother for the local highschool teen population who end up partying at her house on the regular. Ma’s strange hospitality ends up turning into an unhealthy obsession when a few of the teens begin to recognize that something about Ma just ain't right!

Octavia Spencer is delightfully demented in Ma, she really goes for it with the unhinged weirdo persona, with a rather sad backstory with connections to the teenager's parents, a bit of sexual cruelty perpetrated on her by her classmates back in highschool, when she was a shy girl just trying to fit it. One of her tormentor's from the past turns out to be Maggie's mom Erica (Juliette Lewis, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation), plus we also get appearances from Luke Evans (Dracula Untold), Missi Pyle (Gone Girl) and Allison Janney (I, Tonya) as characters who are revenge targets for dear ol' Ma for various reasons. 

I found this to be a fun throwback to the psycho-lady thrillers we saw a bunch of back in the late 80's and 90's, stuff like Misery (1990), Single White Female (1992), The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992) and the Queen of all psycho-bitch movies, Fatal Attraction (1987). Watching Octavia Spencer turn from a sad woman looking for acceptance into full-on nightmare den mother is a real hoot, she's fantastic, but the film is a bit uneven. I found her character's backstory heartbreaking but you cannot really have too much sympathy for her the way she goes about her years-late revenge, with the sins of the parents coming back to haunt their innocent children, but it is certainly an entertaining psycho-thriller, and Octavia Spencer is fantastic. 

Audio/Video: Ma (2019) arrives on Blu-ray+DVD+Digital from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment presenting the film in widescreen (2.39:1) 1080p HD. The image looks crisp and clean, it's got a bit of a muted color scheme going on but the colors are strong, blacks are deep and the shadow detail is pleasing. The English DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio has a good atmospheric mix happening, it's not wows-ville or anything, but dialogue is crisp and the score from Gregory Tripi some nice presence, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Extras include a few brief featurettes, an alternate ending, deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer for the film. The dual-format Blu-ray/DVD arrives in a dual-hub Blu-ray keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork and a slipcover with a variation of the theatrical poster artwork. Inside there's a Movies Anywhere digital redemption code. 

Special Features: 
- NEW Alternate Ending (2 min) HD
- Creating Sue Ann – Take a deeper look at the character of Sue Ann, and how trauma from people's past can manifest itself later in life (3 min) HD 
- Party at Ma’s – The cast, crew, and filmmakers discuss how all the elements came together to make this unique thriller (4 min) HD 
- Deleted Scenes (11 min) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (3 min) HD 


Ma (2019) is a solid psycho-thriller, I don't think it will end up having the longevity of a few of the psycho-bitch classics I mentioned in this review, but it's a solid demented thriller that's plenty entertaining, and it's not afraid to go weird, and this one definitely goes weird towards the end! 

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.