ROADSIDE (DVD Review) - Image/RLJ

USA/2013
Directed By: Eric England
Written By: Eric England
Starring: Ace Marrero, Katie Stegeman, Jack E. Curenton
Color/81 Minutes/Not Rated
Region 1
Release Date: April 14, 2015

The Film
Bickering couple Dan and Mindy are on a road trip to visit family when they're nearly run off the road by a mud covered truck. A few miles down the road Dan has an uncomfortable encounter with the driver of that truck at a gas station but the clerk and the sheriff tell him he's nobody to fear. After fueling up the new challenge is to stay ahead of the oncoming winter storm until they reach a fallen tree limb which Dan tries to clear until a voice from the woods startles him and fires a rifle in his direction. Thus begins the night of terror the couple will have to endure as the man hides behind the tree line with his rifle fixed to Dan and Mindy whenever either one of them tries to make a move.

ROADSIDE  manages to be a minimalist affair and remain effective enough throughout. With freezing temperatures and a madman hiding out of sight that you know will kill you if he wants to the waiting game is one of tension and suspense. Unfortunately his voice is far from intimidating. I found it to be distractingly over produced. It also helps to have sympathetic characters in these types of films, someone for the audience to root for. Both of our victims in this situation are running around behind the others back with other lovers, bicker about stupid shit the entire car ride and just don't seem like people that would end up together. The only good thing about them is their dog, he seems like a cool dude.

As far as the production goes, there's only a couple of locations from the car and abandoned highway to the gas station. It keeps the isolation feeling in our minds at all times. ROADSIDE is competent and from a young director is a solid foundation. There's nothing here to set it apart from dozens upon dozens of other similar films and the twist seems to be thrown in just for the hell of it but it's okay overall.

The Audio & Video
The DVD from Image Entertainment is pretty standard but there's nothing wrong with that. The video looks fine, with dark levels being handled okay and a reasonably sharp picture on the anamorphic widescreen transfer. There's a 5.1 Dolby Digital mix that sounds like a typical surround mix but there's nothing in the way of damage or distractions.

The Extras
Bare bones.

The Bottom Line
Standard horror thriller fare that feels fine just getting by but doesn't take the initiative to make the honor roll.

ROADSIDE is available HERE

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge 2015 - Days 8 and 9

A bit of classic sci-fi seemed like a good idea to start the 8th day of the challenge so THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE was called to duty. This is a classic example of 1950s sci-fi with a doctor obsessed with developing new transplant techniques. While driving to his secret mountainside lab he wrecks his car and his wife in the process. Finding her severed head, he quickly wraps it up and brings it to the lab and hooks it up to all sorts of wires and machines to keep it alive in hopes of transplanting it to a new body. While the man searches for the perfect body his wife's head plots revenge as she doesn't want to be kept alive in this manner.

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE plays out conventionally and there isn't a ton of surprises going on but there's a nice surprise when the monster that's kept in the closet is released. Otherwise there's nothing too special but nothing to complain about either.

The next few movies are a trilogy that I've put off for quite a while since buying the boxset a few years back. I figured it was way passed time that I finally checked out the HANZO THE RAZOR trilogy. This mix of samurai action and drama along with the exploitative nature of pinky violence comes together in this rock solid series of films featuring Itami Hanzo played by Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi) as a rebellious samurai officer who has great disdain for the corruption within his own comrades and the government.

Each film takes Hanzo on a journey to track down a major criminal and along the way he uncovers and takes down some corrupt officials. Each movie is filled with violent sword fights, usually leaving Hanzo at a great disadvantage. Hanzo's skills leave bodies strewn across the floor and blood splattered across the walls. Hanzo's home is full of traps such as spike pits, secret arrows shooting from the walls, spears falling from the ceiling and secret caches of weapons hidden in the walls by his bath tub.

Oh and did I mention that Hanzo has a giant dick? Yeah, he does. And he works at keeping its strength up because it is a major tool (pun fun) in his arsenal to get women to confess or tell him what he wants to know. There's quite a bit of sexual torture going on in the series and though it all feels a little silly when you really think about it, it still manages to really make these pictures dirty. On top of the sexual torture there's plenty of nudity (duh) and arterial blood sprays that are always fun to see. Add a touch of surrealism and horror in very small doses and HANZO THE RAZOR is a damn fun trilogy.

