DVD Roundup - Friday June 3 2011
DVD Roundup - Friday June 3 2011
Danielle Harris in Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet and Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer. Also new movies with Bill Moseley, Lance Henriksen, Tiffany Shepis and Doug Jones.
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What to watch this weekend? There are plenty of new DVDs in the terror-tube at the moment, and though they are mostly of the torture porn ilk (when will the trend end?), some of them are well-produced and boast fine casts — Bill Moseley and Lance Henricksen are always welcome, elevating just about any flick from ho-hum to horrortastic — here are three to see.
==>Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet
My favorite part of this whole DVD is in the additional release material, in which actor Bill Moseley dryly describes his character thus: "Well, my name is Graveyard Gus, because I work in a graveyard." He doesn't say "Next question!" after that, but it's implied. Clearly, there wasn't much to say about cardboard cutout characters from the player's perspective, but as the viewer, I think Moseley brings at least a grain or two of graveyard-gravitas.
Also in the film, actually the central character, is genre icon Danielle Harris, who joins a party of high school kids throwing a party in an isolated house, where they're making fun of the local legend, Mary Mattock. This is not the best idea they ever had.
Mary Mattock is a Lizzie Borden style slasher who killed her parents with scissors in the 70s, got knocked up in the 80s, and is, in fact, a medical mystery who's always and forever on the rag ("premenstrual dysphoria") and usually in a rage. Even after giving birth to a daughter, Mary's menstrual maladies don't cease - and neither does her bloodlust.
Can't say I really liked Blood Night, but I give it two tampons up for creative flow.
==>Prey
Razorback, Day of the Animals, Night of the Lepus and The Prophecy. If you know what movies I'm referencing, then no doubt Prey is already in your must-see cue. Yep, the latest foreign-lingo import courtesy of IFC (on-demand and DVD) is about boars gone wicked. The French frightner follows a hepped up herd of would-be Tourtiers turning the (dinner) tables on the local hunters, making the predators their own porcine prey.
The cast is apt, but the characters are thin-sliced to the point of transparency. Fortunately, first-time filmmaker Antoine Blossier brings home the bacon with his vile villains — keeping them mostly out of sight, he uses camera and suspense to create mood and atmosphere as the gun-toting killers each, one by one, get stomped and chomped.
==>Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer
More Danielle Harris, you ask? Yep, she's also in Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer, and this time her elder male costar is the other genre-staple, Lance Henriksen. While Harris seems miscast and less-than-cozy in her character's skin, Henricksen, like Moseley, takes a routine role and makes it his own (writer-director Mark Vadik smartly slips That Voice into as many moments as possible, even without face-time). Tiffany Shepis and Doug Jones round out a couple of smaller roles in this gory docudrama.
Harris's Maria is a small town news reporter who finds an unusual angle into a series of unsolved murders though the confidante of the suspect, Cyrus. Henriksen's Emmet is the sort of "who needs enemies, when…" friend who dissects all the details OTR for his 15 minutes of fame. But is he really ratting out, or is he sly as the proverbial fox? (Oops, sorry… should have left all my mammalian metaphors in the review above.)
The identity of the villain (same as in the two above) is all too easy to guess, which makes it (same as in the two above) simply a waiting game to see how the reveal is handled.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson