EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third time we’ve posted about this movie. Sam wrote about it on and Jennifer Upton wrote a great article on November 27, 2018. Here’s her take on the film. Feel free to share yours in the comments.
Thanks to Jennifer Upton for contributing this review. An American living in London, she is a freelance writer for International publishers Story Terrace and others. In addition, she has a blog where she frequently writes about horror and sci-fi called Womanycom.
The 1970s were the pinnacle decade for Bigfoot films.
The film that kicked off the craze was Charles B. Pierce’s classic Legend of Boggy Creek, which was a huge hit on the Drive-In circuit in 1972. Derivative in style to this far superior predecessor, The Legend of Bigfootis a 1976 docudrama that follows researcher/tracker/nature photographer Ivan Marx on an expedition to find the elusive creature. Through narration of footage shot by Marx himself, he guides the audience through a series of events that may or may not prove the existence of the elusive North American ape. Where Boggy Creek succeeds in re-creating some supposedly true stories to great (and creepy) impact, Legend wastes a lot of time on lengthy digressions that focus on the other animals that live in the creature’s habitat.
In his search, Marx travels from his home in Northern California to Alaska, Oregon, Arizona and even the Arctic Circle. Along the way, we see Musk Oxen, Moose, deer and many other animals. We see them chilling out, defending their territories, eating and basically doing what animals do. Unfortunately, we are also subjected to several scenes of what today, would be considered animal cruelty. These include footage of a cougar being forcibly removed from its den and a mortally wounded ground squirrel dragging itself to its nest to die. Animal lovers beware.
The nature footage and gorgeous landscapes probably looked great in their time, but Mill Creek’s extremely poor transfer is almost unwatchable on a modern high-resolution Television. Even a basic color correction on a home editing system would go a long way towards improving the source material. At times, it’s hard to even make out what’s happening in the darker shots.
True to the Bigfoot subgenre, Legend includes a lot of close-ups of footprints and incorporates many theories of the creature’s potential lifestyle and habits. What the film is probably most famous for is the conclusion, which features what Marx claimed was actual footage of a real Sasquatch. Spoiler Alert: It’s a guy in a gorilla suit. It was just one of many hoaxes perpetrated by Mr. Marx over the years, leaving his reputation maligned within the Cryptozoology community. Nevertheless, he released two sequels. In the Shadow of Bigfoot (1977) and Alive and Well (1982) and maintained his footage was real up until his death in 1999. All but the biggest Bigfoot aficionados would do well to avoid The Legend of Bigfoot.
It’s duller than many other films of its type and at a running time of 1 hour and 16 minutes, it feels a lot longer. In the beginning Marx opines, “You’ll never know what it is to wait…until you become a tracker.” Yes, Mr. Marx, we do know what it is to wait…for something to happen in this movie.
Released in the U.S. as Beast with a Gun, The Human Beast and Mad Dog Killer, this movie probably had more people see it when it was the film that Louis Gara (Robert De Niro) and Melanie (Bridget Fonda) watch in Jackie Brown.
Nanni Vitali is a maniac. Played by Helmut Berger (The Damned, Salon Kitty), he’s set his sights on horrifying revenge, escaping jail and killing the man who set him up, raping his woman Giuliana (Marisa Mell, who pretty much will do anything in any poliziotteschi movie, as well as being the female patron saint of these Mill Creek sets) and then going after everyone and anyone.
Richard Harrison is the only man that can stop him, as he tries to kill Giuliana, as well as Harrison’s father and aunt. Man, you’d really have to convince me that Mell wasn’t shot for real, because her dedication in these movies is near-death match wrestler in its intensity.
Somehow, of all the Italian police movies filled with mayhem, this is the only one that made it to the video nasty list. It’s listed as Street Killers on the Section 3 chapter of that infamous list.
Straight outta the McMurray township, southwest of Pittsburgh, Giuseppe Lucarelli got his start in the business as a background actor on Northeastern U.S. and New York-shot network TV series such as Law and Order and Lipstick Jungle. As with Florida-based actors Chris Levine and Michigan-based Mason Heidger (Now Way Out and Tomorrow Is Yesterday, respectively), Lucarelli had enough of the auditions, the film school shorts and all of the other crazy hoops young acting hopefuls navigate. So he formed his own production company, Mountain Wind Productions, to write and direct Checkmate, his feature film debut (David Minniefield co-directs). He stars as Kyle Braddock, the medical examiner son of the recently murdered Chief Braddock “with a special set of skills” reluctantly drawn into an action-packed, downward spiral. The rest of the unknown, effective cast is headed by Sara Torres (roles on TV’s Dynasty and Cobra Kai), Matthew McCurdy (Agent Wells on CW’s Daredevil), and Dave Whalen (support roles in the theatrical features The Fault in Our Stars, Southpaw, and Jack Reacher).
