Under Wraps (DVD Review) - Arc Entertainment

USA/2014
Directed By: Gordon Crum
Written By: Alison Ross
Starring: Brooke Shields, Matthew Lillard, Drake Bell
Color/48 Minutes/PG
Region 1
Release Date:

The Film
Danny and Eleanor are with their archeologist parents on a dig in Egypt when Danny accidentally unleashes an ancient curse when he brings an amulet from the pyramid home and breaks it. Mummies, ancient pharaohs and all sorts of ghouls are unleashed turning their parents into mummies. Danny and Eleanor frantically try to put the clues together to end the curse and save their mom and dad.

UNDER WRAPS is a fun little animated horror adventure for kids that features some notable voice work from the likes of Matthew Lillard and Brooke Shields along with some very nice looking animation. I don't fancy myself a fan of most modern animation as it looks half-assed far too often but UNDER WRAPS has a pretty nice CGI cartoon look. This is a family friendly way of introducing the younger ones to monsters and horror themes without scarring them for life and turning them into prudes.

The Audio & Video
Arc Entertainment gives UNDER WRAPS a home on DVD with a standard but attractive DVD preseantation. The 16x9 widescreen transfer has good color and a sharp image quality. The animation looks quite nice here. The Dolby 2.0 track is decent, nothing special but it has a fine mix that allows dialogue and soundtrack to blend nicely.

 The Extras
A VUDU digital copy is included along with a trailer.

The Bottom Line
This is a quick and fun mummy adventure perfect for your young kids during Halloween season.

UNDER WRAPS is available HERE

October Horror Challenge 2014 - Day 9

Day 9 fucking sucked.

GOREMET: ZOMBIE CHEF FROM HELL was first and would pretty much sum up the day - shit. This is shot-on-video garbage from the early 80s. It's not at all entertaining or exciting or funny and has no redeeming qualities. Fuck this garbage.

ABCs OF DEATH 2 was next as a few friends got together and we decided to rent it. Well, that was a mistake. Just like the first it is filled with a whole bunch of stupid, boring, or otherwise bad short films and 4-5 that are worth while. 5 short films out of 26 being worth a damn. That's under 20%. That's a failure anywhere. Letters M, S, W, Y, Z are your best bets.

And then I decided I needed something short and easy to end the night so I put on MICROWAVE MASSACRE. Now, I know this movie is purely garbage. I've seen it before while drunk and found it to be entertaining, or so I thought. I'll say that I've always loved the VHS cover art for this movie, which is more 80s shot-on-video shit. Apparently the alcohol badly clouded my judgement on the night of the previous viewing (as alcohol tends to do) becuase this movie is terrible in every way. It's not at all entertaining or exciting or funny and has no redeeming qualities. Wait... does that sound familiar? Am I repeating myself here? Oh well, fuck day 9.

Today's Rundown
Goremet: Zombie Chef From Hell - 1/10
ABCs Of Death 2 - 3/10
Microwave Massacre - 1/10

October Horror Challenge 2014 - Day 8

The Blood Moon seemed like the perfect time to watch a werewolf flick and one of my favorite Paul Naschy flicks seemed like the way to go. NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF is a great gothic horror film featuring Nachy as the resurrected Wolfman, several very attractive vampire women, and thick atmosphere. Naschy gives one of his best performances and even directs the picture. Spanish gothic horror at its finest.

The rest of the movies from day 8 were first time viewings, the first of which was BEYOND THE LIMITS, from German splatter director Olaf Ittenbach. Ittenbach's best known for his crazy gore and practical effects in his films and that is the high point of BEYOND THE LIMITS. Overacting is prevelant in this two part anthology film that features a tense gangster hostage story and a period piece witch hunt horror story that are tied together by a wrap around segment in a graveyard interview scene. It's too long, not very good and really only worth checking out for the abundance of ridiculous gore.

THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN is a solid story of voodoo and the search for power as a group of relatives who had never met gather at their great grandmother's house after her death at her wish and begin to discover weird things about their family bloodline. Unfortunately they also start being killed off in mysterious ways and quickly learn that their enemies are closer than they thought and dark voodoo is responsible.This isn't a particularly graphic film in any way but it is quite effective.

