APPETITES (DVD Review) - Image/RLJ

USA/2015
Directed By: Cameron Casey
Written By: Darren Bevill
Starring: Bret Roberts, Lauren Parkinson, Travis Eberhard
Color/106 Minutes/Not Rated
Region 1
Release Date: August 4, 2015

The Film
"Do you know what tattoos lead to? More tattoos!"

APPETITES is a fitting title when everything is said and done but getting to the point where all is said and done is going to be a bit of a chore. The opening ten minutes start out as an uber violent, sex driven cannibalistic horror film that has obvious influence from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and House Of 1000 Corpses. Almost immediately the cannibal angle is dropped for nearly an hour while we follow a detective on the trail of "John Doe" who is our super cool guy who loves to pay women for sex and then murders them because of their tattoos. Yeah, this guy can't get passed women having tattoos, when he looks like a Kid Rock wannabe. This guy wishes he was an American badass. His super smooth (please note the thick sarcasm) lines include ordering a "whiskey and Coke, hold the Coke" and dropping "That's what she said." to girls he's hitting on. Yeah, this guy is the epitome of cool.

We follow the detectives half assed attempts at tracking down Doe and stopping his murderous rampage of all inked women while Doe sets his sights on the flawless Daisy who is one of our early cannibals along with her large and mentally unstable brother Bubba. John Doe does his best to swoon Daisy, who only manages to find her southern accent when it's convenient and certainly doesn't come across as any sort of cannibal killer, even bringing Doe to her property that is lined with booby traps for any trespassers. Eventually she gives in to Doe's advances and they begin to fool around until he sees a hidden tattoo on her hip and Doe begins to lose his cool over.

The opening scenes had me thinking that this movie was going to be nothing more than ripoff of similar classic films. I was surprised, unfortunately not pleasantly to find this to be something quite different. The cannibal angle feels tacked on to a lackluster serial killer story. Those first ten minutes could have summed up what the audience was in for (sex, cannibalism and murder) but instead it sums up what the audience hoped this movie was about. Yes, I wish this movie was a cheap knock off of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or even Rob Zombie's films. APPETITES runs too long with an antagonist that is pathetically lame and no real protagonist. Thankfully there are some incredibly attractive ladies baring it all to save this movie from being a total loss.

The Audio & Video
Image/RLJ Entertainment give APPETITES a rather standard but fitting standard definition DVD release. Colors are good and clarity is good. There's a bit of crush during darker scenes but it isn't overly distracting by any means. The English audio is handled with a Dolby Digital 5.1 track that sounds good with stable and clear sound levels.

The Extras
None at all.

The Bottom Line
APPETITES is a film worth watching for a few moments of violence and a few very attractive ladies but fully passable otherwise.

LOST SOUL: The Doomed Journey Of Richard Stanley's The Island Of Dr. Moreau (Blu-ray Review) - Severin Films

USA/2014
Directed By: David Gregory
Starring: Richard Stanley, Fairuza Balk, Hugh Dickson
Color/100 Minutes/Not Rated
Region A
Release Date:

The Film
In 1995 Richard Stanley was an and up and coming horror director with two successful films (Hardware, Dust Devil) under his belt when he got the opportunity to helm his dream project - an adaptation of The Island Of Doctor Moreau. The film was to be an epic, and production was a much larger scale than any production he had worked on previously including starring roles from Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer. Unfortunately just days into the production Stanley's plan began to unravel and quickly became one of the most infamous film production disasters in history.

Featuring interviews with Richard Stanley, co-star Fairuza Balk, and numerous production members and executives LOST SOUL digs deep into the story behind this doomed production which turned into something quite different than Stanley's original vision. We learn of everything from Richard Stanley being removed from the project to his disappearance and just why Marlon Brando wears an ice bucket hat in the film that eventually got made.

LOST SOUL leaves no stone left unturned and immediately pushes you deep into the circus world that was the production of The Island Of Dr. Moreau. With each passing anecdote from the set, or the hotel, or the jungles of Australia that surrounded the cast and crew you bear witness to a drug fueled frenzy of huge egos, strange personalities and ample paychecks while wasting away under the sun. This major motion picture turned into a carnival of insanity and debauchery filled with human/animal hybrids, midgets and Brando.

This documentary chronicles the single most interesting film production story of all time. While it would have been interesting to see Richard Stanley's vision come to life we instead get what could be considered an opus of film production documentaries. And a damn entertaining one at that.

The Audio & Video
Severin Films delivers a gorgeous looking Blu-ray chock full of beautiful sit down interviews in pristine high definition and heaps of behind the scenes footage from the production that doesn't look as sharp and pretty but has clearly been upgraded to HD. The English audio is handled with a 2.0 Dolby Digital track that sounds crisp and clear. There's no damage to the audio track or any sort of background noise. A stellar A/V job overall.