Produced over a four-year period in and around Canonsburg, Southpointe, Pittsburgh’s Southside and Marketsquare, an assassin-serial killer known as Checkmate (James Quinn, lots of background work on Steel Town-shot features) has kidnapped — so the city believes — the daughter (Sara Torres) of the city’s new “Top Cop,” Chief Masters (Dave Whalen), in retaliation for his highly publicized crackdown on the human trafficking trade plaguing the city. This is a dark Pittsburgh: cops are in on the trafficking. Meanwhile, Kyle has actually rescued Katie Masters — and he’s on the run for the cop murders perpetrated by Checkmate. Now, two cops: one honest, one corrupt (the under-the-radar impressive Arash Mokhtar alongside the imposing Matthew McCurdy from Daredevil) race against time to uncover the truth.
The usual road for a new-to-the-scene indie filmmaker is horror: they’re cheap and easy to make because all you need is a patch of woods or swatch of desert and you’re ready to shoot. Taking on the action genre against-the-budget — in the city limits, no less — is not a small, easy task. The production values on this debut feature by Giuseppe Lucarelli, while on-a-budget, are nontheless higher in quality than your average Lifetime damsel-in-distress production (the Sara Torres connection). As a director, Lucarelli knows his camera and effectively froths his Iron City-locations into an effective noirish foam. He’s also pulled the best from his actors: sure, they’re not award-winning, but they’re not staccato-line reading thespians, either. His scripting is pretty solid as well. One of his nice turns of the Final Draft occurs when entering Katie’s apartment: Kyle tells her to wait, as it seems the bad guys have trashed her apartment looking for a crucial laptop, only to discover: “You mean you live like this?”.
We are not going to sugar coat: the reviews on Amazon and the IMDb haven’t been kind. And yes, this was shot in the hometown Pittsburgh-base of B&S About Movies — but that doesn’t mean we’re crackin’ the Olde Frothingslosh and giving Checkmate a raving, free-pass on our pages. If you’ve spent any time at our site, you know the rules: we are not going to review a film to tear down an indie filmmaker’s sincere efforts. So, if you’ve made it this far into the review, you know we’re not going to steer you wrong. Sure, Checkmate isn’t a perfect film, but there’s something streaming-worthy happening here. There’s a skill set and class in the frames from all concerned, so crack the Rolling Rock, and enjoy.
I’ve been down this new, indie-action road before with Prince Bagdasarian’s Abducted and Steven C. Miller’s serviceable action-thrillers packed with morally-screwed characters, such as the Bruce Willis-starringFirst Kill (2017), the Nicolas Cage-starring Arsenal (2018), and the Aaron Eckhart-starringLine of Duty (2019). Ditto for Claire Forlani upending the male-dominated genre with Inferno: Skyscraper Escape and Precious Cargo. Those films, however, benefited from their higher, under $5 million budgets. So what we have in the frames of Checkmate is more akin to the recent Eric Roberts-starring more cost-effective action-thriller (and he’s in the film more than most of his 590-plus films), Lone Star Deception — and that’s not a bad thing. Checkmate is a serviceable streaming action-thriller, but if you’re hitting the big red streaming button expecting a Willis-Cage joint awash in Bayos n’ Bayhems with an Eckart-chiseled jaw charisma, well . . . don’t do that. Add Giuseppe Lucarelli’s effort to the list and you’ll enjoy the thrilling ride.
One of the standouts of Checkmate is the soundtrack by Alex Triveri, who also doubled on the cinematography crew. He’s created a nice, Tangerine Dream-styled vibe in spots — giving Checkmate a low-res, Micheal Mann à la Thief — and I have no doubt he’s a fan of those German soundtrack masters. In addition to Triveri, Adrienne Wagner serves on the camera crew headed by William Feduska — in his second feature film, with his first being the found-footage horror The Devil’s Toy Box (2017). I really enjoy Feduska’s lighting and framing, here. So I’ll not only seek out his first film: if I see his name in the future, I’ll stream that film, as well.
Another appreciation is the gunfire effects: there are none, as those effects are effectively cutaway and implied. An action aficionado may feel denied by the lack of squibs and the use of blank weapons fire. Personally, CGI gun fire and After Effects bullet wounds — which is the budgetary norm for films of this ilk, well, they just don’t work for me. So, I appreciate the cutaway trick-of-the-eye-and-sound: I rather that than budgetary CGI bullets. (Please, save your sociopolitcal debates about Alec Baldwin and guns on sets. That’s not why we’re here. This is a movie review.)
Coming soon!
Making its self-released debut in June 2019 on Tubi, Checkmate now makes its wider spread, free-with-ads stream debut this month on You Tube courtesy of Indie Rights Movies**. If you prefer an ads-free experience, you can stream the film on Amazon Prime. And make an effort to stream, you should: Half of the profits from the film’s streaming income will be donated to World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit launched by celebrity chef Jose Andres that provides meals for people impacted by natural disasters.