Last up was SUPERSOUL BROTHER, or the title on screen THE SIX THOUSAND DOLLAR NIGGER. I do love that alternate title as it perfectly sums up what this is- a cheap blaxploitation take on The Six Million Dollar Man. Starring Wildman Steve, Peter Conrad who was the midget in Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse along with roles in both Porky's and Porky's 2, and a whole slew of others who never appeared in another movie, this piece of exploitation sees a homeless man get selected to get picked up, cleaned up, laid and eventually injected with a super power serum all to steal the safe from a jewelry store. The plan goes bad for the doctor and his henchmen when they find out Steve is now bulletproof! SUPERSOUL BROTHER is a lot of fucking fun. It has awful dialogue but the acting actually isn't as bad as you may suspect... yeah it's not good but I've certainly seen worse. This is just a movie to sit back and enjoy for how ridiculous it is. It's funny, trashy and damn fine blaxploitation, and Wildman STeve is so awesome in it. The DVD from Vinegar Syndrome will be out on April 14!

Today's Rundown 
The Brain That Wouldn't Die - 5/10
Sword Of Justice - 7.5/10
The Snare - 8/10
Who's Got The Gold - 7.5/10
Supersoul Brother - 6.5/10

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge 2015 - Days 6 and 7

With all of the news about David Lynch leaving the new Twin Peaks production swirling about it made me really want to check out Lynch's animated series, DUMBLAND, so I did that to start day 6. 8 Episodes covering roughly 35 minutes is hardly a feature film but whatever. This series circles around a big bald white trash guy that burps and farts alot. The animation is as crude and basic as it can be and the other characters, including his wife and kid are fucking obnoxious (in a funny way). The series reminded me a bit of Beavis and Butthead in tone and it made me really want to see the show turned into a half hour format with better animation. This isn't Lynch's best work, but it is entertaining and has a touch of his signature absurdity.

The rest of the films that would end day 6 and fully comprise day 7 were all from indie exploitation/horror film maker Cory Udler. Udler has been talked about on this website before as he made a chapter of the Wisconsin based anthology film Hole In The Wall which I raved about last year. I finally decided to check out four of his other movies, the first being MEDIATRIX. Unfortunately I wasn't a fan of this sleazy take on a true story of a religious cult from Wisconsin. Nothing clicked with this movie for me and despite there being a good bit of sexuality I found it to be rather uninteresting.

Day 7 was made of of Udler's INCEST DEATH SQUAD trilogy. I was glad to find that these are a step up from the day's previous movie. These uber low budget horror/hixploitation films revolve around a religious brother and sister who revel in dirty sexuality to go along with their bible tales. Amber, the sister, enjoys getting fucked by out of towners while her brother Jeb reads from the Good Book. Jeb then brutally murders the tourists all in the name of God.

The second film takes place immediately after as Amber is pregnant with the child of her latest lay who escaped the incestuous siblings and returned home. Jeb and Amber take to the road to hunt down the man that has given Amber her "gift". IDS RISING closes the trilogy as we learn more about Amber and Jeb's past and their family and Amber is stuck until she repents her evil life.

The IDS movies are solid productions top to bottom and feature much better acting than movies of this type typically do. There's strong violence and a bit of gore but the subtext and content of the story is what mainly drives the viewer's emotions. There's also plenty of sexiness going on here. A solid exploitation horror trilogy.

Today's Rundown
Dumbland - 6/10
Mediatrix - 3/10
Incest Death Squad - 5.5/10
Incest Death Squad 2 - 5.5/10
IDS Rising - 5.5/10

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge 2015 - Days 4 and 5

The fourth day of the challenge started with a pair of movies on a double feature DVD that Troma has recently released called FROM ASIA WITH LUST Volume 1. Both films are from Japanese director Ainosuke Shibata whom I am not all familiar with. Interestingly enough I couldn't find any information about either of these films online while trying to research them a bit so I can't discuss anything other than what I saw... The first movie, CAMP, is a rape/revenge movie about two sisters who wreck their car and take solace with a young man at his home nearby. All hell breaks loose when the man's friends stop by and it is apparent that the entire group are recovering sex addicts of some sort and begin to brutally torture and humiliate the girls by punching them, tying them up and even going as far as forcing them to urinate so they can drink it. One of the sisters is able to escape and runs into a strange woman who turns out to be some kind of vigilante and teaches her to use a crossbow to hunt her captors and take revenge on them.

