COUNTER CLOCKWISE (2016) (DVD Review)

COUNTER CLOCKWISE (2016)

Label: Artsploitation Films
Release Date: December 13th 2016 

Rating: Unrated

Region Code: 1

Duration: 91 Minutes

Audio: English Dolby digital 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles

Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1) 

Director: George Moise
Cast: Michael Kopelow, Devon Ogden, Kerry Knuppe, Joy Rinaldi, Caleb Brown, Frank Simms

Scientist Ethan (Michael Kopelow) and his partner Ceil (Alice Rietveld)are on the verge of creating a successful teleportation machine, they've run the computer simulations and everything checks out, they're not quite to human trials yet, but they're sure enough to send their beloved one-eyed lab dog Charlie through it. When they do so he disappears without the aid of any fancy wormhole effects or light shows, he just sort of blinks away but fails to reappear on the opposite transporter pad as expected. They're bummed, they're angry, they may have killed their dog, and they call it a night. Later after Ceil has left for the night Ethan's returns to the lab alone when Charlie reappears, seemingly none the worse for the transporter-wear. So what does Ethan do, of course he sends himself through the transporter... only to reappear a year and a half later. Turns out through a simple wiring malfunction the transporter has turned from transporter, which was already cool, into an even-cooler time machine!  

Well, that's just silly, but this is sort of silly sci-fi thriller, and if you're willing to forgo the usual "hey, that's just dumb" premise for time travel this is a Hell of fun watch. A lot has happened in the year and a half Ethan jumped ahead, his lab has been taken over by a rival corporation, and he is a fugitive from the law, wanted for the double-murder of his hot wife Tiffany (Devon Ogden) and his sister Fiona (Kerry Knuppe). Stunned and overwhelmed he tracks down his former colleague Ceil and he begins piecing together just what the fuck has happened and how can he fix it.

The movie is fun, when I think of indie time travel movies I think of two in particular, the fun Timecrimes and the more serious Primer, that latter of which made my head hurt with science and logic, but I loved Timecrimes, and thankfully Counter Clockwise falls into the more fun vein along the lines of Timecrimes. To set things right Ethan will travel back to the origin point more than once in an attempt to set right what he wronged, but it still goes horribly wrong before anything goes right. Each time he gains a bit more knowledge about what happened, and a conspiracy involving his duplicitous sister and his former employer Roman Rakubian (Frank Simms), who is all sorts of awesome as the diabolical tech impresario. Also noteworthy are Rakubian's hired thugs, one of which is a nekromantik weirdo! 

My favorite moments in any time travel movie are when the character time travels and inevitably bumps into his own self while trying to set things right, which never really works, right? There are a few moments when Ethan must conspire against his own self, and being as he is from the future as certain points he has an intimate knowledge of where he will be in the past, making it easy to throw a wrench into the works. 

The movie is low-budget stuff, the special effects are mostly relegated to dated, retro-vintage looking computer screen graphics, evoking some of the classic science fiction of the 80s which I loved.   

Special Features:

- Audio Commentary with Director George Moise 

- Audio Commentary with Director George Moise and Editor Walter Moise

- Audio Commentary with Director George Moise and Actor Michael Kopelow 

- The Making Of Counter Clockwise (27 Mins) 

- Deleted scenes with Optional Commentary 

- Trailer (2 Mins)

I really liked this movie, a science fiction comedy that wasn't too silly, but rather a comedy of errors of the time-traveling variety. Michael Kopelow was awesome, offering a nice mix of comedy, physical humor and nerdy quirkiness. This movie has loads of quirk, if you're a quirk-lover who enjoys science fiction and time travel shenanigans this is worth a watch. 3.5/5

COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2003) (Blu-ray Review)

COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2003) 

Label: Olive Films
Region Code: A
Duration: 97 Minutes 
Rating: R
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Bill Murray, Roberto Benigni, Isaach De Bankolé, Jack White, Meg White, Taylor Mead, Steve Buscemi, Alfred Molina, Steve Coogan, Cate Blanchett, Iggy Pop, Tom Waits,  Joie Lee

Synopsis: Comprised of eleven vignettes whose topics range from the theories of Nikola Tesla and caffeine popsicles to the possibility that Elvis had an evil twin, Coffee and Cigarettes is a cinematic celebration of life and its addictions featuring an eclectic cast of performers including Bill Murray (Broken Flowers), Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Roberto Benigni (Life is Beautiful), Iggy Pop (Cry-Baby), Tom Waits (Ironweed), Joie Lee (Do The Right Thing), Steve Buscemi (Fargo), Alfred Molina (Prick up Your Ears) and Steve Coogan (Philomena).

Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes is an anthology that is thematically a series of eleven black and white vignettes of various people partaking in coffee and cigarettes at various locations, engaging in small talk and conversational chit chat, it's just that simple. The addictive titular substances seems to be the only cohesive elements binding the stories, that and the black and white cinematography.

We begin with Strange to Meet You which was shot back in 1986, this is the first in the series, starring comedians Steven Wright and Roberto Benigni, playing themselves, slurping coffee with Benigni offering to attend Wright's dental appointment at the end. The two contrast each other nicely, Wright is his usual low-energy self and Benigni is a jittery caffeine-nut, good stuff. 

Twins stars Spike Lee siblings Joie and Cinqué Lee at a diner in memphis, arguing the way twins can do, while being waited on by Steve Buscemi, who proves to be the most interesting part of the short with a tale of Elvis Presley's evil twin. 

Somewhere in California, shot in 1993, is a meet-up with rocker Iggy Pop and singer/songwriter Tom Waits in a dive bar under a disco ball light, somewhere in California, obviously. These two have the perfect craggy faces for black and white, Waits speaks about delivering a baby on the side of the road earlier in the day while the two discuss having given up smoking years earlier, only to light 'em up just two prove they don't need to. This one is weird, the two are awkward together, as if they are only just then meeting for the first time, which it could have been for all I know. 

Those Things'll Kill Ya features actors Joseph Rigano and Vinny Vella meeting for breakfast, with one berating the other for not eating, warning him about the dangers of cigarettes. One of their sons arrives, in a wordless role, asking for money from his pops, promising a hug which never comes.  

Renée stars the hauntingly attractive actress Renée French having coffee alone at a diner, reading a book and enjoying a smoke, when the smitten waiter comes by hoping to make small talk, only to end up spoiling her perfect cup of coffee which she had at just the right color and temperature when he carelessly tops off her cup without asking. I do not know French from anything, but she has a face that looks just about perfect in black and white, eschewing cool without trying, this one stuck with me just because of the haunting noir-ish beauty of the star. 

No Problem is a low point for me, Alex Descas and Isaach De Bankolé meet for coffee, one asks the other if he has any problem he would like to talk about, to which he replies again and again and again that he does not. There's a punchline of sorts at the end, but this is still a low point for me, though I will say that I have been part of similar conversations where someone pestered me about "what;s wrong", so annoying, maybe that's why I didn't like it. 

Cousins starring actress Cate Blanchett in a dual role is one of my favorites here, playing a version of herself as well as a distant cousin who has a lot of resentment for her famous relative.  The two meet up in the lobby of a hotel while Blanchett is doing a press junket, it's a weird, that is quietly catty encounter which I enjoyed quite a bit, Blanchett herself seems to feign interest in her cousin, while her cousin cannot help but throw out a few small digs whenever she can.

Rockers Jack and Meg white of the now defunct rock duo The white Stripes appear in Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil, which is just that, the two having coffee and cigs, while off to the side of Jack is a homemade Tesla Coil sitting in a kids wagon, which he offers to demonstrate for her, which he does to a degree of success before it goes kaput, all the while espousing the genius of Nikola Tesla. Worth noting, while I haven't made any mention of the music of the movie yet, each segment features a backing music track, this one features proto-punkers The Stooges burning through "Down on the Street" from the seminal Funhouse album. 

Cousins? stars alfred Molina and Steve Coogan, and features the stars meeting-up for a proper cup of tea and biscuits, Molina is at first rather excited and curious to meet Coogan, but it ends with a mutual disappointment. At one point Molina reveals that through an Italian-connection they are somehow related. The appreciation doesn't' seem to go both ways, it speaks to the nature of being let down when meeting someone, and to the duplicitous nature of people. My favorite part is a brief mention of how seeing palm trees in L.A. annoys Coogan, not sure why  that appealed to me. 

Delirium stars comedy legend and all around cool guy Bill Murray at a diner along with GZA and RZA of rappers the Wu-Tang Clan, and Murray is as expected steals the show as himself in "disguise" as a waiter at the diner, Talking to the rappers about caffeine derived delirium while sipping straight from the coffee pot while the rappers offer a cure for his smoker's cough, the ill-advised gargling n the throat with oven-cleaner. 

The last one is a weird melancholy bit with William Rice and Taylor Mead enjoying coffee in a warehouse while discussing "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" from Mahler's Rückert-Lieder, also featuring a call back to Jack White's discussion of tesla and "acoustical resonance". 

Audio/Video: Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes arrives on Blu-ray from Olive Films framed in 1.78:1 widescreen, the image is appropriately grainy and textured - this shot on both 16mm and 35mm - and the Blu-ray does a much nicer job of resolving grain and fine detail than mu old 2005 DVD, as you'd expect. The only audio option on the disc is an English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround mix, its very front centric, the dialogue is crisp and clean, and the score includes music from The Stooges, Richard Berry & The Pharaohs and Tom Waits among others, though it is background music and not the focus of the track. The biggest compliment I can give the mix is that you get a feel for the distinct spaces for each segment. 

