Showing posts with label midnight horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label midnight horror. Show all posts

Saturday, July 4, 2020

The Midnight Horror Review - Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)



The Midnight Horror Review is back! Well, I didn’t really go anywhere. Because of an internet outage, I couldn’t post last week’s review. Yeah, it sucked.

I had planned on reviewing a different movie, but Hulu included Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter in their fresh batch of titles. I can never say no to watching a Hammer flick, so that’s what I’m reviewing tonight - 1974’s B-Movie - Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

The Midnight Horror Review - The Resident (2011)



Many months ago, I found The Resident (R; 91 minutes) on Blu-ray at a Dollar Tree store. Since I’ve been in a Hammer mood, I finally got around to watching it the other night. It’s a 2011 Hammer Films production starring Hilary Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, with a small appearance by Hammer legend Christopher Lee.

Sunday, June 14, 2020

The Midnight Horror Review - Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1974)



There’s nothing better to do on a Saturday night than watching a Hammer Horror flick!

I fell in love with the world of Hammer when I was a teenager in the mid-1990s, a time when TNT and AMC aired classic movies. I’m not 100% for sure what was my first Hammer movie, but my two favorite series were Dracula and Frankenstein

Saturday, June 6, 2020

The Midnight Horror Review - We Summon the Darkness (2019)


For a while now, I've been wanting to bring back The Midnight Horror Review and make it a weekly event, but I've been debating with myself whether to host it on here or start a Tumblr blog. I almost went with the latter, and I even set everything up, but thanks to my Twitter poll, I stayed where I am.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Midnight Horror Review - Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark


Like many. . . many other kids who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I read the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy by Alvin Schwartz, which were retold folklores with freaky illustrations by Stephen Gammell. The feature film adaptation was released to theatres back in August. The teasers and trailers looked intriguing. However, I never got a chance to see the movie on the big screen because the one-screen theatre in my small town never got the film. So, I just waited around until it was released on Blu-ray.

Monday, November 11, 2019

Midnight Horror Review - The Thing (2011) Blu-ray


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.

Mill Creek Ent.; Amazon
For those of you who don't already know, The Thing was re-released to Blu-ray on Oct. 29th by Mill Creek Entertainment.

No, I'm not referring to the John Carpenter's 1982 classic scifi-horror flick, which is a remake of the 1951 classic The Thing from Another World and an adaptation of the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr., but instead I'm referring to the 2011 prequel film of the same name. Confused yet?

Directed by Matthijs Heijningen, the prequel was originally going to be titled The Thing: Begins. However, due to producers and behind-the-scenes drama (more on that later), the film was released as The Thing, which made moviegoers believe it was a remake of a remake.

Set in the winter 1982, the prequel centers around Kate Lloyd (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a paleontologist who is sent to an isolated Norwegian research station in Antarctica to investigate a possible buried alien spacecraft. The expedition is lead by Dr. Sander Halvorson (played by Ulrich Thomsen) and his assistant, Adam Finch (played by Eric Christian Olsen). After excavating a body frozen in the ground, they accidentally release a lifeform that takes control and mutilates its victims. The movie also stars Joel Edgerton, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Kristofer Hivju.

The director shot the prequel in 35mm film so it would have the same look as the 1982 film.  Animatronic special effects were used for the creatures to match the 1982 effects. However, studio politics interfered and all of the traditional effects were replaced CGI. Add in additional reshoots, which changed many scenes (especially the ending), as well as the title change, the movie ended up flopping at the box office.

Blu-ray Bonus Features include:
  • Feature Commentary with Director Matthiijs van Heijningen and Producer Eric Newman
  • The Thing Involves
  • Fire & Ice
  • Deleted/Extended Scenes
  • Trailer


Final Thoughts

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: 47 Meters Down: Uncaged


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.


BEST BUY; WALMART
Once upon a time ago, there was only one big shark movie - Jaws, minus the unneeded sequel (though Jaws 2 was pretty good). Fast forward to the present day, there are tons of shark flicks and almost of all them are horrible.

In 2017, Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures released the low-budget horror shark film 47 Meters Down, which wasn't half bad. Due to its success, naturally there was going to be sequel. 47 Meters Down: Uncaged was released to theatres in August 2019 and took in $38.9 million against a $12 million budget.

47 Meters Down: Uncaged is arriving on Blu-ray (+DVD + Digital) on Nov. 12th from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Co-written and directed by Johannes Roberts, the film stars Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Stallone, Brec Bassinger, and John Corbett.

The plot centers around teenage stepsisters, Mia and Sasha (played by Sophie Nelisse and Corinne Foxx) and Sasha's two friends, Alexa and Nicole (played by Brianne Tju and Sistine Stallone), cut classes and travel to a secret saloon that holds the entrance to a submerged Mayan city, which was discovered by Mia's father, Grant (played by John Corbett). The girls put on their diving gear and dive into the saloon to explore the Mayan city. They were just wanting to see the sunken ruins but what they find is pure terror!

Living in the submerged Mayan city are blind great white sharks with an appetite for anything living. Low on air, the girls are trapped in the underwater labyrinths of caves and claustrophobic tunnels with no way to escape.

Special Effects include:
  • Diving Deeper: Uncaging 47 Meters Down
  • Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Johannes Roberts, Producer James Harris, and Writer Ernest Riera


 Final Thoughts

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Midnight Horror Review - Dead Don't Die In Dallas


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.


Mill Creek Entertainment; Amazon
As you already know by the title of this post, I'm reviewing the dark horror comedy Dead Don't Die In Dallas, which was released to DVD by Mill Creek Entertainment back in September.

Written and directed by Isreal Luna, the film stars Richard D. Curtain, Krystal Summers, Angel Martinez, Dillon Vineyard, Kenny Ochoa, and William Belli.

Originally titled "Kicking Zombie Ass for Jesus," the movie was shot in only seventeen days in 2013 with the help of a IndieGoGo campaign that raised $7,200. Later, the director got the additional funding of $150,000 from ITN and CalTex Films, LLC, which was used for the post-production special effects. 

The movie takes place in a world where the government invented a "miracle pill" that's supposed to cure all viral infectious diseases. However, there's a little side effect - you turn into a brain hungry zombie!! The protagonist involve mixture of die-hard Christians and transsexuals in a small Texas town. Despite their many differences, they attempt to work together during the outbreak. This is a horror flick, so things don't as planned.


Final Thoughts

Thursday, October 17, 2019

Midnight Horror Review - 3 From Hell


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.

Walmart; Target
The Rob Zombie directed horror film 3 From Hell (R; 115 minutes) was released to Blu-ray (+ DVD + Digital) this week by Lionsgate Home Entertainment & Saban Films, featuring both the rated & unrated versions. It's also available to own on 4K Ultra Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital.

3 From Hell is the follow-up to Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil's Rejects (2005). In the opening minutes, we learn the serial killers Baby Firefly (played by Sheri Moon Zombie), her adopted brother Otis Driftwood (played by Bill Moseley, and Captain Spaulding (played by the late Sid Haig) miraculously survived being shot 20 times each by the police. They were tried and convicted for their crimes.

Spoiler Warning: Captain Spaulding is executed by lethal injection, while Otis and Baby are sentenced to life in prison. Well, that is until Otis' half-brother Winslow Foxworth "Foxy" Coltrane (played by Richard Brake) helps Otis escape. Then they come up with a plan to break Baby out of the slammer. The trio go on a killing spree as they head off to Mexico to escape the authorities.


Special Features
  • To Hell and Back: The Making of 3 From Hell
  • (Blu-ray Only - 4-Part Documentary)
  • Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Rob Zombie


Final Thoughts

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Midnight Horror Review - Annabelle Comes Home Blu-ray


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.

AMAZON
The current most successful horror film series is The Conjuring Universe, which is loosely based on the real-life cases of the paranormal investigators/demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren. Since the first film, The Conjuring, was released in 2013, the franchise has taken in over $1 billion at the box office.

The latest entry in the series "Annabelle Comes Home" is the third film in the spinoff "Annabelle" series (and it's the 7th film overall in The Conjuring Universe). The film was released to theaters on June 26, 2019 and despite mixed reviews from mainstream critics, it took in over $228 at the box office.

Today, Annabelle Comes Home (R; 106 mins; $35.99) was released on Blu-ray and DVD from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. It's also available to own on Digital. Written and directed by Gary Dauberman, the film stars Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson, and Vera Farmiga.

Annabelle Comes Home centers around Judy Warren (played by McKenna Grace), the young daughter of Ed and Lorraine (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), who is left at home with a babysitter, Mary Ellen (played by Madison Iseman), while here parents leave overnight for an investigation. Everything is going smoothly until Mary Ellen's best friend, Daniela (played by Katie Sarife), shows up, does a little snooping inside the Warren's artifacts room, unlocks Annabelle from her locked glass box, and unleashes all the evil spirits from the room, which leads to a night of unbelievable terror.

