ANCHOR BAY is Back

CRUST, CURSED IN BAJA and ABRUPTIO

(Blu-ray)

FROM ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT

Review by Mr. Bonnie, the Beastie🙀

For those who don’t pay attention to this sort of thing, Anchor Bay Entertainment was a prolific home video label that made a name for itself back in the early days of DVD. They were renowned for releasing classic cult and horror films, sometimes putting together superlative boxed sets. To this date, nobody has put out a better physical media release of the original Dawn of the Dead. 

Now Anchor Bay is being resurrected, perhaps in name only, starting with three brand new B-movies that might appeal to the cult horror crowd...

This particular hotel will be getting a one-star review.

CRUST (2024/102 min) - Though his name may not ring a bell, Sean Whalen is one of those character actors you’ll undoubtedly recognize. He’s probably best known for supporting roles in Twister and a number of comedies, as well as commercials and TV guest spots.

Whalen directs, co-writes and stars in Crust, a black-and-white horror comedy about Vegas Winters, a depressed former child star who’s now a reclusive laundromat owner. He’s regularly abused by bullies and his ex-girlfriend, at least until a pile of stray socks he’s been collecting comes to life to exact revenge on his behalf.

Crust has obvious cult aspirations, beginning with the title creature, which is amusingly presented through puppetry. There’s also an emphasis on absurd humor and situations, as well as characters who run the gamut from charming and sympathetic to exaggerated and obnoxious. Though the film is fun for awhile and Whalen is wonderful as Vegas, a little of this goes a long way and it eventually runs out of gas. But at least Whalen avoids beating viewers to death with a one-joke premise.

EXTRA KIBBLES

LOS ANGELES PREMIERE Q&A - Featuring most of the main cast.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director/co-writer/star Sean Whalen.

2 SHORTS - Dorothy: 50 Years Later and Dorothy 2: The Bump and Run feature Sean Whalen in drag as an older, chainsmoking Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Hopelessly lost.

CURSED IN BAJA (2024/80 min) - Like Whalen, Jeff Daniel Phillips is another recognizable character actor turned B-movie auteur. His frequent appearances in Rob Zombie films has apparently rubbed off on him, since Cursed in Baja has an aesthetic similar to the Firefly Trilogy, albeit on a much smaller budget.

Phillips plays Pirella, a former cop, con and junkie who’s hired by a dying millionnaire to find his missing son, Quinn. His search leads him to Baja, Mexico, where Quinn has apparently fallen in with drug dealers and a weird cult that worships Chupacabra. This cult regularly sacrifices victims to the beast, including the guy who was first-hired to find Quinn.

Despite Phillips’ earnest efforts on both sides of the camera, this thriller/horror hybrid struggles to successfully combine the two genres. While the film maintains a slightly surreal atmosphere and Pirella is kind of an interesting character, the horror elements feel shoehorned into the narrative, and pretty late in the game, too. The monster is nicely rendered and the death scenes are pretty cool, but they’re not enough to overcome a meandering story and drab supporting performances. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

MAKING-OF FEATURETTE - Featuring writer/director/star Jeff Daniel Phillips.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By writer/director/star Jeff Daniel Phillips.

Horror for Dummies.

ABRUPTIO (2023/94 min) - Insanity time, kids…in Abruptio, Les Hackel is a miserable thirtysomething. Struggling with alcoholism, he still lives with his mother, is stuck in a dead-end job and his girlfriend just left him. Life is drab, daily routine…at least until he learns that a bomb has been implanted in his head by some mysterious organization. It’ll explode if he doesn’t comply with each demand they make, so Les is forced to commit some unspeakable acts, including gassing his co-workers to death and executing an innocent family.

But Abruptio is just getting started. The plot also involves mass waves of violence, body disposal, slavery and malevolent aliens trying to crossbreed with humans. The film is relentlessly gory and has a pitch black sense of humor. But here’s the kicker…the characters are all life-sized puppets, which not only renders everything more surreal, it elevates the film above just another slaughterfest. At the same time, this element somehow makes the extreme violence and cruelty little easier to endure. Had it been done with human actors, Abruptio might have been unwatchable…maybe unfilmable.