Extras come by way of a 2-min trailer and an 4-min interview with Taylor Mead who discusses his appreciation for the movie. 

Special Features: 
- Interview with Taylor Mead (4 Min) 
- Trailer (2 Min) HD 

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) is a wildly uneven watch, the mix of intriguing, deadpan and innocuous chit chat doesn't make for the most cohesive viewing experience, but it certainly is an interesting watch. It has been and probably will be for a long time be considered one of Jarmusch's lesser entries, but it has a charm about it that I enjoyed. 3/5  

UNCLE NICK (2015) (Blu-ray Review)

UNCLE NICK (2015)

Label: Dark Sky Films
Region Code: A
Duration: 81 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Chris Knack
Cast: Brian Posehn, Paget Brewster, Missi Pyle, Scott Adsit, Joe Nunez

A Christmas black-comedy starring comedian/actor Brian Posehn (Mr. Show), that's all I needed to know, I was in. In the tradition of mean-spirited Christmas comedies like Bad Santa we have Uncle Nick from director Chris Kassack starring Posehn as the titular Uncle Nick who on Christmas Eve heads on over to his little brother Cody's (Beau Ballinger) house, or rather the house of his sugar-mama wife Sophie (Paget Brewster, TV's Criminal Minds). It seems his lucky little brother married into money, like we all wish we would, right? Sophie has two children from her previous marriage, the pudgy teen-nerd Marcus (Jacob Houston, TV's How To Rock) and Valerie (Melia Renee, We Are the Mods), and a smoking-hot slice of 20-something naughtiness looking for attention in all the wrong places

Posehn as Nick is a sort of likeable guy, he's overweight, in his 40s and totally irreverent, a foul-mouthed who runs a landscaping business left to him by his deceased father. He loves giving his baby brother a load of shit whenever the opportunity arrives, taunting him about his sugar-mama wife, about being a kept man, and his long string of failed business ventures, the most recent being a really bad slogan t-shirt company which he runs out of his wife's garage, her daughter doubling as a model for his t-shirts. 

Seriously working against Nick's likability is that he lusts after his step-niece, he dreams of getting in her pants on Christmas Eve, and oddly enough she seems to be encouraging his not-so subtle advances, this girl has some serious daddy and mommy issues. Throughout the movie she baits Nick into sending her a dick pic as an xmas present, all the while sneaking drags of his cigs and sips of his grown-up beverages. This is the sort of dysfunctional family gathering you have nightmares about, you know, the one where your brother nails your step-daughter. 

Cody's wife Sophie is pretty uptight, and not surprisingly she doesn't much care for Nick and his crude ways, she wants everything to be just perfect, and when things don't go according to plan Nick's acerbic wit does not sit well with her at all, nerves are being frayed as copious amounts of alcohol are consumed. Also arriving for dinner is Nic's funny and nerd-cool sister Michele (Missi Pyle, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), and her struggling podcaster husband Kevin (Scott Adsit, TV's 30 Rock), who hosts a podcast about the Cleveland Indians, which figures prominently into the movie. Throughout the movie Posehn both narrates and through the podcast tells the story of the infamous Cleveland Indians ten cent beer night from '74, when the Indians offered offered unlimited ten cent beers to fans during a game with Texas Rangers. His recounting of the highly intoxicated game, which culminated in an all-out drunken brawl in the stands, closely parallels the drunken Christmas Eve gathering, which like the infamous game also ends with an alcohol-fueled rumble. 

It probably says something awful about me that I really liked Posehn's drunken and creepy Nick character as much as I did, the fact that he lusts after his non-blood related niece is not the most admirable character trait, but I loved his in-your-face honesty and anarchic ways, and the fact that I've been called an asshole myself made me root for him that much more. It helps that he's not the worst of the bunch, on this xmas even there are even worse waiting to be revealed, just you wait, this goes to some uncomfortable places. 

