Ten kidnapped individuals have 22 hours to mount an escape from a locked room. To get out, they have to endure the absolute heights of pain. Taylor Sheridan, who went on to write Sicario, is listed as the director but doesn’t see himself that way, saying that this movie provided the training he needed to direct later.

Things begin with Tayler (April Matson), Tony (Akeem Smith), Kai (Elisha Skorman) and Nick (Eric Jay Beck) picking up Diane (McKenzie Westmore, whose family has multiple generations of makeup artists), whose car is broken down. She gases everyone and they wake up inside a room where a voice tells them they have 22 hours to escape but must inflict pain on each other to do it. And oh yeah, they have devices in their necks to keep them there. Creating suffering fills up a jar and once that jar is filled, they can remove the devices and escape. If they fail, it will inject poison into their brains and kill them. One of the people not from the group but in the room, Julien (Ian Bohen) tries to remove his device and dies instantly.

What follows is pretty much abuse, self-abuse and outright attacks on one another within the group to raise the suffering and escape. Beck wrote this along with Rob Kowsaluk and if you like the Saw movies and said, “I’d like to watch people tear out others fingernails,” this has you covered.

Sheridan went on to direct Those Who Wish Me Dead and create Special Ops: Lioness.

The MVD blu ray of Vile has a reversible cover, a limited edition slipcover, deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer. You can get it from MVD.

In most of the world — other than Turkey, as witnessed by 3 Giant Men and Japanese video games, as Spidey fought Joe Musashi in  The Revenge of Shinobi — your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is, by definition of his heroics and nickname a hero. Not so in the world of Ghana bootleg cinema, as Rockson Film and Music Production created a movie that combined Peter Parker with the African myth of Ananse.

“In the olden days, Ananase the Spider was the wisest among all the beasts. Ananse’s wife was called Akonori Yaa, his four children were called Ntekuma, Afodotwdotwe, Etekelekelen and Naakorohwea. And it came to pass that Anase dies and when he died, his family member buried him in this bowl. Lady Spider and Oracle are currently the caretakers of this bowl,and they have formed a guild called the Anase Guild. They are mischievous and steal from people to fund the Guild. The money is kept by them and their power source is the bowl. Beware! Don’t open this bowl or Ananse’s spirit will escape. When he escapes, he will enter into a human body and transform into Spider-Man. With this power, he will be able to climb walls and jump like the spider.”

With those words, we begin.

Lady Spider and Oracle have been alive for centuries and they like nothing better than stealing money and beating children. After all, they have the power of the bowl to protect them. But what if that bowl ends up in human hands and everyone is confronted by a red and blue superhero who gets some revenge while throwing fireballs?

There’s also a demon and a gang that uses axes to slice open children to harvest their organs, so trust me, you probably won’t be bored. And if you are, just know that a really shiny PS1 Spider-Man will show up to fight people every few minutes.  I mean, the effects are close to Marvel level — they were fixed up in 2020 — at least proportionally when you consider that this was made for the cost of a new issue of Spider-Man (as of August 2023, $4.99).

You can watch both parts on YouTube.

12-year-old Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) has lost his father in a fire and is trying to fix the automaton they made together but can’t find the heart-shaped key that it needs to become alive. He’s living in a railway station with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), who has gone missing and to keep station master Gustave Dasté (Sacha Baron Cohen) from sending him to an orphanage, he keeps fixing the many clocks within the train station.

In order to keep fixing the clocks and his robot, Hugo steals from a toy store. Caught by the owner, he has his notebook taken from him and must work in the store. There, he meets the man’s goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) and the two discover that the old man is actually filmmaker Georges Méliès.

This film makes me very emotional, as the first World War and bankruptcy kept Georges from living out his dreams. It takes a young boy, a robot and the realization that his films are seen as works of art and not wastes of time to bring the old man back to his dreams.

Much of the life story of the filmmaker are true: He was inspired by the Lumière brothers’ camera; he really was a magician and toymaker, creating automata; he owned the Théâtre Robert-Houdin) but was forced into bankruptcy and his film stick was melted down. After, he became a toy salesman at the Montparnasse station before history remembered him and he was awarded the Légion d’honneur medal.

Sadly, this movie was a bomb, losing $100 million. But the truth is, in time, that won’t be remembered. The emotion and the joy within this film will.