The Extras
-Outtakes - extended interviews including a largely extended segment with Richard Stanley
-Graham Humphreys Concept Art Gallery w/ commentary by Richard Stanley
-Archive interview with John Frankenheimer
-"Barbara Steele Recalls Moreau" audio interview
-The Beast Of Morbido featurette
-The Hunt For The Compound featurette
-Boar Man Diary featurette
-Trailer

NOTE: A 3 Disc Blu-ray set is available which includes an expanded selection of special features such as a recently discovered German adaptation of Moreau from 1921, and a reading of the story by Richard Stanley and more.

The Bottom Line
One day yet we may get to see a version of Richard Stanley's vision come to life but until then (and who am I kidding, even after then) LOST SOUL is a critical piece of film documenting the strangest, wildest and perhaps biggest failure of a film production of all time.

LOST SOUL is available HERE

i-LIVED (2015)

USA/2015
Directed By: Franck Khalfoun
Written By: Franck Khalfoun, Brian Breiter
Starring: Jeremiah Watkins, Sarah Power, Nic D'Avirro
VOD/iTunes Release Date: July 7th, 2015

Josh is a recent graduate of Stanford University struggling to make it on his own reviewing new apps on his Youtube channel to make ends meet. Josh comes across a new self help app called i-Lived which provides you missions to help meet any personal goal you type into the app. Upon an initial review Josh isn't able to gain the six pack abs he had hoped for and gives the app a mediocre review but later finds that the app will bring him all of his hopes and dreams and even cure his terminally ill mother if he's willing to go the distance with the missions the app assigns him which get more and more dangerous with each passing day and engulf more of Josh's sanity as he goes along with them.

This is the third film I've seen from director Franck Khalfoun, the first being the middling stalk and slash film P2 and the second being the exception Maniac remake starring Elijah Wood. It was the style and finesse in the remake of Bill Lustig's classic exploitation horror film that I had hoped to see in i-LIVED. Though the film had a noticeably smaller budget, leaving less room for multiple location shoots and a better overall production value, there was still enough resources available to take the film's plot and have it succeed.

Unfortunately the slick direction we've previously seen from Khalfoun is lost here and this movie feels every bit of the inconsequential direct-to-video horror film that it is sadly destined to be (despite a very limited theatrical presentation). Khalfoun has no flair here with rigid camerawork and very elementary and basic shots. Our cast doesn't help matters as they stumble through the script either over or underacting or hamming it up to the nth degree. Jeremiah Watkins isn't all bad as our lead Josh but his performance is uneven. There's one scene that I felt he brought real emotion to which involves his elderly landlord and a lamp.

There's a very clear message on display in i-LIVED dealing with the endless obsession of new apps and features for the cell phones that seem to be glued to our hands these days and letting them take over too much of your mind. I can support that message and I think i-LIVED had potential to turn it into a good horror film and at times it did. i-LIVED has some well done moments sprinkled throughout but I look at it like grabbing a handful of trail mix and only getting one or two pieces of what you like and the rest is all peanuts. Yeah, it's nice you got something you liked at all but now you have a handful of dry peanuts to deal with.

And that dear reader ends up being what i-LIVED is worth, sadly- peanuts.

A ZOMBIE EXORCISM (DVD Review) - Wild Eye Releasing

Norway/2015
Directed By: Casper Haugegaard
Written By: Casper Haugegaard
Starring: Marie Frohme Vanglund, Mads Althoff, Jonas Bjorn-Andersen
Color/46 Minutes/Not Rated
Region FREE
Release Date: May 15, 2015

The Film
Three siblings gather at a church for a funeral when an unknown evil awakens the dead and the zombie apocalypse begins. The trio flee to the catacombs beneath the church and must fight for their survival.

Thankfully A ZOMBIE EXORCISM is a rather short affair clocking in at under 50 minutes. The film is bland in its writing and character development along with adding nothing new or noteworthy to the zombie genre. The direction is all over the place with heavy use of shaky cams during the more exciting sequences and camera angles quickly changing to point of view handheld angles despite this not being a found footage movie of any type.

There's non stop action and plenty of gore to be had though. If you're interested in the simplest side of zombie movie fare then you'll enjoy your time here but I was looking for something a bit more. I can't knock the film for having lots of the juicy bits though, that's for sure. The other upsides to A ZOMBIE EXORCISM are the acting which is solid and some great set designs.

The Audio & Video
Wild Eye Releasing's anamorphic widescreen transfer makes the shaky, low budget photography look pretty good. The transfer is clean and stable with no damage. The Danish audio features English subtitles and has a strong mix with steady levels. There's no background noise or audible hiccups to mention.

The Extras
-Bonus short film
-Music video selection
-Behind the scenes featurette
-Trailers

The Bottom Line
I didn't care for it but maybe you will. I would have liked to see them expand on the movie a bit more than just having a random zombie outbreak for no real reason.