Blu-ray Special Features: 
- Audio Commentary with Director Chris Kasick, Actor Brian Posehn, and Writer Mike Demski
- Outtakes (3 Min) HD 
- Family Portraits (1 Min) HD 
- Barf-O-Rama (1 Min) HD 
- Red Trailer (2 Min) HD 
- Dark Sky Films Trailers:  The Demolisher, Night of the Living Deb, Traders and If There's a Hell Below
- Green Trailer (2 Min) HD 

If you're looking for a feel-good Christmas movie, this ain't the one, go watch A Christmas Story, but if you're looking for a very dark yule-comedy loaded with weird, naughty and alcohol-fueled depravity Uncle Nick (2015) is the demented stocking stuffer you've been looking for. Highly recommended, this will without a doubt be a new annual Christmas watch for me, right up there with Christmas Vacation and Bad Santa, this is just a wicked good time. 3.5/5

IF THERE'S A HELL BELOW (2016) (DVD Review)

IF THERE'S A HELL BELOW (2016)

Label: Dark Sky Films
Region Code: 1 NTSC
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 94 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby digital 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Nathan Williams
Cast: Carol Roscoe, Conner Marx, Mark Carr, Paul Budraitis

Synopsis: Abe’s an ambitious young journalist hungry for a story that will launch his career. Debra works in national security and has a serious revelation to leak. In a few minutes, they will meet for the first time. Bathed in paranoia, IF THERE’S A HELL BELOW is a cinematic journey down a rabbit hole of betrayal and surveillance where credibility is the only measure of trust, and the fate of one life or millions may hang in the balance. Featuring standout performances from its two leads, director Nathan Williams’s political thriller is a tense, unnerving exploration of the use and abuse of power and the terrifying ramifications it has when held in the wrong hands.

Every once in awhile I will stray outside the realm of obscure cult, horror and exploitation to the delight of my wife who loathes the copious amounts of sleaze and gore I usually subject her to. 
It's the little well-crafted indies like If There's a Hell Below (2016) that keep me straying outside my comfort zone, this ne is an atmospheric political thriller about a small-time newspaper reporter named Abe (Conner Marx, Z-Nation, journalist hoping to break it big when a national security insider named Debra (Carol Roscoe)reaches out to him for an exclusive story sure to blow the lid off of... something. They clandestinely meet up on the back roads of what appears to be the sun-drenched South West, Debra is in full-on paranoia mode, a bit of a conspiracy nut, or so it would seem, taking numerous precautions to ensure that the story she is about to dump on Abe will not be recorded, that her gender and job specifics are not revealed, that her safety is ensured. 

The movie is small, but the scope is wide, and also a bit rambling in a weird way, seemingly aiming to tackle a post-Snowden story with a movie that sort of channels Francis Ford Coppola's paranoid classic The Conversation (1974) by way of the scenic menace of Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973), a claustrophobic thriller contrasted with some eye-pleasing prairie panorama that is nicely lensed by cinematographer Christopher Messina. The dialogue exchanges between Marx and Roscoe are appropriately awkward for two people who have only just met, they go on weird tangential stories as they struggle to trust one another, and then there's Debra's paranoia ...which at first seems overly extreme, but when a SUV shows up on the scene it seems maybe she wasn't paranoid enough. 

In a weird non-derogatory way I would say that the movie plays out like a mumblecore political thriller, very indie, low-budget, dialogue driven, but also very captivating. If it were not for an opening scene that promised a certain amount of menace you'd be left wondering if Debra's worries about big brother watching are imaginary, but soon enough you know that something is seriously up, we're not sure what exactly she's about to spill, but it becomes clear that someone doesn't want the beans spilled and are willing to go to extremes to prevent that from happening, and it made for a good watch. 

DVD Special Features: 
- Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Nathan Williams, Cinematographer Christopher Messina, and Actor Connor Marx
- Behind-The-Scenes (3 Mins) 
- Alternate Ending with Optional Writer/Director Commentary(7 Mins) 
- Trailer (2 Mins) 

It was a good watch, the build up is a bit of a slow-burn and the final act didn't quite do it for me, but I liked it. If you enjoy a quietly intense thriller with a decent amount of tension and dread with an ending that keeps a certain mystery about it then I say check this one out. 3/5

JESS FRANCO'S MARQUISE DE SADE (1976) (DVD Review)

JESS FRANCO'S MARQUISE DE SADE (1976) 

Label: Full Moon Entertainment 
Region Code: Region-FREE NTSC 
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 79 Minutes.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0, French Dolby Digital 2.0 
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: Martine Flety, Sarah Strasberg, Pamela Stanford, Olivier Mathot

Synopsis: A lonely aristocrat Miss Gray has a twin sister who's in an asylum. They share a strange bond. Miss Gray is rational but frigid while her sister is insane yet feels sexual pleasure for both of them. Soon, a female reporter arrives at the mansion - Miss Gray possesses vampire like qualities and lives alone when new reporter comes to do a story on her. It appears Doriana needs to suck the life out of various men and women - in a sexual way, in order to stay young. However, she gets no sexual feelings or pleasure out of it. Those ‘feelings’ go to her TWIN sister who is locked up in an asylum. There she goes through various sexual ‘violent and sexual fits’ whenever Doriana is pleasing and killing.

