Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 19th, 2017
When it comes to hearing the name Loch Ness, just about everyone will think about the giant lake where “Nessie” the mythical monster inhabits. Whether you are a believer or not thousands converge to the Scottish Highlands location in hopes to be one of the lucky ones to catch a peak of the elusive beast. But the Loch Ness I am talking about is a beast of a whole other ilk. Thought the TV series does take place in a small tourist town that thrives on the legend that haunts the cold water, the series instead is about a serial killer that has been unleashed upon the town and given its residents something more to fear other than a giant monster that roams the lake.
A group of friends decide that they want to play a hoax by creating a fake plesiosaur carcass and placing it along the lake shore. While using fake innards that salvaged from the local slaughter house it is later discovered a human heart managed to somehow get mixed up in the remains. With a human heart found and no body, this of course sends an uneasy shock-wave through the town. Detective Annie Redford (Laura Fraser) is tasked with leading her first murder investigation in a town that rarely has experienced its share of violence and it doesn’t take long before a body is found (not one that belongs to the missing heart) and it is understood that they have a serial killer on their hands. Investigator Lauren Quigley (Siobhan Finneran) is called in to take lead of the investigation where she also brings criminal psychologist Blake Albrighton (Don Gilet) to assist.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on October 19th, 2017
The subgenre of horror film that entails a group of friends, coworkers, or even strangers, being trapped in an area that they must escape from might be a tired cliché, but it is a tremendous guilty pleasure of mine. Especially the films where the characters willingly or forcefully band together to discover why they have been placed there in the first place, or how they can use their combined strengths to find the exit. Whether their strengths or their histories are coincidental (as is the case with Cube, 1997) or if they are gathered for a very specific mission of revenge (9 Dead, 2010), these films play with narrative connections in such a way that is irresistible to me.
In 2004, James Wan arguably reinvented this subgenre to his torture porn feature Saw. Not only are people trapped in an area together, they are taunted with the reason “why” and tasked with grueling challenges that, more often than not, end in some form of bodily mutilation. With Saw’s seven sequels and upcoming reboot, the subgenre I have enjoyed so much has plateaued, largely failing to reinvent itself since Wan’s intervention in the early 2000’s. Escape Room does not reinvent the franchise, but it does offer a new the possibility for reinvention through narrative: the victims actually want to be there.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on October 19th, 2017
“How many more people will you sacrifice?”
When it premiered in 2013, Reign was an effective bit of counterprogramming for the CW, which continues to be ruled by superheroes, vampires, and other Supernatural beings. Even as Reign appalled historians, the series quickly established itself as a campy and compulsively watchable take on the saga of Mary, Queen of Scots. Unfortunately as the show progressed through Mary’s tragic life, Reign inevitably lost some key players. The result is a show that got more convoluted and less interesting as it limped toward its fourth and final season.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 18th, 2017
It’s hard to believe it was way back in 1992 when Buffy the Vampire Slayer was first introduced to audiences. It was a title I had missed in the theaters, but I remember picking it up at our local mom-and-pop video store. With the title being what it was, to go in expecting more than a cheesy horror comedy filled with stakes, fangs, and witty dialog would be on the viewer. I wasn’t a huge fan of the film when I first saw it. I sort of felt like it was a film that was trying to be Fright Night, but let’s face it, there are very few vampire films that are as cool. It’s been over two decades since I last visited the film; how does it hold up? Well, to be honest, it’s grown on me quite a bit.
Kristy Swanson plays Buffy, the vampire slayer that attempts to juggle a social life as a cheerleader while discovering that she is also a vampire slayer. She’s one of the girls who would fit in perfectly with the girls from Clueless and is the typical 90’s pretty girl, but this film works well at developing an arc that turns her into a badass by the time the closing credits roll. While she’s more concerned with impressing her friends and trying to stay fashion-forward, we see that vampires are killing off fellow classmates and many others around town.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 18th, 2017
- “You know what they say...the house always wins.”
- “What if we were the house?”
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by John Delia on October 16th, 2017
If you are just starting out your horror month, then you may want to make this terror film your first, as it has all the elements of a gruesome, ghoulish nightmare that you’ll remember beyond the big “H” day. A weird name for a film, Red Christmas certainly wreaks havoc on that holiday. Choosing Christmas for the film setting turns out the best way to get this family together so the goings could get bloody. Now on Blu-ray and DVD, it’s a good choice for your opening season fright party.