CAMP was certainly a roughy. It has some of the meanest content I've seen in recent years but falls apart as soon as the vigilante woman comes in to play as it all feels incredibly hokey and cheap afterwards. There's nothing terrifying about a cheap plastic crossbow that looks like it cost $20 at Wal  Mart and can barely get the arrows 15 feet to a practice target. There's even less to be intimidated by when the vigilante woman can barely hold or control her own weapon, a long bow. A weak twist finishes out the movie falling apart from something decent to something ultimately forgettable.

Then there was HITCH-HIKE, a remake of the film from 1977 that starred Franco Nero, where a bank robber is picked up while hitchhiking and ends up taking the couple in the car hostage and on a long terrifying road trip in search of an escape from the law hunting him. This remake is pretty bland and misses the ability of Nero and numerous other aspects that made the original something special, not least of which was a score by Ennio Morricone. It wasn't terrible but nothing special.

EFFECTS was next, a Pittsburgh based horror film from 1980 that was never released on home video before Synapse put it out in 2005. The film stars Joe Pilato and Tom Savini and is about a low budget horror film being made that is a front for the director actually making a snuff film out of the whole thing. I really enjoyed the last 30 minutes or so but the first 2/3 of the movie bored the piss out of me. It just takes too long to get going.

I switched gears for a bit and popped in an old favorite to end day 4. THE TOXIC AVENGER is the first movie of the challenge that wasn't new to me and it remains as incredibly campy, offensive, funny, and exciting as it ever was. I love the entire series to death and always will. This was the second movie of the month in which a pet dog is murdered... I wonder if that will become an unintentional theme going forward.

Day five started with another re-watch as I got to watch my new Blu-ray of EXTERMINATORS OF THE YEAR 3000. If you can't figure it out, this is Mad Max style exploitation. Post-nuke cheese where a guy named Alien helps a kid with a bionic arm find water for his group of survivors while Crazy Bull and his band of dirt bike riding baddies battle them in fantastically fun fights, chase scenes that are packed with explosions and action. This release is so much nicer than the old Code Red disc.

And the last movie for this post was EVE OF DESTRUCTION. I had pretty high hopes for this to be trashy sci-fi action but I have to say I was a bit let down. Gregory Hines stars as a military man assigned to track down and destroy an android type robot that is on a bit of a rampage. Little does he know that it's a nuclear weapon and in 24 hours will self destruct, taking 30 city blocks with it. Hines is good and the movie really isn't bad but slow moving and aside from 3 or 4 scenes it is pretty light on the action. Lower expectations would have left me with a better impression of this one.

Today's Rundown
Camp - 4.5/10
Hitch-Hike - 4/10
Effects - 4/10
Toxic Avenger - 8.5/10
Exterminators of the Year 3000 - 7/10
Eve of Destruction - 6/10

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge 2015 - Days 2 and 3

Long worth the wait was DAY OF ANGER. I've wanted to see this one for years but the lack of an affordable priced DVD kept it from my eyes but thanks to Arrow's new Blu-ray which is gorgeous, I've finally been able to see this spaghetti western that is widely considered among the best the genre has to offer. I won't disagree there. Lee Van Cleef and Guiliano Gemma star in this film by the vastly underrated Tonino Valeri. Cleef and Gemma are damn near perfect with each other as the grizzled old gunfighter and his new understudy as they right some wrongs that have been done to them in the past. There's fun gunplay, fantastic photography and direction and a brilliant score from Riz Ortolani that really pulls the whole thing together and controls your mood. The horseback duel is a scene for the ages!

Following that was DEATH OF A SNOWMAN, an action/crime film from South Africa. Billed as blaxploitation on its DVD cover, I wouldn't call it full blown blaxploitation, but the influence is there. The movie itself is messy with a bit too much going on for its own good. The lighting is total shit in some scenes so that it's almost impossible to see what is going on. It's not all bad, as there are some fun action sequences like the one set around a truck carrying chicken cages but it isn't revered as a classic for good reason. 