In this erotic death-obsessed slice of Euro cult we have Jess Franco muse Lina Romay (The Hot Nights of Linda) starring in a dual role, first as the somewhat frigid aristocrat Lady Doriana Gray who lives alone in her sprawling seaside mansion, keeping to herself and cursed with the inability to feel sexual pleasure, oh no. On the flipside we have her nymphomaniac twin sister (also played by Romay) who's been cloistered away in an asylum from a very early age, a woman consumed by passion and carnal delights, she's in a state of constant orgasmic arousal while locked away in her room where she cannot help but diddle herself, preferably while being watched by the asylum staff. It is explained through narration that the two women were born Siamese twins and were separated at a young age, during the surgical procedure a shared nerve was damaged, thus devoiding one of pleasure, while wholly consuming the other with lust, with a lasting psychic bond between them.

Lady Doriana keeps to herself at her mansion until one day a journalist (Monica Swinn, The Duke of Burgundy) arrives at her mansion hoping to secure an interview with the liberated woman for a tabloid magazine article, the recluse is reluctant at first but eventually opens up to the woman, revealing her preference for women and her inability to experience sexual pleasure, in addition to a strange side effect of her pleasureless love, it seems to kill her lovers, which while not really explained in full, the movie sort of hints at some weird vampyric angle, which enables Lady Gray to maintain her youthful visage by draining the sexual essence of her lovers. We also learn that her twin sister experiences all the pleasures of sex that she cannot, which seems to have contributed to her sister's madness. 

At this time in the 70s Lina Romay was in her prime, a sexual nymph of the highest order, the epitome of cinematic lust, with those big sultry eyes, and there's something about her mouth, the way her lips frame her teeth, the way she licks her lips, she always manages to do a number on me, damn. She portrays Lady Doriana with some appropriate restraint, she has a aristocratic air about her, but she's still a knock-out, wandering her mansion in little more than a sheer pink gown that only thinly veils her voluptuous assets, the movie certainly plays to her physical strengths. Romay plays the nymphomaniac sister with an animalistic sexual abandon, a child-like wild woman who more often than not is rubbing one out in her room at the asylum,  while in the presence of a nurse (Andrea Rigano) and Dr. Orloff. Unable to control her sexual desires she is in a constant state of arousal, wild eyed and orgasmic, screaming with pleasure, maddened by her own uncontrollable, naughty impulses. 

Lina Romay and pretty much everyone else struggles with the awkward dialogue, which is not helped by a poor English dub, particularly the over-tanned Peggy Markoff (Barbed Wire Dolls) who seduces Lady Gray early on in the movie. I sniggered a bit when her super-trashy character says things like "I'm going to make you cum", and "now I'm going to show you how horny I can make you", but the sex is pretty damn hot, even if the close-ups get in the way at times, there's only so much close-cropped glistening clit-licking I need to see, you know. At times I wasn't sure if there was a hair on the camera lens or if it was just more fuzzy 70s muff, but guess what, it was always just the fuzzy 70s muff, haha. Also getting in on the sex-action is Lady Doriana's man-servant Ziros (Raymond Hardy, Women Behind Bars) and his cute blond lady friend (Martine Stedil, Swedish Nympho Slaves), who was very easy on the eyes.  

For his part director Jess Franco is both directing and doing the camerawork on this one himself, while I think it lacks when compared to the early 70s work we saw for Franco from cinematographer Manuel Merino (Vampyros Lesbos, She Killed in Ecstasy) the movie is nicely framed and makes nice use of the value-added scenic mansion and the gorgeous women, particularly Romay who is pure eye-candy. Franco lays on a heavy veneer of voyeuristic shots of sapphic love and hardcore sex, this one goes beyond an r-rating with numerous scenes of straight up sex of both the woman-on-woman and man-on-woman variety, including scenes of full-on penetration and Romay with a mouthful of uncircumcised cock, so cum into this one knowing what you are getting yourself into. As stated before Franco goes in for maybe a few too many extreme zoom-ins for my tastes but I like the surreal atmosphere the Spanish auteur conjures this time around, and this is just so Lina Romay-centric that I cannot help but love it.


Audio/Video: Marquise de sade (1976) arrives on DVD from Full Moon Entertainment as part seven of their ten-part Jess Franco Collection series, of which the spines form a portrait of Franco, which is cool, but look a bit awkward on the shelf as part of an incomplete collection with no large title on the spine. The movie is known by several other titles in various regions, these include Die Marquise von Sade (which is what the title card reads for this release) The 1,000 Shades of Doriana Grey, Doriana Gray and The Portrait of Doriana Gray. 

