ATOMICA To Be Released In March From SYFY Films

SYFY FILMS RELEASES ‘ATOMICA’

In Theaters March 17, 2017 and on VOD and Digital HD March 21, 2017

NEW YORK, NY -- January 11, 2017 -- Syfy Films is pleased to announce the release of the anticipated sci-fi thriller ATOMICA, in theaters on March 17, 2017 and on VOD and Digital HD on March 21, 2017.  The film is directed by Dagen Merrill (“Beneath,” “Broken Hill,” “Murder in the Dark”) and written by Kevin Burke (“Ultimate Spider-Man,” Marvel’s “Avengers Assemble,” “Beneath”), Fred Fernandez-Armesto and Adam Gyngell. The cast includes Dominic Monaghan (the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “Pet”), Tom Sizemore (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Black Hawk Down”) and Sarah Habel (“Hostel: Part III,” USA Network’s “Rush”).
 
In ATOMICA, when communications go offline at a remote nuclear power plant isolated in the desert, a young safety inspector, Abby Dixon, is forced to fly out to bring them back online. Once inside the facility, mysterious clues and strange behavior cause Abby to have doubts about the sanity and, perhaps, identities of the two employees onsite.

ATOMICA is produced by Jaime Burke (“The Pact,” “The Possession of Michael King”) and Vahan Paretchan (“The Millionaire Tour”) and executive produced by Simon Chen, Kieth Merrill (“Broken Hill,” “The 12 Dogs of Christmas”), Shawn Sackman, Barry G. Walker (“Solara,” “Finding Harmony”) and Dominic Monaghan.

For more information on the film, please visit https://www.facebook.com/AtomicaMovie.

THE BYE BYE MAN (2017)

USA/2017
Directed By: Stacy Title
Written By: Jonathan Penner
Starring: Douglas Smith, Lucien Laviscount, Cressida Bonas
In Theaters January 13, 2017

Following an opening scene set in the late 60s of a man who has seemingly lost his mind and is on a rampage through the neighborhood with a shotgun killing several people before himself in a scene that looked and felt like it was ripped straight from the reels of It Follows. Fast forward to present day and three college students move in to an old house off campus where they're quickly haunted by strange entity called The Bye Bye Man who will haunt your dreams and play mind games with you until you commit horrible acts simply for uttering his name. If you hear his name spoken or speak it out loud yourself you're also cursed with this demon. Sounds like a more PG-13 version of It follows almost, right?

Well that's where the similarities end because THE BYE BYE MAN is among the worst horror films I've ever seen in theaters. It borders on, but sadly never quite gets to so bad it's hilarious. You may find yourself laughing occasionally but it's more out of self preservation than anything actually funny.  The acting in this film, from top to bottom, including Faye Dunaway and Carrie Ann Moss in supporting roles, is just plain awful, which doesn't begin to truly describe it. No, the actors weren't working with a great, or even good, or hell even a passable script here as Jonathan Penner's screenplay was below amateur. It didn't help the actors out with believable lines or the film itself out by not having head scratching moments such as when a dog printed on the wall paper turns toward the camera and howls. That moment was silly in the absolute worst way. This screenplay would have left the finest actors up shit's creek but it made Goddamn fools of this cast. Most of which Cressida Bonas who played Sasha, the female lead and delivered every single line like a shy little child talking to grown ups. The more experienced Douglas Smith and Lucien Laviscount who co-star as best friends living with Sasha are barely better. The overacting is abundant but no scene may have stolen the show, again in the absolute worst way, than Smith's Elliot driving while sniveling and belting some emotional song about love and death and pounding the steering wheel. It's laughable but never funny and finds a way to be even worse when it precedes the most obvious car crash that was telegraphed from a mile away.

The complete and total ineptitude of this film can be summed up by Elliot realizing that "Don't say it, don't think it" isn't just some clever tag line the film's marketing team came up with and decided needed to be scrawled just about everywhere you look in the movie- in drawers, on walls, in books, on windows, and make it's way into every other sentence spoke, but this is actually the way to beat the curse and stay alive! Ding ding ding we have a winner folks! This generically named demon gets his power from the fear when you speak his name. Now I'm sure somewhere, sometime, someone has uttered "bye bye, man" to a friend but that's a plot hole we'll just leave gaping. So problem solved, we don't speak his name and don't think about this demon with an incredibly lazy design or his pet dog with Nintendo 64 graphics that shows up sometimes and only at the end of the movie starts to eat a corpses head, and we're golden right? Well, wrong. It seems after Elliott magically discovers this fucking secret, that isn't a secret at all but a fucking warning from the man decades earlier (holy shit what a fucking revelation we have on our hands, folks!) it seems that "Bye Bye Man" is all he can fucking say. Or Try to say. Or Try not to say. It didn't really make much sense.

The things that did make sense were the little curve balls the film threw at you from the Bye Bye Man's point of view of messing with his victims which may work on these college assholes but anyone with half a brain saw the giant "gasp" moment in the finale coming as they had just used the same little trick and plot device no more than five minutes earlier. Finkle is Einhorn... Einhorn is Finkle!

And there's so many other moments that just don't make fucking sense in one way or another. Either within the story, such as why is the house on fire at the end out of nowhere? Or why did they decide that was a great idea such as the lady cop winking at John and then being completely dumbfounded that he awkwardly winks back. Now this moment has nothing to do in the grand scheme of things but it's one of countless moments that just pile up and up and up. You be asking yourself, but what about the jumps scares? Surely a PG-13 rated supernatural horror film has plenty of jump scares, right? Yes it does and surprise! They're not effective. Hell, they barely have any affect on the characters in the movie let alone the audience. I sure hope Doug Jones did something cool with the money he got from this because he's too good to be wasting his time in bullshit like THE BYE BYE MAN.

Repeat it to yourself: "Don't say it, don't think it" and if you're lucky maybe you'll forget this steaming pile of shit exists.

TABOO 2 and TABOO 3 Double Feature (Blu-ray Review) - Vinegar Syndrome

USA/1982, 1984
Directed By: Kirdy Stevens
Written By: Helene Terrie
Starring: Kay Parker, Dorothy LeMay, Jerry Butler
Color/191 Minutes/X
Region FREE
Release Date: November 29, 2016
Blu-ray/DVD

The Films
The TABOO films are classic vintage American smut for a reason. They're well made, they're sexy as hell and they focus on characters we can relate to. Kay Parker starred as a sexually frustrated mother lusting after her college bound son in the original film which culminated in a wildly dreamy and satisfying scene. It was a fantastic film but there were so many more twists and turns a series based in incestuous fetish could take and so much more money to make that there had to be sequels.

TABOO 2 features Junior, a friend of Paul from the original film who has learned of his relationship with his mother and decides he is going to act out on his own lust for his younger sister. TABOO 2 is a lot more straight forward and even exploitative in that Junior damn near throws himself on top of his sister while groping, grabbing and rubbing her against her will. It all feels uncomfortable but eventually Sherry gives in to her brother's advances and can't get enough despite her parents finding out the hard way. And while they're fucking each other their lust spreads to their respective parents as Junior wants his mother, Sherry chases after her disapproving father who is disgusted and appalled by the entire situation.

TABOO 3 brings Kay Parker as Barbara back into a starring role but this time she is the object of her other son Jimmy's lust as he is jealous of his brother Paul's relationship with their mother. While that's going on her friend Joyce has totally accepted her sexual relationship with her own son and loves it and gives her the same advice when Barbara comes to her for help after she begins to crave Jimmy.

TABOO 2 and 3 may not have the signature artistic scene that the first film does, but it is dripping with everything else that the original film has. These films are sexy and kinky, they have solid scripts and competent acting to carry out believable films and not just fucking for the sake of fucking. The soundtracks are a bit funky and groovy and the direction from Kirdy Stevens shows more skill than just pointing the camera at a thrusting pelvis and calling it a day.

Despite Kay Parker playing a background role in TABOO 2 it may be my favorite of the three as it brings the fetish to new heights incorporating an entire family and brings a bit of humor in as well. Part three is held back by an unnecessary rock band subplot that does allow for more sex scenes but the entire angle doesn't do much to further the main theme of the series and that's the real reason anyone interested in the TABOO series takes the time to watch them. I can't say too much bad about these films though, even at their lowest point I still massively enjoy them and fully understand why they're held in such high regard for 80s smut.

The Audio & Video
Keeping their tracking record of beautifully preserving some of the finest vintage adult films alive and well, Vinegar Syndrome has once again released Blu-ray that is nothing less than stellar. The films have been given a new 2K scan and restoration from 35mm vault elements and look excellent. There is some minor spotting and the occasional age related line but that doesn't detract from the sharp, highly detailed and naturally colored image quality. Skin tones have a lush quality with no waxiness. The English DTS-HD Mono Master Audio mix is crisp and very well mixed. The soundtrack and the dialogue are complimentary and there's virtually no signs of damage or background noise.

The Extras
-Video interview with actor Blake Palmer
-Original theatrical trailer for TABOO 2
-Kay Parker's personal TABOO 3 script

The Bottom Line
These sequels take the incest kink ball that the first film introduced in 1980 and run with it, ramping up the sex factor exponentially. Maybe they're not the iconic film that the original is but they're a lot of sexy fun and shouldn't be ignored by fans of the first.

TABOO II/TABOO III is available HERE

COUNTER CLOCKWISE (DVD Review) - Artsploitation Films

USA/2016
Directed By: George Moise
Written By: Michael Kopelow, George Moise, Walter Moise
Starring: Michael Kopelow, Frank Simms, Alice Rietveld
Color/91 Minutes/Not Rated
Region 1
Release Date: December 13, 2016

The Film
Time travel can be a tricky thing especially when you fall in to it by accident when all you really meant to do was teleport your dog across your laboratory. And then there's the issue that you teleported yourself into the future where your wife and sister are dead and you're the lone suspect so you have to return to before everything went wrong and solve the crime at the same time. Time travel is a real pain in the ass.

Not only is time travel a pain in the ass it's also a difficult theme to tackle for a film and keep a tight, well managed story together. It's even harder to do that on a small independent film budget but that's exactly what director and co-writer George Moise pulls off. Moise's direction is stylish and smooth which blends his own photography that doesn't let its budget hold it back from being creative and not without innovation. The script interlaces timelines seamlessly which creates a much more pleasant ride and viewing experience than shoddier screenplays would allow.

Moise gets help from a talented cast lead by Michael Kopelow who truly is fantastic in his role as he frantically tries to put together the pieces of rival science labs and the murders of his loved ones. He's genuinely funny as well which makes the usually subtle, but at times overtly silly humor, work in the confines of this thriller. Michael Kopelow has no problem carrying the bulk of the picture but he's supported by a more than capable group of supporting actors including Joy Rinaldi who is absolutely hilarious as his wine loving mother who is excited for her birthday party, his friend and partner Ceil played by Alice Rietveld, and his enemies Bruno Amato who is great as the muscle and Frank Simms as Roman the main antagonist who has a great line about washing your hands before you take a piss.

One thing I loved about COUNTER CLOCKWISE is that it gets more and more interesting as the film goes along. It doesn't lose steam too early and leave you waiting for the conclusion and hoping it wraps up soon. I was engaged the entire time and excited to see the next turn and how the alternate timelines would blend together. If there's one thing I will nitpick about it's that a couple of the locations, mainly dealing with the villains' locations were underdressed and were the only thing in the movie that I ever found myself questioning the legitimacy of. This isn't a major deal and I understand how a budget doesn't always allow everything to be done up big.

COUNTER CLOCKWISE is a damn entertaining movie with production values that exceed its indie film status.

