Movie Review: Blood Rage (Arrow, Blu-ray)

Reviewed By: Hal Astel

Oh my goodness Blood Rage was bad, and I don't just mean bad I mean really truly beyond all reason bad. This now occupies the dubious position of 'Worst Film of the 1980s' in my ratings and it may just stay there for a long while. Everything about it is bad: the direction, the writing, the dialogue, the acting, the concept, you name it. And for a film in which almost all the female characters get naked to be this bad is almost unheard of. The best part of it is a short appearance by Ted Raimi as a condom salesman and it's over in about five seconds. He's outcredited by a baby.

The lead character Maddy is a mother of twins and we start the film with her cuddling and kissing with her boyfriend in a car parked at the drive through. The twins wake up and sneak out of the car but one of them, Terry, is rather unhappy about what his mum is getting up to, so kills a rutting couple in another car with an axe and blames his brother Todd. Yes, the axe is just hanging around somewhere. No, his brother doesn't say anything to contradict Terry's statement. No, nobody notices that Terry is covered in blood and Todd just has some on his cheek. It's all taken as read and off Todd goes to the looney bin.

Movie Review: Dillinger (1973)

Directed by John Milius

Review by Greg Goodsell


Every bit as ruthless as the mobsters he swears he will kill in order to smoke cigars over their still warm corpses, Edgar G. Hoover right-hand man Melvin Purvis (Ben Jonson) sets his sights on bank robber John Dillinger (Warren Oates). Dillinger and his gangster cohorts Baby Face Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) and Pretty Boy Floyd (Steve Kanaly). These hoodlums pose a massive threat to the security of Depression Era America in many several ways, Purvis notes in his ponderous narration. These criminals provide escapist copy for the garish tabloids, Purvis says, perhaps inspiring the poor-but-honest to leave their lives of quiet desperation to begin their own lives of crime. He vows to make sure that Dillinger and clan, after a shootout costing the lives of six government men, die in the most sordid and least romantic ways possible – fueling a cross-country manhunt with few survivors.

Movie Review: The Mutilator (1984, Blu-ray)

Now that the busy season of the hubby’s business is over and October has wrapped up, I can get back to my reviews. And I’m excited to jump back in with a film from the most tubular of decades - the 80s!

The Mutilator (original title Fall Break) begins with the most unfortunate of events. Little Ed Jr. decides that the best birthday present he can give his father is to clean all his dad’s guns. We’ve all been there. Checking down the sight of a rifle and pulling the trigger to make sure everything’s clean and accidentally killing our moms, amirite?

Needless to say, Ed Sr.’s cheese slides a little off his cracker when he comes home to find his wife dead and his spawn responsible. 

Years later, Ed is in college and the relationship with his father is basically nonexistent. Until now. He wants Ed to close up the beach condo for the winter. And how convenient because Ed and his friends are on fall break (ahhh…now the original title makes more sense!) and have nothing to do. So why not help close up the place while enjoying time at the beach?

Because Ed’s dad is a fucking nut job and wants them all dead!! Particularly Junior, of whom he dreams about killing all the time.

C.H.U.D, The Driller Killer and More!!

MVD Entertainment Group furthers the distribution of Arrow Video in the US with three great new titles in November. The month kicks off with The Initiation on Blu-ray, one of the best of the college-based slasher movies of the 1980s. One of the later entries into the genre, it had horror fans hooked with its tense stalk 'n' slash scenes and it's surprising twist of an ending.

The horror continues with C.H.U.D., the classic 80s horror featuring the Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers making their long-awaited debut on Blu-ray with a brand new restoration from original film elements.
Last but by no means least comes Arrow Video's landmark release of The Driller Killer as a both Limited Edition SteelBook and standard Dual Format release. One of the most infamous of the UK video nasties, Abel Ferrara's psychological horror masterpiece is presented fully uncut and comes with several new, exclusive special features.

