Devil's Revenge (2019/Cleopatra Blu-ray w/CD*)/Ray Harryhausen Double Feature: First Men In The Moon (1964)/20 Million Miles To Earth (1957/Sony/Columbia**)/The Ringu Collection/Ring Trilogy (1998, 1999, 2000/Arrow Blu-ray*)/Malevolence Trilogy (2003, 2010, 2018/Mena/Arrow Blu-ray/*all MVD)/Young Guns II (1990/Morgan Creek/**All Umbrella Blu-rays)

Picture: B-/B/B/B/B Sound: B-/B/B+/B/B Extras: C-/D/B/C+/D Films: C-/B-/B/C C+ C/C-

PLEASE NOTE: The Ray Harryhausen and Young Guns II Import Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia, can play on all Blu-ray players and can be ordered from the link below.

Now for our latest look at genre releases...

Star Trek alums William Shatner and Jeri Ryan star in the forgettable low budget satanic thriller The Devil's Revenge (2019). Directed by Jared Cohn (Evil Nanny), who has done his fair share of direct to video schlock, this film is nothing original or new and not without many cringe-worthy moments of acting, especially from William Shatner, whose hamming it up as per usual. Poor Jeri Ryan tries here, but she can't break through a screenplay that doesn't offer her many challenges.

The film also stars Jason Brooks, Jackie Dallas, and Ciara Hanna.

A couple archaeologists go cave hunting and one of them, John (Brooks), finds a relic and a portal to Hell. After they flee the cave, John is overcome with demonic visions that soon start to affect his personal life with his wife (Ryan) and family. He goes into a deep study and discovers that the relic must be destroyed before The Devil can resurface his revenge.

Devil's Revenge is presented in 1080p high definition with a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio and a lossy English 5.1 Dolby Digital mix, both of which are standard to the format. The film isn't terribly shot for being low budget, but the sound design and editing at times is a bit hokey and flashy for the sake of being flashy. Colors aren't oversaturated or stylized, but pretty normal for the most part. Overall, this is a loud and obnoxious film that you can't exactly fall asleep to. (Even though you might try....)

The CD soundtrack of the film's score is also included.

The only extras are a Slideshow and a Trailer.

If you're looking for Shatner going up against the Devil, you should check out The Devil's Rain (1975, directed by Robert Fuest), which is available from disc from Severin Films and reviewed elsewhere on this site. This film plays it a bit safe and is more concerned with flashy images and typical filmmaking tropes than making something actually suspenseful.

Next up is a new release dubbed The Ray Harryhausen Double Feature, but this time we get an import with no extras that features First Men In The Moon (1964)/20 Million Miles To Earth (1957). This disc features the same solid transfers, picture and sound, that our previous coverage of these films offered. That includes a limited edition of Moon from the limited edition Twilight Time label and we covered it here:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13443/The+Alphabet+Murders+(1966/MGM/Warner+Archi

Then we covered Earth several times, including in this amazing DVD box set here, but linked to the Blu-ray set we also reviewed:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7762/Ray+Harryhausen+Collectible+DVD+Gift+Set+(Eart

I like that the ugly, colorized version of earth is left out and this makes for a nice release.

American audiences were first introduced to The Ring franchise back in the early 2000s. The first remake film, The Ring (2000) was the film Gore Verbinksi made before he set sail to the waters for the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, and as far as remakes go, not half bad. Led by Naomi Watts, that film was inspired by this unique Japanese horror film known as Ringu (1998). That original film and its sequel and prequel that followed are collected here in this limited edition boxset that contains both new and archival bonus material. To my knowledge, this set is the most extensive and nicely restored look at this landmark Japanese horror trilogy to date.

The set includes four films: Ringu, Ringu 2 (1999), and Ringu 0 (2000) and the bonus documentary feature Spiral. The films center around an evil urban legend involving a creepy long haired girl, a well, and a videotape. Anyone who watches this tape has one week to pass it onto someone else, or they die.

The Ringu Collection is presented here in 1080p high definition with a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and two Japanese audio tracks: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) lossless sound and Japanese LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit), both with English subtitles.

Special Features include:

Bonus feature: Spiral, George Iida's 1998 sequel to Ring

New audio commentary on Ring by film historian David Kalat

New audio commentary on Ring 0 by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

The Ring Legacy, a series of new interviews from critics and filmmakers on their memories of the Ring series and ints enduring legacy

A Vicious Circle, a new video interview with author and critic Kat Ellinger on the career of Hideo Nakata

Circumnavigating Ring, a new video essay by critic Jasper Sharp on the J-horror phenomenon

The Psychology of Fear, a newly edited archival interview with author Koji Suzuki

Archival behind-the-scenes featurette on Ring 0

Ring 0 deleted scenes

Sadako's video

and multiple theatrical trailers for the Ring series

Horror to me isn't scary when all you do is torture people. It's obviously fake and has been done to death (pun intended.) While 'torture' certainly has its own sub-genre in cinema that many subscribe to, after you've seen the most extreme of the extreme (such as The August Underground trilogy for example), everything else seems pretty tame.

This train of thought is the main seed of the problem with the Malevolence Trilogy for this reviewer, all of which are nicely presented individually in 1080p Blu-ray here.

The films are: Malevolence (2003), Malevolence 2: Bereavement (2010) and Malevolence 3: Killer (2018). Even though it advertises itself as something pretty extreme, it's really not.

I'm a pretty big horror fan and I've seen and heard about these films only in brief mention. Probably because they don't really bring anything new to the table that hasn't been done a million times before... and better. Don't tell that to Director Steven Mena though, as you'll see his name pop up about 25 times during the credits for each position he attempted... yeah, we get it. You want to be Robert Rodriguez... you're not.

While Mena's first film, Malevolence (2003) wants so desperately to be equal to a Friday the 13th film, it never comes close. The plot is at first interesting with a bank robbery gone awry and a hooded Jason knock off killer stalking people, but the acting is so god awful that its pretty inexcusable at times. To a trained eye, it's evident that he was learning and experimenting with filmmaking at the time too and that most of it didn't work. Even though it didn't do much for me, it's still a commendable effort.

The second film, Bereavement (2010), is considerably better on a technical level (he must have hired a good DP this time) and stars (somehow) both Michael Biehn (Aliens, Planet Terror, and other genre classics) and the drop dead gorgeous Alexandra Daddario (Baywatch) who has to be one of the most beautiful women on the planet. (This was most certainly one of her earlier roles.) Both of these fine actors do their best with what they are given, but let's just say that the plot doesn't match the strong cinematography. The third film, Killer, brings the franchise back more towards the grounds of the first and features Adrienne Barbeau in a bit part.

All three of the Malevolence films are presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with a 2.40:1 widescreen aspect ratio for the second film and 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio for the first and third. Audio tracks in lossy English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0, which is fine considering these are lower budgeted films. Also included in them is a standard (and compressed) DVD with similar video and audio specs. The second is by far the most stylized and cinematic looking of the bunch while the other two look fine but not as overly stylized.

Special Features include:

Directors Cut with additional footage

Commentaries with Steven Mena

Trailers

Deleted Scenes

Still Galleries

First Look: On the Set

Composing the Score featurette

and Making Of featurettes

For more on the original film, try this coverage of an early special edition DVD:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2561/Malevolence+(Divimax)

That leaves us with the ever-poor Geoff Murphy film Young Guns II (1990), the unnecessary sequel to the surprise hit Western, the only one to make money 0outside of a few Eastwood releases since Heaven's Gate (1980) killed the genre by being one of the biggest bombs of all time, albeit one of the most ambitious epics ever made. This wants to tell us the 'untold' story of Billy The Kid (Emilio Estevez returning for the role he played in the first film) but it is one you never buy and the film has barely any of the energy that made the original watchable.

What is interesting is the cast making this barely a curio, but you do have James Coburn, Balthazar Getty, Alan Ruck, Viggo Mortensen and William Petersen (the last two barely credited here!!!) between his great two films (Manhunter, To Live & Die In L.A.) and his huge hit TV franchise (CSI), so there is talent in front of the camera, but the script and flat pace kill all. Even two Jon Bon Jovi songs (including the hit Blaze Of Glory) don't help, but at least he tried. For the very curious only, just don't watch when tired.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer can show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film and looks better than I expected. Originally a Dolby A-type analog stereo release, the sound has been upgraded to a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix that sounds better than expected also.

There are no extras.

To order either of the Umbrella import Blu-rays, Ray Harryhausen and Young Guns II, go to this link for them and other hard to find releases at:

http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/

- Nicholas Sheffo (Umbrella) and James Lockhart

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/