The Audio & Video
Artsploitation Films gives COUNTER CLOCKWISE a home on DVD with a mostly nice looking 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. The image is crisp and clean giving way to nice detail and colors. Darker scenes are plagued by a bit of blocking but nothing too extreme. The 5.1 Dolby surround mix is clear and strong. The mix is done well and there's no damage or imperfections to speak of.

The Extras
-Audio Commentary with Director George Moise
-Audio Commentary with Director George Moise and Editor Walter Moise
-Audio Commentary with Director George Moise and star Michael Kopelow
-"Making Of" Documentary - An extremely well done 27 minute behind the scenes.
-Deleted Scenes with optional audio commentary

The Bottom Line
COUNTER CLOCKWISE is a rock solid time travel piece that is smart and funny at the proper time and the DVD features enough extra content to keep you interested and digging in for hours after. This is an easy recommendation.

COUNTER CLOCKWISE is available HERE

NEVER OPEN THE DOOR (Blu-ray Review)

USA/2014
Directed By: Vito Trabucco
Written By: Christopher Maltauro, Vito Trabucco
Starring: Jessica Sonneborn, Mike Wood, Deborah Venegas
Black & White/64 Minutes/Not Rated
Region A
Release Date: December 6, 2016

The Film
A group of friends spending Thanksgiving together at a secluded house in the forest have their good time shaken when a stranger bangs at the door and spits blood all over one of the girls and collapses upon entering the house managing only to point at one of the men and say "never open the door" before dying. What follows is a horrifically bizarre night of twisted timelines, fake identities and bloodshed.

NEVER OPEN THE DOOR lost me almost as soon as the creative and well done opening credit sequence was over. The credits had an almost German Expressionistic look and feel to them and I'm always a fan of a director taking time to make his credit sequence something special. As soon as they end we're submitted to a sequence lasting several minutes of a POV shot of something sprinting through the woods interlaced with the six friends sitting around the dinner table and the entire time I asked myself why these people are friends. They all seem to absolutely despise each other deep down but disguise it on the surface as good natured ribbing. Friends can rip on friends and laugh it off but these people were taking every chance they could to lay in to someone else, down their entire existence or even try to one up everyone there, including their wife who just announced her pregnancy. It's quite obvious nobody in this group really respects each other and frankly most of them weren't very likable either. With no reason to care about any of these people or how their night turns out the only thing left to keep me interested was the identity of the stranger and why this is all happening in the first place.

Unfortunately the script just doesn't do it. A mish mash of psychological horror, characters turning evil and disappearing and reappearing, random men stalking the house in the shadows and piss poor CGI effects all fail to be interesting. The cast is uneven, perhaps as a result of a screenplay that has characters changing so often they could never settle in. The cinematography is the easily the best technical aspect of the film. It's a stark, understated black and white look that adds a dream like feeling that helps the overall atmosphere of the film. Sadly that's all I've got to say about Vito Trabucco's NEVER OPEN THE DOOR, it has a bit of style that I admire but the idea puts the writing in to the deep end of the pool with no floaties and it can't swim.

The Audio & Video
The Blu-ray from Maltauro Entertainment looks quite good, letting the stark photography of the film which is it's best quality, shine. The anamorphic widescreen transfer is clean and has good detail levels while black levels are deep with no signs of compression or blocking. The English audio mix is stable and steady coming through strong and clear. There's no distracting imperfections to mention.

The Extras
-Interview with Director Vito Trabucco
-Interview with Producer Christopher Maltauro
-Interview with actress Jessica Sonneborn
-Trailer
-Photo Gallery

The Bottom Line
NEVER OPEN THE DOOR is unsuccessful foundation in setting up likable, realistic characters which doesn't allow for it's loftier ambitions to have a chance. It's an obvious skip when my favorite part of the film is the opening credits sequence.