The movie is framed in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1) and looks very nice, there are some slight DVD compression issues, the grain is not as finely resolved as I would like, but it is sourced from a very nice print with very minimal print damage,a few specks and slight scratches can be seen. Audio on the disc includes both English and French Dolby Digital 2.0, there are no subtitle options. The dubbed English track is a bit boxy at times with some occasional hiss, but for the most part this is a solid track, and has more depth that the French audio option. The movie also benefits from cool sitar-tinged score from composer Walter Baumgartner (Barbed Wire Dolls).

Extras on the disc are slim, but appreciated. These include about 12 minutes of interviews with producer Erwin C. Dietrich, director Jess Franco and star Lina Romay, plus a Jess Franco trailer reel with full frame trailers for Oasis of the Zombies, Demoniac, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, The Screaming Dead, Erotikill, and The Invisible Dead.

Special Feature: 
- Interview with Producer Erwin C. Dietrich, Director Jess Franco and Star Lina Romay (12 Mins) 
- Vintage Jess Franco VHS Trailers(7 mins) 

Jess Franco's Marquise De Sade (1976) is a hot little number that straddles and crosses the line between hardcore sex-film and just another slice of Franco Eurocult from the 70s. While not the most opulent of Franco's 70s films, it is stylish and surreal, with a minimal story and loads of voyeuristic sex. If you're a hardcore Franco fanatic this will be fun watch with the usual amounts of surreal erotic artiness, but for everyone else this might be some rough stuff, a bt too light on the hardcore sex for the porno freaks and a bit too much sex for the Eurocult fans who have not been consumed by Franco's brand of sleaze, sex and death euro-cult cinema, definitely an acquired taste, but one that once you develop a taste for will require frequent revisits. Would love to see a Region A Blu-ray, I know there's a German Blu-ray out there, but this slice of naughtiness is in need of a serious HD upgrade here in the US, but for now this uncut release from Full Moon will do just fine. 

AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: BLOODSHOCK (2015) (Blu-ray Review)

AMERICAN GUINEA PIG: BLOODSHOCK (2015)
3-Disc Limited Collector's Edition Blu-ray/DVD/CD  

Label: Unearthed Films
Region Code: A/1
Rating: Unrated
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0, English Dolby Digital 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen 
Director: Marcus Koch
Cast: Dan Ellis, Andy Winton, Lillian McKinney, Gene Palubicki, Alberto Giovanelli

Let me just say that I came into this second entry in the American Guinea Pig series not having watched any of the Guinea Pig movies that came before, not the original Japanese series nor the first American entry, American Guinea Pig: Bouquet of Guts and Gore (2014). I knew sort of what to expect just based on word of mouth about the movie and the repugnant reputation of Unearthed Films and from what I've seen from them thus far. I'm here to tell you that you do not need to have watched any of them to take this in if that's how you come to it, so fear not, jump right in, the water's red and gory as Hell. From what I can tell there's not much connective tissue between the films other than the human flesh being brutalized for various reason, and depending on your own personal appreciation for wicked gore and demented depravity, a story through line might not be all that important. 

The largely black and white slice of hurt opens with an unnamed man played by Plotdigger Film alum Dan Ellis (Gutterballs)wakes up to find himself trapped in some sort of nightmare hospital from Hell, held captive by a mad scientist (Andy Winton) and his sadistic orderly who subject the poor guy to all sorts of surgically-precise awfulness. Surprisingly, there's not a lot of limb-hacking happening here, which is what I sort of expected, instead the mad doc subjects the guy to invasive surgical procedures applied without the aid of anesthetic to dull the pain, they want this guy to suffer. The suffering seems to be connected to some blood-draining that's happening during all the procedures, as if it does something to the blood, not quite sure what, but it seemed integral to the desired outcome.

The doc is funnily overly polite, always speaking in calm tones with a dry morbid wit about him, which I thought was a nice touch, the madman with a smile is always more menacing. For his part as the suffering man subjected to a series of tortures Ellis is fantastic, I've seen him in a few of the Plotdigger films but this is his tour de force, a mostly silent (if you don't count his agonized screaming) performance, but his face and physical acting convey a deep sense of anguish and suffering, this is pure acting, and he digs deep and brings the pain to the surface is both painful-looking and subtle ways, but you also get an idea of what kind of person he is, too.  Between he torturous surgeries he is kept locked away in a white padded room, where he soon discovers he is not quite alone in his suffering, there's a young woman (Lillian McKenney) in the padded room next to his, they're able to pass on short notes to each other through a gap in the walls, the notes are written in crayon, and they eat the notes to hide their communications from their captors, and thus the two develop a strange pen pal relationship. 