Finally was THE MEPHISTO WALTZ, a slow burning piece of Satanic and psychological horror starring Alan Alda and Jacquelin Bissett. The film features a failed musician turned journalist named Myles who gets to interview Duncan Ely, the greatest living pianist and quickly hits it off with him. Upon Ely's death the writer is given a large sum of money and a piano and things take a drastic turn for the worse as Myles' wife suspects Satanic worship and black magic may be in play. THE MEPHISTO WALTZ has some really creative cinematography and strong performances, aside from Alda who hams it up too much. I could look passed Alda's hammy performance if the film had better pacing. It either runs 10-15 minutes too long or doesn't take advantage of its full run time where a bit more could have happened to juice it up. Either way would have been fine. The pacing hurt the film and holds it back from being better and more talked about but it doesn't kill it and make it a bad film by any mans.

Today's Rundown
Night of the Werewolf - 8/10
Beyond the Limits - 4/10
The House on Skull Mountain - 7.5/10
The Mephisto Waltz - 6/10

October Horror Challenge 2014 - Day 7

A very long overdue re-watch of the 80s metal driven TRICK OR TREAT was up first. Man is thing in need of a special edition. The DVD is a no frills, full frame release with Gene Simmons and Ozzy (who make up about 2 minutes of screen time) plastered on the cover. This is silly fun as a recently deceased rock star comes back to haunt his biggest fan through a rare record and terrorize the school on Halloween. Plenty of action and death and a lovable metal head outcast kid for the lead make it a good time.

The lone first time viewing of the day was Tobe Hooper's SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION starring Brad Dourif. This film is about a man who was born to parents that volunteered to test anti-radiation drugs. Well they didn't work and the radiation has caused a genetic mutation that makes their son burst in to flames, along with plenty of people around him. There's no shortage of burned up bodies here and the movie is pretty decent while not being anywhere near the level of Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it is also far above Hooper's worst work.

A Bruno Mattei double feature closed the day with the first half being HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD. I probably wouldn't have watched this film this month if Blue Underground hadn't released it on Blu-ray back in August. I was dying to check out how it looks (fantastic) so I popped the disc in. I love this piece of shit. It's a trashy zombie film that rips off Dawn of the Dead (and even recycles its score from Goblin) and really isn't good. But man oh man is it fucking awesome.

Then the other half of the Mattei double feature may be even trashier, sleazier and crappier. Which means I love it just a little bit more. RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR is a horror film with a bit of post-apocalyptic action thrown in as a couple hundred years after the nuclear wars have devastated the Earth and humans take solace underground except for roving bands of badasses it seems that rats have developed a taste for human flesh. Our group quickly finds that out and realize they are trapped in this deserted town and are being attacked by the rats. Lots of gore, lots of skin, lots of action and one of the best endings ever make this one an amazing piece of Euro trash.

Today's Rundown
Trick Or Treat - 7/10
Spontaneous Combustion - 6.5/10
Hell Of The Living Dead - 8/10
Rats: Night Of Terror - 8/10

42nd Street Forever: The Peepshow Collection Vol 5 (DVD Review) - Impulse Pictures

USA/1970-80s
Directed By: Various
Starring: Susan Nero, Lili Marlene, Lisa DeLeeuw
Color/112 Minutes/X
Region FREE
Release Date: October 7, 2014

The Film
There's so much to love in this compilation of vintage 8mm adult loops. Beautiful women, sleazy situations, the feeling of being in a seedy peep show booth without leaving the comfort of your own couch... ahhh paradise. You don't even have to find the ads in the sex magazines to own these anymore! You can enjoy the scenes including girls enjoying a used condom a little too much, multiple fun-in-the-tub scenes, a knife wielding intruder, more group sex than you can shake a stick at and plenty more. The surprises are half the fun so I won't spoil them all.

Smut fans are really lucky in 2014 as there are multiple companies putting out quality releases of the vintage stuff and this series of compilations of silent short loops from Impulse Pictures is among the best of those releases. It's hard to believe that they're already up to volume five but here we are. And the world is a little better off for these releases.