NEVER OPEN THE DOOR is available HERE

CHILDREN OF THE CORN Franchise Retrospective Part 3: Fields Of Terror & Isaac's Return

CHILDREN OF THE CORN V: FIELDS OF TERROR started out with a glimmer of hope when the opening credits listed a few names I was not only familiar with but that I was a fan of. Alexis Arquette, Fred Williamson, David Carradine are all performers I enjoy and I was thinking "okay, maybe we've got something here." On top of them Eva Mendes, Ahmet Zappa co-star and even Jason Voorhees himself, Kane Hodder, has a role. I'll tell you right now he was only in a single scene as a bartender and not as a machete wielding corn stalk monster. What a let down. The opening scene features a clunky 90s CGI murder featuring the main child that would be running the show of our misfit kernels. Sadly shortly after we lose Alexis Arquette and Ahmet Zappa who had great energy and would have been a nice contrast to the rest of our main cast of college students who are basically running around with dumbfounded, mouth agape, looks on their face for the majority of the film.

Oh you're interested in the plot? Well, six college friends (more like 4 friends after the first few minutes of the film take away the two most entertaining characters) go on a road trip and end up stranded in a small rural town that they not smells of burnt popcorn. After getting warned to leave by the sheriff (Fred Williamson) they hole up in an abandoned house for the night and later find that one of the girls missing brothers is in town living with Luke (David Carradine) who seems to be the leader of the strange kids. Luke lets her see her brother who informs her that he has no interest in leaving and is going to be marry a younger girl who is also pregnant with his child. The child leader Ezekiel chooses the brother who has reached 18 years of age as the annual sacrifice to He Who Walks Behind The Rows which means he would have to throw himself into the burning corn silo but the brother refuses and tells Luke his religion is a lie which leads to a battle between the college friends and the runaway brother and the pitchfork wielding psycho children. There's even a showdown between Luke and the sheriff which is my favorite scene in the film and is easily the best special effect moment of the film as well.

The plot is weak and the film isn't interesting enough to keep your attention throughout so that you really settle in to it. I found myself getting restless and bored and simply didn't care about a single thing going on. Fred Williamson and David Carradine are both wasted by given little to do. Our main group is filled with bland characters and uninspired performances and the one thing that these movies have given us each and every time until now is creepy kids but they even ruin that as these kids looked like any child you'd see getting dropped off at junior high and not a group of rural religious nut jobs. Ethan Wiley wrote the first two House films and even directed the second which is a wacky mishmash of ideas that works for a wonderfully fun 80s cocktail but his entry in to the CHILDREN OF THE CORN series is my least favorite through the first five entries.

I spoke too soon. It gets worse. You might think, and I would be right there with you that the return of John Franklin who played Isaac, the preacher leader of the children in the original film would be an upgrade to the series but no, CHILDREN OF THE CORN 666: ISAAC'S RETURN is yet another step down on this ladder of shit. I'm not sure how much lower this thing can go.

Natalie Ramsey stars as Hannah Martin, the first baby born from the cult in the original film, now she has decided to return to Gatlin to find her birth mother. After a strange encounter with a preacher that ends in Hannah crashing her car into a corn field she is taken to the local hospital by the sheriff. At the hospital she finds out Isaac was not killed but ended up in a coma. After she leaves the hospital Hannah begins to get stalked and terrorized during her stay at a local motel. The townspeople speak of a prophecy between her and Isaac but Hannah won't leave until she finds out about her mother.

Well we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Isaac is in a coma for years and only Hannah's return wakes him which is an okay plot device, especially five sequels deep but this movie is as painfully boring and disjointed as we can get. Dead birds, messages scrawled across the wall in nail polish, and mentally unstable patients at a hospital are the majority of the horror elements until the eye roll inducing ending where we finally meet He Who Walks Behind The Rows and find out he's some local douche bag in a leather jacket. He manhandles Isaac, killing him and Hannah escapes but is no pregnant with the baby of He Who Walks Behind The Rows.

