DVD Talk DVD Reviews https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/list/DVD Video DVD Talk DVD Review RSS Feed en-us Legion: The Final Exorcism DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/47511 Sun, 09 Jan 2011 21:19:07 UTC Skip It

Legion: The Final Exorcism:
Costa Chica: Confessions of an Exorcist is maybe not the zingiest title for an exorcism horror movie, but then Legion: The Final Exorcism isn't exactly the zingiest exorcism horror movie. In fact, no one is sure exactly what it is. Is it a comedy, parody or shocker? Is it a campy pilot for a Mexican-style tele-novella or genre-themed soap opera? It could be it's none of these things, but for the first dire scene when soon-to-be-possessed victim Tatiana encounters the sinister purple pig, then you realize that whatever the hell Legion: The Final Exorcism is, it's going to be funny.

I really don't want to bore you with some sort of plot summary, because it's pointless. There's a macho priest, Reverend Chica, who drives a rockin' SUV and wears dark glasses. He provides helpful narration, near constant narration because without it you'd be...Read the entire review

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The Shadow Within DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/42901 Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:40:38 UTC Rent It

The Shadow Within:
Book. Cover. Judgment. Fail. (There ya go, bloggies, that's all the Internet lingo I'm going to toss about today.) Point being that if you, like me, took one look at the cover for The Shadow Within and passed it over, thinking it was another cheap-CGI, straight-to-DVD The Grudge knock-off, you'd be excused. You'd also be wrong. Because even though this release has what it takes to make your eyes slide right past it as you scan the shelves, it's actually a thoughtful, intermittently unnerving period piece taking a weird look a familial loss. And despite odd stage-y bits here and there, and a little bit of CGI that should have been left to the imagination, The Shadow Within is worth your jaded-horror-time.

Set in France during the Second World War, Shadow starts us off with disorientation - a naked woman seemingly drowning in endless depths - bef...Read the entire review

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Say Goodnight DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/44566 Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:58:55 UTC Skip It

Recently, I picked X's and O's out of the DVDTalk Screener Pool, a tone-deaf independent romantic comedy with poor writing and a lack of focus. Right after I was done watching that disc, I popped in Say Goodnight, another independent romantic comedy. I didn't like X's and O's, but at least it didn't make me angry.

Say Goodnight is not a film. It doesn't have a plot. It has a scenario, repeated three times: a guy meets a girl and goes out with her. Beyond the chance that the guy in question will have to stop going out with the girl in question, there is no conflict here, and since all three of these guys are pretty clearly illustrated every step of the way as gigantic assholes, well, there is no conflict here. Writer/director David VonAllmen probably thinks he's taking some sort of creative risk ...Read the entire review

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The Caretaker (2008) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/44112 Mon, 07 Jun 2010 11:11:01 UTC Skip It

The Plot
Plot? Oh, um, a pitchfork wielding killer stalks around at prom, on Halloween night.

The Film
Take a gander at the Caretaker DVD cover to the right of this review. A farmer (the titular caretaker, presumably) stands on a secluded, wintery-looking farm property with skulls in the foreground, listing Jennifer Tilly, Judd Nelson and a couple of no-names (sorry) above the title. This image may not promise great cinema, good cinema, or even cinema period, but it also doesn't prepare the viewer for the sight of a jock sitting on his prom date and farting within the first 10 minutes. Yep. Sounds really promising, doesn't it?

The movie opens with a nonsensically unmotivated prologue in which a super-anonymous stoner dude cliche(barely identified as a stoner save for a don't-care-and-you'll-miss-it line of dialogue) goes to a completely random house in a vaguely defined l...Read the entire review

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Creature of Darkness DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/43776 Tue, 18 May 2010 01:31:04 UTC Rent It

Creature Of Darkness:
Creature is getting kicked into the dirt over at Amazon.com, with a number of one-star reviews penned by really angry viewers. Hey, what did Creature Of Darkness ever do to you, chumps? Why don't you pick on movies your own size anyway? It's quite amusing, witnessing the bile and sheer hatred a bad movie can whip up among those who relish having their voices heard all free-and-easy on the Internet. The truth is, no bit of Internet criticism arrives without a small grain of truth, and frankly yes, Creature is a bad movie, some might even say it's very bad, but should it throw you into a rage? Only if you're off your meds, boyo.

