MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR: Everyone Has to Start Somewhere

MONSTER FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR (Blu-ray)

1954 / 64 min

From Film Masters

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

Film Masters has been restoring and releasing quite a few Blu-ray collections of early Roger Corman productions. Unlike previous ones, the latest isn’t a double feature, but does offer a film of considerable historical importance…

Monster from the Ocean Floor is the first film Corman ever produced. It’s pretty silly and slapdash, but hey, everybody has to start somewhere. If Corman had failed to scrape together the meager funds he needed to throw this together, just think of all the other B-movie bonanzas that would be missing from our lives.

The plot is simple…there’s an octopus-like monster with a glowing white eye lurking off the coast of a Mexican village. The locals are afraid of it, which convinces commercial artist Julie Blair (Anne Kimball) the legend might be true. However, hunky marine biologist/love interest Steve Dunning (Stuart Wade) is skeptical, at least until he motors around the cove in his one-man submarine (which is prominently featured throughout the movie because Corman got to borrow it from the builders in exchange for an on-screen credit).

When lava lamps attack.

The beast kills a few people, of course. An unfortunate cow also meets an untimely demise, but not before Julie hilariously encounters it on the beach and runs away, screaming her head off. While that scene alone is worth the price of admission, the monster itself is kind of a neat creation, though more cute than scary. The climax pitting it against Submarine Steve is a hoot.

Monster from the Ocean Floor is definitely lower-tier sci-fi horror, but fairly well assembled for the budget. It’s also been given a pretty decent facelift here, and as usual, Film Masters includes a smattering of entertaining bonus features offering some historical context. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - Bob Baker: From Monsters to Marionettes is a charming look back at the legendary puppeteer, who created the monster for this film; Roger Corman: Becoming a B-Movie Maker is an archival interview with Corman, who fondly recalls his humble beginnings.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By Tom Weaver., with some commentary by Roger Corman.

SUPPLEMENTAL BOOKLET - With photos and an essay by Tom Weaver.

STILL GALLERY

TRAILER

THE POOP SCOOP: Classics from Criterion

⛟William Friedkin’s classic, SORCERER Coming to 4K + Blu-ray June 24 from Criterion. A hallucinatory journey into the heart of darkness, William Friedkin’s pulse-pounding reimagining of the suspense classic The Wages of Fear was dismissed upon its release, only to be recognized decades later as one of the boldest auteur statements of the New Hollywood. In a remote Latin American village, four desperate fugitives—a New Jersey gangster (Roy Scheider), a Mexican assassin (Francisco Rabal), an unscrupulous Parisian businessman (Bruno Cremer), and an Arab terrorist (Amidou)—take on a seemingly doomed mission: transporting two trucks full of highly explosive nitroglycerin through the treacherous jungle. Aided by Tangerine Dream’s otherworldly synth score, Friedkin turns each bump in the road into a tour de force of cold-sweat tension—conjuring a hauntingly nihilistic vision of a world ruled by chance and fate. Includes a new 4K restoration; the documentary, Friedkin Uncut, new & vintage bonus features and more.

😺BRAZIL Coming to 4K + Blu-ray June 4 from Criterion. In the dystopian masterpiece Brazil, Jonathan Pryce plays a daydreaming everyman who finds himself caught in the soul-crushing gears of a nightmarish bureaucracy. This cautionary tale by Terry Gilliam, one of the great films of the 1980s, has come to be esteemed alongside antitotalitarian works by the likes of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Kurt Vonnegut. And in terms of set design, cinematography, music, and effects, Brazil is a nonstop dazzler. Includes a new 4K restoration; new & vintage bonus features; the “happy ending” cut of the film and more.

😺MIDNIGHT, Coming to Blu-ray June 17 from Criterion. Screwball comedy doesn’t get any more effortlessly elegant and gleefully irreverent than this roulette wheel of romantic deception, gleaming with cunning wit and Continental élan. A couture-clad Claudette Colbert is divine as a penniless American showgirl who crashes Parisian high society by posing as a wealthy Hungarian baroness—but both a scheming nobleman (John Barrymore) and a smitten taxi driver (Don Ameche) are soon on to her game. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett’s sophisticated script—a typically subversive blend of fairy-tale escapism and caustic social observation—and the pitch-perfect direction of master craftsman Mitchell Leisen yield a topsy-turvy Cinderella story with a cynical bite.

🕮MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS Coming to 4K + Blu-ray June 3 from Criterion.

Paul Schrader’s visually stunning, collagelike portrait of the acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted the impossible task of finding harmony among self, art, and society. Taking place on the last day of Mishima’s life, when he famously committed public seppuku, the film is punctuated by extended flashbacks to the writer’s past as well as gloriously stylized evocations of his fictional works. With its rich cinematography by John Bailey, exquisite sets and costumes by Eiko Ishioka, and unforgettable, highly influential score by Philip Glass, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is a tribute to its subject and a bold, investigative work of art in its own right. Includes a new 4K restoration; new & vintage bonus features; interviews and a documentary about the author.

🤠THREE CLINT EASTWOOD CLASSICS on 4K UHD on April 29 from Warner Bros.

Three films from legendary filmmaker Clint Eastwood – Dirty Harry, The Outlaw Josie Wales and Pale Rider (40th anniversary), will be released for the first time on 4K Ultra HD and Digital on April 29. All films are remastered in 4K and include new and vintage bonus features.

🛧PLANE Re-departs April 29 on 4K Ultra HD SteelBook + Blu-ray + Digital from Lionsgate.

This nail-biting action-thriller is now packaged in an all-new SteelBook exclusively at Amazon.

🙀COMPANION on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD April 1 from Warner Bros..

New Line Cinema—the studio that brought you “The Notebook”—and the unhinged creators of “Barbarian” cordially invite you to experience a new kind of love story written and directed by Drew Hancock.

🪐DUNE: PROPHECY: The Complete First Season - Coming To 4K UHD, Blu-ray, & DVD on May 13 from Warner Bros.

Get ready to binge all 6 episodes from the epic sci-fi adventure, along with over an hour of bonus content including 5 extended featurettes and an all-new, never-before-seen featurette exclusive to 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD.

Stay Out of THE BASEMENT

THE BASEMENT (Blu-ray)

2018 / 88 min

From Uncork’d Entertainment

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat

The Basement is essentially torture porn, and like The Passion of the Christ, nearly the entire film consists of extreme torment being inflicted on one guy. The only real difference is one purports to be a horror movie, while the other is considered required viewing for some Christians (though I’m still not sure how watching Jesus in agony for two hours brings them closer to him). 

I don’t think I’d consider The Basement to be horror, either. Sadism for its own sake isn’t horror. Even the film that came to define torture porn for modern audiences (Hostel) managed to instill enough atmospheric dread to qualify as horror. But here, we’re mostly just curious about what awful thing its main character endure next, and how convincing the make-up effects are.

The victim is Craig Owen (Cayleb Long), a famous musician who’s running an errand for his wife, Kelly (Mischa Barton), when he’s abducted by a serial killer known as The Gemini (Jackson Davis). Craig is bound to a school desk in a dank basement while his captor repeatedly adopts different personalities and guises, each who address him as Bill (The Gemini’s actual name). Some of these personalities condemn “Bill” for his murders, others assault him gruesomely and graphically.

Extreme detention.

But while the make-up effects are indeed pretty convincing, the film isn’t scary or suspenseful. It’s relentlessly talky between torture scenes and serves up a protagonist who isn't interesting or engaging enough to invest in…just a rich guy cheating on his wife. Speaking of which, at least a third of the narrative focuses on Kelly, who laments that Craig hasn’t come home but never appears worried something bad has happened to him. That, coupled with the dull chats she has with her bestie, Bianca, pretty much telegraphs the twist ending writer-directors Brian M. Conley & Nathan Ives are obviously proud of.

The performances are mostly perfunctory, save for Davis, who’s admittedly impressive adopting all those different personas (12 of them, to be exact). Other than that, The Basement is a movie that’s far more in love with its torture sequences and predictable denouement than creating anything resembling true horror.

EXTRA KIBBLES

ALTERNATE OPENING - With a bonus several head for your troubles.

MUSIC VIDEO

IN THE HEART OF THE MACHINE: Pigeons Need Love Too!

IN THE HEART OF THE MACHINE (Blu-ray)

2021 / 115 min

From Rising Sun Media

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😸

As the purveyor of this site, I frequently receive discs of movies that I’ve never heard of. More often than not, it turns out there’s a good reason for that. But every now and then, I’m completely blindsided by something wonderful. In the Heart of the Machine is one of those, and so far, it’s the best movie I’ve had the pleasure to review this year. I’m also pretty sure it’s the first Bulgarian movie I’ve ever seen.

The deceptively simple story takes place in a maximum security prison. Bohemy (Alexander Sano) is an inmate entrusted by the warden to assemble a crew to increase production in the machine shop. They’re supervised by vicious guard Captain Verkilsky (Julian Vergov) and trainee Private Kovachky (Vladimir Zombori). Before starting work, however, the prison’s most feared inmate, a hulking double-murderer known as “The Cleaver” (Igor Angelov), refuses to turn on his lathe because there’s a pigeon trapped inside.