You can learn more about actor, writer and director Giuseppe Lucarelli — and his work in the martial arts — courtesy of his recent interview (You Tube) on the Jibber Jabber Podcast.
Giuseppe Lucarelli has also recently completed shooting on his second feature, The First Seal. An action-thriller, it stars Rachel Keller, who you’ve recently enjoyed on episodes of the FOX-TV series Legion and Fargo.
You say you need more Yinzer movies? Well, we heard ol’ Marsha Phillips sing, so we got down and dirty in the Monongahela mud with Pittsburgh-made giallo films courtesy of our “Exploring:Yinzer Giallo” featurette (which has a Rowdy Herrington Easter Egg-interview!). Hey, somebody needs to deep think these things . . . and our flabby, soft-as-veal, cubicle-raised bodies are up to the film critic challenge. Also, this past February, for one of our “Back to the Drive-In” double-features nights, we watched the sort-of-Yinzer flicks Frankenstein 3-D paired with The Majorettes.
* Our thanks to Brad Hundt of The Washington Observer-Reporter for his August 2021 interview, which assisted us in the writing of this film review to honor the indie filmmaking efforts of Giuseppe Lucarelli.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.In addition to writing film reviews for B&S About Movies, hepublishes music journalism pieces, as well as short stories based on his screenplays, on Medium.
Maurizio Lucidi is probably better known for his westerns like My Name Is Pecos than any other movies he made. After watching this giallo, I wish he had done more in the genre.
Stefano Augenti disillusioned advertising executive (Tomas Milan) gets all Strangers On a Train with the unsavory Count Matteo Tiepolo (Pierre Clémenti) and come up with a plan to take out one another’s problem relatives. Stefano agrees to kill the count’s brother, who is in the way of his rightful inheritance, whole Tiepolo will kill the ad man’s wife who refuses to cash out of his business.
Matteo starts playing with Stefano and informs his supposed partner’s wife about the plan before she’s strangled. He has the evidence that will keep the police off Stefano, but will only send it if his brother is murdered as agreed upon.
Milan even contributed the lyrics and vocals to a song in this movie, “My Shadow in the Dark,” which was performed by the New Trolls.
The Mondo Macabro release of this movie has a new 4k transfer from the original film negative as well as interviews with writer and assistant director Aldo Lado and Balthazar Clementi. Plus, there’s commentary by Peter Jilmstad and Rachael Nisbet, as well as an exclusive extended version and alternate scenes.
After a nuclear war, two men and one woman awaken in a deserted landscape unsure of how they arrived and unable to speak. One of the men and the woman are brother and sister who show up dressed as if they were attending a party when the end came, while the other man appears to be a tougher man, perhaps a biker.
Then, the crabs attack.
The stronger of the men destroys them and cracks open their shells so that everyone can eat before taking the woman while her brother can only watch. Soon, they’re joined by a gigantic dog who becomes bonded to the woman in ways that the men soon can only hope for, turning the entire film into an exploration of bestiality and incest and man’s inhumanity to man and animal, but all through the lens of art. Yet isn’t art just the right theater instead of the grindhouse.
This movie has taught me that if you piss on a dog, it will steal your woman.
But seriously, this is a surreal take on the end of the world movie and I’ve never seen anything like it. I honestly believe that I will never see another movie like it again either.
The Mondo Macabro release of this film has a brand new 4K transfer from the original film negative and an interview with director, writer and producer Eligio Herrero.
Released as Lola and Beyond Erotica here in the U.S., this Spanish shocker features David Hemmings — yes, the same actor from Deep Red — as a depressive rich boy who likes to dress women as bunnies and chase them from horseback with a pack of wild dogs. And that’s already gone wrong once, but the poor people in the village can’t do anything about it and our protagonist — antagonist? — keeps acting more and more like his father who treated these people like dirt.
His mother — played by Alida Vall, seriously this movie does not skimp when it comes to casting — keeps trying to find him another girl, but he only wants Lola (Andrea Rau, Daughters of Darkness), the most beautiful woman in town. She wants nothing to do with his games, so of course he thinks that imprisoning her will make her fall for him, because, well — men, right?
This is the first José María Forqué movie I’ve seen, but definitely not the final one. A rough yet strange film, this made me think that Hemmings is perhaps just a little too good in this role.
The Mondo Macabro release of this movie has a new 4k transfer from the original film negative as commentary by Kat Ellinger, a video essay on David Hemmings by Chris O’Neill, an alternate title sequence and trailers.
Yes, don’t be fooled by that title, as this is otherwise known as Yotzim Kavua, Greasy Kid Stuff or, most obvious, Lemon Popsicle 2. Yes, the film that inspired The Last American Virgin doesn’t just have one sequel, but many, many chapters to tell.