Back to the tortures visited upon them, we begin with something simple, his tongue is cut off, some teeth are extracted, again without anything to dull the pain, he has to suffer for whatever it is they're aiming for to work. It moves on to more brutal and strange activities, his knees are brutally beaten with a mallet, the doc makes incisions into his back and strings a rope-saw around his ribs bones and proceeds to saw them in half, brutal stuff, then he is stitched back together. His cranium is operated on, and his chest cavity is cracked open at the rib cage with a surgical spreader, exposing his beating heart, which the doc then licks! This stuff is ungodly looking and filmed in minute detail, director Marcus Cook (We Are Still Here)is well-known for his FX work, and he and his team did great work here, they should all be ashamed of themselves for the nightmares they're inducing, haha. 

These scenario plays out repeatedly, locked away in a room, brought into the surgical suite for more brutal elective surgery, and communicating with his neighbor. Eventually the man and woman get the opportunity to make a break for it, and that's when things get really weird. The story such as it is very simplistic, there is not a traditional beginning, middle and end to it, this is more a series of painful vignettes that only get more visceral as the movie plugs along, punctuated by a blood-sex-gore scenario that I certainly didn't see cumming, weird and wild stuff. I cannot say that I followed just what the Hell was happening in the larger picture, what the endgame was here, I have no idea, but there are a series of short scenes that play as a sort of epilogue during the closing credit sequence that have my interest piqued, I may be watching this one again and see if I can't  figure out what it all means, if anything. 

Audio/Video: American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock arrives on Blu-ray and DVD courtesy of the iron-stomached folks over at Unearthed Films, the image is  nice hodgepodge of crisp high contrast black and white with some granier looking 16mm looking footage though I would assume this is all shot on digital. The black and white cinematography looks great, I like the arthouse pretense it brings to the otherwise dour and gore-strewn production. The film looks great in HD, notably there is a rather shocking scenario wherein we are treated to a bloodbath orgy of color, the primary colors being predominantly skin tone flesh and buckets of blood. 

Audio on the release includes DTS-HD MA 2.0 on the Blu-ray and a Dolby Digital 2.0 on the DVD. Both tracks are crisp and clean, some of the sound design is purposefully muted, the dronal score from Kristian Day is appropriately dour in tone. I was a tiny bit surprised we didn't get a creepy surround sound mix for this one, the claustrophobic and slightly surreal imagery would seem to lend itself to a surround mix, but what we get is just fine. Optional English Subtitles are provided.

The release comes packed in the usual DVD sized tri-fold digipack that Unearthed Films have been using for awhile now, I like it. Three discs (Blu-ray, DVD, CD) each with it's own unique artwork branded to the disc. There's also a 4-page booklet with an appreciation of the movie from Art Ettinger of Ultra Violet Magazine 

Onto the extras we have oodles to choose from beginning with two audio commentaries, the first with Director Marcus Koch and Unearthed Films Stephen Biro (who directed the first entry in the American Guinea Pig series), and a second with Actors Andy Winton, Gene Palubicki, and Alberto Giovannelli, this appears on both the Blu-ray and DVD version of the film. 

Looking specifically at the Blu-ray disc we get a 5 min intro from Stephen Biro of Unearthed Films, plus a whopping 92 min behind the scenes featurette, what I loved about this one was the chance to see the gore make-up effects in screaming color, which was gruesome. There are also 7 mins of production videos taking you back to the start of the production, a 22 mins Q/A with Stephen Biro from Days of the Dead 2016, plus 50 mins of interviews with actors Dan Ellis and Lillian McKinney. These extras are exclusive to the Blu-ray and are not repeated on the DVD, which has it's own unique set of extras. 

Onto the DVD we have the same commentaries to accompany the standard def version of the feature film plus a new set of extras exclusive to the DVD, including 68 mins of interviews with Gene Palubicki, Alberto Giovanelli, Marcus Koch Interview, Andy Winton and Stephen Biro plus a 12-min deconstruction of the movie. 

Disc three is the original CD soundtrack featuring 78 min of score from composer Kristian Day, which is a great value-add to these releases from Unearthed. Far and away my favorite Unearthed score thus far comes from the neo-giallo Francesca, but this one is creepy and I can see using it around the house next Halloween to scare the kiddies. 

Special Features:

Disc 1 (Blu-ray) 
- Audio Commentary with Marcus Koch and Stephen Biro
– Audio Commentary with Andy Winton, Gene Palubicki, and Alberto Giovannelli
– Biro’s Bloodshock Intro (HD) (5 ins) (Blu-ray Only) 
– Bloodshock: Behind the Scenes(92 Mins) (Blu-ray Only) 
- Steve Nemeth's Bloodshock Production Cell Phone Videos (7 Mins) (Blu-ray Only) 
– Days of the Dead Atlanta 2016 Q/A (22 Mins) (Blu-ray Only) 
– Dan Ellis Interview (39 Mins) (Blu-ray Only) 
– Lillian McKinney Interview (11 Mins) (Blu-ray Only) 