Because there's no way anyone watching could be fooled into thinking it's a serious attempt at sci-fi horror. You might be fooled by the DVD cover, but then looking upon the generic/ derivative artwork, evoking Spielberg's Read the entire review

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Creature of Darkness DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/41996 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:47:27 UTC Rent It

The Movie:
Creature of Darkness is a film that doesn't set its sights too high. It uses the fairly well trod idea of an alien hunting humans on earth for a ghoulish science display. Still, this is an idea with a rich vein of material to mine. Unfortunately, Creature of Darkness succeeds only haphazardly, and fails to exploit when it should.

Andrew, played by Devon Sawa, is a troubled young man, plagued by nightmares brought on by his uncle's tales of being abducted by aliens. A couple of his friends encourage him to go camping with them to the site of the supposed abduction to work through his issues. Things start off innocently enough. They enjoy some rambunctious four wheeling through a restricted Army bombing range, the fresh air, sleeping under the stars. Things start to get weird when they come across a corpse by the side of a trail that has had its spine ripped out. As l...Read the entire review

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Billy Owens and the Secret of the Runes DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/42896 Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:31:33 UTC Skip It

Billy Owens and the Secret of the Runes:
Lord love a duck, director Mark McNabb (The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens) is back again to torture innocent souls with this ill-considered addition to the Billy Owens saga. I'm not sure why I signed up for this punishment, after suffering through the first movie. Maybe I hoped to see improvement from McNabb and his cast of amateurs, yet if anything, this movie is even worse than the first, though cinematography seems to have improved slightly. Ultimately, this well-intentioned Harry Potter rip-off should be of interest mostly to the families of the cast.

Taking up right from where the first left off, (albeit in confusing fashion, even for those familiar with the first) Runes immediately drops any connection to that storyline, and all ...Read the entire review

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Vigilante DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/41901 Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:31:19 UTC Rent It

The Movie:

Written and directed by Aash Aaron, Vigilante is a low budget indy action-thriller that the cover art would have you believe is in the tradition of exploitative greats like The Exterminator or, maybe, Williams Lustig's Vigilante. This low budget Australian indy film, however, is a bit more of a slow burn picture, though that's not to say it isn't without some fun action set pieces.

The film follows a wealthy businessman named Luke (Robert Diaz) who, along with his fiancé, is brutally attacked. During the ordeal, his fiancé is raped and when the thugs - Jack (Ozzie Devrish), Mako (Christian Radford) and the ringleader, Alex (Kazuya Wright) - have had their way with her, they murder her in cold blood. Understandably pissed off, Like decides use every dollar at his disposal to train himself in the martial arts and in various combat techniques so that he...Read the entire review

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The Caretaker DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/41899 Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:50:21 UTC Rent It

The Movie:
The Caretaker is another iteration of the well trod "beautiful people in jeopardy" genre of slasher films. Unfortunately, it does nothing to rise above the level of cliché, or transcend the familiar tropes of this kind of film. The result is a mediocre movie that slides along with little inspiration or fun.

The local high school is having a Halloween / Homecoming dance, and three friends decide they are going to ditch the official festivities and scare the pants off of their dates, figuratively speaking. Topher, Snail and Ricky (played by Andrew St. John, James Immekus and Diego Torres respectively) convince their young companions to accompany them to an abandoned grapefruit orchard, having previously arranged for their friend Derrik (Will Stiles) to precede them and make scary noises and jump out from the shadows and whatnot. Their plans are dashed when Derrik and his gi...Read the entire review

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Ca$h DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/40781 Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:30:54 UTC Rent It

The Movie:

Written and directed by Sam Akina and supposedly made for about fifty grand, this 16mm low budget action film probably won't appeal to those not already into low budget action films to begin with, but for those with a pre-existing affinity for the genre, it's worth a look.

