Monday, December 24, 2012

Psycho Street (2011)

Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Extras: 5/5
Overall: 4/5

"Lock Away Your Alien Daughters."

To quote Sid Haig who played Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's House of 1,000 Corpses; "Do you like blood, violence, freaks of nature?" That is essentially how I felt after viewing this film. This is what you get with Psycho Street. Created and executive produced by Marv Blauvelt, this is like an independent and a hardcore version of the old school Creepshow films from the 1980's.

We start with Leyla who is played by Tiffany Shepis, a scream queen who has starred in numerous low budget horror films, is the attractive woman next door with a sinister secret. A couple has moved in next door, Austin Dossey as Casey and Raine Brown as Aubrie Harris. Leyla has all ready gotten her hands on Casey and Aubrie comes looking for him. Leyla lures her in and begins to tell her about the horrors of living in the town of "Kronenburg".

We segment into Hypochondriac. This story takes place at a doctor's office. Nurse Lovejoy, played by Raine Brown; hits on every backwards redneck and plans on bringing down the new doctor taking over the practice, played by Marv Blauvelt. We see a crazy old lady, Alan Rowe Kelly, who comes in and goes on about every illness under the sun. And the side plot to this short is that Nurse Lovejoy is fascinated by a lady who was abducted by aliens and is going to give birth to an alien. This crazed lady arrives in the office one day and that's what brings the whole short together.

In the next story, Anti-Bodies, a woman has her daughter tied and sells her to any and every man who can pay up. This is the one where you can kinda feel uncomfortable until we get to the twist which comes quickly. We get into a dark area with sadism and rape that is kinda comparable to A Serbian Film, until the twist. Without going too much into it; it's probably the sleaziest of the short stories in this film.

We go back into the story line of Leyla and Aubrie and Leyla's intentions are made clear. Aubrie is attacked and then thrown down into the basement where someone is hiding. Then we get into the final story, Lewis, about a woman, named Amanda, takes her daughter and goes to a small town. Once in the small town, the locals start to go a little crazy; as it is their "breeding season". We learn that the townsfolk worship some sort of demon and Amanda and her daughter is the key.

My thoughts on the film is simple; if this was made in the 1980's, this would be a classic. No doubt in my mind. Raine Brown stole the show and I think she will probably go far in the business and is highly under-rated as an actress. I looked her up on the IMDB and she's got dozens of titles since the year 2000. The other person who stood out is the person who created all of this, Marv Blauvelt. His role as Dr. Combs in Hypochondriac is probably one of the best doctor roles I have seen. Tiffany Shepis is in the film for probably about ten to fifteen minutes and she looks great. She could probably lure me in and hack me up and throw me in the basement too. I give the film a 7/10.

Video: 3.5/5
Presented in 1080p, 1.78:1, MPEG2, and encoded at 13.12 GB; the transfer for Psycho Street sports an odd transfer. If I understood this correctly from the commentary, this was not all shot at once, so some of this must have been shot with different cameras at different points in time. The footage with Tiffany Shepis and Raine Brown looks crisp and great. Hypochondriac has a bit of a rougher look to it, I cannot put my finger on it. Anti-Bodies looks good, there's a lot of digital manipulations to the video in that short, as well with Lewis. It could be worse, but, since this was all shot on HD equipment, it looks good. I give it a 3.5/5.

Audio: 4.5/5
The film only has a Dolby Digital 2.0 track. It sounds good and it does it's job well. Sound effects sound great and most of the dialogue is clear. Some of the dialogue sounds a bit muted, or it could be how it was recorded during the Tiffany Shepis scenes. I give the audio a 4.5/5.

Extras: 5/5
There is not much in terms of extras; we have a commentary track, trailers, and an acting class. The commentary shows how much they all had fun making the film. Make references to other films and at one point, during Anti-Bodies, how some people can compare that to A Serbian Film. Marv Blauvelt talking about where the inspiration comes from for his portrayal of Dr. Combs and the whole premise for Hypochondriac. The trailers which is listed just as "Farmer's Daughters Trailer". It has the trailer for that film, as well as advertising that it is part of another anthology film called "Closed Casket".

Finally, you have the "Muscle Wolf Acting School". This centers around Marv Blauvelt talking to everyone about acting with testosterone. And this is where you can really appreciate everything, it's that they don't take themselves seriously. When Marv does the "pop quiz" and asks about steroids on the question, that's when it's like; "They're all having fun making movies". I give the extras a 5/5.

Overall: 4/5
This is an entertaining disc and I felt was worth the $20. I was surprised that my copy was personally autographed by Marv Blauvelt himself. This group has gotten some great talent in hand with their production on Psycho Street as well as having Michael Berryman with Closed Casket. I think what will make this group go far is that they can joke about themselves while being serious. I give this disc a 4/5.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror (1980)


Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 3/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Extras: 2.5/5
Overall: 3/5

"This Blu-ray Smells of Death."

Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror is a 1980 Italian zombie film in the vain of Zombi 2. Group of people set out to a location only to discover this place is overrun with zombies. An archaeologist goes to a tomb to discover a horde of zombies and is soon eaten by his "friends". A group of people meet together at a castle for no real specific reason are then killed off and try to survive the night.

The film is fun for what it is, not perfect by any means. I loved seeing it for the first time at a film festival at one of the local drive-in theaters in 2010. You got to love the creepy Peter Bark as Michael, an actor playing a small child who loves his mother a little too much. The film has some cheesy dialogue, most of which comes from Michael. And then, most of the scenes that are memorable are of Michael. Film gets a 3.5/5.

Video: 3/5

When it comes to Media Blasters, if it's not one of their two-dollar films, the transfer is supposedly made from the studio where the film originates. Someone in Italy did a poor job on this transfer. Shots appear fuzzy and the grain is almost depleted by whatever this fake grain is which seems to be red, green, and blue. At the 1hr 18min, one shot is fuzzy and you can barely make out what it is going on in this shot as a zombie is being thrown down from a flight of stairs. Media Blasters honestly thought this was acceptable? While I make this out to be a nightmare-ish transfer, it's watchable and a little above average. 3/5.

Audio: 3.5/5

Presented on the disc is only English DTS-HD MA 2.0. While it is true a lot of Italian films made around this time were shot without sound, it would be nice if Media Blasters would have put an Italian audio track for the film. God knows why they did it with "Devil Dog", it wasn't Italian. We have some pops and hisses and what not on our English audio track. Why was this not remastered? 3.5/5.

Extras: 2.5/5

Media Blasters creates some of the most frustrating extras I have ever seen. In my review for "Devil Dog", I ranted about how there was an hour and a half of interviews where the two child stars and the director really didn't give a damn about that film. Same kinda goes here with "Burial Ground", as we have a twenty minute interview with producer Gabriele Crisanti and the actress who played Michael's mother, Mariangela Giordano. Crisanti seems uninterested in the questions and basically gives short answers to the bumbling interviewer who stutters in Italian, as it is obviously not his first language. Then with Mariangela Giordano, and she's obviously forgotten this movie. She was asked questions and one of her responses was; "I do not remember a blonde actress". I was like; "What the hell, man?" You couldn't have asked her to re-watch the film to refresh her memory? Seriously...

Next is the "Still and Poster Gallery". What I find funny is that this gallery that Media Blasters put together has photographs of VHS copies of the film laying out on someone's table. Most of these VHS covers that they have in this gallery are most likely ripped from a Google image search as most of these seem poor quality. Then we have what is listed as "Out takes", which should be called "Deleted Scenes" as these are not out takes. These deleted scenes do not contain sound, but have music playing in the background.

Then there's a trailer or trailers for the film. I could not honestly tell as this ran for four minutes. If it is indeed two trailers, there was no real gap between to tell that it is. Menu states "Original Trailers", while the cover states "Original Trailer". Finally, we have four trailers for other films released and/or made by Media Blasters themselves.

First up is "Late Fee". A horrible looking trailer with Media Blasters branding all over it. Hey, there's posters up on the wall for "Zombi 2" which we did an unauthorized release of, some anime, etc. Then we cut to a video store where all of the movies in stock are Media Blasters titles, like "Machine Girl" and "Wicked Lake". Yes, clearly this is a hipster wannabe video store that this guy goes too.

Then we have trailers for "Zombi Holocaust"; a crappy looking horror film with porn star Sasha Grey, called "Smash Cut"; and finally Joe D'amato's "Buio Omega", which is a classic. Extras score a dismal 2.5/5. If Media Blasters actually put in the effort to make their interviews entertaining, it would be very nice.