Even better, it played on double bills in the UK with Rosemary’s Killer, which we know better as The Prowler.
Directed and written by Boaz Davidson, this film boasts the same lost in translation insanity of the last one as well as twenty-two songs from the fifties. Which is weird, because while the boys have hair and clothes from the era and the music is right, the girls have makeup straight out of 1979. Maybe memory really is a fickle thing, huh?
That said, every guy in this movie is beyond a jerk. Not just in a “aren’t 80s sex comedy guys horrible” way but in a “why aren’t these young men in jail” and “why do these women keep taking them back” way. Its “heroes” Benji, Bobby and Huey are willing to screw one another over to keep screwing and one just ponders why they ever became friends in the first place.
Nobody brings anybody a bag of oranges, I’ll tell you that much.
Someone does, however, throw eggs at a child directly after making out. I am not making this up.
The one and only “Evil Woman Creeping from Dark” available on Shutterstock for indie filmmakers of the direct-to-video realms to clip-art into orb-tedium.
Image credit: Dmytro Konstantynov, by way of Felipe M. Guerra.
Courtesy of the investigative entertainment journalism of Felipe M. Guerra, with his article “When the Overuse of Stock Photos Creates an Unexpected ‘Star System’: Familiar faces keep appearing on cheap movie covers,” we’ve come to know the “Evil Woman Creeping from Dark” photo, seen above, is Ukrainian model Maria Konstantynova. We also know that she’s not an actress, she’s never appeared in a horror movie, and she’s not a professional model. But she is the wife of Dmytro Konstantynov, a photographer working with stock images, posting his wares on Shutterstock since 2007.
So, against our better judgement, we’re taking it upon ourselves — and curse you, Felipe, may the evil woman of the dark haunt your dreams — we’re going to review all of these German/Euro-released movies that feature Maria Konstantynova on the cover. Now, Felipe gave a “special thanks” to his filmmaker friend René Wiesner, whose own Facebook post regarding stock photos on DVD covers inspired the writing of Felipe’s article.
Well, we’re sending you a very special curse, René. You’ve been warned. As if I don’t have enough crap movies to review. . . . Oh, well. Let’s unpack ’em (alphabetically). And this is a bit long of an unpack: so bookmark us and come back as your one-stop Maria Konstantynova movie source!
The Films:
Absentia (2011) Clowntown (2016) The Hillside Stranglings (2004) Horror Cuts (2012) The Levenger Tapes (2013) A Night in the Woods (2011) NightThrist (2004) The Possession of Sophie Love (2013) Return of Killer Shrews (2012) Roadkill (2011)
More Films:
Atomic Shark (2016) Attack of the Killer Ants (2019) Frames of Fear 2 (2018) The Hospital (2013) Martyrs (2015)
Absentia (2011)
Remember Mike Flanagan and his box office hit, Oculus (2013)? Well, he made his writing and directing bones with star Katie Parker, later of Doctor Sleep (2019), in this Euro-clip artfest. However, unlike most of the films on this list featuring Maria Konstantynova on the cover: this is a well-made, Lovecraftian-styled horror of shadows and inferring and little-to-no shock scares.
A widowed woman (Courtney Bell) and her drug-addicted sister (Parker) discover the link between a mysterious subway tunnel to a series of disappearances — including that of her own husband: after seven years, he’s “Dead in Absentia.” Sure, it’s not as great as Oculus, but Flanagan’s class and style — on a meager $75,000 budget, mind you — is shining through, leaving you knowing he’s moving on to something bigger.
As with the recent, pretty decent Clown Fear (2020): The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the retro-model, here, getting a coat of colorful, facial grease paint, sans any skin masks. Okay, maybe Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes is the mold. Okay, well, maybe these guys grew up with Rob Zombie’s take on the material, aka House of a 1000 Corpses. Anyway, the “guys” in this case are Ohio filmmaker Tom Nagel directing his brother Brian in their feature film debut (next up for the duo was 2018’s The Toybox).
Ugh. Without the prattle of the plethora of other “killer clown” movies, this is a lesson in pure boredom and predictability — rife with awful acting and cheap gore — as a group of friends are stranded in the ubiquitous, deserted small town populated by a gang of psychopaths dressed as clowns.
The Hillside Stranglings, aka The Hillside Strangler (2004)
In the never-ending quest to squeeze every last Euro out of a U.S.-made TV movie in the overseas marketplace: there’s Maria Konstantynova giving new life to a film that deserves not.
Sure, the tutelage of C. Thomas Howell (The Outsiders) and Nicholas Turturro (brother of John and of the currently on-the-air U.S. TV series Chicago P.D) starring as Bianchi and Buono led me to rent The Hillside Strangler (2004). However, regardless of its claims of being “a more accurate portrayal,” in the shadow of the stellar quality of Crenna’s 1989 TV movie The Case of the Hillside Strangers, this direct-to-video leftoverture left me feeling that this Howell-fronted version worked as a fictional piece — not an accrate serial killer biography — plotted around two (dark) historical figures.
So, yeah, don’t be duped by the “Producers of Ed Gein and Bundy” tagline: those films are just as low-budget and dopey-pathetic in their aftermarket tedium. The “Palisades Tartan Extreme” banner that’s not on the U.S. version? Uh, well, the U.S. version isn’t “extreme” in the least, so we’re guessing the overseas cut offers graphic, U.S.-delete scenes? Whatever, eh, it’s still better than most of the U.S. junk Maria’s shilling within the Deutschland borders.
Watch it on Amazon. Yikes, there’s a lot of C.Thomas Howell flicks on Tubi, just not this one. C.Tom’s okay, so make a day of it!
Horror Cuts: Bitches, Satans and Hellraisers (2012)
What “Doctor Death” is presenting here is four overseas, never-issued-in-the-U.S. horror films in a one-pack: Ugly Bitches (could be Crazy Bitches from 2014), Prince of Darkness (we think it’s Amir El Zalam from 2002), Walking the Dead (2010), and Frankenstein (your guess is as good as ours).
It’s not listed on the IMDb, but we found a DVD copy on Amazon, if you dare. But wait . . . the run time is only one hour seventeen minutes? So, it’s none of the films, noted above . . . but four short films cobbled on one DVD. Perhaps one of our German readers can clue us in as to what’s under the Maria Konstantynova cover.
If you find it on streaming platforms, let us know.
The Levenger Tapes (2013)
If the word “tape” doesn’t give it away: we’re dealing with another witch of the Blair variety. As with the later, Roadkill, below: we have three college kids (Johanna Brady of U.S. TV’s Quantico and Lili Mirojnick of Cloverfield, if you care) heading out into the woods — to look for a fabled cemetery — near one of the friend’s parents’ mountain home. Of course, the cameras are rolling, but instead of witch: they run into criminals-on-the-run . . . and vanish.
The always-welcomed Chris Mulkey (going way back to The Killing of Randy Webster and Act of Love) — who always deserves better than direct-to-video drek — is the detective watching the tapes to solve the boring mystery. And is it ever boring. Oh, is it ever.
You can fight the Zzzzzzzz on Tubi or as a PPV on You Tube to avoid the spot-load.
A Night in the Woods (2011)
Ugh, more “found footage” triffle? Yep, this British version of The Blair Witch Project tells the tale of Brody, his gal Kerry, and bud Leo as they go-a-campin’ in the haunted sticks of the legendary Wistman’s Woods outside the village of Dartmoor. Love triangles ensue as the wood’s ancient evil — yes, a witch — shows up to add to the terror.
Four Stars, you say?
Well, I must have watched the wrong movie: this is amateurish and boring with bad-everything. Even more so than the previous Blair-inspired snooze-fest. Oh, our fair Maria, Queen of the Crawling Dark, you deserve a better clip-art’in than this ultra low-budget British horror mess.
Night Thirst is obviously an alternate, Euro-overseas title to another film that doesn’t populate on the IMDb, Letterboxd, or Amazon. Google searches take us back to . . . well, Felipe M. Guerra’s original article that started this streaming torture chamber to hell in the first place.
Eh, it’s all par for the digital greens when chintzy studio shingles pack their wares by way of stock photo-manipulating art departments failing to list actors on the cover to make our research, easier. Again, we defer to our German readers (and as it turns out, French readers) to clear it up. If you find the film on DVD or streaming, let us know.
Update: November 7, 2021: From the “We Again Bow to Felipe M. Guerra’s ResearchDepartment“: Turns out the title of this film is NightThirst, aka NighThrist, — stylized as one word with the “T” capitalized. No wonder we couldn’t track it down. . . . So, as Felipe pointed out: “NightThrist is a movie released, here [France], an SOV production where most of the budget must have been used to buy Maria’s stock photo!” While released in France in 2002, it was released in the U.S. in 2004 . . . and by the way: You know the “shot-on-video” genre is our B&S jam: it’s why it has its own category at the site.
So, anyway: Felipe sends us the IMDb link. We open the link. We scream in glee and bounce off the walls and run outside and swing off the girders of the Monongahela’s Smithfield Street Bridge — it’s a Mark and John Polonia and Brett Piper co-production, who shoot their films in our home state (and throughout the Northeastern U.S., mostly in New Hampshire). Yes!
Well, we have to take into account the Polonia shingle was just starting out nineteen years ago and is only thirteen films into their insane 60-plus SOV-resume. As with the above Horror Cuts: our absolute sweet Maria is swilling another omnibus film of four tales: “Terror,” “Tag,” “Demon Forest,” and “Christmas in July” wrapped-around by a stranded tow-truck driver, “Van Roth” (our director Jon McBride of Cannibal Campout and Woodchipper Massacre; both 1988), who ends up at a remote county home to hear the tales.
Again, we say to the clip-art Art Department: Could you have at least put: “From the director of Cannibal Campout and Woodchipper Massacre” and “Featuring special effects by Brett Piper of Mysterious Planet” on the sleeve? How difficult and costly could adding that bit o’ 12-point courier font, be?
Sorry, streaming masochist: Amazon, FShare, Tubi, and You Tube come up dry. But why am I having a premonition I’ll find this in the cut-out $1.00 DVD bins at Big Lots or Dollar Tree . . . stay tuned.
Okay, were is my lithium to calm my Piper-Polonia OCD . . . oh, shite . . . another episode of compulsion!
Update: November 14, 2021: From the “Maria Konstantynova is the Gift that Keeps on Giving Department“: It turns out our good friends at Wild Eye Entertainment are “the chintzy shingle” (Sorry! The studio did most of the Polonia flicks, noted above) responsible for the NighThirst art. The studio created the art for a French movie they acquired, named Nightshot . . . and the producer felt our sweet Maria (are you nuts?) “did not fit his movie,” (yes she does!), so Wild Eye scrapped the art work. Around that same time, Wild Eye acquired Mark Polonia’s NighThrist for Amazon Digital and needed art, quickly — so the studio temporarily repurposed the rejected Nightshot art work. NighThrist was available on Amazon Digital for about six months. According to Wild Eye, Polonia Entertainment’s horror omnibus NighThrist will be re-released to streaming and DVD with proper artwork in the future.
As for the France-produced Night Shot, aka Nightshot (2018): Sure enough, there it is on the IMDb with 20 user (English) reviews. Knock yourself out. For when you disrespect Maria, your film shall not be reviewed, here. Figure it out for yourself, ye Shakespeare: to stream or not to stream, that is the question.
Thanks to the Wild Eye gang for being good sports. Now, back to the celluloid craptacular.
The Possession of Sophie Love (2013)
Ugh, more Brit direct-to-video junk. Why, Maria? Why do you hate me so?
British low-budget auteur Philip Gardiner has written 57 movies and directed 105 — most are direct-to-video documentaries (on Hitler, Nostradamus, a few on The Bible, and Knights Templar), but there’s some horror and sci-fi in there, with the direct-to-DVD streamer likes of Robot Planet and The Killing Floor.
So, we have Jimmy, interning to become a psychologist, interviewing the teen-but-locked-up-in-a-child’s-home Sophie for his video thesis project at college. Turns out, Sophie had a happy home life, but blacked out, woke up, and found her mum n’ dad — dead. Yeah . . . Sophie soon sprouts a few different voices as the pea soup flies. And in some video quarters: Sophie’s last name is Lee, not Love. So go figure.
There’s no streams on Tubi or Amazon, but yikes . . . the You Tube trailer looks bad, as in awful. So, do you really need to see this? Do ya, huh? Do ya? No, really. Do you?
Return of the Killer Shrews, aka Mega Rats (2012)
Ever wondered where the Syfy Channel got the inspiration for their Sharknado franchise and every other film preceded by “Mega” in the title? Well, you may have never seen 1959’s The Killer Shrews, but here’s the sequel to get you up to speed.
Fifty-three years after being attacked by killer shrews on a remote island, Captain Thorne Sherman (James Best returning from the 1959 original) is hired by a reality television crew to return to the island. Since Ken Curtis (Festus from U.S. TV’s long-running Gunsmoke) passed away in 1991, the always-welcomed Bruce Davison (of the rat-famed original, Willard — yuk, yuk) takes on the role of Sherman’s sidekick, Jerry Farrell. Upping the I-want-to-watch quotient is Best’s Dukes of Hazzard TV-castmates in John Schneider and Rick Hurst.
While the original was good clean, snowy UHF-TV fun — with its coon hounds dressed in fur and fake fangs as giant shrews (a small insectivorous mammal resembling a mouse) — the CGI rats this go-around . . . well, just overlook it all and just enjoy James Best, once again, carrying a film.
Are you a fan of Lake Placid 3, Resident Evil: Afterlife, and I Spit on Your Grave 3? Then you’ll enjoy seeing British actress Kacey Clarke (of the long-running British series Grange Hill and The Inbetweeners) in this Ireland-shot, 24th entry in the “Maneater Series” made by RHI Entertainment for the SyFy Channel. You say you want to see all of the films in the series? Their Wikipage has the full listing.
Actually, Roadkill is not all that bad and the $2 million spent on the film shows on screen, and Stephen Rea (the Brit rock flick, Still Crazy, V for Vendetta, an Oscar-nod for The Crying Game) shows up . . . but didn’t I see this all before with Stephen King’s Thinner?