The storyline introduces us to a quirky cast of characters starting with a man named Hector Gonzales (Jerry Lloyd) criminal kingpin who has worked his way up through the underworld over the years to the point where he's now more or less in charge of an entire city's worth of criminal operations. Uncle Bill Nguyen (Toan Le) is a Vietnamese mobster operating in the same area. Then there's Abe Shanks (Phil Randoy), a man who makes his living selling organs on the black market, and Johnny Tran (Thi Nguyen), one of Nguyen's most overzealous foot soldiers. Throw in an Italian mobster named Tommy Two Toes (D...Read the entire review

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Hooking Up [Unrated] DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/40161 Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:16:04 UTC Skip It

Recently, I pulled American Virgin and Hooking Up out of the DVDTalk screener pool, expecting them both to be subpar gross-out comedies with overacting and awful jokes. I was wrong: American Virgin was a slightly-better-than-mediocre comedy with some okay performances, and Hooking Up is so inept it transcends "good" and "bad". Most movies get divided off into positive and negative because there are elements to critique, but Hooking Up barely knows how to frame a shot, much stage whole jokes and embed them in a legitimate story. Imagine a film with the basic cinematography, sound quality, and framing of a YouTube short, listlessly meandering for an hour and a half before arriving at an arbitrary conclusion, and you have this movie.

For instance, Hooking Up doesn't introduce its characters. Instead, it just flat-out describes them. After an opening scene that b...Read the entire review

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The Witches Hammer DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/39441 Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:32:19 UTC Skip It

The Movie:
Genetically engineered vampires. Powerful sorcerers. Secret government agencies. Conspiracies. Killer dwarfs. Sounds like the recipe for a kick butt vampire action film, right? Unfortunately, in the case of The Witches Hammer, it is instead the recipe for a poorly executed vampire action film.

Rebecca, played by Claudia Coulter, is a loving mother who is murdered one night and scooped up into a shadowy government program, known as Project 571, where she is turned into an artificial vampire by the magic of modern science. Her funeral is faked, and she is trained in the arts of death, a la La Femme Nikita, in order to serve the government by killing all the real vampires out there. Things go south when Rebecca comes back from an outing to find her handlers viciously murdered. She fights off a handful of vampires and ninja-esque witches with her superior kung fu, but i...Read the entire review

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Pandemic DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/39442 Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:06:39 UTC Skip It

The Movie:
With a movie about government conspiracies, biological weapons, paranoid ex-special forces on the run, virulent hemorrhagic fever and a beautiful veterinarian who doesn't play by the rules, one would think it would be difficult to make said movie dull, pointless and unbelievable, but the producers of Pandemic have managed to pull it off.

Set in Diablo County, New Mexico, the least populated county in the United States, the film follows Dr. Sydney Stevens (Alesha Clarke), a local veterinarian, as she tries to figure out the cause of the fast acting, lethal hemorrhagic fever that is killing livestock and seems to have spread to people as well. Her efforts are stymied when the military shows up, declares martial law, quarantines the town and shuts off all communication with the outside world.

Of course, Sydney's paranoid client, the rancher Spenser (Peter Holden) believes t...Read the entire review

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Ghost Image DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/40263 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:59:18 UTC Rent It

The Movie:
Ghost Image is a fairly run of the mill semi-supernatural thriller that has great aspirations but doesn't quite live up to them. The story follows Jen (Elisabeth Rohm), a documentary filmmaker still recovering psychologically years later from a childhood car accident that killed her parents and younger sister. Things are going well for her and boyfriend / business partner Wade (Waylon Payne) until Wade too dies in a car accident. The police are suspicious that Wade may have been murdered, not least because the brake lines of the car he was driving were cut. Jen's status as number one suspect is only complicated by the fact that he was driving Jen's car on his errand, and not his own. Was Wade the target, or Jen?

Jen herself vacillates between believing that she might have killed Wade (because of her childhood trauma she has suffered for years from hallucinations and s...Read the entire review

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Killing Ariel DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/40080 Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:08:42 UTC Skip It

The Film:
Not that long ago, I wrote a rather scathing review of a horror movie called Staunton Hill. In that review, I used language that might be considered objectionable by some people, and certainly was reflective of a somewhat unsophisticated way of expressing my disdain for the film. Looking back, I regret the words I used to describe Staunton Hill--but not for the reasons some of you might think. Staunton Hill is still a total piece of crap, make no mistake about that. The problem, however, is that Killing Ariel is, in its own unique way, an even bigger piece of crap, and therefore more deserving of the tirade that I laid down on Staunton Hill. But since I've already used up my profanity-laced tirade quota of the month, I'll have to find other ways to express my pure hatred for Killing Ariel.