Diane McKenzie (Dee Wallace) has invited her family over for the holidays, and the house is buzzing as the last of the guests, her daughter Suzy (Sarah Bishop) and her husband Peter (David Collins), drive up. Already on hand are Diane’s adopted daughter Hope (Deelia Meriel), her pregnant daughter Ginny (Janis McGavin) with significant other Scott (Bjorn Stewart) and her only son Jerry (Gerard O’Dwyer). Also attending is Joe McKenzie, Diane’s brother-in-law, who moved in to help with the family when Diane’s husband died.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 16th, 2017
For the most part it seems the summer blockbusters tend to be sequels, superhero films, or CGI bonanzas that are simply eye candy to get us to the dark auditoriums to escape the heat. It’s rare that something comes along that is so clever and fresh as Baby Driver. Personally I’ve been a fan of Edgar Wright from the moment I first saw Shaun of the Dead; he was a writer and director who I felt knew how to make films fun. When he was set to direct his dream project Ant-Man, I was excited to see him finally get a chance to do a giant tent-pole studio film, but weeks before filming was set to begin, he got pulled away and replaced. When it was announced he was working on an action-comedy named Baby Driver, well, I was excited, but the film’s title had me scared, fears of him doing something along the lines of Baby’s Day Out ran through my mind, but then as the cast started to assemble, I couldn’t help but get excited. Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Jon Bernthal … and these were simply the co-stars. Then when the first trailer dropped, this became the title of the year for me to keep an eye on. While this might not be the kind of film that gets nominated for best picture, for me this had potential to simply be an experience, the kind of fun you hope to have when you see a movie.
So who is Baby? Ansel Elgort heads this film with the title name, and for most he’s a guy who’s come out of nowhere. He’s been in The Divergent series and The Fault in our Stars, but Baby Driver is his first step into the spotlight, and as I mentioned above, he is surrounded by some major talent. The casting of Baby is key. Picking a relative unknown works, because the audience doesn’t know what to expect from this guy, and this works in the film as he’s surrounded by some dangerous heavy hitters in the crime world and they see this kid with his I-pod, they can’t help but wonder what’s up with this guy. Our intro to Baby Driver, wastes no time at showing us just what Baby can do as he is the getaway driver for a bank heist in Atlanta.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 13th, 2017
At first glance you would not expect 50 year old cartoon television specials to be this high on the UHD 4K list. Honestly, I was a bit surprised myself. But when you really think about the staying power of these cartoons you realize they've made an emotional connection to generations of children of all ages. I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years. A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are the most mentioned and certainly beloved by generations of children and adults. I thought I never missed an airing.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 13th, 2017
When a film like The Survivalist comes along, you somewhat have an idea what to expect when it’s being marketed as a “dystopian thriller”. I like these kinds of films, but for the most part many of them are just not very good and are just a carbon copy of previous dystopian films that came out prior to it. For years I’ d say the Mad Max series was the gold standard on what you should want to be. Waterworld at least attempted to be Mad Max, but rather than a desert wasteland it went the direction of the high seas. The Survivalist goes another direction; rather than a barren wasteland, or the ocean, it instead plunges deep into the wilderness after society has apparently collapsed and food has become scarce.
The film follows a man who is simply credited as the survivor (Martin McCann), and we see him dragging a body away and dumping it into a shallow grave. It’s an ominous opening that has the viewer questioning if this is a guy we should root for or not, but following this scene we go on to see his daily routine in his boring isolated life. Apparently one of his routines is having a little private time with himself, and the camera has no problem shying away from this. This goes up there as one of the most pointless gratuitous nude scenes I’ve seen at least since the opening sequence of Nocturnal Animals. I’m far from a prude, but I’m a believer that everything we see on the screen should have some meaning to drive the story forward. This instead just became a distraction.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on October 12th, 2017
When Calls the Heart returns with a six-movie collection that plays out more like a television season. I must confirm my initial concerns that given this was a movie collection, I feared that I would have trouble following the story from movie to movie; however, that is not the case, as each movie picks up exactly where the other left off. With that sigh of relief, I was able to enjoy the wholesome values that are displayed in this frontier drama. Things to appear to looking up for the town of Hope Valley, with the railroad coming to town, looking to build a main route through the town, which would mean more jobs and opportunities for the townsfolk. On the other hand, Mayor Abigail Stanton is tasked with the difficult of job of negotiating with the railroad’s spokesman, Ray Wyatt, as well as keeping her word to townspeople who may be inconvenienced by the rail work. Also, Elizabeth Thatcher has trouble early on. Fortunately, she has Mountie Jack Thornton at her side to help her throughout; he also has a career decision to make that may impact his budding romance with Miss Thatcher.
Heart of Faith picks up where the Season 3 finale left off. It’s Christmas time in Hope Valley (formerly Coal Valley), and Miss Elizabeth Thatcher (Erin Krakow) finds herself heading up the Christmas committee, including organizing the Christmas play. Determined to do a good job, she dives head first into her work, rallying everyone she can to assist with the preparation, as well as trying to teach her class the true meaning of Christmas by assigning roles in a very creative way. Meanwhile, the townspeople are working to build new homes for the settlers who apparently lost their homes as well as their families in the mine collapse that predated this special. Working day and night to complete the project before the holiday, Canadian Mountie Jack Thorton (Daniel Lissing) must overcome many obstacles, all the while serving in his official capacity as the town’s law enforcement officer.