The use of puppetry for a horror film initially feels like a superfluous gimmick, but it does make this one immediately more interesting. The story itself grows increasingly bizarre and hallucinatory before coming to a conclusion that, depending on the viewer, is either ingenious or a cheat. Either way, Abruptio isn’t for everyone, but chances are good that adventurous horror fans will love every minute of it. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTE - A New Kind of Horror features interviews with writer/director Evan Marlowe and most of the main cast.

2 AUDIO COMMENTARIES - 1) By writer/director Evan Marlowe % producer Kerry Marlowe; 2) By puppeteer Danny Montooth.

It remains to be seen whether or not any of these low budget oddities achieve any kind of cult status. Of the three, Abruptio probably has the best chance, since it’s easily the most bizarrely original. At any rate, welcome back Anchor Bay.

THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKALS: Come For The Camp, Stay For The Backstory

THE MUMMY AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKALS (Blu-ray)

1969 / 81 min

FROM SEVERIN FILMS

Review by Mr. Bonnie, the Beastie😼

This is another one of those releases where the bonus features are far more interesting and entertaining than the movie itself.

Not that the bar was set too high, because The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals is a forgotten, jaw-droppingly bad horror quickie from the 1960s. It’s about archaeologist David Eisley, who’s not only obsessed with resurrecting a dead Egyptian princess, Akana, he’s cursed with becoming a vicious werewolf every night (but looking more like the winner of an ugly dog contest).

Akana reawakens, as does her fat mummified pharaoh, sporting oven mitts for hands. While she takes in the Las Vegas nightlife, both the mummy and werewolf wreak havoc on the strip as bemused tourists look on…obviously unaware they’ve just become extras in a B-movie. Aside from the monsters fighting each other in servitude to Akana, there’s not much else to the plot, which seems to have been created on-the-fly. Elsewhere, good ol’ John Carradine shows up to collect a paycheck and easily outperform the rest of the dull cast (which probably wasn’t all that difficult).

"You're supposed to do that outside!"

Obviously, The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals is comedy gold for bad movie aficionados, who’ll get a kick out of its shipshod production values, Munsters-like music and overall goofiness. However, the story behind it is genuinely fascinating. Though it arguably doesn’t even qualify as a cult film, Severin Films has provided a bounty of wonderful supplements with the same care as a Criterion release. It turns out that director Oliver Drake had a long, prolific B-movie career dating back to the silent era, despite not being all that good at his job. He mostly did westerns, but also some horror and soft core flicks (with a example of the latter included here). 

Additionally, the short-lived production company that released the film, Vega International, is showcased in a featurette that explores its entire history and everything they ever produced. So while The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals is hardly a lost classic - even by B-movie standards - the backstory behind it is well worth checking out.

EXTRA KIBBLES

THE VEGA INTERNATIONAL STORY - Author Stephen Thrower discusses the history of this short-lived B-movie production company.

COWBOYS, MUMMIES AND OLIVER DRAKE - Film historian C. Courtney Joyner discusses the long career of director Oliver Drake.

INVESTING IN THE JACKAL - A brief segment in which Gerry Gassel talks about his parents’ involvement in the film.

ANGELICA, THE YOUNG VIXEN - From 1974, this is an hour-long soft core sex film. Old, poor quality image, but plenty of boobs & bumping of uglies.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - This is actually a commentary for Angelica, the Young Vixen by Joe Rubin (of Vinegar Syndrome) and exploitation researcher Shawn Langrick.

BLACKOUT and the Sad Werewolf

BLACKOUT (Blu-ray)

2023 / 103 min

FROM DARK SKY FILMS

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

As classic movie monsters go, werewolves haven’t been terrifying in decades. Perhaps writer/director Larry Fessenden is aware of this, opting to make Blackout more of a tragedy than a horror film. However, it's not very interesting as a tragedy either.

Charley Barrett (Alex Hurt) is a depressed alcoholic artist who's been transforming into a werewolf on full moon nights and killing some of the small town locals. This is an ongoing crisis as the film begins and Charley already knows he's the monster. However, most of the town suspects Hispanic construction worker Miguel (Rigo Garay), a rumor perpetuated by greedy, racist resort developer Jack Hammond (Marshall Bell). 