This worthless nonsense starts in 1933, when young...Read the entire review

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Albino Farm DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/38926 Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:08:42 UTC Skip It

Albino Farm:
It's no secret why one of the very first films ever made is Thomas Edison Studios' interpretation of Frankenstein. Horror is damn easy. Unfortunately a century on, horror is still easy. But now instead of the shock of the new - seeing pictures move - we get a century's-worth of clichés employed as something of a crass resume item. Enter Albino Farm, another in a horrifically long line of horror films with little to nothing new to offer the genre, but with the desire to take a lot: your money and your time, specifically. It's not to say that Albino Farm doesn't have about three minutes of material that makes you remember why you picked the darn thing up in the first place, it's just that everything surrounding those minutes is so insultingly, willfully derivative that you're better off simply reminiscing about horror movies by candlelight than watching the th...Read the entire review

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The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/39724 Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:55:59 UTC Skip It

The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens:
Filmmaking used to be something of a merit-based, if not at least effort-based endeavor. Aspiring directors and actors did a lot of work aimed at: getting together enough money to do the job, acquiring the skills to use the equipment for making a convincing movie, and arriving at a final product good enough to warrant some form of distribution. Of course dreck would be made, but times have radically changed. Though it still takes skill to film, score and edit a movie, The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens proves that anyone with a few thousand dollars and friends willing to act can find their DVD in the hands of someone like me - someone who's never made anything beyond experimental Super-8 fluff - yet someone who knows when he's being taken for a ride.

Though advertising materials make Billy Owens appear to be a Harry Potter hom...Read the entire review

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Killing Ariel DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/38016 Mon, 27 Jul 2009 02:38:17 UTC Skip It

The Movie:
Killing Ariel is a film with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it fails in numerous ways to live up to this potential. This would be psychological thriller, which has an interesting premise, ends up being rather limp and insipid.

The tale begins from the point of view of a young boy, named Rick, whose father is paralyzed and whose mother cavorts about town with a bald Englishman to meet her physical needs. The two parents fight, and mom shoots dad to death with a shotgun, then does herself in, all the while with little Rick watching in the doorway. We then move in short order to an asylum, many years later, where Rick, played by Michael Brainerd, is taken from his room to be interviewed by a psychologist.

Rick recounts the story of what brought him to the asylum, and why he believes that his mother was seduced by an incubus and why this demon has now ruined his life as ...Read the entire review

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Dark Secrets DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/37232 Tue, 12 May 2009 21:33:50 UTC Skip It

The Movie:
Dark Secrets a/k/a Cold Earth is a limp effort at a supernatural crime thriller that does very little right, and fails to hold the viewer's interest or even be particularly thrilling.

The story involves the apparent kidnapping of Dallas Van Dyke, the daughter of racecar driver Darryl Van Dyke (Gary Daniels) and actress Lori Kennedy (Kate Thurlwell). Detectives Jack Farrell (Steven Elliot) and Tom Radcliffe (Ben Shockley) are called in to investigate. Farrell is rather troubled. A few years ago his wife was killed in a car accident. Since then, he has thrown himself into his investigations, sometimes to an obsessive degree. Lately, he has been seeing visions of a little girl whose murder he was unable to solve. He is the classical troubled cop who just wants to find out the truth.

The investigation is stymied by the relative uncooperativeness of the Van Dykes, who ...Read the entire review

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Imprint DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/37219 Tue, 12 May 2009 01:20:01 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

[Reviewer's Note: MTI sent DVD Talk a screener copy of Imprint for review. It's one of those blue-hued discs that suggests DVD-Rom and arrived in a cardboard sleeve. The menu system makes clear that it's a screener, and only two options exist: one to play the movie and the other to see the trailer. As this is clearly not the final product, only the movie will be reviewed here. The Video, Sound, and Extras sections will, out of necessity, be left empty.]