Blu-ray Special Features:
  • The Artifact Room and the Occult
  • The Light and the Lore
  • Behind the Scenes: The Ferryman/Demon, The Blood Bride, The Werewolf
  • Deleted Scenes


Final Thoughts


Monday, September 30, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: PREY (2019)


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.


Over the weekend, I watched the new thriller PREY (PG-13; 85 minutes). Produced by Hyde Park Entertainment, ImageNation and Blumhouse Productions, the film was distribute to theatres (Los Angeles, Atlanta, Orlando, Dallas and Houston) and VOD by Cinedigm on September 27th.

Directed by Franck Khalfoun (Amityville: The Awakening), who co-wrote the film with David Coggeshall, the film stars Logan Miller (Escape Room, “The Walking Dead”), Kristine Froseth (Apostle), Jolene Anderson (“Harrow”), Jerrica Lai (Crazy Rich Asians), Phodisdo Dintwe (“The Cul De Sac”), Anthony Jensen (Nazi Overlord, The Gallows Act II) and Jody Mortara (“Blood Relatives”). Executive Producers include Couper Samuelson, Jeanette Volturno, Alix Taylor, and Priya Amritraj.

PREY centers around Toby Burns (Logan Miller), a millennial who joins a "Lost and Found" program after his father is murdered. The program involves him being left on an “uninhabited” jungle island for three nights and three days. With only a Swiss Army Knife at his disposal, Toby is supposed to find a way to survive on the island. To his surprise, he's not the only person there.

Shortly after Logan's arrival, he runs into Madeleine (played by Kristine Froseth), a teenage girl who's living on the island with her mother. It seems that her parents moved to the island for a missionary mission  when she was just a child but due to a "creature" that hides in the darkness, she and her mother are the only inhabitants on the island. Well, that is until Toby was left there!


To survive the island, Toby must find away to forgive himself for his father's death and find a way to defeat the "creature" before he becomes its next victim.


Final Thoughts

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: American Gods: Season Two Blu-ray


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.


AMAZON
Back in 2017, I fell in love with the horror-fantasy series American Gods that aired on STARZ. It's based on the novel by Neil Gaiman, which I read shortly after the series debuted. The first season followed very closely to the book and at times went far beyond it by expanding the characters. Thanks to the showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, the series had an unique artistic look that was very graphic at times.

I, like many all other fans, had to wait nearly two years for the second season. This is due to the fact that the original showrunners were fired and a few cast members quit. Jesse Alexander was hired as the new showrunner but was also later let go. The second season premiered back in the spring and was quickly renewed for a third season despite losing over half its audience.

American Gods: Season Two was released to Blu-ray (+Digital) last week by Lionsgate Home Entertainment, featuring all eight episodes on a 3-disc set. The season is also available on DVD.

Season Two picks up shortly after the first season's finale with many of the Old Gods reuniting at The House of Rock. However, their reunion is cut short when Mr. World attacks the restaurant, leading to the death of Zorya Vechernyaya (played by Cloris Leachman). Once again, Mr. Wednesday (played by Ian McShane) and his human bodyguard, Shadow Moon (played by Ricky Whittle) are going on a quest across America looking for a way to end the war with the New Gods.


Meanwhile, Shadows undead wife, Laura, has to once again rely on the leprechaun Mad Sweeney (played by Pablo Schreiber) to help keep her decaying body alive.


Special Features include:
  • The House of the Rock: Setting the Stage
  • The Second Coming: Neil Gaiman on Season Two
  • Gods and Ends: Random Musings from the Cast 


Final Thoughts

Monday, July 22, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: Hellboy (2019)


This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.

AMAZON
I'm the only person in the world who believes Dark Horse's Hellboy is cursed! There have been three film adaptations - Hellboy (2004), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), and Hellboy (2019) - and all of them have more or less flopped at the box office.

Why is this?

I have absolutely no clue! There are many die hard fans for both Mike Mignola's comics and Guillermo del Toro's films.

Hellboy's reboot/remake was released to theatres back in April with Neil Marshall in the director's chair and David Harbour taking over the half-demon. The film was executed by the mainstream critics and bombed at the box office. Plus, Avengers: Endgame coming out a few weeks later didn't help much either.