Overall: 3/5

Media Blasters; where quality doesn't matter, but they'll take your dollar. It's a shame "Burial Grounds" got this kind of treatment, then again, it could be worse. They could have cancelled it like they did "Zombie 4" and "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals". They do not respect Italian cinema and give you a crappy transfer for most of their titles. Extras with interviews where the cast and crew don't care. And delay titles constantly. It's a shame 3/5.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Godzilla Vs Biollante (1989)

Movie: 5/5
Video: 4/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 3.5/5
Overall: 4.5/5

"Godzilla's 17th Outing."

Godzilla Vs Biollante, the seventeenth outing of Japan's biggest monster, makes it's way to the U.S. on Blu-ray for the first time since it's original VHS release in 1992 by HBO Video for Miramax, pre-Disney buyout. After the events in the 1984 reboot, Godzilla (or Godzilla 1985 to us in the States); Godzilla is reawakened after a Middle Eastern terror cell and a group known as "Bio-Major" blow up Mt. Mihara. Which is where he was sucked into at the end of the last film. At the same time, a mad scientist takes Godzilla cells and mixes them with the DNA of a rose and accidentally creates a giant monster named Biollante. The first incarnation of Biollante is in the form of a beautiful rose but with some nasty vines with Godzilla-esque jaws. Biollante is quickly defeated and burned up by Godzilla's heat ray. Biollante returns in a deadlier form ready to take on Godzilla and save Japan.

I remember being about four years old whenever I saw this, probably around 1993. This was the first Godzilla film I saw in it's original aspect ratio as HBO presented all VHS copies of this film in 1.85:1. A rarity as most Godzilla films were presented in their hacked up 1.33:1 crops. What I love about this film is that this is like Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla in a way, we have a monster that is Godzilla-esque. Especially when we have the final form of Biollante going up against Godzilla, it's DNA really makes it close to Godzilla. I give the film a 5/5.

Video: 4/5
The video source is the Toho remaster from 2008. Which is amazing that both Echo Bridge and the horrible Media Blasters can get their hands on the Japanese prints as opposed to being handed the international prints by Toho. My biggest complaint about this restoration is that since this is the Japanese remasters, it has Japanese subtitles burned into the video for whenever the film has English dialogue. The overall image is soft; it doesn't hurt the detail at all in the image. There is some slight compression that is noticeable when there's smoke, but only if you are looking for it. 4/5.

Audio: 5/5
We have three audio tracks present on the disc; Japanese 5.1 DTS-HD MA; Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0; and English Mono Dolby Digital 1.0. For an old English Mono track that seems that it's sourced from a VHS tape, it's passable. The Japanese DTS-HD MA track is beautiful. I believe this is the remixed audio created back in the early 2000's. The 2.0 Japanese track sounds ok. I give it a 5/5.

Extras: 3.5/5
We have about an hour of bonus material, presented in SD. This making of was presented on the Thai DVD that I own, so I have seen it before. It contains behind the scenes footage as well as deleted scenes. Then we have concept models made for what Biollante was originally supposed to look like. There was like three or so designs that we had on it. It's pretty amazing. I give the extras a 3.5/5.

Overall: 4.5/5
For us Godzilla fans, this is a no brainer, considering that it's going for $7.99. This Blu-ray is amazing and is a must own. We got the same restoration as Japan got and for a fraction of the price that it goes for over in Japan. I give this release a 4.5/5.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The Killer (1989) / Hard Boiled (1992)

Movie: 5/5
Video: 3/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 3/5

"It's Not a Party if You Don't Have a Gun in Both Hands!"

Movies:

The Killer (1989): 5/5

Chow Yun-Fat is "Mickey Mouse", a professional killer for hire. After having a shootout in a bar, he leaves a beautiful singer blind. He secretly follows her around and begins to know her after she is being mugged one night after leaving the bar. The police are following in on him and his whereabouts. Soon, the Triads and police are all closing in on him.

It's a pretty sweet action film. I remember seeing this film in the winter of 1999. I was ten years old and was pretty blown away at the action in this. Chow Yun-Fat does a great job in this movie. And the ending is pretty spectacular. I give the film a 5/5.

Hard Boiled (1992): 5/5

Chow Yun-Fat is on the law's side in John Woo's follow up. This time Chow is Tequlia, a cop is down and out after his partner gets killed in a tea house. Tequlia vows to get all of those responsible and that leads him onto the trail of Alan. Alan, played by Tony Leung, is an informant who is way over his head and it has come to the point where he has no way out. It all leads to a massive, all out war at a hospital where police and Triads collide.

This film is nothing short of a masterpiece. Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung are a great duo who constantly bicker and kick ass throughout the movie. The whole warehouse raid is amazing as we have nothing but gunfire and explosions left and right. And the whole hospital sequence at the end just tops it. This is the essential action movie. 5/5.

Video: 3/5
Before I start going into the video for both films, I am not sure if the original individual releases by Dragon Dynasty/The Weinstein Company/Vivendi Visual/Whatever has this, but Alliance put a warning screen before we get to the menu that says:

"The quality of the audio and video on this Blu-ray may reflect the age of the source material."

That is because there is some bad quality control problems with the transfers. Starting with The Killer; I question when this HD master was created, because no way was it in 2010 when this was released on the format. Horrible is an under statement for this film. In the opening when we see Chow Yun-Fat leaving the church, you think you'd be able to see his face as he walks towards the camera in this shot, but you can't even make out his face at all. Was that him? The details were so blocky and blurry that I'm unable to tell.

The grain is faked out like crazy to try to make this pass off as a decent film transfer. But the grain can't hide the macro-blocks that popped up on Chow Yun-Fat's face several times. If this was a real HD sourced transfer, it must have been made in the late 1990's, maybe around the time the film itself had turned ten years old. There's no way this was made in the 2000's. It's bad. There should be clarity; instead, white bleeds through the image like crazy and daytime scenes look disastrous to the eyes. 2/5

Hard Boiled is not as disastrous of a transfer. While this one is far from perfect, the action scenes are mostly preserved, especially most of the epic hospital shootout at the end. However, the image constantly wobbles in places. We also have a lot of print damage present throughout the film. Saturation and contrast is pretty strong.

When the presentation of Hard Boiled is nice and crystal clear, it's amazing. It's just a shame that Hard Boiled and The Killer could not get that five star treatment like they did when they were released by Criterion. These would have been excellent releases. But, at the end of the day, I give the transfer for Hard Boiled a 3.5/5.

Audio: 4/5
Oddly, The Killer is presented in English and Cantonese Dolby Digital 2.0. When you select the Chinese audio, the English subtitles are forced, and you cannot turn them on if you select English audio. The audio tracks are average. I prefered the sound of the Cantonese audio more than the English dubbing. Why we couldn't get this in DTS-HD MA is beyond me. 2.5/5.

Hard Boiled,unlike The Killer, is presented with English and Cantonese DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks on this disc. Just like the previous film, subtitles are forced on the Cantonese audio. Why you would force subtitles is idiotic to me. The audio is pretty sweet on this one. The music of the saxophone playing when Tony Leung enters the film and various explosions boom throughout; it's a shame The Killer couldn't get this treatment audio wise. 5/5.

Extras: 0/5
This Blu-ray contains no extras.

Overall: 3/5
Despite the horrible visual presentations, I felt this was worth the $17 I got it for. I am sure you can get the individual, domestic U.S. releases for about the same price I got this Canadian release for. These two films are classics. Just hope and pray that Criterion can get the rights back and do these films proper, especially The Killer. 3/5.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Blade (1998)


Movie: 5/5
Video: 2/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 3/5

"A Great Movie Ruined By Cropped Aspect Ratio."

Movie:

I remember being an eight year old child in the year 1998. It was about a month before my ninth birthday when Blade came out. Sure, most children wouldn't be taken to see an R-rated action film like this. But, my parents taught me from a young age that what I saw on screen was not real. That was essentially one of the things that got me to really like filmmaking. So, by the time I was five or six, I saw Species. And I was seven years old when I watched An American Werewolf in London, Alien, and Evil Dead. Point being, I was exposed to stuff most parents probably wouldn't dream of in this day and age with political correctness. And I am sure most would probably place Blade in that category.

Blade is based off of the popular Marvel comic story of a half-human, half-vampire who goes around saving the world from the vampire underworld. A vampire by the name of Deacon Frost sets to bring about a vampire God known as La Magra. While Blade sets out to stop Deacon, he has a young medical examiner named Karen held captive as she was bitten by one of Deacon's henchmen. While in Blade's care, Karen believes that she has found a cure that could possibly end the vampire plague.

This was a childhood favorite. An example of what action was to me as a child; we see Snipes as Blade busting up an underground vampire dance club causing a full vampire slaughter. Snipes was great as Blade and the same goes for Stephen Dorff as Deacon. We see how ruthless our protagonist and antagonist get to their goals. And the final battle is nothing but badass. I give this film a 5/5 for being nostalgic reasons.