FILMED ENTIRELY ON LOCATION IN SOUTH DAKOTA

So reads the final line of the end credits for Imprint, a low budget horror movie with a primarily Native American cast recently released on home video by MTI. And boy, does this movie take full advantage of natural South Dakotan landscapes. At times, Imprint is accentuated by rolling hills and herds of buffalo, placing the m...Read the entire review

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Kicking the Dog DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/37015 Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:56:46 UTC Skip It

Review:

"Kicking the Dog" is the directorial debut from Randy "Scoot" (seriously, Scoot?) Lammey, and the picture feels an awful lot like a bunch of friends who thought they could get together and try squeeze as many raunchy riffs into 90 minutes as possible. The only problem is that they forgot to add a plot.

The picture follows a group of college age friends (some of whom look like they're 40) who largely spend their time talking (and talking and talking and talking) about sex and getting drunk. The women in their lives look on with a surprising (and unlikely) amount of approval, while the guys brag about their pasts and chat away about their few favorite subjects.

While one or two raunchy characters can work for laughs (Randal in "Clerks") every one of the guys in this picture is the same and the result is sympathy for the few women characters in the film who put up with...Read the entire review

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Dark Secrets DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36919 Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:15:52 UTC Rent It

The Movie:

Originally titled Cold Earth, Frank Falco's 2008 indy thriller has been re-titled Dark Secrets and released straight to DVD though the efforts of MTI. So what's the movie about? The film tells the story of a famous couple, Daryl Van Dyke (Gary Daniels) and his wife Lori (Kate Thurlwell), who are horrified to find out that their young daughter has been kidnapped. The cops, lead by Detective Farrell (Steven Elliott) and Detective Radcliff (Ben Shockley) are called in and they figure she's been snatched by a serial killer who has been operating in the area for some time now. As the investigation continues and the Van Dykes become more involved in it, however, it becomes more and more obvious that there's something more unusual afoot here than just the serial killer angle.

Dark Secrets toys around with some interesting ideas. By making the victims celeb...Read the entire review

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Storm Force DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36530 Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:29:52 UTC Recommended

The Movie:
Storm Force, originally titled Windkracht10: Koksijde Rescue, is an engaging, action filled drama about a Belgian search and rescue team. Director Hans Herbots skillfully weaves together romance, daring helicopter rescues at sea and subtle humor to create a film that pulls in the viewer and invests us deeply in the outcome.

Storm Force comes out of a long pedigree of dramatic films about dangerous professions, particularly those that involve saving lives. Police and firefighters grab most of the glory, but there have been a few entries for other life savers. Storm Force is very similar to Ashton Kutcher's Coast Guard film The Guardian, except that it is much more intelligent, better acted, directed and written, and made for probably one tenth the budget by Belgians.

The film starts with a training exercise, sort of a capture the flag ...Read the entire review

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Moscow Chill DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36503 Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:58:22 UTC Skip It

The Movie:
Moscow Chill is a lackluster attempt at a thriller. Norman Reedus, playing the ostensible protagonist Ray, is muted and mostly emotionless as the genius hacker who aids the Russian mob. The film never rises above mildly interesting, and often falls well below.

The film opens with Ray driving around with a friend, hacking in to ATMs and getting them to dispense free cash by the hundreds. He is quickly nabbed by the police and sentenced to six months in a rehab facility (he is "addicted" to hacking) and banned from ever using a computer. Days before his release, he is violently broken out of jail by Dolphin (Slava Schoot), the fun loving flunky and enforcer for Russian crime boss Dubinsky, and flown secretly to Moscow.

Dubinsky, played by Vladimir Kuleshov, used to be Ray's mother's accountant, but is now a prince of the Moscow crime scene directing his empire fro...Read the entire review

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Imprint DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36448 Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:06:10 UTC Rent It

The Movie:
Not to be confused with Takashi Miike's Masters of Horror episode of the same name, Imprint is an effective, low budget supernatural thriller set on an Indian reservation. Though working with limited resources, director Michael Linn manages to maintain an unsettling sense of tension throughout.

Shayla Stonefeather, played well by Tonantzin Carmelo, is a prosecuting attorney trying a fellow Native American for murder in Denver. The boy, Robbie Whiteshirt (Joseph Medicine Blanket) and his brother loudly protest his innocence, but Shayla manages to get him convicted regardless. Shortly thereafter, Robbie is killed while trying to escape from custody. Stressed and conflicted over prosecuting one of her own, Shayla returns to her parents' home on the reservation to sort things out.