The Audio & Video
Impulse Pictures has done what they can with these loops as they didn't look pretty to begin with. They're beaten, battered and loved. There's scratches throughout but every loop is perfectly enjoyable and watchable. The 8mm photography is inherently soft but colors still look good and overall quality is suprisingly decent on these thanks to being remastered in HD. As with the previous volumes in this series, the shorts are silent with the exception of the film projector sound effect.

The Extras
Fantastic liner notes from Robin Bougie, editor of Cinema Sewer are included

The Bottom Line
The past is brought to present day with these releases and I highly recommend fans of porn and sleaze add this volume to their growing collection.

THE PEEPSHOW COLLECTION VOL. 5 is available HERE

October Horror Challenge 2014 - Day 6

THE VINEYARD from 1989 is pure 80s cheese as an old Chinese doctor prolongs his life using ancient chinese magic and potions that involves murder and stealing the life essence from the living. There's lots of gore, some cool makeup fx, nudity and scene where a man decapitates someone and is extremely pleased with himself. It's pretty fun.

THE SQUAD on Blu-ray from Scream Factory was up next. I'm going to be giving that disc a full review so I won't go too in depth but I'll say that the acting was great, and there was some decent tension but it didn't quite come together.

When i was really young I used to love the character of SWAMP THING. The movies, the comics, the toys. It was never to the point of Ghostbusters or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but he was one of the earliest action figues I remember having. So having not seen the original movie by Wes Craven in who knows how long I figured it was time to revisit it as I had just picked up the Blu-ray. I was pleasantly surprised to see David Hess as one of the main baddies in the film, a role he filled perfectly many times during his career. Swamp Thing's look is kind of weak but it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the film which has plenty of 80s action and a giant swamp monster kicking ass... can you ask for more?

I ended the day with EVIL NIGHT, the remake of a 1992 shot on video horror film. I picked this up on Blu-ray at Monster Mania over the weekend as a buddy of mine worked on it and I had to support him and the director Chris Seaver. This is over the top, tongue-in-cheek, cornball cheese to the max. It's intentionally funny and hammy and works really well. It's surprisingly good in all of the technical aspects as well, especially the acting which can be rough in films with super low budgets such as this. EVIL NIGHT was a perfect way to relax and end the night.

Today's Rundown
The Vineyard - 6/10
The Squad - 5/10
Swamp Thing - 6.5/10
Evil Night - 7/10

October Horror Challenge 2014 - Day 5

 I am a big fan of Island Of The Fishmen. I think Sergio Martino made an overly cheesy creature feature that is very entertaining and has some fun creature design. It's not a great movie but I have a lot of fun watching it. About 20 years later he made the sequel, THE FISHMEN AND THEIR QUEEN. When I turned it on I thought the disc had the wrong film on it as the first thing I saw was footage from 2019: After The Fall Of New York, Martino's post-apocalyptic action/sci-fi film that is pure fucking gold. Quickly I realized that this old footage had been spliced together with some newer footage involving 2 teen boys trying to escape the city which they do with the aid of some more spliced in material from 2019. After meeting an old man they sail to a mostly deserted island that is inhabited by some monster like people who work for their queen, a few natives and the fishmen. Splice in some footage from Island of the Fishmen along with the new adventure film footage that is pretty fucking cheap and corny and you've got THE FISHMEN AND THEIR QUEEN. I can't help but have a small amount of admiration for the film for how ridiculous it is. I can imagine Martino sitting there in his 1995 home thinking "I need to make a movie... let's shoot half a movie and just use footage from 2019 and Fishmen... GOLD!" Maybe that's how it came to be, maybe not. It's a weak film (obviously) and you'll mostly be shaking your head or be plain bored despite the few moments of almost thinking you're enjoying this for all the wrong reasons. You aren't.

LIFESPAN is a movie that could have been great. There was an intelligent script ready to lead the viewer along a slow burning journey into a quest for eternal life that causes a scientist to become a murderer. Instead the movie starts and ends without a real shift in tone. It ends on a flat note and never goes anywhere. It is a major disappointment. What we get isn't bad it is what we don't get, where the movie never ends up at, that is the problem. 

Today's Rundown
The Fishmen And Their Queen - 3.5/10
Lifespan 4/10