The Revenant (2012/Lionsgate DVD)/Strippers
Vs. Werewolves (2011/Well Go USA DVD)/The Victim (2012/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)
Picture: C/C+/B- Sound: C/C+/B- Extras: C+/C-/C+ Films: C/C-/C+
For older
audiences, three new Horror releases with their own ambitions that had good
ideas, but were not necessarily realized…
A U.S.
solider is fighting overseas when he is killed, which means he should be dead,
but he returns home and is somehow still alive.
That is the plot of Kerry Prior’s The
Revenant (2012), but serious Horror genre fans will recall it being the
same for the late great Bob Clark’s 1972 masterwork Deathdream, which we reviewed a while ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2103/Deathdream+(1972/Horror/Canadian/Bl
In the
case of Clark’s film, the character was fighting in Vietnam,
here, Bart (David Anders) is in the latest Middle East
conflict. His ‘death’ is also known and
he is brought back to be buried, but he is not dead and crawls out of his grave
not knowing or understanding at first what has happened to him. Then an old friend is convinced it is him and
the crazy story begins.
Unfortunately,
this wants to be a comedy, but it is not that funny and is miles away from
being a satire or about anything, resulting in story that is more like Mannequin meets Weekend At Bernie’s versus anything we have not seen before,
anything challenging or anything, yet there are a few good moments. However, it cannot stop repeating the Clark film and wears thin until the end, when it suddenly
decides to be smart at the last minute with a plot twist that should have
happened in the first 15 minutes of the script instead of the end.
The cast is
not even bad, though the Los Angeles/Hollywood locales are on the common side
(even when emulating An American
Werewolf In London) but the worst thing ultimately is that this is a giant
missed opportunity from backing the meaning of the title (an alternate way to
describe the living dead or what is left of a living individual) to not having
the balls or guts to examine the true implications of its conclusion or any
other challenging ideas. Prior says this
is one of two cuts of the film, but I cannot imagine the other one being any
more challenging. Too bad, because this
could have been at least a minor Horror classic and wow, did he blow it!!!
Extras
include two feature length audio commentaries (one by Prior, the other by the
cast). Trailer, Photo Gallery, Deleted Scenes and Making Of featurette.
Sounding
like a terrible idea, I knew from the title that Jonathan Glendenning’s Strippers Vs. Werewolves (2011) would
be a silly joke of a project, but then I saw it was a British production and
even had some known actors in it. I then
thought maybe they’ll have fun with tired grindhouse genre concepts and make
something with a difference. Too bad all
this wants to be is a lame, bad, bloody, silly and tired variant of every lame U.S. variation
of the same thing. Not even Robert
Englund, Martin Kemp or Steven Berkoff could make this interesting, so this is
a missed opportunity and if you’ve seen anything like this, you’ve seen it all
before, but with British accents mostly.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary by the producers and Behind The Scenes featurette. Oh, and the werewolf make-up is bad and we
gather intentionally so.
Finally
we have Michael Biehn directing, co-producing and taking the lead in The Victim (2012), a project that he wanted
to make and tries to create twists on the endless cycle of bad
teens-stuck-in-the-forest/park/woods schlock by having the screaming young lady
land up at door of his cabin-resident character telling a story about how cops
killed her female friend and want to get her to cover things up.
Her
flashback is convincing enough, but we cannot be sure and neither is he, plus
the specter of some other missing and dead teens are an adjunct that makes one
think if true, we could have two rotten cops and really bad men to contend
with. This has a good pace, some energy
and some good performances, but despite being a level above the schlock it is
better than, it cannot get to much further away from what is a played out formula,
even if it finds ways to play counter to it.
Nice try on Biehn’s part and fans should give it a look, but it has many
limits.
Extras
include a feature length audio commentary by Biehn & Producer/Actor
Jennifer Blanc and Behind The Scenes
featurette.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on both DVDs are on the soft side, but Werewolves is more colorful and
consistent, despite its annoying overuse of split screen and other digital
editing, while Revenant has a look
to it, but this is just too soft. I
would like to see a Blu-ray to get more out of the camerawork. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Victim has motion
blur and is an HD shoot styled down, but I give Biehn and Director of
Photography Eric Curtis for actually being able to get the frame truly dark,
which is all too rare so far in the sloppy debut of HD shooting to features.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 mixes on the DVDs are limited and once again for some reason,
Revenant is more problematic with
softer and more limited dynamic range than expected except in some scenes where
all channels are active. The Dolby
TrueHD 5.1 mix on Victim can be
dialogue-based and reserved at times, but it is the best sonically of the three
here as expected being lossless and warmer.
Still, it is more limited itself than expected.
- Nicholas Sheffo