Video:
Alliance brought Blade to Blu-ray years before WB made their initial release in 2012. I picked up this Blu-ray in March 2011 as a local grocery store I frequent oddly carries Canadian DVDs and Blu-rays in their cheapo bins. This transfer is pretty bad; it is cropped from 2.35 to 1.78 and there is a major amount of image cut off from the sides of the screen and everything is pretty much dead center of the image. The main thing that I learned from my film classes is that you want to keep the audience's eyes moving around the screen. The eyes don't move that much with this transfer of the film.

While cropping is the biggest offender on this release, I couldn't find any real print damage to the film. The details are okay. Seeing this cropped version, I didn't realize that Frost's eye glow red when he's covered in backlighting towards the end of the film. I am giving the video a 2/5, only because of this bad crop job that the film has.

Audio:
Alliance has given us three audio tracks for the film; English DTS-HD MA 5.1 and English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks. I have listened to the film dubbed in French, since it's my third language. For a French dub and for an audio track, it sounded ok. The Dolby Digital in English sounds tame and you have to manually switch over with your remote to the DTS-HD MA track as the DD is the default. The DTS-HD MA track sounds pretty good. I have no real complaints towards it. 5/5 for the sound presentation.

Extras:
None. The movie has a screen that will tell you that the movie will begin and that's it. 0/5.

Overall:
Blade remains a childhood favorite of mine. For us who got this Canadian release, it's a shame that they decided to release this film cropped. The visual presentation is hands down the biggest thing for me when it comes to watching movies. Seeing stuff get cropped from it's original aspect ratio to, like, 1.33 like Howling 3 and McLintock! is a damn shame, especially in this day and age. And that applies to movies being cropped from 2.35 to 1.78. This release does not deserve the score it gets. 3/5.

The Tourist (2011)


Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 4/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

"Another Remake."

Another remake, this time of the French film Anthony Zimmer, The Tourist stars Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in the lead roles. While I haven't seen the original film, I did find this one to be an okay film. In this film, Johnny Depp is Frank, a math teacher, from Wisconsin who is travelling after the death of his wife. While on a train from France to Italy, he meets Elise, who is waiting for her fugitive husband. After arriving in Italy; Frank is being chased down by corrputed Italian police, Russian mobsters, and British Secret Service.

I give the film a 3.5/5. It is certainly better than some of the recent films that both actors have put out lately; Dark Shadows! It's not perfect by any means. I did notice that one of the Russian mobsters was the antagonist of another film I recently reviewed, the straight-to-video Driven to Kill with Steven Seagal. Will I search out the original French film? Maybe if there's a Blu-ray out there.

Before we continue on with the review; this is the disc from the Steelbook release which came out in September 2012. Despite the disc art, I am assuming this is the same disc from the original release due to the fact that the British and German studios which Studio Canal converted are their original names; Optimum and Kinowelt, respectively. Also, disc is Region B locked.

Video:
The video presentation on this disc is questionable. I am not sure if this is entirely the same master presented on the American release by Sony. The video is almost flawless during the first hour. I could have sworn that this was possibly shot digitally after looking at it close up. But, when we get to around an hour, six minutes in, the problems start. In the scene where Angelina's character is talking to Paul Bettany's character, a large scratch pops up on the screen. Then when we get to the climax of the film; shots are almost completely out of focus. It was almost jarring to look at. Then, on top of that, there is more print damage that we are dealing with. Not sure if Studio Canal was just given a print of the film or this was the master itself. Despite these problems, I give the video a 4/5.

Audio:
We have three audio tracks present on the film; English, French, and German. Studio Canal has presented all three audio tracks in DTS-HD MA 5.1. After watching the film in English; I went through the film and sampled the French and German tracks. They are both on par with the English track. No real complaints here. 5/5.

Extras:
"Bringing Glamour" which discusses the making of the film with the director and cast. "Canal Chats" which starts with the director talking about a ritual smoke on the way home. Then we have the producer and one of the writers giving some input on the film and shooting in Venice. "Traveling the Canals of Venice", mostly the same as the last feature, this time with the actors, mostly. "Action in Venice" which dissects one of the action scenes in the film. "The Gala" which is the crew talking about constructing the gala scene towards the end of the film. Then finally we have outtakes, an interview with Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck, and a collection of trailers. Why most of these weren't merged into a "Making of" is beyond me. It's informative, but pointless to have them all chopped up into bits like this. I did like it. 5/5.

Overall:
If you live in Europe, this disc will suit you. If you're in the States, then just stick to the Sony release. Unless you're a Steelbook collector. I got this from a seller who swapped the discs out. I think for the price I paid for, which was about $4, I can recommend it. 4/5.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

I Spit on Your Grave (1978 - 2010)

Movie: 2/5
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 2.5/5
Overall: 3/5

"Sleazy Fun for the Whole Family..."

Movie:

I Spit on Your Grave (1978):The original 1979 film is a classic that gives The Last House on the Left a run for it's money. Jennifer Hills is an aspiring author who takes off to the remote country side to write her first book. After meeting a few of the town folk, Jennifer goes out one day and is attacked and brutally raped and left for dead. Soon, Jennifer finds the nerve to take revenge and will make them all pay.

It seems like this was the thing back in the 1970's; with films like Last House on the Left, Trip with the Teacher, and I Spit on Your Grave. Woman. or women if this is Trip with the Teacher, get raped and go out for revenge. Because clearly the law does not exist in these type of films. My main complaint with the time length is that's about fifteen to twenty minutes too long; it clocks in at 106 minutes long. The kills are pretty good, vfx wise, but the film drags a bit. It's not that bad compared to something like A Serbian Film. I give the original I Spit on Your Grave a 3.5/5.

I Spit on Your Grave (2010): *CAUTION: SPOILERS! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!*

Whoever decided that film should be remade should hopefully never work on another feature film again. This film is downright horrible and for the fact that Meir Zarchi himself has defending this film is wrong. The acting is bad; the story, with how much has been changed from the original, is worse. Since I am sure this was low budget and I'm going to guess about $5 million, the producers couldn't get big talent like Kirsten Stewart, Jason Statham, Timothy Olyphant, Eli Roth, Giovanni Ribbisi, and Ethan Suplee to head this cast; so you know what they do? Get a bunch of look-a-likes to fill the roles!

Jennifer Hills is played by Sarah Butler who has the same dead-in-the-eyes look like Kirsten Stewart, but gives a better performance than Stewart ever could; who this time has all ready written several novels and is on a retreat to write her next book. Que in the gas station attendent not played by Timothy Olyphant; the handicapped Matthew not played by Giovanni Ribbisi; cameraman not played by Ethan Suplee; and finally not Eli Roth. But, wait, to be creative; they added a fifth rapist! Bring in Not Jason Statham as the main villain of the film!

This film wants to be better version of Saw or Hostel or A Serbian Film but fails miserably as we add in the extreme torture which was not really part of the original film. These deaths feel more Saw-like than what the original 1979 I Spit on Your Grave had to offer, because these deaths are elaborate as hell. And to give some spoilers here, I don't think having your eyes plucked out of your head by horrible CGI crows will kill you. I think Not Ethan Suplee will be ok.

Steven Monroe, much like the director of The Hitcher remake, should be ashamed for making this film. What made the original I Spit on Your Grave such a trying film is that we see the hell that Jennifer goes through. We follow her throughout the film. We don't follow these horrible look-a-like actors as they pee their pants like school kids. I found no redeeming qualities to this film and it wanted to be violent for the sake of being violent. There was no justification, spoilers here, to kidnapping Not Jason Statham's daughter. And on top of that there was no resolution to that either. Did Jennifer kill the daughter? The answer is; "This remake sucked!" .5/5.

Video:
For the original 1979, I Spit on Your Grave, the transfer is conflicting. While I praise the rich detail in the colors that has been preserved on this transfer; there is always some sort of problem to it. The video is shaking up and down for a majority of the opening of the film. It was driving me nuts to see this thing bouncing. The print damage of dirt and specs did not bother me as much as that bouncing did. There was one scene where it took place at night where there was some discoloration. If it was not for these flaws, this would have been the perfect transfer for a film that is over thirty years old. I give the video presentation a 3.5/5.

The 2010 remake of I Spit on Your Grave was shot on a Red camera. However, when they shot it, they did it at a bad frame rate. Most of the film looks like PAL video converted to NTSC. It looks badly sped up like the 2D version of My Bloody Valentine 3D in a lot of shots. Even a shot in the forest when we first see Not Jason Statham's character has this bizarre shot where everything is fuzzy. I was like; "What's with the video here?" While the detail is mostly there, this problematic frame-rate is an extreme buzz kill. I give the video a 3.5/5.

Audio:
The main audio presentation on the original film is an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track. I know audio isn't my strongest field of expertise, but even after listening to this, the audio is the weakest part of the original film's presentation. Sounds, like hearing the engine to a boat sound weak and not booming at all. While hearing Jennifer scream and cry in pain sound convincing in this audio track, there seems to be no real remaster to this at all. I give the audio a 2.5/5.

Well, we have the same English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track on the 2010 remake. The detail on the audio is pretty good. No real complaints out of it. We hear shotgun blasts pretty loud and clear. Dialog sounds good. I give it a 5/5.

Extras:
For the original film, we have two commentary tracks; one by Meir Zarchi and another by Joe Bob Briggs. Both commentaries are ok. I do appreciate Joe Bob Briggs' input on this; as I grew up watching him on weekends on TNT when I was child. We also have trailers, TV spots, Meir Zarchi giving a look back on the film; a photo gallery; and an alternate title card which is for Day of the Woman. Which, you know, both titles don't really fit. But, hey. I give the original film's bonus a 3/5.

For the remake we have a commentary by the director and one of the co-producers. "Revenge of Jennifer Hills" which has Meir Zarchi and some others talking about how much they loved and crapped all over the original film with this remake. Some deleted scenes. And trailers. I give the bonus a 1.5/5. I wasn't interested in this stuff as much as I hated this remake.

Overall:
I got this on the Best Buy Upgrade and Save after taking in a DVD to get a $5 off coupon. I got this double feature Blu-ray for $5.33 after tax. On one hand, I did end up liking the original film. But, just downright hated the remake. I find it insulting that this was made and that I wasted my time on it. I give this release a 3/5. Only get it if you like the original film.

Female Convict Scorpion (2007)

Movie: 2.5/5
Video: 3/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 1.5/5
Overall: 3/5

"An Example of a Poor Screen Writing"

"Sasori" aka "Female Convict: Scorpion" is a 2007 Chinese-Japanese co-production. Based on the Japanese manga and 70's film series with the same name, Miki Mizuno of "Gamera 2" fame is Nami. A beautiful woman who is forced to kill her boyfriend's father. After her boyfriend arrives, he finds Nami holding a knife to her boyfriend's sister. After killing her, she is taken into police custody and is put into a harsh prison environment that is kill or be killed.

This film tries too hard to be smart and it leaves you with more questions than answers to the villain's true plot to the film. Why did the villain want the boyfriend's father dead? Why did we not learn who the villain was until the last half hour of the film? Why were the fight scenes with Nami and the people who forced her to kill her boyfriend's father so short at the end of the film? The whole damn prison fight sequences went on and on, but this was like two second kills here.

This film is nothing more but an example of poor screen writing. As an audience who are watching Nami go out for revenge are stuck watching her fight in a prison and questioning when she is going to be getting her vengeance. Where the writing is poor for most of the film, the action was mostly entertaining. I will give it that. Film gets a dismal 2.5/5.

Video:
This is my third outing with the despicable Media Blasters, the other two being Devil Dog and Destroy All Monsters. I am going to guess the Chinese studio who released the film handled the transfer for the film. It's amazing how rough a five year film can actually look. The film has constant print damage througout. There is a scene or two that you can tell is meant to have print damage as part of the story, but, that you can tell is faked print damage. Also, there's a few shots that looked blurry. Also, the film looks totally washed out and contrast is blown out. I am not sure if it's a director's choice or not, but this does not bode well. Video scores a 3/5.


Audio:
Media Blasters has given us two audio tracks present on this disc; Chinese DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1. Why we need a 2.0 track when 5.1 is fine as it is make that whole audio track questionable and a waste of space. The 5.1 track sounds great. We can hear sounds of Nami's sword hitting nicely. However, something feels a bit missing from the audio. Also, this registers as Japanese even though it's Chinese on my system. An authoring error by Media Blasters, go figure. I give the audio a 4/5.

Extras:
We only have trailers for Female Convict: Scorpion; Crows Zero; and Hansel and Gretel. The two trailers for the last two titles do have my interest and I might seek them out in the future. However, as far as extras go, this is a weak offering from Media Blasters. 1.5/5.

Overall:
Why was this film made? Can someone answer this question for me? I really don't know. It's just a poorly written and paced action movie that really had it's climax in the whole prison sequence with 45 minutes of filler after it. Don't pay more than $6 like I did for this. 3/5.

Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)

Movie: 4.5/5
Video: 4.5/5
Audio: 2.5/5
Extras: 0/5

Overall: 3/5
"A Great Catalog Release From Mill Creek!"

The "Ernest" films were watched frequently in my childhood. I had a VHS tape of Ernest Scared Stupid that I had watched constantly throughout the years. Jim Varney is Ernest, the "Great Redneck Hope" in this family themed horror film. Ernest awakens an ancient troll hellbent on kidnapping children and turning them into wooden dolls. After he collects five, he can bring about his evil army to destroy the world.

Seeing this constantly as a child, this film means a lot to me. It's a great blend of horror-comedy with Jim Varney as the bumbling Ernest. It's not perfect, as you can crack a lot of jokes about the film. Like; why do none of the parents want Ernest near the kids? That comes up a lot in the film with no real reason why. I mean, has Ernest met Chris Hansen? With To Catch a Predator jokes aside, the film is pretty entertaining, especially with the visual effects of how the trolls look. Our main trill, Trantor looks frightening that might be a little much for smaller children. I give the film a 4.5/5.



Video:
Mill Creek has given Ernest Scared Stupid a fantastic visual presentation. Presented in 1080p with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the film is near perfection. The only real problem is print damage which pops up here and there. Also, there's a scene where there's some discoloration on the right side of the screen towards the end of the film. Other than that, for a film that is over twenty years old, this is the best it will ever look. 4.5/5.

Audio:

Mill Creek gives us a basic Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track for Ernest Scared Stupid.It would have been perfect if it had a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track, but we can only dream. The audio track itself is average, leaving you for more out of this release. 2.5/5.
Extras:
None, 0/5.

Overall:
Despite the bad audio and no extras, Mill Creek has given us a great visual presentation on Ernest Scared Stupid. And the great thing is that you can get this release for $1 at Dollar Tree! I give this release a 3/5 and I quite recommend it.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Driven to Kill (2009) / Supercop (1992) / Bravo Two Zero (1999)

Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 4/5
Audio: 3/5
Extras: 1/5
Overall: 3/5

"Supercop is Finally in it's Original Aspect Ratio!"

Movies: 3.5/5
Driven to Kill (2009):

I have not had the pleasure of seeing much of these straight to video Steven Seagal films that he's been cranking out these past ten years or so. I was genuinely interested in seeing Against the Dark and felt that it was an average Vampire (or Zombie) film. This film, Driven to Kill, was initially released by 20th Century Fox in 2009 and has somehow made it's way into Echo Bridge's hands. I haven't seen the original Fox release and I don't really plan on seeking it out, but Echo Bridge is credited in the opening titles. So, I don't know if they were behind this film from the beginning or what.

Steven Seagal is Ruslan, a Russian gangster who is flying from California to New York to attend his daughter's wedding. Once there, Ruslan, meets his soon to be son-in-law and discovers that he's a wanna-be Russian mobster. Ruslan confronts him and he spills the beans that his father wants him to stay in the family business. Ruslan leaves to get ready for the wedding and then all hell breaks loose. Ruslan's ex-wife is murdered and his daughter is now in a coma. Ruslan seeks out the people who are responsible and will make them pay.

This film is all over the place and the acting is bad. Steven Seagal and most of the other actors are dubbed and the dubbing job is horrendous. In some scenes, it does sound like Seagal, but he is just bumbling and you can barely understand anything that comes out of his mouth. In the opening scene where Ruslan is talking to some bimbo, you can barely understand what he is saying. If this was me, I would have gone back and reshot this. I know that Seagal works his butt off and cranks these movies out, but seriously, you got have some integrity on these. But, overall, if you got time to kill; I'd give it a shot. 2.5/5.

Supercop (1992):
This is my fourth copy of Supercop and third review of it. I need to finish my review on the High-Powered Action Pack. To get my views on Supercop, please visit my review for it's individual release. 5/5.

Bravo Two Zero (1999):
Sean Bean is Andy, a British soldier behind enemy lines and is a P.O.W. in Bravo Two Zero. Based on the brutal true story where a group of British soldiers are sent in to stop SCUD missiles. After they're spotted by child herding sheep, Andy his other seven comrades are running for their lives from the Iraqi forces. After Andy is captured, he is put to the test of not spilling the beans of the mission and pays greatly for his country.

The film moves slowly in the first forty-five minutes. But it picks up once they are on the run from the Iraqi troops. I was pretty much hooked after that. I think it's two hour run time is a bit too long, like I said, it was slow for almost an hour. I give the film a 3.5/5.

Video: 4/5
The video presentation on Driven to Kill is a decent one. I have not seen the Fox Blu-ray, but saw screen captures of it. I am not sure this is the same transfer or not. It is pretty good. Presented in 1.85:1 in 1080p with an AVC encode. Bitrate is pretty high and there's a nice layer of grain present. I have no real complaints with the video on this. It's not that bad, but it's a little far from perfection. 4/5.

The video presentation for Supercop is magnificent! Third time was the charm for Equilibrium; fourth time is the charm for Supercop! Presented in AVC and 1080p with it's original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Let's give Filmyard Holdings and Echo Bridge a hand here for this presentation. Oddly, it seems to come from Italy as an Italian language title card pops up at the end of the film after the blooper-credits. The film has print damage and the right side gets a tad blurry here and there, but it's nothing major. While looking over it on my PS3, the Mbps is right around the low to mid-20's in terms of video bitrate. It is a nice and beautiful presentation. While it isn't perfect, I award Supercop a nice 4/5.

Bravo Two Zero will never look good in HD. A lot of the stock footage of the Gulf War is sourced from very poor quality VHS tapes. The interlacing on those transferred tapes is pretty God-awful. The footage that was actually shot by the director and crew is decent but probably filmed with low end film stock. I haven't had a chance to compare this copy of Bravo Two Zero with the double feature that has Men of War. It does get pretty rough in a few minutes during the last twenty minutes of the film when the men are in the Military Prison in Baghdad. I give the video for this film a 3/5.

Audio: 3/5
The audio on all three films is Dolby Digital 2.0. Yes, that is correct; no DTS-HD MA like most of their other releases, this time we get the old school DD2.0 audio. The audio on Driven to Kill is pretty good for a 2.0 track. We can clearly hear the sounds of gun cartridges being swapped out and explosions sounds good. It's not perfect, but I am guessing this is what the director had done in post as there's some scenes where you can barely hear Seagal's mumbling. I award a 3.5/5 for the audio on Driven to Kill.

With the audio on Supercop, it is a bummer. We have been downgraded from the DTS-HD MA 2.0 that we had on the initial Supercop and double feature release with Twin Dragons; then with the DTS-HD MA 5.1 on the High-Powered Action Pack, then harshly downgraded to Dolby Digital 2.0! That's rough, we finally get it in the original aspect ratio. The audio is bit low in first few minutes of the film. However, it does seem to pick up when they break Panther out of prison. I give the audio a 3/5, it's a little more than average for a twenty year old film.

Finally in our final film on this disc, the audio presentation of Bravo Two Zero is tame. I found myself having to turn up the audio on my television a few time to hear what was being said. Like the two previous films, Echo Bridge has given us just Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. Considering this a war film, we could hear things like tanks running around the desert pretty good, but just some of the dialogue was real low. I give the audio a 2.5/5.

Extas: 1/5
While most might not consider this an extra, we get a DVD triple feature packaged with this Blu-ray. It's a Jackie Chan triple feature containing Dragon Lord, Project A, and Project A 2. While I award this only a 1 out of 5 stars; it would be nice if this was a Blu-ray instead of a DVD. We all ready have Project A and Project A 2 on Blu-ray from Echo Bridge. DVD does not mean anything to me anymore, but I don't want to give this a straight zero stars, I'll give it a 1/5.

Overall: 3/5
Considering I got this for $7.99 + tax at Best Buy, I can recommend it at least for Supercop since it's finally available in it's original aspect ratio. Not too big on the fact that they threw in a bonus DVD of Jackie Chan films since, you know, this is Blu-ray that we're talking about here. Bravo Two Zero, I can recommend because of Sean Bean. We all love Sean Bean. What's not to love about Sean Bean? And well, Driven to Kill is ok if you want to see a crappy straight to video Steven Seagal film. I give this Blu-ray release a 3/5.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

The Crow: City of Angels (1996) & The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005)

Movie: 2.5/5
Video: 4/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 2/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Lionsgate Has the First and Third Entries of "The Crow".

"The Crow: City of Angels" (1996)

I have reviewed the original Blu-ray release in 2011 when it was part of the initial roll out of Miramax titles at Echo Bridge. I gave that Blu-ray an overall 2.5/5; it contained a 1080i video presentation along with DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio and no bonus material at all. How does The Crow: City of Angels compare in this double feature? Well, it is the 91 minute "Director's Cut" of the film.

The story centers around father who, along with his child, is killed by a gang of drug dealers. A year later, he is brought back to life by a crow to take revenge upon the people who wronged him. The film is a true sequel to first film as the character Sara, played by Mia Kirshner, is back guiding Ashe on his journey of revenge. In my opinion, I prefer The Crow: City of Angels over the first film with Brandon Lee; the whole coming back premise seems to work better with a father than a boyfriend avenging the death of his soon to be wife. The film is not perfect at all and the only thing that helps this is the casting. Vincent Perez as the lead and Iggy Bop and an unknown Thomas Jane as some of the villains made for a fun ninety minutes of time. Movie gets a 4/5.

Video: 4/5
After going back and forth and checking both discs, the director's cut on this disc is presented in 1.85:1 MPEG-4 AVC in 1080p; whereas the "theatrical cut" release was 1080i. These two transfers are night and day, however this new transfer is not perfect, it's far from it. While playing the original on my PS3, I noticed how rough the playback was compared to the new release. Even though this new transfer is 1080p, there is three instances of interlacing that I caught. Some slight spoliers, a flashback scene has one second at the 19 minute mart. Towards the end when the birds are flying around Ashe. And then once more when Ashe says he's going to "A better place." Other than that, the print is riddled with print damage, but it's not that bad. This is the best it will get until there is a full blown frame by frame restoration. Do I feel that I am being generous with this rating? Yes; considering the last release, this is much better. 4/5.

Audio: 5/5
Presented on this disc is two audio tracks; 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD MA. There's no real complaints on the audio. Why they decided to put a 2.0 track along with the 5.1 makes no real sense to me. It's unwanted space hogging data. But, hearing the SFX and cawing of the crows, it's really good. 5/5.

Extras: 2.5/5
Echo Bridge is starting to venture out into putting more extras on their Miramax releases. However, they put a piece of bonus material on the disc for the wrong film. There is a twenty minute interview with Brandon Lee. If this were the first film, I wouldn't have a problem with this. Then finally, a seven minute featurette with screenwriter David Goyer discussing how they tackled the sequel. Other people from the film pop up like Mia Kirshner and Tim Pope. I give the extras a 2.5/5.

Overall: 4/5
Echo Bridge should have gave us this the first time around. It seems it's more trial and error than just quality control. Now, it would have been nice if they put both the 86 minute theatrical cut and the 91 minute director's cut on the initial disc, in 1080p. If you want to get The Crow: City of Angels, this double feature is the copy to get. I paid $10 online for my copy; I know Wal-Mart had copies of this for $5 and sadly the Wal-Mart in my area never freakin' carries new releases. I give this portion of the disc a 4/5.

"The Crow: Wicked Prayer" (2005)

This film is a farce. Mostly whenever a series hits the fourth entry, it's downhill. Seeing a film with a cast like this, you can't possibly think this is going to be a bad film. We have Danny Trejo, Dennis Hopper, and David Boreanaz; on top of that Tito Ortiz, Tara Reid, and Edward Furlung as the hero! There are so many other actors who could have possibly played this lead; hell David Boreanaz should have been the lead. That would have been a much interesting take on the character, but, no. We have this abomination that's kinda like The Crow: Salvation which is essentially just a remake of the first film starring Brandon Lee. Seriously, boyfriend and girlfriend die and boyfriend is brought back to life to seek revenge. That's it. Except, this time, we have the four losers of the apocalypse who think that they can bring hell on Earth.

The acting is atrocious; who honestly thought that this line up of "actors" like Tito Ortiz and Edward Furlung would make a good combination? Edward Furlung looks like an emo teenage girl who went shopping at a Hot Topic; that whole get up screams Hot Topic. I hope people got fired over this film, I know it's wrong, but have you seen this film? It makes me angry just thinking about who honestly thought this was a good idea to make. Film scores a .5/5.

Video: 4/5
Echo Bridge has given The Crow: Wicked Prayer almost a perfect transfer. It's always strange to see a bad film get a good transfer. Presented in 1.78 with an MPEG4 AVC transfer; there is print damage here and there and a shot or two that look a little too soft. But, upon watching the commentary, some of these soft looking shots were explained, so I cannot really point that out as Echo Bridge's fault. Grain is mostly present throughout. Other than what I mentioned, there's no real complaints; video gets a 4/5.

Audio: 5/5
The film has two audio tracks present; a DTS-HD MA 2.0 & 5.1 tracks. Upon sampling the two tracks, the 2.0 track sounds loud. Voices and effects have a boost to them and the 5.1 track sounds weak in comparison. I don't know why that is. Usually the 5.1 is the track of choice, but if you watch this, give it a spin in the DTS-HD MA 2.0. Audio gets a 5/5.