Lionsgate Home Entertainment is releasing Hellboy (R; 121 minutes) on 4K Ultra HD ($42.99), Blu-ray ($39.99), DVD ($29.99), and Digital HD on July 23rd. The film borrows bits and pieces from the comic books  Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, The Storm and the Fury, and Hellboy in Mexico. It ignores the del Toro's movies and gives Hellboy a new origin tale.

The reboot begins with the half-demon Hellboy being sent to the English countryside to track and kill a trio of giants. However, things aren't exactly how they appear, resulting in Hellboy barely making it out alive. He quickly learns that the thought-to-be-dead sorceress"Blood Queen" Nimue (played by Milla Jovovich) has been brought back to life, piece by piece. Along side an Irish medium, Alice Monaghan (played by Sasha Lane), and a B.P.R.D. soldier, Ben Daimio (played by  Daniel Dae Kim), Hellboy is hell-bent on stopping Nimue and her army of demons from destroying the world.

Special Features include:
  • 4KUHD, Blu-ray & DVD:
    • Deleted Scenes
    • Previsualizations
  • Blu-ray Exclusive:
    • Tales of the Wild Hunt: Hellboy Reborn (3-Part Documentary)


Final Thoughts

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: Dead Trigger


*This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.

AMAZON; WALMART
Why is it movies based on video games always tend to suck?

Doom, Resident Evil, House of the Dead, Street Fighter, BloodRayne, Silent Hill, and many other games have been poorly adapted to the big screen, so my expectations for Dead Trigger were pretty low to begin with.

Dead Trigger is a 2017 low-budget adaptation of the first-person zombie-themed 2012 mobile game by Madfinger Games. Writer-director Mike Cuff began filming a feature film based on the game in May 2016 and was later removed from production due to creative differences. Scott Windhauser replaced him as director. The film premiered at the Moscow Film Festival in 2017 and over the last two years it has been released in other countries.

Dead Trigger landed on Blu-ray + Digital in the United States last week from Saban Films and Lionsgate Home Entertainment. It's a bare-bones release with absolutely no special features or bonus extras.

The 92-minute horror action flick is set in a world where billions of people where killed by a mysterious virus that turns the victims into mindless zombies! Sounds original, right?

The government created a zombie survival game called Dead Trigger with the purpose of finding the best zombie killers from around the world. Yeah, that's a brilliant idea!

The top Dead Trigger gamers are briefly trained by Captain Kyle Walker (played by Dolph Lundgren) and Rockstock (played by Isaiah Washington) just before being sent into the undead zone to rescue Tara Conlan (played by Autumn Reeser), a scientist who could possibly have a cure for the outbreak.


Final Thoughts

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: The Haunting of Sharon Tate


AMAZON
This year marks the fifty anniversary of mass murders that were committed by the Manson Family. And, of course, Hollywood is going to make new Manson-themed movies, including Once Upon A Time In Hollywood from director Quentin Tarantino (though it's only a subplot) and the horror flick The Haunting of Sharon Tate (R; $21.99; 95 minutes).

Written & directed by Daniel Farrands, The Haunting of Sharon Tate stars Hilary Duff (Yep, Lizzie McQuire!) as pregnant actress Sharon Tate who had a premonition dream involving the death of her friends and herself. With her husband, Roman Polanski, directing a movie in another country, Sharon's friend (and former lover) Jay Sebring (played by Jonathan Bennett), screenwriter Wojciech Frykowski (played by Pawel Szajda) and his lover  Abigail Folger (played by Lydia Hearst) are looking after Sharon at her rented Los Angeles home.

Sharon has disturbing visions of a man named "Charles." Her friends try to console her, but it doesn't help a bit as she keeps having more detailed premonitions of three strangers breaking into the house and brutally murdering them. She must use her sixth sense to save their lives and change history.

Blu-ray Special Features include:
  • Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Daniel Farrands
  • Premonitions: The Haunting of Sharon Tate


Final Thoughts

Monday, June 10, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: Leprechaun Returns

AMAZON

Believe it or not, there are now eight films in the horror-comedy Leprechaun series, which began with the 1993 cult classic (filmed in 1991) which starred a pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston. Warwick Davis played the wisecracking villain for six films, with the last being 2003's straight-to-video Leprechaun: Back 2 the Hood. The franchise was rebooted in 2014 in the-name-only Leprechaun: Origins and the less I talk about that disaster the better!