Soon after she arrives, strange things begin to happen. Shayla hears people walking arou...Read the entire review

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Nympha DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/35053 Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:56:38 UTC Rent It

Nympha:
It's tempting to look for deeper meaning in Nympha. You don't even really have to try too hard to dig up a pretty interesting concept or two, concepts that are far above Nympha's station. Because, if you think back to the idea that Nympha is really just a modern update of the 'nunsploitation' genre starring Tiffany Shepis, you'll want to ditch any highbrow notions you might be brewing, and just hope for more boobs, blood and nun-on-nun action.

The big crime here is not that Nympha might get you thinking, it's that boobs and blood are in short supply until the final half-hour, and even then there's probably not enough to satisfy you sickos who actually know what nunsploitation is. There are some other faults, too, including a multi-tiered flashback motif that's irritating, (until that final half-hour when everything momentarily gels) with proceedings filled with crying, screaming an...Read the entire review

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20 Years After DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/34949 Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:16:09 UTC Rent It

Seeing the achievements that filmmakers concoct with lower budgets can be a treat, which was the primary reason why I was energetic going into the nickel-and-dime budgeted 20 Years After. Quickly after the start, however, the energy seeped straight from its post-apocalyptic narrative. There were inkling, urgings even, to start liking the flick for its vagueness and character concentration; it turns out that this lack of focus renders a bland and unenergetic experience instead of one latched onto controlled vibrancy.

The Film:




Delving into the plot doesn't exactly involve rocket science. Essentially, we're dropped in the middle of nowhere 20 years following an apocalyptic terrorist event that obliterated the face of the world -- leaving it s...Read the entire review

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Death on Demand DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/33982 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:19:02 UTC Skip It

The Movie
Whether an artistically legitimate genre or not, I've never felt that horror deserves the bad rap it gets. However, I've been wrong about a lot of things. As bad as if a college student threw the infamous Shannon Elizabeth webcam scene from American Pie into a blender and then dumped a whole lot of voyeurism horror (think Halloween: Resurrection) on top of it, Death on Demand is cheap, independent horror that manages to be watchable (barely) but little else.

The movie begins with the flashback of the night Sean McIntyre (Jerry Broome) went crazy. An ice climber who lost his mind while on top of a mountain, he graphically slaughters his whole family in their house and then kills himself. Fast forward to the present, and rich kid Rich (Dan Falcone) is trying to cash in by hosting a reality show-sort of webcam broadcast for college students from the McIntyre ...Read the entire review

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The Planet DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/33956 Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:52:24 UTC Recommended

The Product:
When making epic science fiction on a low limit credit card budget, there is one rule you must never overlook - don't write ambitious visual checks your filmmaking skill and/or production values can't cash. Nothing looks worse than a vast in scope bit of speculation cut down by cardboard backdrop realities. Even in a world where simple CGI is at everyone's disposal, how you use it is as important as any other F/X facet. For Scottish maverick Mark Stirton, no idea is too outsized. His grand design epic The Planet begins with a massive battle in space, and ends with a literal war for the soul of all mankind. In between there's some slight suspense, and enough non-erotic male bonding (and braying) to keep action fans satisfied...at least for a little while.

The Plot:
During a mission to transport a terrorist, a group of ragtag mercenaries is attacked by a squad...Read the entire review

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Magus DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/32852 Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:37:32 UTC Skip It

The Movie:
One of the wonderful things about advances in home video technology is that everyone can get in on the art of filmmaking; it's no longer exclusively in the hands of studios. Magus is a movie made independently in L.A., and I would like to give director John Lechago and his cadre credit for getting this done.

In Magus, we learn that there have always been magic users living among us, and their code has kept them anonymous for centuries. One magician, Fernos (Ron Fitzgerald), has made himself the titular Magus by deciding his lust for power is more important than the code. The Magus is the one who risks the safety of all the other magic users by going on a power trip, and Fernos is soon killing any magicians who stand in his way.