The final movie of day 2 was CYCLONE from 1978, the same year as Snowman as a matter of fact. This mishmash of natural disaster, shark terror and cannibalism makes for an interesting piece of work. A glass bottom tour boat full of survivors from a vicious cyclone, some from a downed plane, others from various boats, try to survive in the middle of the ocean until help arrives but supplies of food and water quickly deplete and the survivors begin to turn on each other. CYCLONE has long periods where very little happens but remains strangely engaging and watchable. There's a few shocking moments that add excitement when needed. Overall it's a decent one. 

The lone movie for day 3 was ANIMAL. I'll sum it up as short as I can... a group of stereotypes takes a hike in the woods, they argue like assholes for 20 minutes before they're chased in the dark by some sort of weird bucktooth monster animal who has no problem dispatching of the biggest guy in the group. The rest of them get to an old house in the woods where they find a few more people hiding out from the animal. And thus begins the waiting game. Almost nothing happens after this. The animal pokes around looking for a way into the house despite broken windows and doors being boarded up with crappy plywood, something that shouldn't stop this megabeast from getting in. Every horror cliche under the fucking sun is on full display in ANIMAL and almost worn with pride. It's amateurish at best and even that is being a bit too nice. 

Today's Rundown

Day Of Anger - 8.5/10

Death Of A Snowman - 4.5/10

Cyclone - 5.5/10

Animal - 1/10

Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge 2015 - Day 1

Another April has arrived and what better way to ring in the warmth of Spring than with the warmth that only exploitation films can give you? As part of the DVD Exploitation/B-Movie/Drive-in challenge I'll be keeping track and reviewing my monthly viewing with daily (or semi-daily) posts.

To start the challenge I decided to go with a Scream Factory Blu-ray release I'd been putting off watching for a while... THE ISLAND from 1980. A journalist and his son head off to the Bermuda Triangle to do a report on the hundreds of vehicles that have turned up missing in recent years. Their plane crash lands and they're quickly abducted by the pirates who inhabit the area and have been doing their thing for 300 years. The rest of the movie is spent with the father trying to escape and undo the brainwashing they've done to his son. With only a handful of exciting scenes it really drags on and isn't anything great. It's competently made and has a few notable names like David Warner but there's just not enough excitement to stop it from being a chore.

Next up was another that I knew would be bad but I was somewhat surprised by how bad. The Mondo film cycle that began in 1962 with Mondo Cane had seen dozens of entries by the time BRUTES AND SAVAGES rolled around. This 1977 entry to the genre is bad, bottom of the barrel bad. All movies like this stage many of the scenes but BRUTES AND SAVAGES does so with such low quality and such cheapness that it's shameful. This movie is shock value for the sake of shock value and the worst kind at that. Numerous animals are slaughtered on screen and it isn't in the interest of art or documenting and preserving the traditions of a culture or tribe, it's simply to shock the audience and to make a buck. There's a fake alligator head eating a man, scenes of what seems to be an actual brain surgery (you have to wonder if the patient knew he'd be filmed while under such dire circumstances) and just to end on a high note the film closes with a bit of beastiality because why the fuck not? This is pure dreck but manages to be a small piece of exploitation and Mondo film history if anything.

Day 1 was bad, and if this was really the best movie I watched that pretty much sums it up... A BETTER PLACE is an indie film from 1997 about a high school kid that moves to a new town and the only person that really welcomes him at all is the loner outcast kid of the school. The two quickly become friends and seem to be good for each other. That is until an accident leaves a man dead and the new kid tries to distance himself from his new friend. A BETTER PLACE has solid acting from a young and what I assume to be a fairly raw cast. It's predictable and nothing we haven't seen before but is worth a watch and is really pretty decent.

BLACK OAK CONSPIRACY was the biggest disappointment of the day as I was hoping for a sweaty, adrenaline driven piece of Roger Corman produced action. Instead this down south good-old-boy movie about a Hollywood stunt man that returns home when his mother falls ill and finds that his family's land has been swindled from them is too hokey and tongue in cheek with virtually no pay off to make it all better. The audience wants to see Jingo the stunt man take down the corrupt town and mining company and get back what is rightfully his but instead we get potatoes stuffed in exhaust pipes a few fights that go nowhere and some car chases that really don't go anywhere. It's not awful but it'd be interesting to find out why they didn't go for a more revenge styled approach.