Movie Review: Society (1989, Blu-ray)

Directed by Brian Yuzna

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

Bill Whitney (played by TV regular Billy Warlock) is almost too cool for school. He has a rich, Beverly Hills family, born into a life of privilege and is popular and well-liked at school. Luckily for viewers – as otherwise there would be no story to hang all the perversity on – things are not quite right at home. Eschewing drugs, he walks in on his sister Jenny (Patrice Jennings) showering, and it appears her body is contorted through the frosted glass mirror. When one of Jenny’s ex-boyfriends (Tim Bartell) presents Bill with a clandestine tape, things go from bad to worse. The recording appears to be of his parents encouraging his sister to engage in a perverse orgy, advising her to “shunt,” a word which takes a horrific meaning later on.

Bill’s friends begin to die in mysterious ways, and lots of images foreshadow what’s to come later on – a rival plants an inflatable love doll in his jeep with a doll sticking out of its mouth, and Bill is doused with suntan lotion.

Everyone knows by now – save the people who caught the climactic 20 minutes while channel surfing, which doubtlessly stopped them dead in their tracks, that Bill’s family turns out to be a race of super beings who gather with other like-minded beings for an viscous orgy called “the Shunt.” The Whitneys and their other too-rich and too-thin friends meld bodies, twist into bits of latex and gobble up the less fortunate at their slimy soirees.

Movie Review: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (aka Dr. Jekyll and His Women, 1981)

Directed by Walerian Borowczyk

Movie Review by Greg Goodsell

In Victorian, fog-shrouded London, the engagement party of Dr. Henry Jekyll (Udo Kier) and Fanny Osbourne (Marina Pierro) is underway at a stately manse. Among their many guests are bellicose general (Patrick Magee, the only actor who has to retain his authentic voice for the English language version of the film) (Jesus Franco go-to lead Howard Vernon). Something is not right – an innocent young girl has been beaten to within an inch of her life nearby and a deadly figure begins to stalk the home, murdering and raping the guests. It’s Jekyll's alter ego Edward Hyde (Gérard Zalcberg), transformed after a chemical dip in amber liquid in the bathtub. Fanny is first horrified – but then insists that what is good for the gander is good for the goose and takes a similar dip. Unleashing both their primal, animalistic sides, Fanny and Hyde decimate the remaining guests and set the house ablaze.

The above story is very tragic – but as this supplement-heavy Btu-Ray from Arrow Video (comparable Criterion Collection releases pale in comparison) attests to, the real tragedy was the fact that Walerian Borowczyk was a serious, artistic filmmaker who was pressed out of economic necessity to helm soft and hardcore pornography along with B-grade horror.

Movie Review: Spider Baby (1968, Blu-ray/DVD combo)

  The credits dub this “the maddest story ever told”, a promise that's well on the way to being fulfilled in the opening scene alone, when Virginia traps and kills a hapless deliveryman in her makeshift web. She's one of three siblings who suffer from a genetic disorder that causes them to regress back to childhood, while retaining the physical strength and sexual maturity of adults.

 So many directors got their start working for Roger Corman and Jack Hill was one of them. Deemed by Quentin Tarantino as "The Howard Hawks of exploitation filmmaking".  He has been mostly known for having directed Pam Grier in two revolutionary for their times pictures black exploitation pictures Coffy & Foxy Brown.   He would then go on to work with Pam twice more in the two rather infamous shot in the Philippines women in prison films for Roger Corman. Those flicks were the overrated The Big Doll House and the underrated Big Bird Cage. Hill also had a strong working relationship with the great Sid Haig who thanks to House of 1000 and Devils Rejects has had a major career revival.

Arrow Films US May releases to include Retaliation, Society, and Island of Death all via MVD Entertainment Group

MVD Entertainment Group furthers the distribution of Arrow Video in the US with a strong schedule of May titles...

Retaliation - Limited Edition Dual Format Blu-ray & DVD
Trailer: http://youtu.be/lqfUHj9AjDI?list=PLO3U_ZE37EE50zXFxtFC2kDntQVWPrFOb

In 1969 future sexploitation specialist Yasuharu Hasebe (Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter) teamed up with the inimitable Jô Shishido (Tokyo Drifter, Branded to Kill) for a follow up to their yakuza hit Massacre Gun.