Disc Two (DVD)
- Audio Commentary with Marcus Koch and Stephen Biro
– Audio Commentary with Andy Winton, Gene Palubicki, and Alberto Giovannelli
- Gene Palubicki Interview (12 Mins) 
- Alberto Giovanelli Interview (5 Mins) 
– Marcus Koch Interview (30 Mins) 
- Andy Winton Interview (10 Mins) 

– Stephen Biro Interview(11 Mins) 
– Bloodshock: Deconstruction Featurette (12 Mins)(Blu-ray Only)  

Disc Three(CD)
- Kristian Day CD Soundtrack (78 Mins) 
– Booklet with Writing on the Film from Art Ettinger of Ultra Violet Magazine 

American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock (2015) certainly lives up to the reputation of the series and that of Unearthed Films, a gruesome tapestry of physical tortures and hard-to-stomach sights and sounds. If you're one of those gore-lovers who lives to explore the depths of depraved cinema this is gonna be a must-see. On top of the intriguing minimal story and massive amounts of surgical gore the movie offers some nice arthouse pretension by way of the stylish black and white cinematography. American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock is yet another slice of soul-scarring cinematic trauma from Unearthed, who have been killing it in 2016 with a string of killer extreme horror releases.  

THE DEVIL'S DOLLS (2016) (Blu-ray Review)

THE DEVIL'S DOLLS (2016)  

Label: Scream Factory / IFC Midnight
Release Date: December 6th 2016 
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 85 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.40:1) 
Director: Padraig Reynolds
Cast: Tina Lifford, Yohance Myles, Brandon Johnson, Brea Grant, Christopher Wiehl, Kennedy Brice, Kym Jackson, Samantha Smith 

This half-hard Southern Gothic entry opens strong with a young woman being held captive by a homicidal maniac in a scummy warehouse, she escapes and a foot chase ensues with the killer, Henry Leonard Bale (Matty Ferraro), on her heels with a rather large power drill - this sucker rivals the one from 80s slasher Slumber Party Massacre! She winds up in the front seat of a police cruiser which is in the area, apparently the cops have been searching for her, and while the rookie cop (Graham Skipper, Almost Human) radios for backup the killer just walks up to the cop car and drives that drills full-bore right through his head with a nice red geyser of blood spraying all over the young woman, this is a Peter Jackson's Dead Alive sort of blood-geyser, and it's very nicely done. 

Just as the killer seems about ready to finish the young woman off with the his drill he is gunned down by cop Matt(Christopher Wiehl) who arrives on scene just in the nick of time with his partner Darcy (Kym Jackson). It turns out that Matt's been chasing this serial killer for years, and it now seems that his reign of terror has ended, but as often happens in these low-budget horror flicks it is really just the beginning.

While cleaning-up the crime scene Matt finds a small wooden box in the killer's lair containing several hand-made "worry dolls", sort of voodoo looking stick figures, which he throws into a box in the back of his cruiser. Unfortunately 
Matt's eight year-old daughter Chloe (Kennedy Brice) finds the box in the back of the car and makes off with them, selling them at her mom's antiques and crafts shop. And wouldn't you just know it, the objects are cursed and cause the usually fine folk of the rural Mississippi town to become murderous white-eyed weirdos with bad-skin and mean-tempers. 

I like the idea, the cool promotional artwork, and the basic story has some nice Southern Voodoo sort of promise to it, but the execution is somewhat poor, beginning with a script and overall tone that pitch-shifted way too much for me to stay tuned into it, which is unfortunate because we had a great bloody opening, some nice murder set-pieces, and a decent setting, but what what it boils down to for me is a very bad performance from our main guy, actor Christopher Wiehl seems completely lost in the role, his line deliveries are weird and awkward, and not in a good way. Also, acting aside his character is one of the worst cops ever on film, everyone around him dies, and it is his own inept carelessness that the wooden dolls are even became a problem in the first place. 

Also dragging this down is the weak voodoo element, it had promise but it doesn't really go anywhere, they thrown in an old black voodoo woman (Tina Lifford) who warns him about the dolls early on but her pleas fall on deaf ears, until the seemingly random and motiveless murders happen, he seeks her out and is more willing to accept something supernatural is happening. Technically this is a nice looking film shot in the scope widescreen, the Mississippi views aren't used to their fullest but what we do get is nice, and the special effects work is top-notch, beginning with the bloody driller-killer opening, and my other favorite kills uses a large pair of garden shears, a nicely executed kill for sure, and some cool makeup special effects, but this one just meandered too much from overwrought cop family drama to voodoo-slasher goodness, it's way too uneven.  Not an awful movie, but coming from the director of Rites of Spring (2011), which I liked a lot, I was expecting something better, but this is just okay, a classic one and done watch for me.