The franchise got another reboot with Leprechaun Returns ($14.99; R; 93 minutes), which ignores the original sequels and the 2014 reboot. It's a direct sequel to the 1993 film with Linden Porco taking over role as the Leprechaun! The film was released to VOD in December 2018 and premiered on SyFy in March 2019. It'll be making it's way on Blu-ray (+ Digital) tomorrow from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

Directed by Steven Kotanski, the film is set 25 years after the original and centers around college student Lila (played by Taylor Spreitler) who's joining the sorority house Alpha Upsilon. The sorority recently decided to go "green" and moved their house to an old farmhouse (the same one from the original movie). After getting a ride from Ozzy (Mark Holton reprising his role from the 1993 film), Lila meets her new sisters - Rose (played by Sai Bennett), Meredith (played by Emily Reid), and Katie (played by Pepi Sonuga), as well as Katie's boyfriend Andy (played Ben McGregor) and the tech-geek Matt (played by Oliver Llewllyn Jenkins).

After getting a bit too close to the farm's old well, Ozzy weirdly and grossly resurrects the Leprechaun. Once again, the Irish killer is on a deadly mission to retrieve his pot of gold. And, of course, he's going to have a little bloody fun with the college students.

Special Features include:
  • Going Green with Director Steven Kotanski
  • Leprechaun Returns Behind-the-Scenes Footage
  • Still Gallery

 

  Final Thoughts

Saturday, June 1, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: NOS4A2 by Joe Hill


AMAZON
I have a bad habit of attempting to read books that are soon to be adapted as a movie or television series but never actually doing it. Well, I guess I finally broke my procrastinating streak because I pushed myself to read the epic horror novel NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (a.k.a. Stephen King's son) before the series debut's tomorrow night.

If you've ever watched AMC recently, then you would've seen the countless teasers for the NOS4A2 series; which prompt me to seek out the novel at my local library. The novel is nearly 800 pages, so it took me a little bit longer to read it than I'd originally anticipated. The good news is that at least I got it finished before the series starts.

The novel begins in 2008 at a hospital where a nurse has a bizarre encounter with the supposedly comatose Charles Manx, a child abductor, and then it quickly flashes back to 1986 where us readers are first introduced to a young Victoria "Vic" McQueen, the heroine of this story. She has the ability to ride her bicycle through the Shorter Way Bridge, which can take her to anything her heart is seeking.

Vic isn't the only one who has the ability to use the Shorter Way Bridge. Charlie Manx can drive  "The Wraith" Rolls-Royce on the Bridge. He kidnaps children from troubled homes and takes them to a place called "Christmasland," where they can be happy forever. Assisting Manx is a psychotic chemical planet worker named Bing, who's in charge of getting rid of the children's parents.

In 1996, a now teenager Vic encounters Manx and barely escapes thanks to Lou Carmody, a motorcycle rider. She eventually get romantically involved with Lou and later gives birth to his son, Wayne. Fast Forward to 2012, where Vic must once again take a ride on the Shorter Way Bridge in the attempt to rescue her son who has been kidnapped by Manx.

Final Thoughts

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: Mindwarp & Brainscan (SCI-FI Double Feature)


Mill Creek Entertainment; Amazon
There was nothing better to do on a stormy night than to stay up late and watch a double feature that consisted of two low-budget 1990s' horror gems - Mindwarp and Brainscan!

These flicks will be arriving on a Sci-Fi Double Feature Blu-ray ($19.98) on June 4th from Mill Creek Entertainment.

Directed by Steve Barnett, Mindwarp (1992; R; 96 minutes) was the first of three movies in the early 1990s produced by Fangoria Films. Set in the year 2037, the film takes place in a world where the ozone layer has mostly been destroyed. There are highly radioactive areas called Death Zones, which are filled with mutated cannibalistic Crawlers and a few Outworlders, humans who haven't been affected by the radiation. Then there are the Dreamers, a group of humans who live in a computer controlled biosphere called the Inworld. The Dreamers have implants on the back of their necks that lets them plug into a virtual reality world where they can live out their wildest fantasies.