It's so bad. So so so bad. If you're not bored to tears then you're surely getting infuriated at how stupid the whole thing is. It was bad enough that I was complaining to myself that there was barely any corn! And yet again the creepy kid factor is kept to a minimum. I was hoping Isaac's return would at least bring something of merit back to the series, not that I'm any sort of lover of the original but it's by far the best of the series but no, the plot device was a waste and I'm sure this film is only remembered for being the film that brings back John Franklin and Isaac to the series.

If I was beginning to regret the decision to go through this entire series before I am now in full regret mode. These movies are awful.

Film Scores
CHILDREN OF TH CORN 5: FIELDS OF TERROR - 3.5/10
CHILDREN OF THE CORN 666: ISAAC'S RETURN - 2.5/10

THE ID (Hutson Ranch Media - Blu-ray Review)

USA/2016
Directed By: Thommy Hutson
Written By: Sean H. Stewart
Starring: Amanda Wyss, Patrick Peduto, Jamye Grant
Color/87 Minutes/Not Rated
Region FREE
Release Date: October 25, 2016

The Film
Amanda Wyss stars as Meredith, a middle aged woman living for little else than to care for her sick father. Their relationship isn't good as Meredith's father is abusive toward her every chance he gets. A phone call from an old high school friend gives Meredith a small light in her life but quickly pushes her to the brink of a broken mind.

THE ID is a small production, using a single location and only a handful of characters to tell its story. Amanda Wyss carries the film with a strong performance of a middle aged woman who has been stunted in her mental growth by an abusive father. Meredith still lives in her childhood home in a bedroom decorated with high school banners from over 20 years ago. Her only interaction with the outside world is with the girl who delivers food for her father daily but their interactions are brief and usually end abruptly with Meredith being cold and rude. She is not to blame for how she handles interactions with other people as her father, played disgustingly and perfectly by Patrick Peduto, is an absolute piece of shit to her going as far as spitting in her face and pissing his pants on purpose and laughing in his daughter's face while she has to change him.

Meredith's mind is already a mess as she has visions of killing her father and slips into these visions frequently. When her old high school boyfriend Ted looks her up for a reunion Meredith slips further into a damaged state, while something nice has happened to her and gives her something to look forward to, her Father berates her over it calling her a whore and saying she can't go which only makes things in Meredith's mind that much worse. When the reunion finally happens Ted and his wife find an obviously disturbed woman, living in a reality that doesn't exist and cut their trip short but that's only the start of Meredith's problems.

THE ID is small and tight. It's driven by characters and their performances. Wyss and Peduto are really good together, and they endure a lot. My gripes with the film are minor and deal with the writing particularly dealing with the Ted scene. Ted and Meredith hadn't seen each other since they graduation 28 years earlier, how close could they have been if they didn't have contact in nearly three decades? I understand that in her mental state Meredith could make it the big deal she did when hearing from Ted but what are the chances that after nearly 30 years a happily married man with children randomly looks up an old high school girlfriend out of the blue and then fails to mention his wife and surprises Meredith with her on arrival? That didn't make any sense to me and felt like a plot hole that could have been fixed. It doesn't take away from my overall enjoyment and appreciation from the film but it's not so big that much would have to change to fix it.

Thommy Hutson does a nice job directing this film, it's not overly stylish but he's competent in doing what needs to be done to let the film organically shine. This is a psychological thriller based around a bastardized relationship of a father and his daughter and their brief and tragic encounters with the outside world. Don't let THE ID fly under your radar as it is well worth your time.

The Audio & Video
Hutson Ranch Media releases THE ID on region free Blu-ray with a nice looking 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen Scope aspect ratio transfer. The film has a natural color palette which is pleasing to the eye along with strong finer details and skin tones. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix is free of any background noise or imperfections and has a stable mix.

The Extras
-Audio Commentary with Director Thommy Hutson
-"Needs, Wants & Desire: Behind The Scenes Of THE ID"
-Deleted and Alternate Scenes
-Additional Behind-The-Scenes Footage
-Audition Clips
-Photo Gallery
-Trailers

The Bottom Line
THE ID is a really solid modern psychological thriller that deserves to be seen.

THE ID is available HERE