Since he’s aware that the only solution to his - and the town’s - problem is to die, Charley is getting his affairs in order. This includes making peace with ex-girlfriend Sharon (Addison Timlin) and arranging for his buddy, Earl (Motell Gyn Foster), to shoot him with silver bullets. Meanwhile, the local sheriff (Joseph Castillo-Midyett) is stymied by the killings while trying to keep the locals from taking the law into their own hands with Miguel.

"Believe it or not, I found silver bullets on Amazon."

Fessenden’s attempts to work themes of racism, environmental issues and corporate greed into his story are admirable (and unfortunately timely). Considering what looks like a limited budget, the death scenes and make-up effects are fairly impressive. However, in between are long, rambling passages of characters engaging in dull banter, much of which sounds like the actors are improvising. And despite a few earnest performances, none of these characters are particularly engaging, including Charley. It's hard to sympathize with a protagonist's plight if you don't really care about him to begin with.

From a technical standpoint, Blackout is well made and sometimes delivers the gore goods. And I suppose Fessenden should be lauded for adhering to horror conventions first established by Universal’s The Wolf Man (this film’s most obvious inspiration). That he manages to accomplish it with such limited resources is commendable. However, the erratic pace, bland characters and drab dialogue undermine his good intentions.

EXTRA KIBBLES

BLACKOUT BEHIND THE SCENES - This is an excellent 75 minutes documentary with an introduction by writer/director Larry Fessenden. Features extensive behind-the-scenes footage and plenty of interviews.

FEATURETTES - Larry Fessenden’s Monsterverse (a montage of clips from three of the director’s horror films); Monster Mash Photoshoot Timelapse.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By writer/director Larry Fessenden.

BLACKOUT AUDIO DRAMA

TRAILERS

SUPPLEMENTAL BOOKLET

COCAINE WEREWOLF: The Joke Might Be On Us

COCAINE WEREWOLF (Blu-ray)

2024 / 77 min

FROM CLEOPATRA ENTERTAINMENT

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

To appreciate the appeal of a movie like this is to know its director. Mark Polonia has been throwing together direct-to-video junk (often shot on video) for nearly 40 years. And “throwing together” ain’t an exaggeration. So far, he’s released 4 movies in 2024 alone and the year is only two-thirds of the way over. But since he directed nine in 2023, perhaps age is catching up with him.

Looking at his lengthy filmography, Polonia specializes in rip-offs and mockbusters, most which I suspect were given their titles before even a single word of the screenplays were written. Lots of shark flicks, Amityville movies and silly monster mash-ups. Never one to pass up the opportunity to jump on a bandwagon, he’s recently turned to pumping out no-budget nonsense featuring drug-fueled beasties, such as Cocaine Werewolf.

Cheap and stupid doesn’t begin to describe this one. What else can you say about a movie with a budget so low that CGI is used to simulate a shattered windshield? Or a narrative that randomly includes a shot of a sexy pole dancer, despite being completely irrelevant to a single scene or character? The entire movie looks like it was shot with one camera, featuring a cast whose resumes mostly consist of other Polonia films (and we suspect acting isn’t their primary source of income). Ironically, Cocaine Werewolf is about the title creature stalking an equally-untalented cast and crew of an equally-cheap horror movie, which is as close to clever as it gets. 

When "The Final Countdown" gets stuck in your head.

The completely ill-fitting industrial rock score suggests Cleopatra Entertainment is also using Cocaine Werewolf to promote the artists on their label. On the other hand, the music is the only decent aspect of the entire film. The rest is strictly amateur night...boring, scare-free, devoid of laughs (intentional ones, anyway) and featuring a creature about as convincing as the monster masks at Spirit Halloween. 

Then again, perhaps Polonia is already well-aware of his abilities (or lack thereof). Maybe the movie's shitty on purpose and the joke's on us because it has obviously worked out for him over the years. In an era when Terry Gilliam has trouble getting anything made, Polonia’s remained gainfully employed, earning something of a cult following along the way. If you’ve read this far, perhaps you’re totally down with catching the latest epic from the guy who brought you Bigfoot vs. Zombies and Amityville in Space. Rest assured, you won’t be disappointed.

No one else needs to bother.

EXTRA KIBBLES

SLIDESHOW - Stills from the film.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director Mark Polonia.

