Starring: Red Mist [Blu-ray], Hatchet [Blu-ray] Format: Blu-ray
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Review & Description
Red Mist
The medical students at Forthaven General Hospital study hard and party harder, until a cruel prank accidentally puts the facility’s creepy janitor into a deep coma. But when one responsible student (Arielle Kebbel of THE GRUDGE 2) tries to revive the degenerate loner with an experimental injection, she instead sends his brainwaves berserk. Will a sudden spree of sick kicks now claim the guilty one-by-one, or has the ultimate out-of-body experience ushered in a bloodbath of brutal revenge? Sarah Carter (SKINWALKERS), Martin Compston (DOOMSDAY) and MyAnna Buring (THE DESCENT) co-star in this grisly shocker from Paddy Breathnach, director of the international horror hit SHROOMS.
Hatchet
Adam Green's Hatchet is a goofy, gory gas that pays tribute to the slasher boom of the 1980s by placing more hapless teens in the path of an indestructible maniac. Said killer is Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder, Jason in many of the later Friday the 13th entries), a deformed Louisiana swamp dweller who returns from an apparent fiery death to lay waste to a mixed bag of tourists and Mardi Gras revelers who've wandered into his turf on a "haunted swamp" tour. Hatchet doesn't exactly surpass the movies it's spoofing; Green's characters are dopey ciphers, and Crowley's indiscriminate killing spree negates his sympathetic origins. But the dialogue is glib and the performances funny (especially Parry Shen as the tour's unlikely guide and Joel David Moore as the lovelorn hero), and '80s horror aficionados will appreciate John Carl Buechler's outrageously gross effects (which get more screen time in this unrated cut). There are also cameos by genre vets Robert Englund and Tony Todd, as well as Joshua Leonard from The Blair Witch Project. The widescreen DVD includes commentary by Green and several of his players, as well as featurettes on the making of the film, its villain and his elaborate makeup, and a scene breakdown of one of the film's most jaw-dropping effects. A gag reel and a conversation between Green and Twisted Sister frontman and horror fan Dee Snider rounds out the commentary. -- Paul Gaita
Behind the Mask
Leslie Vernon, good-natured killing machine and the next great psycho slasher, has given a documentary crew exclusive access to his life as he plans his reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen Echo. When the actual carnage begins, where do you draw the line between voyeuristic thrills, mythic evil and good old-fashioned slasher movie mayhem?
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
A delirious performance by horror vet Robert (Nightmare on Elm Street) Englund and the filmmakers' predilection for old-school monster suits over CGI help to make the Canadian indie horror-comedy Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer an enjoyable and entertaining alternative to the current rash of relentlessly grim fright fare. As played by co-producer Trevor Mathews, Jack Brooks is no barrel-chested pulp hero, but rather an aimless small-town slacker with a hair-trigger temper (the result of childhood trauma involving his family's death at the hands of a monster). Plagued on all sides by a nagging girlfriend, a hapless shrink and a dead-end job as a plumber, Jack seems destined for mediocrity--until his night school professor (an terrific, unfettered comic turn by Englund) unearths an ancient evil and begins to change into a ravenous, slobbering creature, thus giving Jack both a purpose and an outlet for his anger issues. Director Jon Knautz's feature debut pays loving homage to all manner of boyish pop-culture touchstones, from Marvel Comics and Ray Harryhausen epics to the early works of fellow do-it-yourselfers like Sam Raimi, and if his set up feels belabored in its telling, he delivers the goods once Jack straps on his plumbing toolkit to square off against the monster-fied Englund. Inventive and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, Jack Brooks is one potential franchise series that actually deserves a follow up film. --Paul Gaita Read more
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