Disappointment after disappointment for day 1 as we close out with the 1973 Spanish horror film A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL. A small town inn ran by two religious sisters is the subject of a woman's investigation as she has noticed that her sister and several other English tourists who are a bit more sexy and free than the conservative sisters would prefer have gone missing from the inn. The police become involved when a man finds something suspicious while eating dinner and the truth is revealed. This one had potential to be really good, even a minor classic of 70s Spanish horror. It needed to take a sleazier path than it did. It's slow burning and not incredibly graphic in its violence. Had this film been more graphic and ramped up the sex and violence a bit we'd have something really worth talking about but as it stands it's a slow burn that doesn't reward the viewer enough.

Today's Rundown
The Island - 4.5/10
Brutes And Savages - 2/10
A Better Place - 5/10
Black Oak Conspiracy - 4/10
A Candle For The Devil - 4.5/10

GONE WITH THE POPE (Blu-ray Review) - Grindhouse Releasing

USA/1976
Directed By: Duke Mitchell
Written By: Duke Mitchell
Starring: Duke Mitchell, Jim LoBianco, John Murgia
Color/82 Minutes/Not Rated
Region FREE
Release Date: 3/24/2015

The Film
Duke Mitchell stars in his own film as Paul, a criminal who has recently been paroled who gets a nice payday to put a hit on 7 men in California and Las Vegas. He splits the bounty with a friend of his to take care of the Vegas hits. Aferwards a few of Paul's friends get paroled and he drops his master plan on them- Kidnap the Pope and make every Catholic in the world pay $1 ransom!

GONE WITH THE POPE was lost and unfinished for over 30 years. Duke Mitchell left the film unfinished and passed away before ever touching it again. Thankfully Bob Murawski of Grindhouse Releasing was able to get in touch with Duke's son and was given the opportunity to try and edit what was shot and turn it into something. Murawski's efforts yielded an entertaining, morally questionable (that's being quite forgiving) and violent film.

GONE WITH THE POPE would be Mitchell's second and final film and is a nice companion piece to the earlier Massacre Mafia Style. The acting is a bit stiff as much of the cast were friends of Duke and not professional actors. There's a great soundtrack and some really creative film making techniques. GONE WITH THE POPE features a plot that I find to be complete genius. I immediately knew that this was a movie I needed to see when I read the plot and it doesn't disappoint. Even if the film didn't take the directions I expected or even hoped it would it plays out in a manner that really works and the ending is a bit bonkers.

When all is said and done GONE WITH THE POPE is far from perfect but the fact that film exists in a completed form is a minor miracle and all fans of genre cinema should definitely check it out.

The Audio & Video
All hail Grindhouse Releasing! Not only did they rescue this film, finish it and premiere it in 2010 after decades of sitting in a garage, they've given it an absolutely stunning Blu-ray release! I don't want to sell this release short and I don't think I can overstate just how beautiful the picture on this release is. The anamorphic widescreen transfer comes from the original 35mm camera negative and is  incredibly sharp. The picture is clean and crisp and features a warm natural grain structure. Colors, especially the Las Vegas neon, pop with brilliance. Skin tones are natural and black levels are deep. There are three audio options available, mono, stereo, and a new 5.1 mix by Marti Humphrey. All of the tracks are in English and HD. The crispness and crystal clarity to the audio is top notch. There's no damage to speak of and no background noise.

Please note: Images taken from DVD version of the film

The Extras
-"The Players Of GONE WITH THE POPE" - A 60+ minute featurette with extensive interviews from stars Jim LoBianco and John Murgia, cinematographer Peter Santoro, editors Bob Leighton and Robert Floria and Matt Cimber
-Shooting GWTP featurette
-Restoring GWTP featurette
-Footage from the 2010 World Premiere in Los Angeles
-Deleted scenes
-Outtakes
-Frankie Carr and the Nov-Elites performance live in Vegas
-Theatrical trailer
-Grindhouse Releasing trailers
-Liner notes
-Extensive still galleries
-Filmography
-DVD-Rom screenplay
-DVD copy of the movie

The Bottom Line
Grindhouse Releasing kills it with this release of a long lost and unfinished film that will turn in to a classic piece of exploitation. A beautiful restoration job and lovingly packed with special features, this is a must own for any exploitation film fan!

GONE WITH THE POPE is avaIlable HERE