Verkilsky orders him to turn the machine on and go to work, but instead, The Cleaver grabs Kovachky and threatens to kill him unless they free the pigeon first. That’s easier said than done, since one can’t simply open the lathe or disassemble it like a lawnmower engine. Meanwhile, the most unruly of the inmates, “The Needle” (Hristo Petkov), manages to disarm and restrain Verkilsky (enjoying a little payback by beating him multiple times). Bohemy tries to reason with The Cleaver (real name, Satura) that he’s making their situation worse, but Satura is adamant about his single demand.

Bohemy forgets why he came into the room.

This turns into a standoff between the crew and guards assembled outside the shop. The only way to end the situation is to free the bird before the guards force their way in. But here’s where In the Heart of the Machine turns into something much different than just another prison picture. They become personally invested in rescuing the pigeon as a form of redemption, or has Satura sees it, to remember what it’s like to “be human,” however briefly. Even The Needle, who initially doesn’t give a shit about the bird, undergoes a remarkable transformation.

However, it’s Satura and Bohemy (who also narrates) that are the heart of the film, especially when their pasts are revealed and it’s obvious \saving the bird becomes more important to them than surviving the standoff. Their increasing desperation is both heartwarming and heartbreaking, laying the groundwork for a memorable, emotionally-charged climax and resolution.

In the Heart of the Machine achieves a tone similar to The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile…often harrowing and brutal, but ultimately life-affirming & inspirational, with characters we grow to love. Fans of either of those films owe it to themselves to check this one out. I can't imagine them being disappointed.

THE PENGUIN Waddles Onto 4K

THE PENGUIN (4K UHD)

2024 / 460 min (8 episodes)

From Warner Bros.

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😺

One gauge we typically use to review a TV series is how often we’re compelled to see it through to the final episode. For the bad shows, we might get to the halfway point of a season before assuming it’s not gonna get any better. For good shows, we’re generally happy to watch the entire thing, an episode or two per day. The great ones compels us to binge it all in one sitting, making it tough to get up for work the next day.

The Penguin falls somewhere between good and great. It takes its time introducing (or re-introducing) its characters and overall story arc, which is entertaining enough, but not so addicting that the next episode can’t wait until tomorrow. However, once all the players and pieces are in place, there are eventually enough narrative curveballs, character revelations and double-crosses that I just had to see how things turn out, sleep be damned. I was rewarded with a dark and somewhat shocking resolution I didn’t see coming.

The Penguin takes the second most interesting character from 2022’s The Batman and makes him the focus of this eight episode spin-off. Taking place shortly after the Riddler’s terror attack on Gotham, the story essentially chronicles Oz Cobb’s (Colin Farrell) rise to power by pitting the city’s two most powerful crime families, the Falcones and Maronis, against each other, while outwardly maintaining his loyalty to the former (though nobody on either side really trusts him).

As presented, Cobb is fascinating. Beneath his repulsive, buffoonish bluster is a complex character who’s menacing, violent, narcissistic, and self-aggrandizing. At the same time, he displays cunning few of his enemies see until it’s too late, as well as generosity and compassion for both his invalid mother (Deidre O’Connell) and young new right-hand man Victor (Rhenzy Feliz), who just lost his entire family during the attack. One episode in particular also reveals Cobb’s disturbing past, including the fate of his brothers and his creepy relationship with Mom. As in The Batman, Farrell goes all-in with his performance, aided once again by wonderfully grotesque make-up.

It just ain't a campfire without 'Smores.

The pleasant surprise is Cristin Mioloti as Sofia Falcone, recently released from Arkham Asylum after being framed for serial murder, who emerges as Cobb’s primary foe. Incarceration has definitely loosened a few screws upstairs, but also strengthened her resolve for payback against those who betrayed her (including Cobb). She’s a complex character with plans of her own, and like the narrative does with Cobb, harrowing flashbacks (including an entire episode chronicling her incarceration at Arkham) reveal her terrifying past.

Elsewhere, The Penguin features well-conceived secondary characters, as well as a level of violence you aren’t likely to ever see in a Batman movie. And speaking of which, the Caped Crusader is never part of the story, nor is he even mentioned. The show is strictly a dark and brutal crime drama that shares more DNA with old Warner Bros gangster movies than anything you’d find in a comic book. The series does open on the assumption that one is familiar with what transpired in The Batman, but by the second or third episode, that aspect of the story is left behind.

Overall, The Penguin is an entertaining extension of the universe established in The Batman, though geared more toward adult audiences with its story, tone, violence and language. But unless they come up with one helluva second story, one eight-episode mini-series is probably enough for this character, since it reveals everything that makes him tick. This three-disc 4K UHD release looks great, nicely showcasing the show’s impressive production design and occasionally seedy aesthetic. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - This set comes with a bunch of short featurettes spread out over three discs: Inside Gotham (eight chapters); Introducing The Penguin; The Origin of Oz; Welcome to Gotham; Gotham Re-Envisioned; Becoming the Penguin (easily the most interesting); Who is the Hangman: Portrait of Sofia Falcone; Hearts of the Penguin; A Tale of Two Gothams; Victor Aguilar: The Making of a Henchman.

