Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 11th, 2014
Personally I’m not a fan of the Fast and Furious franchise, despite the fact that I tend to enjoy films from the genre. For me, I’ll take the old school films like Vanishing Point, Two-Lane Blacktop, and the original Gone in 60 Seconds over these big budget productions any day. All I can figure is that these films that I do enjoy are working with budgets that force the directors to be creative and understand most of their elaborate stunts only get one take and are not polished with CGI, but instead whatever the camera captures that is what we see on the big screen. The stunts are simply incredible, and the cars in my humblest opinion were simply cooler back then.
Drive Hard is a fun throwback to chase films that lived in an era of drive-in theaters and grindhouse cinema. Thomas Jane plays Peter Roberts, a former race car driver who gave up what could have been a successful career to be a father. Sure, this is a respectable decision, but it’s a decision that has haunted him, as he now has taken on a career as a driving instructor. Despite Roberts being a parent, he still hasn’t managed to give up the dream of being something more than an instructor, only it’s hard to imagine he could have expected Simon Keller (John Cusack) would be the person who would become the motivating force. Simon isn’t just a regular student of Peter’s; in fact, Simon has specifically found Peter to once again take a spot behind the wheel, only this time around it is in the form of being a getaway driver.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on October 2nd, 2014
Despite its found-footage conceit and similar-sounding title, The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill is somewhat of a different demon animal than a certain recent horror franchise. Given that found-footage fatigue seems to be setting in among critics and audiences, any sort of deviation from the norm should be welcome. The problem is this film ultimately doesn’t deviate far enough and hedges its bets with a climax that seems transplanted in from a handful of other movies. More importantly, viewers will probably be too bored to even care by the time movie gets around to being scary.
The Paranormal Diaries: Clophill, like many of its horror brethren, is “based on true events.” (I cannot emphasize those quotation marks strongly enough.) What does help the film stand apart is its real-life spooky setting. In 2010, a group of filmmakers sets out to explore and document the haunted history of St. Mary’s Church in Clophill, a quaint English village. That history includes rumors of Satanic rituals and ghostly apparitions. As a result, Clophill and its church have become a popular attraction for grave robbers and people interested in the macabre.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 28th, 2014
Considering the state the world is in, I’m a little surprised there isn’t more talk about a possible World War 3 scenario being played out. This isn’t something I want, but watching the news, it is certainly something that resonates in the back of my mind and gives a moment of reflection. Aftermath is the film that preys upon that fear of what a possible World War 3 could be. The results are far from promising, and it succeeds in telling the inevitable fate of the world, despite how bleak the outcome may be.
The film opens with Hunter (C.J. Thomason) hiking in the wastelands of Texas. Along the highway he comes across a mother and her son; together they witness what appears to be the beginning of a nuclear war. Hunter is quick to react, using his medical training to do what he can for the young boy who looked directly into the impact light and has now gone blind. The three set off together to find food and shelter, knowing they do not have long before the radiation spreads and begins to have its effects.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 14th, 2014
At this point in his alternately mocked and celebrated career, Nicolas Cage starring in a movie called Rage seems redundant. (Especially since “Rage” would be a much more eloquent title for this classic YouTube video.) Yet here he is starring in what looks like a Taken ripoff…until you realize he already starred in a Taken ripoff two years earlier. To its credit, Rage does appear to want to say some interesting things about the way secrets refuse to stay buried and the perils of resorting to violence. Unfortunately, the film often takes the most misguided and clichéd avenues to get there.
Cage stars as Paul Maguire, a criminal-turned-successful businessman with a pretty younger wife named Vanessa (Rachel Nichols) and a daughter named Caitlin (Aubrey Peeples) who is about to turn 16. While Paul and Vanessa are out to dinner one night, they get unsettling news: a group of masked men broke into the couple’s house and assaulted Caitlin and her two friends (Max Fowler and Jack Falahee). The bruised boys inform Paul that Caitlin has been abducted.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 25th, 2014
When the first Wolf Creek was released it was one of those films that had a lot of hype around it, and when I got around to watching it, I dug it. It’s one of those films where the more I’ve watched it the more I’ve gotten to appreciate it, not just for its gore, but the film has a solid story, and I appreciated that the film at no time allows you to get too comfortable. At any moment a character could be brutally murdered. It’s the character of Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) who could equally make me smile with his crude outback charm or make me squirm with uneasiness the moment his hands took hold of a weapon. We Americans seem to enjoy the notion of our Australian characters being in the vein of the playful Crocodile Dundee, but Jarratt takes his role of Mick to some dark, terrible places.