TRAILER

TRAILERS FOR OTHER CLEOPATRA ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES

DANZA MACABRA, VOLUME THREE: Severin Goes To Spain

DANZA MACABRA, VOLUME THREE:

THE SPANISH GOTHIC COLLECTION (Blu-ray)

1971-1975 / 364 min (4 movies)

FROM SEVERIN FILMS

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat🙀

For the third volume of their Danza Macabra Blu-ray series, Severin Films sails across the Mediterranean to resurrect four Spanish gothic horror films from the early seventies. Like most boxed set collections, they vary in quality, but certainly serve up a selection of titles slightly left of the mainstream. 

1971’s Necrophagous (aka The Butcher of Binbrook) is arguably the goofiest, though atmospheric and teasingly ambiguous. However, the story ultimately ends up being a science project gone wrong, with Michael Sharrington (Bill Curran) messing around with human cells, turning people into monsters. He’s also dedicated enough to experiment on himself, with horrifying/amusing results. This is the only film presented in English.

Released the same year, Cake of Blood is a (mostly) historically-based anthology film that’s a bit more high-minded than your usual Amicus flick from the same era. As these types of films go, this one is surprisingly consistent. “Tarot” is as interesting riff on The Seventh Seal, while “Victor Frankenstein” boils Shelly’s story down to its bare essentials (it’s also also the weakest of the bunch). “Terror Among the Christians” features vampires terrorizing people during the Roman era. Finally, “The Dance” (the only story set in the present) has a hypnotic, haunting quality that’s enhanced by creative production design. Alas, no actual cake.

"Wake up! It's time for school!"

1974’s Cross of the Devil is probably the weakest movie in this collection. While not terrible, the story feels the most derivative. A writer heads to Spain to visit his sister after receiving an urgent letter, only to find she’s since been murdered. Naturally, he feels compelled to solve the mystery. This one draws obvious inspiration from the darker - and more compelling  - Blind Dead series. 

Despite the stupidly generic title, 1975’s The Night of the Walking Dead is easily the set’s best film. Also known as Strange Love of the Vampires (which is far more accurate), it’s a stylish, almost romantic tale of nasty villagers vs. sympathetic bloodsuckers. Caught in the middle is terminally ill Catherine (Emma Cohn), torn between an unlikable suitor and compassionate Count Rudolph (Carlos Ballesteros). This one is also the most violent of the four films, especially during the rousing final act.

Obviously, these titles are fairly obscure on this side of the pond. None of them are masterpieces, but fans of early 70s’ European gothic horror will find a lot to love here. Each film has been nicely restored and include some contextually interesting bonus material. Stored in a sturdy, well-designed box, they're also packaged in individual cases with their own unique cover art.

EXTRA KIBBLES

NECROPHAGOUS

SOMETHING YOU’VE NEVER SEEN - An appreciation by Angel Sala,. The head of programming of the Sitges Film Festival.

THE FIRST HORROR FILM FESTIVAL IN THE WORLD - Maria Pilar Rafales discusses the Sitges Film Festival.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By podcaster Andy Marshall-Roberts.

TRAILERS

CAKE OF BLOOD

INTERVIEWS - Individual interviews with actress Marisa Paredes, co-director Jaime Chavarri and actor Jose Lifante.

AN ARTHOUSE UFO - Another appreciation by Angel Sala.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By podcaster Rod Barnett and author Dr. Adrian Smith.

CROSS OF THE DEVIL

INTERVIEW - With screenwriter Juan Jose Porto.

FANTASY AND IMAGINATION: THE LEGACY OF GUSTAVO ADOLFO BECQUER - Video essay about the director by author Xavier Aldana Reyes.

THE REAL TEMPLAR KNIGHTS MOVIE - Yet another appreciation by Angel Sala.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By authors Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw.

THE NIGHT OF THE WALKING DEAD

INTERVIEWS - Individual interviews with actor Joes Lifante and writer Juan Jose Porto.

A DEADLY INVITATION TO ANOTHER DIMENSION - Angel Sala appreciates this one, too! Yay!

SPAIN’S CINEMATIC VAMPIRES - Video essay by author Xavier Aldana Reyes.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By author Kat Ellinger.

ALTERNATE SPANISH CREDIT SEQUENCE

GODZILLA X KONG Uses Every Crayon in the Box

GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE (Blu-ray)

2024 / 115 min

FROM WARNER BROS / #InPartnershipwithWB

Review by Pepper the Poopy😽

When my daughter was old enough to do something with crayons besides eat them, we gave her the traditional box of 64 Crayolas. Whether using a coloring book or creating drawings of her own, she was hell-bent on including every color in the box for each picture (even the useless white one). 