TRICK OR TREAT (4K) and a Band Called Fastway

TRICK OR TREAT (4K UHD)

1986 / 97 min

From Synapse Films

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

For a brief time in the early 80s, Fastway was a hard rock band getting a lot of attention and I was a huge fan of their Zeppelinesque debut album, which totally kicked ass. However, fame is fickle and fleeting. Unable to sustain the momentum, Fastway quickly faded into obscurity, but not before making one last stab at remaining relevant by creating the songs for 1986’s Trick or Treat.

The heavy metal aspect is what got me interested in seeing the film. As much as I’ve always liked horror, the genre was becoming pretty rote at the time, with seemingly every producer and studio trying to establish a franchise with their own Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees. But in addition to Fastway, Trick or Treat had a bit of cultural timeliness going for it. This was the era of satanic panic, when countless religious groups, vote-baiting politicians and bored housewives singled out popular music - metal, in particular - as an insidious influence on impressionable kids.

So the consequences of playing a record backwards is a tailor-made concept for a horror movie, which Treat or Treat pulls-off pretty well. It’s got a story that’s initially similar to Carrie, where metal-loving teenager Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price) is subjected to constant bullying by his peers. His one respite is the music he loves, especially shock-rocker Sammi Curr (Tony Fields), who once graduated from the same high school.

When his idol unexpectedly dies, Eddie is devastated, at least until a local DJ, Nuke (Gene Simmons), gives him the only vinyl pressing of Curr’s last record. And when played backwards, Eddie discovers messages from Curr urging him to strike back at his tormentors. He initially does, developing new-found self-confidence, but when Curr himself returns from the dead (via his music) to commit more than just harmless pranks, Eddie feels responsible and tries to stop him.

When you drag your bare feet across the carpet.

Unquestionably a product of its era, Trick or Treat is loaded with the usual 80s horror trappings…the awkward protagonist, douchebag bullies, clueless adults, the bitchy hot girl, the sympathetic hot girl (who Eddie is smitten with), the goofy sidekick, a little gratuitous nudity, creative death scenes (though atypically light on the blood and gore), and of course, the murderous villain obviously created to become a horror icon. Though that never actually happened, Sammi Curr is a pretty cool bad guy, especially during his performance at the high school dance, where Fields lip-syncs a bitchin’ Fastway anthem while blowing up teenagers with a guitar.

Elsewhere, there are nice humorous touches, an engaging performance by Price and some brief satiric jabs at moralists who publicly condemn this kind of music, mainly through an ironic cameo by Ozzy Osbourne, playing a preacher. Then there’s Fastway’s music, which sounds more like hair metal than the bluesier tunes of their early records, but definitely reflective of the genre back then (and “After Midnight,” which plays during the end credits, remains one of the band’s best songs).

With all that going for it, Trick or Treat probably should have connected with its target audience more than it actually did. At the very least, with solid direction and creative effects, it was better than the glut of other heavy metal horror flicks being cranked out at the time. Instead, the film (and Fastway’s soundtrack) kinda came-and-went without much notice. 

Over the years, however, it’s earned a pretty sizeable cult following, but didn’t get a decent home video release until Synapse Films got hold of it. This 4K UHD release boasts excellent picture and sound quality, especially the latter (considering the basic premise, that seems appropriate). But the best part is the abundance of bonus materiel, especially a feature-length retrospective documentary covering all aspects of the film, as well as its legacy. I can’t imagine Trick or Treat fans not loving this release.

And if you’re a hard rock fan who’s never heard of Fastway until now, do yourself a favor and track down their first album (I think it’s still in print). Then put it on and play it loud.

EXTRA KIBBLES

ROCK & SHOCK: THE MAKING OF TRICK OR TREAT - This is an excellent and lengthy retrospective documentary featuring director Charles Martin Smitt, actor Marc Price, screenwriter Joel Soisson and others.

FEATURETTES - In the Spotlight: A Tribute to Tony Fields features family members fondly recalling Fields’ life and tragically brief career; Horror’s Hallowed Grounds: The Filming Locations of Trick or Treat features Sean Clark.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director Charles Martin Smith and filmmaker Mark Savage.

AUDIO INTERVIEWS - Featuring producer Michael S. Murphey and writer Rhet Felsher.

AUDIO CONVERSATION - Featuring authors Paul Carupe and Allison Lang. Their book, Satanic Panic: Pop Culture Paranoia in the 1980s, is an excellent read. 

MUSIC VIDEO - “After Midnight,” by Fastway, though the video features only Tony Fields (RIP) and Fastway guitarist Fast Eddie Clarke (RIP).

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