Deadsight
(2019/RLJ DVD)/Roadhouse
Murder (1932/RKO/Warner
Archive DVD)/Sidecar
Racers
(1975/Universal/Umbrella Region Free PAL Import DVD)/Slaughter
Of The Innocents
(1993/Synapse Blu-ray)/Two
From Hell: House Of 1,000 Corpses
(2002)/Devil's Rejects
(2005/Umbrella Region Free Import Blu-ray Set)
Picture:
B/C/C/B-/B Sound: C+/C+/C/B-/B Extras: D/D/D/B-/C Films:
C+/C+/C+/C+/D
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Sidecar
Racers
DVD and Two
From Hell
Blu-ray imports are now only available from our friends at Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia, while the Roadhouse
Murder
DVD is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series. All can be ordered from the links below.
And
now for a set of unusual action thrillers you should know about.
Starting
with our newest entry, Police
officer Mara Madigan (Liv Collins) is just about to go on maternity
leave until she suddenly wakes up to finds herself in the middle of a
zombie apocalypse. On the run and with only one gun, she has a fate
chance encounter with Ben Neilson (Adam Seybold), a legally blind man
(!) who can't remember anything. Somehow, they both escaped the
initial outbreak but now they work together and find a safe haven in
Jesse
Thomas Cook's Deadsight
(2019).
Officer
Mara is also a pregnant woman, but her world is turned upside down
when the zombie apocalypse hits. She finds and runs into Ben, a
blind hospital patient who that has somehow survived (and even killed
a zombie) and has amnesia. Mara initially saves Ben and searches for
the ambulance he came from for medical supplies and a working
vehicle, but then she finds the ambulance and discovers it is useless
with dead batteries, only then she realizes her only help and hope is
Ben. As time goes on, her labor approaches she becomes weaker and
tires more easily, Mara and Ben's roles reverse and now it is Ben's
turn to protect Mara. They end up at a power plant and Mara...
you'll have to see the rest for yourself to judge.
This
was your typical zombie horror survival movie, in this zombie movie
the zombies were fairly slow and inept, but for those who love and
watch zombie movies, you want to scream at the characters for some of
the poor choices they make, never go off alone, don't leave your
weapon behind stuck in a zombie ...there are rules in surviving a
zombie apocalypse. Extras include trailers.
J.
Walter Ruben's Roadhouse
Murder
(1932) is an amusing David O. Selznick production about a reporter
(Eric Linden, definitely being given a chance to be a star here) who
is a reporter who wants to get a story so bad that will put him on
top, leading to an early disaster when he gets a compromising photo
that does not go over well with his editor. Taking a break with his
girlfriend (Dorothy Jordan) to take a break, they land up with a dead
body at a hotel and they know it is murder from the gunshot. In
addition, a name killer (Bruce Cabot in one of his early turns as a
heavy) is involved, but our eager reporter to be decides to let
himself be framed for the killing until he can reveal the truth. Too
bad things do not go as planned.
An
interesting RKO programmer that runs 73 minutes, there is much to
enjoy here and it shows how the studio and Selznick could make a
small film like this move and work. Along with a few unintended
chuckles and its age, it is worth a look.
There
are sadly no extras.
Earl
Bellamy's Sidecar
Racers
(1975) is an Australian film about motorcycle racing, but the bikes
have to have sidecars, making them harder to race as simply, but the
result is a sport has developed (this exists there in real life) and
the competition gets wild as expected. A local rider (John Clayton)
lands up teaming up with a U.S. surfer/swimmer/visitor (Ben Murphy)
who calls his laid back vacation off to partner with him, but they
land up competing for the same woman (Wendy Hughes) and her father
(Peter Graves, on his interesting pre-Airplane!/post-Mission:
Impossible
roll) happens to run the races!
