// Category Archive for: Blu-Ray

Blu-Ray Review: Mr. Jones

By Brad Henderson

As we all know and as I’ve said before: found footage movies usually get an eye roll, which you can hear miles away when those films are announced. Sure, people claim this way of telling a story is just a gimmick, but that is incorrect. I give this method of storytelling praise if it is executed without being used as one. Using found footage to tell a story is special to me in many ways. Mostly it’s because these stories are told from a person’s point of view, which can make something more terrifying and real. That doesn’t happen in all cases, of course, and is not the case with Mr. Jones.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Sleepaway Camp

By Brad Henderson

Scream Factory has blessed us with the Blu-Ray of another slasher from the ’80s. Sleepaway Camp is probably the most spoiled horror film to date. I imagine there are people who still haven’t seen it, so I will keep this spoiler free. I don’t agree with the idea that “it’s been out for X amount of years” because we all miss shit. Even I have a number of popular films I haven’t seen yet and I consider myself a huge film buff. We all have those unseen movies and we will eventually get to them.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Final Exam

By Brad Henderson

Final Exam is one of the slashers that got me into the subgenre. I first came across this film when I was young because I set out to watch every slasher ever made. I still haven’t accomplished that task, but I’m well ahead of the game. Final Exam has always and will forever be in my Top 10 favorite slasher films of all time.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: The Pawnbroker

By Brad Henderson

I first witnessed Sidney Lumet’s work when I was a young kid and saw 12 Angry Men. It was the first non-horror black and white film that I saw and I’ve loved it ever since. Sidney Lumet has made some great films: Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Deathtrap, Serpico. When I heard that Olive Films was releasing The Pawnbroker (a film I hadn’t seen) I was stoked because Lumet hasn’t disappointed me yet.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Holliston: The Complete Second Season

By Brad Henderson

I dig the Hatchet series and Wrong Turn 2 and much of what Joe Lynch and Adam Green have brought us. They are obviously huge horror fans and that shows on the screen. When I first heard these two got together to make a sitcom I was a little confused because they didn’t seem like the types. I assumed it would be horror-related but really didn’t have a clue where they would go with a horror-related sitcom.

Holliston is about Joe Lynch and Adam Green, aspiring filmmakers who’ve been working on a film for years called Shinpads (“They score, you die.”) They work at a studio that does commercials. Their boss, Lance Rocket, is played by Dee Snider from Twisted Sister. Joe and Adam host a TV show (and podcast) called Movie Crypt on which they play old horror films.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Thirst

By Brad Henderson

All film fans should explore movies made during the “Ozploitation” era of Australian low budget filmmaking. Just about every film that came out during this time is fantastic. Many people have probably seen these films and are just unaware of the term Ozploitation or what movies fit this description.

The term Ozploitation was coined after the R rating was introduced in Australia in 1971. I’m not sure if people thought such films were just being created to make money or to push limits like other “ploitation” films but that wasn’t the case. Even to this day there are Ozploitation films released and they still carry out the feel, look, brutality, and the hilariousness.

There is something about these films in particular that stands out from the rest. Most of them are absolutely beautiful. Everything is shot and framed perfectly. Films like Razorback, Wolf Creek, Road Games, Dark Age, and others are just spectacular. The action flicks are action packed and the horror films are suspenseful and don’t follow the normal formula that other countries’ horror films do. Of course, we have great and wonderful films elsewhere but Ozploitation is something special and sadly, nearly forgotten about.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: No Holds Barred

By Brad Henderson

When I was little I saw the cover for No Holds Barred countless times but never watched it because I really wasn’t into wrestling. When I was in my early teens I got a little into wrestling for a year or so, but then just got bored with it all. So as you can see, I’ve never been into wrestling and just don’t understand its following.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: The Telephone Book

By Brad Henderson

Back in the 1970s, films with gratuitous nudity were usually rated X during their initial release. Now, these types of films will, at most, be rated NC-17, but we don’t see that rating much these days. Vinegar Syndrome releases many films of this nature with an X rating but that doesn’t mean they’re hardcore pornography. Sure, Vinegar Syndrome does release some vintage hardcore features but they also dabble in the non-hardcore stuff as well. That is where The Telephone Book comes in.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Dead Shadows

By Brad Henderson

I, along with many others, have been pleased with Scream Factory’s colossal catalogue for the past year and a half, as well as some of the astonishing releases they have planned for the near future. Along with their old-school horror/sci fi lineup, they are also acquiring new films and setting them up with the Scream Factory treatment.

Dead Shadows is one of the films that they have recently added to their roster of releases, after picking them up post-festival screenings. They first brought us Dead Souls, Cockneys Vs. Zombies, Chilling Visions (short film collection), and Beneath. Now they have released their first foreign language film, Dead Shadows.

(more…)

Blu-Ray Review: Return To Nuke ‘Em High, Volume 1

By Brad Henderson

Sigh . . . What can I really say about Troma? Let me start off by saying I’m not really a fan of Troma films. By this I mean the films that are produced by the Troma team of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Hertz, not the films they have distributed in the past that they don’t have any input into. There is an audience for these films but I’m not part of that audience at all. I find their films crude, mean-spirited, and disgusting on a level of just being disgusting for the sake of it. Sure, there are some films that are OK but most of them are exactly the same and follow the same formula and never veer away from that.

(more…)