The Arrow Video 4K UHD release of Hugo is beyond filled with magic. There’s a 4K UHD of the 2D version of the movie and a blu ray version of the 2D and 3D cuts. Plus, the package is incredible, with a double-sided poster with original and new artwork by Tommy Pocket, who also created the sleeve artwork. There’s also an illustrated collector’s book with writing by film critic Farran Smith Nehme.

Extras include commentary by filmmaker and writer Jon Spira, publisher of The Lost Autobiography of Georges Méliès; a trailer; interviews with author Brian Selznick, composer Howard Shore and Ian Christie, the editor of Scorsese on Scorsese; a visual essay by filmmaker and critic Scout Tafoya; French film historian and author Julien Dupuy exploring the life and the legacy of Georges Méliès; film critic and historian Pamela Hutchinson exploring the history of the start of cinema; a visual essay by filmmaker and writer Jon Spira and five archival featurettes on the making of the film.

You can get the UHD from MVD. There’s also a blu ray edition.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on September 24, 2019. As I’ll be exploring the films of Jason Trost this week, this movie has been reposted.

In The FP, disputes between rival gangs are settled by playing Beat-Beat Revelation, a dancing video game similar to Dance Dance Revolution. The 248 and the 245 are battling to control the FP — Frazier Park — and lessons must be learned.

This all comes from the minds of Brandon and Jason Trost. Brandon has gone on to do cinematography for Crank: High Voltage, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, while Jason has created the film series All Superheroes Must Die and the film Wet and Reckless. He’s really blind in his right eye — or is trying to be fashionable — which is why he’s always wearing an eyepatch.

The film begins with L Dubba E, the leader of the 245 gang, murdering BTRO, the leader of the 248 gang. As a result, his brother JTRO (Jason Trost) leaves the FP behind to become a lumberjack.

A year later, L Dubba E has taken over the FP and is holding back all the booze, which is leading to an increase in meth usage and homelessness. KCDC (Art Hsu, who is also in Crank: High Voltage), another 248 member, brings our hero back home, where he reunites with Stacy, an ex-girlfriend who is now sleeping with the enemy.

Can JTRO rise to the level of his brother? Will Stacy stop having sex with the main bad guy and realize she loves our hero? Will people bring guns to a dance off?

If you’ve ever played video games, you’ll probably enjoy this more than most people. Jason Trost came up with the idea in his teens when he noticed people treating Dance Dance Revolution like an intense battle. The dialogue was inspired by Def Jam: Fight for NY, which makes absolute and total sense.

Best of all, James Remar is in the film as the narrator. He met the brothers when their dad worked on Mortal Kombat Annihilation‘s effects team.

This is the kind of film that you’re either going to fall in love with instantly — like I did — or think it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever seen. Imagine Mad Max with dance-offs and you’ll get the idea.

You can watch this for free on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on May 1, 2022. As I’ll be exploring the films of Jason Trost this week, this movie has been reposted with lots of added new material.

What if you combined a superhero movie with Saw? Well, this would be it.

Directed, written and produced by Jason Trost, who made The FP and also stars in this movie as Charge, this movie finds him, Cutthroat (Lucas Till, who was Havok in X-Men: First Class and MacGyver in the reboot of the series), The Wall (Lee Valmassy) and Shadow (Sophie Merkley) waking up in an abandoned town, their powers gone and facing their arch foe Rickshaw (James Remar, always amazing) in the kind of death trap Arcade used to put the X-Men through.

This is probably as close as we’ll get to a Brat Pack movie. I kind of liked it way more than most reviews I’ve seen, as I liked the end of the superteam dynamics of the film, the way we learn about the heroes’ lives and origins through their actions. Plus, Charge must continually make tough choices that end up making their lives worse at every turn.

Did you read stuff like Grips and Aircel comics in the 90s? Or the post-Image grim and gritty comics made by comics fans that did one comic and never another one again? Do you like Stephen Platt? Then you’re going to like this way more than the average filmgoer.

There’s also a sequel, All Superheroes Must Die 2: The Last Superhero, that I need to find. There was also a comic book from the same universe and Jason Trost posted the first issue here.

If you’d like to know more about the filmmaker and how he approaches movies, check out the interview I did with him here.

You can watch this on Tubi.