Let me explain: Kacey and her three friends travel the Irish countryside in an R.V., they steal a small town’s cherish medallion, then hit an old woman; she unleashes a Roc: the mythical bird of the cover (clipped art from who knows where and pasted-in with our sweet Maria), that hunts them down one by one. See? Thinner, only without the weight loss.
Give it a try with a slice of Strawberry pie, on You Tube.
Oh, no! There’s more? Who is she?
Courtesy of Shutterstock by way of Felipe.
Felipe M. Guerra also tracked down the reuse of the above photo. So, curse him, again, as we’re going to review those movies — the celluloid masochists that we are — as well.
Felipe also managed to contact the photographer responsible for the image; this time the photographer didn’t want to comment on the photo’s use. It’s since been removed from Shutterstock’s image bank.
Oy. Let’s unpack this quintet of films.
My eyeballs are toast. My brains are fried.
Atomic Shark, aka Saltwater (2016)
Oy, those Digital Content Managers of the IMDb are on the ball: This chum-epic is listed twice: as the TV movie Saltwater and the direct-to-DVD Atomic Shark. Ah, but the casts are totally different in each film. But wait . . . why is U.S. TV actor David Faustino in both, but Jeff Fahey — who we came to see — only appears in the first one, originally known as Saltwater? The first is directed by A.B Stone (Lake Placid vs. Anaconda, if you care), the latter film is by Lisa Palencia (Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy).
Argh! What the hell is going on, here, besides this being another IMDb-film rife with fake cast and crew reviews rating their chum with “9s” and “10s” — as we apologize to our fellow German film lovers for its reissue in their Motherland.
Well, as for Saltwater, aka Atomic Shark: When a lifeguard catches wind of a “dangerous anomaly” off the coast of San Diego — a radioactive shark (complete in glowing-red CGI) that causes bathers burst into flames — she commissions a band of unlikely heroes (Fahey and Faustino) to assist her on a suicide mission to save the west coast from total destruction. Now, according to the IMDB’er users: that is only the plot to A.B Stone’s, and not the plot to Lisa Palencia’s chum-opus. And sorry, Lisa. A.B’s was more than I could take. I am not watching your ode to radioactive selachimorpha.
Look, Jeff Fahey and David Faustino are the ne’er-do-well heros, here, okay, so you decide. But be warned: it’s all cheap, poorly written, and overacted to the extreme. Did we learn nothing from Godzilla, folks? Quit atomic testing in the deep ocean waters.
Sorry, no streams, but the You Tube trailer . . . yikes. Why did you make me write about this, Maria? Why? Are you really that hot that I’ll endure bad films for you. Oh, hell yes, and a bag o’ chips.
How I am feeling right about now.
Angriff der Killerameisen, aka Attack of the Killer Ants (2019)
Ah, everything is new again in the overseas markets . . . as the U.S. Texas-made Invicta (Latin for “undefeated”), itself aka’in as Killer Ants in 2009 in some U.S. quarters, returns in Germany under a new title.
Our young couple of Cory and Evan return to their roots in rural Texas to start a family. When Evan accepts a position as an English professor at the local college, the real nightmare begins for him and his entomologist wife: a fire ant plague sweeps across the Longhorn state. The ants, natch, aren’t made by Mother Nature, but by a mad scientist who employs Cory — out for the usual, trope-revenge on the town that scoffed at his research.
Oy! The bad effects. And Bad Sound. And Bad Acting. And Bad plotting. And there’s no budget. But the CGI ants aren’t bad, well, er, they’re not as awful as the rest of this mess. But seriously: Is the German entertainment industry so hard up that, instead of making their own movies, they’re reduced to redressing crappy American streamers?
Aren’t you glad we put in the effort to find a copy on Tubi? Well, are yah? Are yah? No, really? Are you?
Yes. I should have. Too late now. Almost done watching them all.
Brutality, aka Frames of Fear 2 (2018)
Join your host, Festering Frank, as he “returns from the grave” to bring you five more terrifying tales of blood-soaked horror of gory graveyards, mutated mothers, psycho Santas, and killer couples.
Okay, then. Maybe if Maria Konstantynova starred in one of the vignettes?
Eh, you can find out for yourself on Tubi. Hey! We even found “Part 3”: Frames of Fear 3 (2021) on Tubi and Amazon! Nope, sorry. There’s no stream of the first one. That’s all on you to dig up. Watching “Part 2,” which I didn’t finish, was enough for me. Hey, I’m doin’ it all for you, Maria!
I feel sick.
The Hospital (2013)
Okay, so old St. Leopold’s Hospital has many urban legends surrounding it, but the residents of little ‘ol Bridgeport all agree on one thing: tortured souls roam its abandoned halls. Of course, the mystery proves too much for a pretty young student who decides to investigate the legend for her senior class project.
Okay.