A ZOMBIE EXORCISM is available HERE

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (DVD Review) - Image/RLJ Entertainment

USA/2014
Directed By: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Written By: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Earl E. Smith
Starring: Addison Timlin, Veronica Cartwright, Anthony Anderson
Color/86 Minutes/R
Region 1
Release Date: July 14, 2015

The Film
65 years after the town of Texarkana was terrorized by hooded killer the town once again falls victim to "The Phantom". Jami barely escapes an encounter with The Phantom and becomes obsessed with finding out the identity of this new killer. While Jami digs deeper in the mystery and history of the killings the bodies begin piling up in this typically sleepy town.

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN was widely marketed as a remake to the 1974 film but in all actuality is completely a sequel. Similar events play out in this one but it's all in paying homage to the original killer. The film works as a slasher and a horror mystery with the major twists and turns the story takes. The script is otherwise pretty straight forward and simple but effective enough and carried by a solid cast.

The downfall of this film, and it is a glaring, in your face problem that you literally cannot look past is the direction and photography choices made. There are heavily slanted angles for absolutely no reason throughout the film. These are usually reserved as a way to show some sort of madness, craze or other emotion changing device for the audience. Not here, they're thrown around without any real reasoning whenever the director felt like putting them in. I could probably look passed these randomly inserted slanted angle shots if I didn't have to watch the film through an incredibly hazy and sweaty looking filter. I can guess that the director wanted to give the film a sweaty, humid look which I'd be okay with but large quantities of the film look like there's a heavy layer of condensation or Vaseline smeared all over the camera lens.

This really kills some of the better lighting designs the film has going for it in certain scenes that feature colored lighting. The hazy look drowns out the bright red lighting that gives the film a creepy atmosphere during certain scenes. It's unfortunate that this look wasn't changed after seeing how it turned out in the dailies because it looks really bad at times.

Despite the shitty look the film has it times it outshines its predecessor which is a vastly overrated film that I believe is as famous as it is for the simple reasons that it has killer artwork, The Phantom has a great look that inspired Jason Voorhees and was unavailable on DVD for years and was a heavily sought after VHS tape. The movie was frankly a bore with a couple of great moments tossed in to make it worth sitting through. This sequel done 40 years later is a solid horror film that suffers from poor technical artistic choices but remains an entertaining movie that deserves some of the recognition the original undeservedly has.

The Audio & Video
RLJ/Image Entertainment bring THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN to DVD with a 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio that looks good for a standard definition release. Colors are strong and vibrant and black levels are handled decently. The filter used in photography keeps the disc from looking sharp because of the soft and sweaty photography style but that is a style choice by the filmmakers.

A 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound track handles the English audio with ease and grace. There's great clarity to the dialogue and the levels are mixed well and are quite stable without unnecessary. volume fluctuations. The track is also damage and background noise free.

The Extras
A trailer is the lone extra

The Bottom Line
Some questionable artistic decisions aside, THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is a rock solid sequel disguised as a remake that easily outshines its predecessor. I wouldn't call it a modern classic but the good outweighs the bad and it certainly is entertaining.

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is available HERE

AWAKEN (DVD Review) - Arc Entertainment

USA/2015
Directed By: Mark Atkins
Written By: Mark Atkins, Ryan Priest
Starring: Natalie Burn, Vinnie Jones, Robert Davi
Color/89 Minutes/R
Region 1
Release Date: July 7, 2015

The Film
A young woman wakes up on an island to find a group of others just like her and is immediately thrown into a fight for survival with the others while they all attempt to find out why they're on this island and being hunted by mercenaries. After escaping the island, only to be brought back the group finds out the shocking truth that they're being hunted in an organ harvesting operation.

AWAKEN is directed by Mark Atkins who is no stranger to direct to video fare and knows how to keep things entertaining enough to keep the viewer's attention without having huge production values or sharply written scripts. AWAKEN is a simple enough idea that allows for as many action scenes as the filmmakers want to put in, and there's plenty of them.

Vinnie Jones co-stars as Sarge, the head mercenary and is a badass, like always. The man has a natural presence as a hardass in front of a camera with his hardened look and real life ability to kick ass. He is matched against Natalie Burn who shows herself as capable of handling an ass kicking role in her own right. The acting is hammy from just about everyone involved but we don't watch movies like AWAKEN for much else other than the action so much is forgiven.

Daryl Hannah and Edward Furlong appear as well and Furlong is one of the least likable parts of the movie. He just oozes shittyness. The movie only has a couple of locations but makes the most of them to make it feel like a bigger world than what it really is. The island the victims briefly escape to is an interesting one and almost gave me a similar vibe that the town of Innsmouth does in HP Lovecraft's stories.

AWAKEN won't go down as a classic action film but for someone looking for something they haven't seen yet for some easy weekend viewing you can do a lot worse.

The Audio & Video
Arc Entertainment brings AWAKEN to DVD with a 16x9 anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks very good. Colors are bright and vibrant and the picture quality is sharp. The English audio track is handled with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound and is free of any damage or distracting background noise. The mix is nicely done as the score compliments the dialogue without drowning it out.

The Extras
A trailer is the lone extra

The Bottom Line
AWAKEN is a fast paced straight to video action flick that is high on violence and adrenaline.

AWAKEN is available HERE