Fernos' story is told parallel to that of Felix (Bill Steele), and old, benevolent magician whose only skill had been healing. However, his wife's ...Read the entire review

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California Dreaming DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/32745 Mon, 24 Mar 2008 11:40:43 UTC Skip It

California Dreaming:

Independent features either reach untold highs or crash hard - when dedicated to risky subjects. How many stellar careers have been made by low-budget risks? Who knows? Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider Man) comes to mind, but my main point is, full-throttle indies give us a lot of joy. Mild indies tip-toeing down the quirky family comedy road usually come out tasting like unflavored grits. No risk, no reward, which is the case with California Dreaming.

California Dreaming ensnares three pretty big names from TV-careers past, (Lea Thompson, Dave Foley and Patricia Richardson) gives them probably modest checks for their trouble and strands them in a mellow comedic romp that takes no chances, generates zero laughs and does the usual bit about teaching a life lesson. Thompson stars as Ginger Gainor, a control-freak Realtor dying to take her family on an RV vacation to Doheny...Read the entire review

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The Last Supper DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/29438 Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:17:22 UTC Rent It

The Movie:
Just to clarify, "The Last Supper" is not about Leonardo's painting or Jesus. It's about a cannibalistic serial killer. If you aren't completely put off by that idea and can handle extreme horror movies, continue reading my review!

The plot: Doctor Yuji Kotorida is a plastic surgeon by day, eater of women's flesh by night. Yuji loves the taste of human meat so much that he even writes a diary of his cannibalistic journey online. Naturally, his reign of terror is in jeopardy as the police become involved.

"The Last Supper" certainly isn't the most original horror film. The script borrows heavily from "Hannibal" (and maybe even "Nip/Tuck"), but it isn't a complete rip off. The day-in-the-life point of view, the grotesque eating scenes, the flashbacks of where his cannibalism began all provide a different look into the mind of a serial killer. Director Osamu Fukutani wants to ge...Read the entire review

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Archangel DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/25003 Sun, 12 Nov 2006 08:42:16 UTC Highly Recommended

Conspiracy theories wrapped within historical fiction are always interesting to watch unfold on screen. Whether leaning towards truth or just plain nonsense, they still probe the mind and question the core material's ideas. The Second World War's dictatorial leaders are interesting, albeit touchy, subjects regarding their war-time and personal practices. Archangel, a Power/BBC miniseries based on the novel by Robert Harris that translates into a gripping two-hour show, maintains a persistent tone of grinding suspense and curiosity wrapped up as a fable involving the life of Joseph Stalin.

The Film:

Fluke Kelso (Daniel Craig) is a Western history teacher giving a lecture in the cool, icy landscape of Russia. He concentrates fervently on the life and times of Joseph Stalin, as is apparent from his lecture. While walking after the conclusion of his speech, which is abrupt...Read the entire review

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Live Feed DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/24665 Thu, 26 Oct 2006 02:09:10 UTC Skip It

The Product:
While fright fans abhor the label, there is some justification for the new fad in fear filmmaking known as 'violence porn'. Though it actually has very little to do with the adult industry and avoids any and all XXX/hardcore content, the title does have a practical application. You see, many individuals outside the genre believe that current films like Hostel or The Hills Have Eyes remake are nothing more than smut gone splatter. They see the superficial, clothesline-style storylines, easily modified and adorned with all kinds of killing setpieces, and tend to treat the omnipresent gore as these macabre movies' "money shot". While aficionados of the medium will argue – quite successfully – that there is more to Eli Roth's Ugly American revenge flick than severed Achilles tendons and chainsawed legs, Live Feed would have a very hard time justifying its own...Read the entire review

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Flight 93 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/21591 Tue, 09 May 2006 03:58:49 UTC Recommended

The Movie

What transpired on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 irrevocably altered the face of our nation – a fact that's most certainly not news. Nor is it news that thousands upon thousands of words, from both sides of the rhetorical aisle, have been expended upon the spate of highly visible feature film projects tackling that sprawling, bloody day. For good or ill, 2006 is fast becoming the year that America faces its fear. Between the pair of movies concerning the doomed United Airlines flight that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania (Paul Greengrass' wrenching, masterful "United 93" bowed in late April) and Oliver Stone's controversial "World Trade Center," the country is going to have some unsettling, sadly familiar images put in front of it.

Five years later, amid the hue and cry of "Are we ready?" comes a larger question: will we ever be ready? In truth, probably n...Read the entire review

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