Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth (1996/Umbrella Region Free Blu-ray)/The Last Exorcism, Part II
(2013/CBS/Sony Blu-ray)/The Last Warrior
(1999/aka Last Patrol/Umbrella
Region Free Blu-ray)/The Stepfather
(1987/Umbrella Region Free Blu-ray)/The
Tower (2013/CJ Entertainment DVD)
Picture: C+/B-/C+/C+/C+ Sound: C+/B/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C-/C-/D/C-/C Films: D/D/D/C/C-
PLEASE NOTE: The Hellraiser III, Last Warrior and original version of Stepfather Region Free import Blu-rays can be ordered from our
friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of
the review.
Here are
the latest genre releases, mostly Horror… and horrible!
Anthony
Hickox’s Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth
(1996) is the third in the almost endless series of unnecessary sequels to the
Clive Barker hit about British-accented, supernatural, slice-and-dice,
sarcastic killer Pinhead (Doug Bradley) who talks in his tired monotone while
enjoying torturing other people and never saw any human flesh he did not want to
desecrate. By this third film, the
series, what there ever was of it, was so beyond played out that we are only
now covering this after 10+ years of this site!
The man
with the needle decorations was captured somehow in the last lame outing, but
comes alive thanks to one drop of blood in a hospital, but that did not come
with a script of any substance, so this becomes an 89 romp of semi torture porn
blood and gore. Fans liked it enough
that the series made it somehow to an 8th installment, but by this
point, what little difference can anyone make between the various films? Not much.
Extras
include a 14-minutes long Bradley interview featurette Under The Skin, 14 more minutes interview with Hickox called Raising Hell On Earth, a Making Of
featurette with Barker & Bradley and the Original Theatrical Trailer.
More
tired earlier, but aiming to make as many unnecessary sequels, Ed Gass
Donnelley’s The Last Exorcism, Part II
(2013) follows up the unfortunate first hit we reviewed on Blu-ray at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10697/The+Last+Exorcism+(2010/Lionsgate
No fan of
the first like my fellow writer, this wants to pick up where the last one left
off ala the first Halloween II, but
has nothing much to pick up from. I was
surprised what a yawner this really was, even though I thought the first was
hideous, typical of the Eli Roth cycle of cynical Torture Porn formula duds,
but this especially was flat and dull, no matter how loud (read very desperate)
the soundtrack would get.
Nell
(Ashley Bell) is not out of the woods and neither are we when it comes to bad
cinema as the evil possession spirits, et al, are not gone and neither is every
single cliché the idiotic script can squeeze into each page to insult and
condescend to the audience, which does not even work as a joke. The people are cardboard cutouts, the look
tired, the sound obnoxious and acting as nonexistent as any suspense, true
horror or understanding of the genre at its best. Yawn!!!
Extras
include Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes-able devices, Hair Salon Scene as the franchise goes
“viral” in so many ways on the Internet and otherwise, Shooting In New Orleans
(haven’t those people been through enough!!!) featurette, plus
Blu-ray-exclusive Nell’s Story
featurette and an especially pointless and ridiculous feature length audio
commentary track by Donnelley and Roth showing how extraordinarily
self-impressed they are with this mess.
But we
have more smugness for you in the annoyingly bad, reactionary and lame Sheldon
Lettich would-be actioner The Last
Warrior (1999) with Dolph Lundgren permanently entering the B-movie and
worse zone has California turned into a lawless island by an earthquake (among
other things) and only you know who can straighten things out. Penned by the team who gave us megabomb Rambo III, this is even worse and
Lundgren even seems bored with the whole goof-fest.
The
fights are weak, the choreography and weapons second-rate and this is yet
another release we can see why it took soooooooo long to come out on any video
format. A lame curio with a cast of
unknowns, it is another one worth skipping unless you need images of Lundgren
younger.
There are
no extras.
By
default, the best entry on this list is the original 1987 Joseph Ruben The Stepfather with Terry O’Quinn that
we reviewed on Blu-ray at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10026/Death+Race+2000+(1975)+++The+S
Not a
great film by any means, it still works better than its desperate remake
(reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and this is the same exact
transfer that we covered on the U.S> Blu-ray at that link above and a
trailer is the only extra.
Finally
we get Kim Ji-Hoon’s The Tower
(2013), another Korean production more interested in imitating bad Hollywood blockbusters than being original, resulting in
a mess that combines everything from Die
Hard to The Towering Inferno to
anything they can stuff into the weak screenplay running on and on and on and
on.
You too
will experience two hours of Déjà vu like a very bad version of action and
disaster film’s greatest hits, but in native Korean and always bad. The effects are nothing special and this just
goes on and on too, mowing down any chance of an original scene or anything
else worth your time. I hope this is not
the beginning of Korean Cinema selling out, but it is not a good sign.
Extras include
Deleted Scenes and featurettes on Production Design (or the lack of it with so
much digital work) and Lighting & Cinematography.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Exorcism is not great or consistent and often sloppy throughout,
but that is sadly still enough for it to top the playback quality on the other
three Blu-rays which are in 1.78 X 1 aspect ratios (save 1.85 X 1 on Warrior)
and all have prints that show their age as well as the cheap film stocks they
were shot on, though I think Stepfather might
have some minor transfer issues. The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on The
Tower DVD is therefore able to compete with the older film’s transfers,
though it has its softness, detail issues and overly lame use of digital work
that is obvious from the first CG shots.
A RED ONE camera was used.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Exorcism is not perfect and is fake in its overuse of sound effects
to get the audience to jump out of desperation that it is not working, but it
sadly has a consistent soundfield and is easily the best sonic performer on the
list, if far from the most creative mix we have heard in many years. That leaves the rest of the sound on the
other releases on par with each other including DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0
lossless Mono on Stepfather, lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on The Tower
(which does not have a great soundfield and is too much towards the front
speakers) and the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Hellraiser III (originally issued in the distorted analog Ultra
Stereo, it really shows its age and flaws) and Warrior a weak Dolby Digital theatrical release.
You have
been warned….
As noted above, you can order the import version of Hellraiser III, Last Warrior and original version of Stepfather exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nicholas Sheffo