Extras: 1/5
The extra features in this portion of the disc contains two deleted scenes; a discussion called "El Pinto"; watching the composer work in "Jaime's Attic"; and finally a commentary track. Commentary is nothing but ramblings and pointing out faults; again, this whole film is a farce! The extras are lame for a farce of a film like this. If this was like the second film and it had bonus material like this, I wouldn't find it to be so bad. None of this is worth your time. Extras score a 1/5.

Overall: 2.5/5
A bad film gets a good transfer. That seems to be all the rage these days. With this and Piranha 3DD, I don't get it. It's also a shame that Echo Bridge didn't get the rights to the third film, The Crow: Salvation. The whole Lionsgate taking first grabs at titles; they picked some of the crappy-girly romance stuff like Bridget Jones and the Mimic sequels over From Dusk Till Dawn; Hellraiser; and Halloween films. They take The Crow and The Crow: Salvation yet say; "Screw the second film, we want the first and third!" And now this is the result of that choice; City of Angels on a double feature Blu-ray with Wicked Prayer.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5
Rounding up the initial votes:

Film: 4 + .5 = 4.5/2 = 2.25. I'll round to 2.5/5.
Video: 4/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 2.5 + 1 = 3.5/2 = 1.75. I'll round that to 2/5.

Those added up and divided equals 3.375/5 which I will round to 3.5. If you don't own the initial release of The Crow: City of Angels, this is the copy to get. The Crow: Wicked Prayer is a POS film and is honestly not worth your time viewing. Despite that, I felt like this was $10 well spent. 3.5/5.

Monday, September 24, 2012

Cleanskin (2012)

Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 3/5
Overall: 4/5

The War On Terror ... in England.

I was quite surprised to see how fast Cleanskin got it's release here in the United States. The British Blu-ray by the UK branch of Warner Bros. made it's release in July 2012 and we got it two months later. This was one where I had honestly thought I would have to import if I wanted to see it. Luckily, this is not the case and after doing some online searching, I scored my copy for $9.75. Cleanskin is about the war on terror in England as it deals with a young man named Ash, played by Abhin Galeya, who becomes a terrorist after being recruited one day while leaving class at the university he was attending. Sean Bean plays Ewan who was guarding a man who had a certain amount of explosives in his possession and gets killed while transporting it. Said explosives ends up in the terrorists hands and Ewan is given orders by his boss, played by the great Charlotte Rampling, to eliminate the threat.

For what it is, I enjoyed it. There is one major flaw that puzzles me. Without trying to spoil it to an extant, Ash witnesses a death and his reaction to it honestly made it seem that he was not going to take the route that he takes in the film. I think Abhin Galeya gives a great performance in this film, especially with the range that he shows in this. Sean Bean does a great job playing the disgruntled hero of the film. I wish he had more screen time; however,  I will not disclose if he lives or dies, I think you should give this film a watch in order to find out. Despite the flaws, it's a good action film for a small independent British production. 3.5/5.

Video: 3.5/5
Ok, the movie is shot on 35mm film. At one scene in the first twenty minutes or so, there's some excessive print damage going on in a shot. Also, there seems to be something a little off in the video; and upon watching the bonus material, I realized what it was. In the making of, they said that the 35mm was then transferred over to HD tape. HD tape only has a limited range in what it can offer. Certainly not full 1080p, but you can get 1080i out of it. It sounds rather barbaric in a way that they didn't have this transferred over by a datacine to a digital file to edit it on, especially since this film was shot in 2011 and released in 2012. But, if you sit back a distance from it, it does look nice and clean, but up close, something looks off on it. It's not as bad as I make it out to be, but still. Video scores a 3.5/5.

Audio: 5/5
Entertainment One has given us two audio options for Cleanskin; 5.1 Dolby Digital and 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio. For what it is, the 5.1 DD track is average. Why they decided to put this audio track on the disc, I don't know why. It could have saved them a few hundred MBs in data. The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track sounds great. Fight scenes sound exceptional. Sean Bean as Ewan growling his lines in a pub scene sound like you are right there. Audio scores a 5/5.

Extras: 3/5
We only have two main extras included on the disc. We have a trailer and the Making of. If you have seen the British trailer, it's essentially that. But, the logos have been switched out on it as Warner Bros does not have U.S. rights to this film, it was changed to the name of the British production company's name in those few seconds of screen time. But, it is the British none the less. Then we have a 20 minute Making Of; and it's pretty informative on the whole production process. Sean Bean has a lot of input during this and it's great to hear his thoughts on the film. Several of the other actors involved give their take on the film. Other than that, there's a few trailers that play before we get to the menu; off the top of my head we have Iron Sky and Cosmopolis. Extras score a 3/5.

Overall: 4/5
Entertainment One has given us a quality release of the film. They also seem to be picking up some of the obscure Sean Bean stuff like The Lost Future and Age of Heroes. I do look forward to getting the Blu-rays of those titles, however, Lost Future is only out in like France on Blu-ray. So, I'll probably have to import that one. I can recommend Cleanskin if you can get it around $10 to $15; it is a good action flick despite some flaws. 4/5.

Piranha 3DD (2012)

Movie: 2.5/5
Video: 4.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 2.5/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Review is only for the 2D Blu-ray Disc.

Piranha 3DD was looked like a promising sequel to the 2010 Alexandre Aja's remake of the Joe Dante film Piranha. The cast, when it was first announced, sounded fantastic. We got David Koechner (Snakes on a Plane and Anchorman); Gary Busey; Danielle Panabaker; and David Hasselhoff. Returning from Piranha 3D, we got Ving Rhames; Paul Scheer; and Christopher Lloyd. Sounds like we got a potentially great sequel lined up, right? Well, Piranha 3DD sounds great in theory, but the execution and, mainly, the writing is sloppy. This time the film is directed by John Gulager and written by the hack duo who did Feast #1 - 3; Saw #4 - 7; and The Collector. Also, co-written by Joel Soisson who happened to run such franchises into the ground like the American version of Pulse; Wes Craven's Dracula; Mimic; Hollow Man; The Prophecy; and last but not least, Hellraiser.

While the film is not that bad as to some of the sequel to other properties that I previously mentioned; the plot is that piranhas are attacking a water park. That sounds great; going into spoilers here; only problem is that the film is 72 minutes. Piranhas attack at the one hour mark. It keeps building up to it and building up to it and then you get less than fifteen minutes of carnage. But, let me back track to the beginning of this film; it is a year after the Lake Victoria incident and everything from the end of Piranha 3D is ignored, especially that big Piranha that was the mommy or daddy that jumped out of the boat and killed Adam Scott's character. Maddy (Panabaker) comes home from college to see her step-father (Koechner) has turned their family water park into a sexed up, drugged up, and booze filled joint called "The Big Wet". We see some of Maddy's friends who are the wreck less; "We're going to have sex because it's wrong but we're going to have fun" get mostly killed off by piranha after their introductions. Except for Katrina Bowden's character who gets a piranha up the vagina. How you don't notice a piranha literally eating your vagina and innards up to shreds is beyond me.

Maddy goes to console her friend (Bowden) when piranhas attack and they have a dead one on hand and learn about Goodman (Lloyd) who helped deal with these piranha at Lake Victoria a year prior. Goodman seems more senile this time around rambling on about Youtube views and some foreshadowing. All this is going on while we are still waiting for the piranha to attack the park, which still isn't happening. Then after several events of just padding, we finally hit the one hour mark when the piranhas attack the water park. The build up to the attack on the park has a legless Deputy Fallon who supposedly lived after the fish ate him up halfway through the first film. And there's an ongoing gag where David Hasselhoff has a connection with this ginger child because the child think's he's just a lifeguard. Then at the end when we learn the piranhas can now walk on land, the fish bites the kid's head off.

While the film is pretty bad, I do give it some props in terms of visual effects. Although I wonder how many of those chewed up corpses were reused props from the Alexandre Aja film. The piranhas were mostly rubber toys that were made pretty well; whereas in the Aja film, they're mostly crappy CGI. It just makes me wonder what they could have accomplished if the water park attack happened within the first half hour and we deal with the aftermath for the rest of the film. That could have been a greater horror film right there. Movie scores a 2.5/5

Video: 4.5/5
Piranha 3DD presents the film with a great transfer that is almost perfection. However, I guess these where re-shoots or something; there's these shots that look horribly pixelated. These are mostly in the night shots and a few underwater shots that I am guessing is second unit work or is reshoots to help pad this train wreck out to 72 minutes. I wonder if someone who was working the cameras accidentally screwed up and filmed these shots in possibly SD? Video scores a 4.5/5.