Visually, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is like a museum tour of our four-year-old's artwork that used to cover the refrigerator…bright, vivid and full of every color imaginable. The palate on display in scenes depicting Hollow Earth (where much of this one takes place) makes the climactic Hong Kong showdown in Godzilla vs. Kong look as stark as The Seventh Seal. Even the big lizard himself becomes a rompin’ stompin’ mood ring when he grows increasingly irradiated. This garish aesthetic certainly reflects the overall tone of the movie. Depending on your age, that ain’t necessarily a bad thing

I suppose this was inevitable, being that the Monsterverse has certainly evolved from the comparatively “dark” days of Kong: Skull Island and 2014’s Godzilla. More than ever, GxK recalls the campy, kid-friendly Kaiju films of the 1960s, when Japan’s most popular monsters were superheroes with distinct personalities. Both Godzilla and Kong are more developed than any of the human characters, but considering characterization was never much of a priority in this franchise, perhaps that’s not saying much. Here, the two even provide much of the humor, such as Kong’s expressiveness and Godzilla adopting Rome’s Colosseum as a napping spot (like my cat when he claimed my sacred recliner as his own).

Godzilla gets a case of pinkeye.

The plot, of course, is another battle royal. After a fissure reveals an uncharted region of Hollow Earth, the world is threatened by an ancient tribe of giant apes led by the vicious Skar King, who rules through slavery and wields a staff that controls Shima, an ice-breathing reptile. Meanwhile on the surface, Godzilla senses an upcoming clash with another Titan and (destructively) begins fueling himself with radiation. Through the usual exposition by some obligatory human characters, we learn it was Godzilla who imprisoned Skar King in the first place. Since Kong can’t fight him alone, the two once again team-up, leading to a wild, mayhem-filled clash in Hollow Earth before spilling out to the surface, decimating cities & landmarks in the process.

Mothra herself makes a welcome return, while Rebecca Hall, Bryan Tyree Henry and Kaylee Hottle resume their thankless roles from Godzilla vs. Kong. They're joined by Dan Stevens as a devil-may-care veterinarian who enhances Kong's punching strength with a robotic arm. There’s also a subplot with Jia (Hottle) discovering the extinct Iwi tribe she once belonged to are actually thriving in Hollow Earth, a storyline that introduces some unwelcome (?) mysticism into the narrative. Then again, if we’re already able to accept a gravity-scrambling underworld, maybe throwing in magic and telepathy ain’t such a stretch. However, the arrival of Suko (“Mini Kong”) initially filled me with dread, and I was ready to rage quit if the little beast started speaking like Godzilla’s son did in a few 60s’ Toho flicks. Thank god that never happened.

All these asides are just placeholders for the Titan battles, which are typically epic, loud, destructive and over-the-top. The sequences where Rome, Egypt and Rio become collateral damage are a hell of a lot of fun, while the artifice of the anti-gravity fight in Hollow Earth pushes things further into cartoon territory…exacerbated by the use of every crayon on the production designer’s box. But hey, this is the direction the Monsterverse has been heading anyway. If nothing else, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire embraces its own inherent silliness without the pretense of being anything more than big, kid-friendly entertainment. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - GxK: Day of Reckoning is a look back at the entire franchise, with various comments from people involved, past & present; Evolution of the Titans is a two-part look at how the titular creatures have changed; Into the Hollow Earth is another two-parter about creating that world and its creatures; The Battles Royale is a three-part breakdown of the SFX behind the climactic clash (ad its three locations); The Intrepid Director is another two-parter focusing on director Adam Wingard (who’s apparently kind of a goofball); The Imagination Department features a look at pre-production art; The Monarch Island Base: Portal to Another World shows the conception of the base; The Evolution of Jia: From Orphan to Warrior is sort of ironic, since characterization is these movies is minimal and I never noticed Jia turning into a warrior; Bernie’s World: Behind the Triple Locked Door is an amusing look at his cluttered apartment.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director Adam Wingard, FX supervisor Alessandro Ongaro, production designer Tom Hammock and editor Josh Schaeffer. 

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