Sure
it has cliches and sags in parts, but the racing footage is a nice
change of pace form the usual boring recycling of obvious vehicles
and being from Australia, has its own feel and look that helps make
the 100 minutes interesting more often than not. I wish they had
come up with more and I bet there are a few things they could have
included, but it is worth a look for those interested and is smarter
than any of the Fast
& Furious
sequels or spin-offs. Its certainly more realistic by default, so
those interested should see it.
There
are sadly no extras.
Maybe
the biggest curio here is one most people did not see, James
Glickenhaus' Slaughter
Of The Innocents
(1993) with Scott Glenn as an FBI agent trying to stop a serial
killer. Yes, only a few years after Silence
Of The Lambs,
he signed onto this project about a killer going after children. Not
a child-in-jeopardy film necessarily, the odd twist is that his son
(the director's young son, Jesse Cameron-Glickenhaus
is a computer geek (wait until you see how old the tech is!) is a
precocious thinker trying to help him solve the case.
This
could have been an outright exploitation film, but it is not a big
success either as the son has way too much screen time and is just
not able to carry his role, which is over-written and always
holds the credibility of the film back. More interesting is early
turns by Kevin Sorbo and Aaron Eckhart as FBI agents, but in all
this, the film keeps trying because this group is going for broke
trying to make the next Silence
Of The Lambs
no matter what. That is why it is worth seeing, no matter its many
flaws.
Synapse
has issued a Blu-ray with a bunch of extras and a decent transfer
(see more below) to do as much justice as can be done to it, so it
give the film the best new chance for people to see it and decide for
themselves. I just hope this is not the reason Glenn was passed over
for Ridley Scott's Hannibal.
Extras
include a
feature length audio commentary track with director James
Glickenhaus, Archival Interviews with James Glickenhaus, Jesse
Cameron-Glickenhaus & Scott Glenn, All-New 2019 Featurettes with
Make-Up Effects designer Gabe Bartalos, and Director of Photography
Mark Irwin, The U.S. and International Theatrical Trailers, Archival
Electronic Press Kit Featurette, Deleted Scenes and an Alternate
Assault Sequence.
Finally,
Two
From Hell
is simply a repackaging of two Rob Zombie slasher films we reviewed
twice before:
House
Of 1,000 Corpses
(2002) and...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14461/House+Of+1,000+Corpses+(2003/Universal/Umbre
The
Devil's Rejects
(2005)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15083/Bushwick+(2017/RLJ+Blu-ray+w/DVD)/Cat's+Eye+
The
ratings are mine, but links are to the second wave of reviews, both
of the imports in this set, by a fellow writer who liked the films
more than myself, so you'd have to look up the earlier coverage to
see how much I thoroughly thought they wasted my time. These are for
fans only and of course, the extras are the same.
Now
for playback quality. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Deadsight
is as good as it can possibly look on DVD, making us wonder why no
Blu-ray, but it is the best DVD here and is surprisingly consistent
throughout. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 is a bit pedestrian, with
limited surrounds and is often dialogue-based.
The
1.33 X 1 black & white image on Roadhouse and 1.33 X 1
color image on Sidecar are well shot, but the transfers here
are both soft, flawed and even second-generation, but both are good
looking productions for their budget limits. Both also have
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound, but Roadhouse
somehow sounds better than Sidecar,
but both could sue some work.
The
same can often be said of the 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Slaughter,
but it just has a few too many soft shots that are not part of the
shoot. The big plus here is that it is a rare film totally shot on
35mm Agfa
color negative film and it gives it a rare look that most thrillers
do not have and was shot by the great Canadian Director of
Photography John Irwin, C.S.C., so it is yet another set of signs of
how ambitious the makers were here. However, the DTS-HD MA (Master
Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix on the film has limited surrounds and
shows its age in the lower budget the film had. However, it makes
for an interesting viewing just the same.
To
order either of the
Umbrella import Sidecar
Racers
DVD and Two
From Hell
Blu-ray, go to this link for them and other hard to find releases:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
...and
to order the Roadhouse Murder Warner Archive DVD, go to this
link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.wbshop.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo and Ricky Chiang (Deadsight)