Audio: 5/5
We only have 5.1 DTS-HD MA audio for the film, plus a commentary track. The audio is pretty solid. It's amazing how this average film gets almost a full five star treatment from Anchor Bay. A studio that's screwed around and not given a U.S. release of something like Demons; which I don't even care about anymore since I got the British Region B Blu-ray. Enough with the ranting, the audio is pretty sweet in terms of hearing piranhas snapping their jaws and devouring flesh and the crispness of the horrifying screams as people die. 5/5 for the audio.

Extras: 2.5/5
The film contains a commentary by the director and some of the crew. I didn't really mind it. Deleted scenes revolving around the character Big Dave who is the stoner who kept putting his "manhood" into one of the jet holes. There's a short film about tennis player John McEnroe. Gary Busey outtakes which it's always fun to see Gary. Story behind Piranha DD which is mostly cast and crew interviews. There's two segments, one is on David Koechner and Hasselhof. These extra features left me not really caring at all. 2.5/5.

Overall: 3.5/5
This sequel had so much promise and did not live up to the hype. Especially with how brutal Alexandre Aja's remake was. That film had me feeling stomach pains from how realistic the practical effects were handled. John Gulager has potential as a director and he needs to do a film sans Dunstan and Marcus writing the script. This Blu-ray release is pretty solid, except for some of the shots that look bloody horrible and the average bonus material. I can recommend this if you can get it dirt cheap, 3.5/5.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Trailer Park Boys: Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys (2008)

Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 4/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 5/5
Overall: 4/5

Greasy! (Spoilers From the Show)

I essentially gave up on television in 2008 when I left for a year of college. Most of the shows I liked were getting cancelled left and right and I said; "F*** this!" Fast forward to the end of 2010 and I had a Netflix account, I stumbled across the two Trailer Park Boys films and I was instantly hooked on this Canadian film and sought out the series. The show lasted for seven seasons, from 2001 to 2007. While the first six seasons were pretty fun, season seven went down a deep, dark path. Luckily, this loose bridging from the show to the second film is not as dark as the show's finale.

Spoilers to the series finale; Lucy has Baby Randy, which is really Ray's child. And the boys sell off the cigarettes that they have gotten from Sebastian Bach and make it rich. Now we are here to SGTTBG; Julian hides the money for a year while he waits for Ricky and Ray to get out of the American prison system. Little does he know that Lahey is plotting with Randy to get the money and take the boys down once and for all. He enlists Sam Losco and his ex-wife Barb to steal Julian's car on the eve of Ricky coming home. All hell breaks loose and Sam and Barb are busted by the cops and the money is taken. With the gang at odds with each other, Lahey brings the boys together in a trap to hold a dance party.

I felt this was overall enjoyable as we come to the finale and then you jump to the second film. It does have it's flaws from gaping the show to the second film, one of which I honestly favor and spoilers, the vanishing of Baby Randy. I felt that was just dark and sinister as hell when it played out on the show. In terms of how it compares to other episodes of the show, I've seen better. I give the special a 3.5/5.

Video: 4/5
Alliance has given Trailer Park Boys: SGTTBG a great 1.78:1 transfer. This special and the seventh season were both shot in HD, whereas the previous six seasons were shot in SD. The transfer could have been better in terms of contrast. Some of the footage, especially in the first few minutes of the episode, seemed grayish/washed out a bit. But, the overall feeling is that it's pretty good. Video scores a 4/5.

Audio: 4/5
I felt that the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track that Alliance has given us is adequate. There's not much action in this episode except for the shootout with Sam and then the chase in the first few minutes. Other than that, hearing the constant bickering and struggle with the boys, the Dolby Digital track works. 4/5.

Extras: 5/5
We have a group of alternate/deleted scenes and a behind the scenes footage. The behind the scenes footage shows us how they'd choreograph a stunt revolving around J-Roc and Randy. Hearing Jonathan Torrens talk normally and then going into his J-Roc voice is bizarre, yet informal as he talks about how it takes him a few seconds in his head to break it down. Also, I don't know if all of the Blu-rays have this, but my copy had a mini-poster with it of Bubbles as seen on the cover. However, these posters must have been with the DVD as the poster says; "Now Available on DVD For the First Time Ever." Even though this is the Blu-ray. Extras score a 5/5.

Overall: 4/5
If you love Trailer Park Boys, then this is a must. We get to see the boys one last time before the Countdown to Liquor Day! And that was my favorite of the two movies. This Blu-ray is pretty much all around recommended for fans. If you haven't seen the show, do not start with this, go all the way to the beginning of the series. I award this Blu-ray a 4/5.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Movie: 5/5
Video: .5/5
Audio: 2/5
Extras: 3/5
Overall: 2.5/5

Restauriert & Neu Gemastert? Falsch!

Night of the Living Dead, the original 1968 classic by George Romero which sparked numerous zombie films through out the years. We all know the story, there's no need to go into it. It's a solid 5/5 film to me as it's the definitive classic zombie horror. The film is in the public domain, so, anyone can release it unless it's been new master created by another person that's been copyrighted. I'm slowly dipping my toes into the public domain and have been trying to secure a print for my own studio to use. We've seen numerous Blu-rays that are hit and miss. This release is a miss; one of the biggest misfires you have ever seen.

Video: .5/5

The video presented on this Blu-ray is upscaled 1080/50i. It's pretty bad. I watched it and the first time I saw it, I thought it was decent for an upscale, but upon really going in depth on the quality of the video, I was horrified over the image in general. This is not restored and remastered as stated in German. When I got the disc last October, I popped it in my external Blu-ray drive and the movie was just about 8GB. It's the size of a Dual Layer DVD. And the picture quality is worse than what Echo Bridge could deliver with the interlacing and jagged-ness of the upscaled image. Video scores a .5/5.

Audio: 2/5

The English audio is under average at best on this copy of the film. However, the German dubbing has new techno-ish score that kicks off right as the film starts. It is kinda out of place, especially for the time frame from which this film was made. Especially at one point in the German dubbing, they must of had some scenes missing from their master and it flips over to English with German subtitles. This happens for about two minutes in length. These German subtitles are automatically on even if the audio is set to English. I was scratching my head the first time I watched it as these subs popped up. Audio scores a 2/5.

Extras: 3/5

The extras would be phenomenal, if they weren't all upscaled to 1080/50i! The cover advertises at the top that his have the "Include 75 min Bonus Film 'Fright Night' (Francis Ford Coppola)"; this is not the vampire film Fright Night, but Francis Ford Coppola's 1963 film Dementia 13. I've seen Blu-ray covers in Germany giving the impression that it is the vampire flick instead of the serial killer on the family's estate film. Sadly, the quality of this transfer is a 4:3 non-anamorphic HD blow up, meaning that you got black bars on the top, bottom. left and right sides of the screen. And the film is dubbed in German with no English audio. This has to have been sourced from a VHS copy of the film. Nothing about it seems digital really. Run time on it; 1:14:34.

Then we have the One for the Fire documentary and once you press play on it and it has the somewhat remake B&W title opening to the original film, you see how horribly upscaled this is. It had to have been blown up from a non-16:9 source, so, 640x360 to 1920x1080. Seeing how blocky as hell everything is just horrifies me to no end. The documentary is fun to watch if you can stomach through the horrible image; run time on it is 1:23:53.

American theatrical trailer; 1:49. August 26, 2007 Interview with George A Romeo in Canada that is 15:48. December 13th, 1987 audio interview with Duane Jones which was done about seven months before the actor had passed away; 16:47. Oddly, none of these bonus materials have German subs.

Finally, a photo gallery of upscalled image. And two commentary tracks. First commentary is with George A. Romeo, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, and John A. Russo. Second audio commentary is with Russell Streiner, Vince Survinski, Judith O'Dea, Bill Hinzman, Kyra Schon, and Keith Wayne. I'm sure the die hard NOTLD fans will enjoy it. It was just average to me. The bonus would have scored much higher if it had been all HD instead of this blown up, interlaced bull. Extras score a 3/5.

Overall: 2.5/5
This Blu-ray is region free, but it will not work in North American unless you have a Blu-ray player and a HDTV that is compatible with 50hrz content. My main player, Insignia NS-WBRDVD2, plays it fine. My PS3 on the other hand just gives me a black screen. Some of the other Blu-rays I own from Germany and the UK are 1080/50i; Casshern, The Crow, Meet Bill, and Transmorphers off the top of my head. But, that doesn't matter; those that I listed above have much better transfers than this release of Night of the Living Dead. If you are a collector of Night of the Living Dead releases, this is the only way I can recommend this release of the film. 2.5/5, avoid.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

John Wayne Collection: "McLintock!" (1963)

Movie: 3.5/5
Video: 0.5/5
Audio: 0.5/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 1/5

Note: I know I didn't finish the last three films of the High-Powered Action Pack. I'll be getting back to it soon. Plus, if you could see into my account, I have a few other reviews I have started but never finished.

Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has been an inspiration for films throughout the years and it comes in many forms; a high school teen drama like Ten Things I Hate About You or a western drama McLintock! It is interesting to see how it can be adapted in the many shapes and forms it takes. In this film, G.W. McLintock (Wayne) is running his own town and then he gets the news; his wife (O'Hara) is back in town. At the same time she is returning to town; a group of settlers promised land by the government show up at the same time. McLintock's wife begs for a divorce and G.W. refuses; to which his wife begs to let his daughter be a socialite.

McLintock's wife, Kate, goes around brooding the whole entire time but slowly falling back into love with G.W. At the same time, the government is forcing the Native Americans to relocate. The settlers are causing trouble with the Native Americans which leads to a chief almost being hanged. A giant, comedic fight ensure and people are thrown into a giant mud pit. The film more or less deals with focuses with McLintock dealing with his wife until they get to a breaking point and they go at it head on.

The film is pretty entertaining but it goes off point several times. We seem to be focusing on the struggle of the Native Americans but then it completely just ignores it at the end. The characters seem to quickly and abruptly change at the end in the final minutes. It felt really rushed, but I still managed to enjoy the film. Another problem I have is the comedy; it does work, however the slapstick goes overboard at times. The giant fight with the mud pit goes on and on. The 4th of July festival with the horses felt like it went on forever. Plus, the end "chase" felt a little drawn out. But to focus on the positives; Wayne gives a good performance throughout and whenever he shows his comedic acting skills, he shines. Movie gets a 3.5/5.

The video is a nightmare! I wrote a review for the so-called The Howling Trilogy; even though it was the third, fifth, and sixth films! That disc was the three films upscaled from SD to HD; this disc by Gaiam commits the same atrocity! The aspect ratio on McLintock! is 2.35:1 and we have it presented in 1.33:1! WHAT IN THE HELL WAS GAIAM THINKING? Timeless Media Group gave us a cropped, 1.33:1 transfer on Howling III from 1.85:1; but there's a big difference from cropping something that 1.85:1 vs 2.35:1! What's even more jarring about this whole cropping situation is that there is obviously several sources that they used to create this monstrosity of a video presentation. I would say that they probably used three different video sources for this so-called "HD Presentation".

Upon seeing the opening titles, it's hard to read due to the halo effect that plagues the film. One source looks like an umpteenth generation VHS tape; one look like an over-cropped source that looks like a blown up VCD; and one that looks like a film print that's somewhat in good condition that is upscaled from 480i to 1080i. And these video sources will alternate constantly. We'll have a scene and then it'll look ok and then when it cuts back to a shot and we transition to another source; it'll look washed the hell out. Me ranting about this in the review does not justify how poor that this presentation is. Video scores a .5/5.

The audio is not any better. I have an old school set up and you can clearly tell when the film changes it's sources; depending on which source is used, the audio will sound good. If it transfers to something that's poor looking video-wise, the audio will be muffled beyond hell too. Like the video, it will alternate back and forth. Audio scores a .5/5. No extras at all are present; 0/5. Overall, one film down and six more to go. THIS IS INSULTING! I feel robbed of my eight dollars and change that I paid for this. People who have bashed the hell out of Echo Bridge, you haven't seen nothing, yet! 1/5!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

High-Powered Action Pack: "No Code of Conduct" (1998)

Movie: 3/5
Video: 2.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 2/5

No Code of Conduct, you know, if you told me that Bret Michaels directed a movie I would laugh. But apparently in the 90's he made two films and then we now see him as a wreck trying to find love or something. Not to say that Charlie "Charles" Sheen is doing any better with his "winning"! However, with this film, it is an interesting mix. I feel Bret did a good job with the film but at the end of the day this is still an average police drama.

After an undercover cop, played by Bret Michaels who looks like he stumbled across a drug deal gone wrong in a back alley, get killed. His superior, played by Charlie's father Martin Sheen, is asked to come along to track a drug trafficking ring as back up. His son Jake, played by Charlie Sheen, stumbles across the drug trafficking while hanging out with his ex-partner (Mark Dacascos) who is out busting men looking for prostitutes. His ex-partner's partner gets killed and the vehicle the drug runners are using gets shot out. Once they get it in their possession, they learn what's so important about the van.

I am sure in the 90's when this was released, it was probably considered junk or something made for a quick buck. I honestly do not remember this film at all and seeing it came out in the late 90's, I should have knew about this but didn't. I had only learned about it last year while Charlie was going on his whole; "Tiger Blood-Winning-Mumbo-Jumbo"! And also learned that Bret Michaels had directed and co-wrote the film with Sheen and several others. Considering the twelve years that have passed since it's release, I will say that it is bit above average. Mark Dacascos always gives a great performance; especially going from the European great Le Pacte Des Loups to the Asylum's mockbuster cash-in I Am Omega. Seeing this film makes me miss Sheen's serious acting roles from Platoon and The Arrival to seeing him do a sitcom like Two and a Half Men and appearing in crappy comedies like Scary Movie 3. I'll give the film a 3/5.

The transfer is overall conflicting; the compression is horrifying on this transfer. If I still had my BD-Rom drive, I could see how much space this film took up, but I am going to guess it was probably around 12GB. The transfer is comparable to the Echo Bridge release of The Prophecy. The pro of this release is that it is in the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. There is detail, but it has to settle a bit due to the compression. I do not feel that this is a straight up SD upscale, but I can see some arguments on it, especially in the opening of the film. The video transfer is on par with an earlier Echo Bridge/Miramax release, it scores a 2.5/5.

The audio present on this portion of the disc is DTS-HD MA 2.0; it sounds great but I felt that it could be better. The techno music cues sound pretty pleasant while listening. I give the audio a 3/5. There are no extras at all; 0/5. Overall, the disc's portion of No Code of Conduct scores a 2/5. It enjoyable, but the video transfer could have been better. I would say it is worth the watch though.

High-Powered Action Pack: "Equilibrium" (2002)

Movie: 4/5
Video: 4/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 3.5/5

Equilibrium, a tasteful futuristic sci-fi action flick. This is a pretty solid feature in which in the future we take drugs to hold in our emotions; to show your emotions is punishable upon death. It's a pretty straight forward film and very entertaining. Preston (Christian Bale) is a top soldier in the future; discovers his assigned patrol partner, played by Sean Bean, is not taking the drug. Preston kills him and then with a stroke of chance, he drops his vile containing the drug and is quickly seeing the world in a whole new way.

After arresting a woman who is been founding hoarding "illegal" items is awaiting death row, she slowly gets to him to help him see the path. Upon going out of the borders of their utopia, they found a group of dogs which are set to be slaughtered when a puppy runs to Preston and soon he cannot see it die and takes it off to "tested for disease". Preston soon joins the resistance to bring down the utopia so that mankind can possibly learn how to feel again.

Kurt Wimmer wrote and directed a very good film and all of the actors involved gave great performances. One of the problems I have is that there should have been more focus on the psychological aspect of Preston's struggle once he decides to quit taking the drug. If they gave another five to ten minutes to focus on that, it would have been a better movie. The action is pretty sweet too with Bale's character kicking butt left and right. Emily Watson gave a great sensual performance in her role. And Sean Bean, well, he's in his usual Sean Bean role and we know what happens to him most of the time. The film gets a 4/5.

Equilibrium is, without a doubt, the main reason to buy the High-Powered Action Pack. Echo Bridge has finally gotten an HD master for the film that is finally in it's original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The initial individual release of the film was presented in an open matted, yet cropped VFX scenes, presentation. Normally, if it was open matted, I wouldn't mind because what the director intended is still there, but the cropped VFX scenes of the "gun-kata" and other scenes kills it for me. And the original release was very tempting for me, but I kept passing on it.

The video presentation for Equilibrium is not the best, but, for a ten year old film it does the job. The film shares the disc on a BD50 with two other films, being The Lookout and Supercop. The colors are pretty vibrant; there's clear and sharp definition. If you look closely at the film; there is a lot of dirt and specs and print damage on the film. Compression is noticeable in a few scenes and there's a bit of pulsing towards the end of the film. I know that might scare potential buyers away, but overall, it's still a solid transfer and the only alternate is a very expensive Japanese release. I think this master was probably made back in 2002 whenever the film was made. I doubt we'll get a remaster, but, Equilibrium scores a 4/5.

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio presentation is pretty good on this release. There's good range in hearing harp noises in the music and helps get the tone across and then you jump to the next scene where the action is booming. Echo Bridge did a great job on this portion of the disc. The audio gets 5/5.

Without any extras; the film on this portion of the disc scores a 3.5/5. We have a very nice master provided to us by Filmyard and Echo Bridge. This should have been how it was when it was originally released in May 2011. If you buy this six film set, this title's new master in OAR makes it worth it alone. Recommended.