A tale of gang warfare that features a raft of the period's most iconic stars, Akira Kobayashi (Battles Without Honor and Humanity, The Flowers and the Angry Waves) is a yakuza lieutenant who emerges from jail to find his gang dispersed and his aging boss in his sickbed. Shishido is the rival waiting to kill him and a young Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood) is the girl caught in the crossfire.

Gritty and cynical, Retaliation is a hardboiled precursor to Kinji Fukasaku's revisionist yakuza pictures of the 1970s.

Movie Review: The Initiation (1984, New World/Arrow Video)

 ...alright, folks!! Let's see a raise of hands out there, whose partial joy of one's bygone high school years, was spent hanging out with friends, at the local shopping mall. With a hand elatedly raised high, yes, this viewer most assuredly engaged in this adolescent ritual...a demandant after-school prerequisite...a cartel of your best buds, or on some nights, just your best gal...a mass invasion of the food court...checking out the record stores and game shops...emptying a pocketful of quarters, obliterating asteroids, saving monkey-enslaved princesses and chomping on ghost-guarded power pills, at the arcade...and seeing the latest blood-spattered horror flickage at the multiplex. In a time when one's first taste of splattery cinema was the one-two-three punch of the original "Halloween", "Dawn of the Dead" & "Friday the 13th", and the onslaught of horror films to come, was just short of emphasizing a preponderance of holiday-based horrors (...jeez, didn't any holiday miss the ravages of horror filmmakers?? Oh wait...hey, how about that?? Arbor Day wasn't touched...horror filmmakers, take note), the idealist possibility of horrible horrors at a shopping mall weren't fully and wholly considered (...even after the siege of Romero zombies), especially after the more reflectively exuberant fun of hanging out at the mall was joyously upheld, with a certain little comedy ditty, in and the about the area of fictional Ridgemont High. That all changed, in the excellent '80's, when even a wayward and nocturnally covert jaunt at a shopping mall or department store proved to be quite horrific...even deadly, in notables like 1984's "Night of the Comet", 1986's "Chopping Mall", 1988's "Hide and Go Shriek", 1987's "The Outing" (...oh, OK...that was a museum, not a mall), as well as a quaint and underappreciated little whodunit slasher entry from 1984, entitled "The Initiation"...

Movie Review: Django Prepare A Coffin (Blu-ray, 1968)

Review By: Rob Sibley

For one of the first times I decided to give a film a blind watch without knowing anything about it. I'm a huge Spagetti Western fan and I've seen dozens of films titled Django and besides some gems such as "Django Kill... If you live shoot" most of them are pale imitations of Sergio Corbucci's classic 1966 Django. Everyone from Takashi Miike to Tarantino has tackled a Django picture.

So judging a book from it's cover I noticed this particular film starred Terence Hill of the Trinity films fame and the many flicks he made with Budd Spencer. He's a solid actor but sure has starred in a number of clunkers.

Second it was directed by Ferdinando Baldi who whelmed two films I really enjoyed. The solid Western Texas Goodbye with Franco Nero and the sleazy gem Terror Express. The composer on this picture was Gianfranco Reverberi who scored the fantastic Edqige Fenech flick, A Policewoman on the Porno Squad. Last but not least Arrow Video was releasing the film, on Blu-ray no less so I went into this with high hopes. Was I satisfied with the final results?

Movie Review: Black Sabbath (1963, Blu-ray/DVD combo pack)

Review By: Rob Sibley

  Mario Bava is the king of Italian horror, plain and simple. Don't get me wrong I am obsessed with Italian masters of horror. Dario Argento, Lucio Fulchi, Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino, Luigi Cozzi and Pupi Avati all are brilliant filmmakers. But Bava was special... some may call his films old fashioned. If by old fashioned you meant classy I'd agree. Bava single handily created the Giallo genre and at the same time (to me) did the first true slasher film with Bay of Blood. A film which was ripped off more times then I can count. Let's just say you wouldn't have Friday the 13^th 1 or 2 without Bay. You wouldn't have all the great early Giallo's from Argento if it wasn't for The Girl who knew too much and Blood and Black Lace.