Writer and director Greg Mclean unfortunately hasn’t had the success I would have expected considering the strong following for Wolf Creek and his fun follow-up Rogue. Now with the release of Wolf Creek 2, Mclean returns to the familiar territory of the untamed outback, and how does he fare? To put it simply, this movie is insane; it’s unrelenting and pretty damn funny at times.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 9th, 2014
For most who have heard about the West Memphis Three, it is because of the HBO documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. It was a documentary that sparked the interest of many and fueled a movement to free Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley for the murder of three young boys in 1993. It was a documentary that attempted to expose the trial as a witch hunt in which the only things the boys were guilty of were listening to heavy metal, wearing black and participating in Wiccan practices. Numerous documentaries later and with the support of Hollywood A-listers such as Johnny Depp and Peter Jackson and musicians like Metallica, Marilyn Manson, and Eddie Vedder, the West Memphis Three finally were freed from prison in 2011. As for the answers to who is responsible for the murders, many will theorize, but it would seem only the child-killers would know what really happened that night. As for Devil’s Knot, just what does this film present to us, the viewers? Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to carry the same emotional punch as the documentaries, despite the impressive cast that it boasts.
Colin Firth plays Ron Lax, an investigator who comes into the case against the West Memphis Three and attempts to help the defense team as best he can, while Reese Witherspoon comes in playing the role of Pam Hobbs, a parent to one of the deceased children. The film balances back and forth between the characters and how they are dealing with their grief and the investigation, yet despite the efforts of these two Oscar winners, both fail at getting the viewer to care at all about them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 26th, 2014
Christian Slater has managed to make a decent career lately by simply appearing in numerous direct-to-DVD productions for several years now. It seems as though every month the former 80s-90s heartthrob is slumming his way through productions as though he never once looked at the script and instead was just adding another lackluster credit to his IMDB profile. As a longtime fan of the actor from the days of Heathers, True Romance, and Pump Up the Volume, I can’t help but hope the guy will make a resurgence (though appearing in Lars Von Triers Nymphomaniac is a good start to that career revival).
As for Slater’s new release Way of the Wicked, he somewhat takes the back seat on this film despite appearing on the Blu-ray box art. Henry (Slater) is a priest who seems to have an obsession with a young boy who is held responsible for the murder of a classmate even though there was no physical evidence to show for it. Several years later Robbie (Jake Croker) returns to the small town, and as he returns to school he immediately seems to embrace the role of outcast.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 12th, 2014
British badass Craig Fairbrass looks more like the henchman in an action movie than the hero. (To be fair, Fairbrass looks like the lead henchman who always gives the hero a little more trouble than you’d expect, but he looks like a henchman nonetheless.) The actor has worked steadily in England and Hollywood, including a role in Cliffhanger where he played one of John Lithgow’s (you guessed it) henchmen. With The Outsider, Fairbrass earns a story credit and the right to play the hero in this junky, bruising, low-budget cross between Taken and The Limey.
Fairbrass plays Lex Walker (strong name), an English mercenary who receives word that his estranged daughter Samantha has been found dead in Los Angeles. When he arrives to identify the body, he discovers the dead girl in the morgue is not Samantha. The good news is his daughter isn’t actually dead, but the bad news is she’s still missing. Lex goes on a brutish warpath through Los Angeles in search of Samantha. Along the way he enlists the help of her boyfriend Ricky (Johnny Messner) and Margo (Shannon Elizabeth), an opportunistic acquaintance of Samantha’s. Lex’s investigation puts him on a collision course with Schuuster (James Caan), Samantha’s shady former employer, and Det. Klein (Jason Patric), who is trying to solve the mystery behind Samantha’s non-murder.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 28th, 2014
"One … two… Freddy’s coming for you, three… four… better lock the door, five… six… grab your crucifix, seven… eight better stay up late, nine....ten … Never Sleep Again."
Freddy is one of the more memorable monsters from the slasher era that also brought us the Halloween and Jason films. Freddy might have been born in the mind of Wes Craven, but he grew and developed in the knife-wielding hands of Robert Englund. Granted, not all of these films are equal in quality. The first and third are the best story-wise, while the last might be the most unpredictable and original. The fourth and fifth films are a hoot if you don’t look too carefully for a plot. Look to see how many actors you can find who later went on to bigger and better things. There were quite a few, most notably Johnny Depp.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on January 7th, 2014
We all know looks can be deceiving, but Voodoo Possession takes that notion to the extreme. Almost nothing about the film’s DVD cover art correlates to what you’ll actually see on screen. Cult favorite Danny Trejo gets top billing despite playing a largely inconsequential role in the story. (You know a movie’s in trouble when it’s banking on Trejo’s star power; even the Machete movies relied mostly on stunt casting.) The cover is dominated by someone who looks like Samara from The Ring standing in front of Shutter Island. (Naturally, the girl has nothing to do with this movie.) At least there is, in fact, voodoo in this occasionally intriguing, ultimately lousy low-budget horror flick.
The film follows Aiden (Ryan Caltagirone), a troubled young man who travels to Haiti with his on-again/off-again tabloid reporter girlfriend Bree (Kerry Knuppe) to search for his missing brother Cody (David Thomas Jenkins). Cody is a doctor who had set up shop in an abandoned hospital, where he was exploring the medical effects of voodoo before he went missing. How does Danny Trejo play into all of this? Well, he really doesn’t. Trejo “stars” as Kross, the dubious hospital administrator/exposition machine we see working alongside Dr. Cody in video files discovered by Aiden and Co.