After rejecting the virtual reality from within her own mind, a young woman, Judy (played by Marta Martin) is kicked out of the Inworld and tossed into the Death Zones. Upon arriving she is attacked by a Crawler, but luckily for her she is rescued by an Outworlder named Stove (played by the legendary B-movie man Bruce Campbell). Sparks fly rather quickly between the two, but the romance is cut short when more Crawlers attack; which leads to Judy being kidnapped by the Seer (played by the late great horror icon Angus Scrimm) and of course Stove has to rescue her again.


Directed by John Flynn, Brainscan (1994; R; 96 minutes) centers around Michael Brower (played by Edward Furlong), a sixteen-year-old who's basically been taking care of himself ever since his mother was killed in a car accident several years prior. The accident also resulted in permanent leg damage for him. Now as a teenager, Michael has a become a big horror and video game nerd. After hearing about the new mind-bending video game Brainscan, he eagerly orders the first game disc.

While at first glance Brainscan looks like a ultra-realistic POV slasher game, Michael quickly learns the game is actually real. And it's possible Michael might have committed real-life murders.

Why doesn't Michael just quit the game?

Well, the game is controlled by a demon called The Trickster (played by T. Ryder Smith), and a player cannot quit the game. The game has to be played out to the very bloody end!


Final Thoughts

Monday, May 20, 2019

Midnight Horror Review: John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars


Mill Creek Entertainment; Amazon
One of my favorite movie directors is John Carpenter, who happened to direct and co-wrote my favorite movie, Halloween. Mr. Carpenter made several "classic" horror and science fiction films during the 1980s. However, the 1990s weren't too good for the director, as almost every one of his films during this decade were complete flops; though over the the years many of them have become cult classics. His last two efforts (I'm not counting the two Masters of Horror episodes!) were 2001's Ghosts of Mars and 2010's The Ward.

Ghosts of Mars was originally planned to be the the third entry in the Snake Plissken film series with Kurt Russell returning as Snake. The title would have been Escape from Mars. After Escape From L.A. flopped, the film's title was changed to Ghosts of Mars and Snake was renamed to James 'Desolation' Williams with Ice Cube playing the character. The movie was released to Blu-ray (R; 99 minutes; $14.98) last week by Mill Creek Entertainment.

The film is set during the 22nd Century where Mars has been terraformed 84% and humans can walk around without having to wear a spacesuit. The plot involves Commander Helena Braddock (played by Pam Grier), Lieutenant Melanie Ballard (played by Natasha Henstridge), Sergeant Jericho Butler (played by Jason Statham), and a few other officers being sent on a mission to retrieve the criminal "Desolation" Williams (played by Ice Cube), who's in a prison cell located in the remote region of the planet. Unknowingly to the squad, the local mining workers had stumbled upon a Martian ancient crypt and unleashed evil spirits who have now taken over the bodies of the workers.

To escape Mars, the squat must work with Desolation, so they can find a way to stop the evil Martian spirits.

Special Features on the Blu-ray include:
  • Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Natasha Henstridge
  • Video Diary: Red Desert Nights
  • Featurette: "Scoring Ghosts of Mars"
  • Special Effects (SFX) Deconstructions


Final Thoughts

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Midnight Horror Review - Anaconda


Mill Creek Entertainment; Amazon
Are you deeply afraid of snakes?

Personally, I like snakes. (Don't ask me about spiders!) Yes they can be a bit creepy (and crawly), but I have nothing against them. Snakes is my favorite genre of creature flicks and my favorite title is 1997's Anaconda starring a young Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, Owen Wilson, Jonathan Hyde, Kari Wuhrer, Vincent Castellanos, and Eric Stoltz, along with a cameo by Danny Trejo.

I remember skipping school just so I could watch Anaconda on day it was released on VHS in 1997.

FYI: It was video rental.
Side Note: Kids, please don't skip school!

Anaconda (PG-13; 89 minutes; $14.98) has beenre-released  on Blu-ray (+DVD) from Mill Creek Entertainment. It was previously released on Blu-ray in 2014, which I did review on this blog. (Read my review here!)

Directed by Terri Flores, the film centers around a documentary film crew, lead by anthropologist Steve Cole (played by Stolz) and director Terri Flores (played by Lopez), who are searching for the long-lost Shirishamas tribe on the Amazon River. On their journey, they rescue a snake hunter named Paul Serone (played by Voight) from a sinking boat.

Shortly after Serone's arrival, Cale is stung by wasp, which leaves him unconscious. Serone takes charge of the situation and says he will captain their boat to a hospital. However, Serone has another plan that involves hunting a deadly Anaconda.


Final Thoughts