Bava was ahead of his time, other filmmakers were just playing catch up. He was a man of many talents, not only an excellent director but a phenomenal cinematographer and writer. Look at “Hatchet For the Honeymoon” and tell me Brett Easton Ellis wasn't inspired by it for American Psycho. Bava didn't always just make horror films. He directed the criminally underrated epic “Hercules: In The Haunted World” and the Viking epic Erik The Conqueror. He also wasn't afraid to add humor to his films. His films often were filled with irony and pitch black humor.

Movie Review: Baron Blood (1972, Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack)

Review By Rob Sibley

Baron Blood may not be Mario Bava's most highly regarded film, but to me it's certainly a blast to watch. I'm a huge Bava junkie and often find myself revisiting his films often and Baron Blood is always a delight for repeat watches. This might have to do with the fact that the film is much faster paced then your typical Bava flick. Don't get me wrong I adore Black Sunday and the Giallo that started it all “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” and “Kill, Baby Kill...” but those films were definitely methodically paced and just a tad slow now and then. Those films are masterpieces of Italian cinema don't get me wrong, but I think younger audiences sadly would find those films painfully slow. Baron Blood on the other hand builds atmosphere quickly and expertly and moves along like a fine tuned freight train.

Movie Review: Motel Hell (1980, Blu-ray)

Review By: Rob Sibley

Motel Hell o man you got to love this flick! How many films featuring two playboy playmates, a dueling chainsaw fights and a “secret garden” filled with peeps who are buried up to their heads in dirt. Just waiting to be “smoked” and turned into cured meats. Throw in some swingers and a rock band to while your at it and you got a delicious little recipe for a fun black comedy. It's certainly not a straight up horror film, Motel Hell keeps a strong stream of dark humor flowing through the proceedings.

 In tone I'd almost compare the film to Paul Bartel/Mary Woronov classic “Eating Raoul” with a bit of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre thrown in for good measure. Interestingly enough Tobe Hooper was the first choice to direct this film but eventually dropped out. One would have to guess that Hooper might have upped the gore but director Conner's keeps the gore down instead serving up some delectable pitch black humor. 

Movie Review: Dead End Drive-In (1986)

Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith

Review by Greg Goodsell

In the far-flung future Australia of 1995, things have taken a turn for the worse. A series of global catastrophes has rendered the world effectively bankrupt, and law and order is strictly on a limited basis. Taking his girlfriend Carmen (Natalie McCurry) to the Star Drive-In for a quick one, unemployed lay-about “Crabs” (Ned Manning) has his lovemaking rudely interrupted when armed policemen steal two wheels from his ’56 Chevy. The next morning, the true purpose of the Star Drive-In is revealed to him; it is a concentration camp for undesirables, chiefly the young and jobless. In exchange, the inmates are allowed all the junk food they can eat and a steady stream of no-budget action pictures screened nightly. Making friends with their fellow inmates, Crabs and his girlfriend discover that everyone there has more or less accepted their fate. Things get sketchier still when the drive-in is given a sudden influx of Asian inmates. In response, the white Australians band together -- NOT to confront their captors, but to discriminate and harass the minorities. Confronting the kindly, if insidious drive-in manager (Peter Whitford), Crabs vows to escape from the dismal drive-in – or die trying.  

Director Brian Trenchard-Smith one-upped the likes of Quentin Tarrantino with this ironic, self-reflexive film, which has yet to be equaled – low-budget action car crash movies are part of a greater social malaise, this message being tucked neatly into a low-budget action car crash movie! Dead End Drive-In looks great, with artfully composed shots of a dirty, dystopian backdrop comprised of spray-painted junked cars and wild colored lighting. The drive-in’s denizens are a smash-up of the then current punk rock hairstyles and fashions, coupled with Mad Max-inspired remnant attire. 

"Motel Hell" Butchers It's Way To Blu-ray May 13th From Arrow Films!

Arrow Video are pleased to announce the long-awaited UK Blu-ray & DVD release of Kevin Connor’s horror-comedy masterpiece MOTEL HELL on Monday May 13th 2013.
Fully restored and finally available on Blu-ray for the very first time (anywhere in the world),MOTEL HELL is a prime cut of 1980’s cult cinema. Directed by Englishman Kevin Connorand starring a host of drive-in movie legends, it’s a bloody, gruesome and horrific barrel of laughs.