Apparently, writer and director Daniel Emery Taylor’s first installment did okay, since he made a sequel in 2015 — and he stars in both as the creepy Stanley Creech who haunts the halls. And they’re both on one German DVD two-pack to enjoy — Boy, Howdy!
Sorry, we can’t find any streams on Tubi or Amazon, but You Tube offers it as a PPV. But I don’t know . . . Oy, that trailer . . . to each his own. Again, do yah? No, really. Do you?
Me: a celluloid martyr for the cause.
Martyrs (2015)
Did you see the well-received French-Canadian original from 2008?
Well, if you did, that film makes this CGI’d American remake mess from the Annabelle and The Conjuring franchises team, even worse.
Yeah, if you witnessed the hopeless, art film darkness of Alexandre Aja’s New French Extreme hit, High Tension (2003), or Ryûhei Kitamura‘s brutal (Am I the only one who liked it?), serial-killer trope-upending, No One Lives (2012), then this remake will really disappoint. Sure, it’s not all awful, but it pales (and the violence is U.S.-lightened, of course) to the original. It’s all just so unnecessary, you know, like the U.S. Ju-On remake and endless sequels and reboots.
Hey, you don’t believe me? Rotten Tomatoes has it at 9% — and that’s nine percents too many, in my opinion.
It’s about a young girl escaping from her kidnapper’s lair, then struggling to fit in at the orphanage where she is sent. There, she makes friends with another abused orphan. Together, they seek out revenge on those who victimized and abused them.
You can watch it on Tubi. But seriously: stream the original, instead.
As Felipe pointed out in his article: Wouldn’t it be great if a filmmaker decides to explore the already popular faces of these stock photo-starlets and put them in a real horror movie — and not just on the cover.
I’d pay to stream that movie.
Speaking of Jon McBride . . . Coming late November 2021: a Jon McBride hootenanny!
* Thanks to Felipe M. Guerra and René Wiesner for tracking down the one-sheets and video box art used in this article. We tip our hats and bow, sirs.
You see: Kind, constructive review-comments and contact-messages from our readers, filmmakers, and distributors creates wonderful content and makes the love of and writing of films, funfor all concerned.
Who does this movie exist for? Anyone can easily find Night of the Living Dead and there’s really no need for it to be nearly shot for shot remade with more in your face gore and overacted voiceovers.
Sure, you get to see what happened in front of Beekman’s Diner, but otherwise, all this movie adds is more viscera to the proceedings. The characters look beyond flat and the only thing that the ones that look like the original actors will do is make you want to just watch the black and white classic that this shamelessly copies.
Jason Axinn made To Your Last Death which had so much more going for it than this effort. Lack of effort, maybe.
About the only thing to watch this movie for is to see who takes over each voice. Barbara is Katharine Isabelle from Ginger Snaps and her brother Johnny is Jimmi Simpson from Westworld. Dulé Hill is Ben, while Harry and Helen Cooper are played by Josh Duhamel and Nancy Travis. Tom is James Roday Rodriguez and Judy is Katee Sackhoff while MAD TV comedian Will Sasso is Sheriff McClelland.
Otherwise, this is an overly referential version of the original film that would have been better off if it Ralph Bakshi rotoscoped the inspiration and just made it look more cartoonish.
New movie fans won’t have any need to see this and fans of the original will undoubtedly be upset with the fact that this offers little new. Instead, all it does is give you more: more blood, more internal organs, more animated bodies that feel like they float instead of moving like people.
Also take a look at that great art on the cover. You’re not getting anything like that in this cartoon.
Bronzi’s back! That’s right — the sixtysomething Hungarian action star born Robert Kovacs who was performing in a European Wild West stage show when director Rene Perez saw his photo on the wall of a bar and thought it was an undiscovered Bronson movie. Since then, he’s been in From Hell to the Wild West, Death Kiss, Cry Havoc, Once Upon a Time in Deadwood and now this movie.
After the death of his brother, Mick Kovacs (Bronzi) heads to America to get justice and get sent directly to the Pleasant Hill Penitentiary where he learns that his brother’s death was no accident. So he does what he does best: he kills everybody.
Much like The Shawshank Redemption, this movie was filmed in Ohio’s Mansfield Reformatory. Unlike The Shawshank Redemption, this movie is filled with CGI bullet wounds and a thin plot, but come on. You know what you want, this movie has it and you’re going to probably love it as much as I did. This is the kind of movie perfect for a lazy weekend afternoon or late night drinking session.
Gary Jones also directed Mosquito and Boogeyman 3, as well as working on the visual effects for 68 movies in the last decade of so.
As for Bronzi, his next movies include Mat Rats, a wrestling movie in which he plays The Dago and two Scott Jeffrey-directed movies, Exorcist Vengeance (yes, Bronson and exorcism combined, as they always should have been) and The Gardener.
Escape from Death Block 13 is available on demand and on DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment. You can learn more on the official website and Facebook page.
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