Movie Review: Baise-moi (2000, DVD)

Review By: Rob Sibley

Leave it to the fine folks at Arrow UK to release one of the most controversial French films and give it an all star treatment. This is the first time the film has been presented in widescreen! To that I raise my glass and say bravo Arrow for giving the film it's best release yet! Baise-moi which in French literally translates to English as “Fuck Me”. Was attacked by critics and film goers upon release back in 2000. One could say it started the “new wave” of French films that packed a punch and dealt with pretty nasty material. It's interesting to think how viciously this film was attacked. If only brilliant films like Xavier Gens' masterpiece “Fronteir(s)” or Pascal Laugier's “Martyrs” would have come out that year. French film critics would have had a heart attack.

So the big question is does Baise-moi really deserve all the controversy that surrounded it upon intial release? Even more important is the film good enough to break through it's exploitation roots and become something more grand? To think that this film is still banned in Australia and it's considered a criminal offense if you own it is down right silly. 

Movie Review: Score (1973, Blu-ray)

Review By: Rob Sibley

“Score” is a grade A Radley Metzger film and one of my favorite films of his. Metzger made a name for himself with erotic flicks such as The Lickerish Quartet, Camille 2000 and his masterpiece “The Opening of Misty Beethoven” to just name a few.

The films based off an off-Broadway play by Jerry Douglas. The film take place in the fictional city of Leisure. We start with a couple of swingers, Elvira (Claire Wilbur) & Jack (Gerald Grant). They setup a little game of seduction, mainly taking bets on how many people can you screw? They eventually meet up with a young newly wedded couple Betsy (cult icon Lynn Lowry) & Eddie (Gay porn star Casey Donovan). Soon the innocent couple of Betsy are invited over to dinner and the booze starts flowing, joints are lit up and relationships are tested. This all ends with the couple taking off their clothing and going at it. 

Movie Review: Lisa and the Devil (1974, Blu-ray)

Review by: Rob Sibley

Note: This is a Region B encoded Blu-ray. You will need an all region player to view this disk.

“Lisa and the Devil” is to me one of Mario Bava's lesser appreciated films. This film is strictly a mood piece. Normal narrative and pacing goes out the window and what were treated to is a highly surrealistic vision of a master at work.

The film became possible when Bava's “Baron of blood” was a rousing success. His producing partner at the time Alfred Leone gave Bava caret-blanch to make the picture he wanted to do. That film was Bava's most personal film, Lisa And The Devil.

Movie Review: Black Sunday (1960, Blu-ray/DVD combo)

Review By: Rob Sibley

Note: This Blu-ray from Arrow UK is Region-B locked, so you will need an all region Blu player or all region PS3 to view the film.

“Black Sunday” is the text book example for classic Italian Gothic Horror. Directed by the man who pretty much put Italian horror cinema on the map, the maverick Mario Bava. Who not only broke onto the scene with this gothic masterpiece. But also is known for creating the “Giallo” with 1962's The Girl Who Knew Too Much and 1964's Blood and Black Lace. Firmly starting a genre that Dario Argento would make name for himself with before moving onto more supernatural fare later in his career.

Bava's body of work truly speaks for itself. This wasn't a “work man” director. He put more thought and production values into films then most did at the time. Always a master of creating haunting atmospheres with little to no budget. Some say Black Sunday is his masterpiece and I'd have to agree.

Movie Review: Zombie Flesh Eaters (Blu-ray, 1979)

Review By: Rob Sibley

Note: This review is for the Arrow UK release of “Zombie Flesh Eaters” which is Region B locked. So you will need an all region Blu-ray player or live in the UK to play this release.

Lucio Fulci's Zombie or as it's known in the UK “Zombie Flesh Eaters” is a classic. No doubt about it this is one of Fulci's most beloved and widely seen films and it's not hard to see why. This film encapsulates everything that made 1970's Italian horror so much fun.

The plot starts off with a yacht drifting through the NY harbor, soon two cops board the derelict vessel and soon are attacked and munched upon a very large and very hungry. Right out of the gate Fulchi hits us with his trademark gore.