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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Documentary > History > Cable TV > Thriller > Supernatural > Martial Arts > Fighting > Monster > Ja > Eli Roth's History Of Horror: Season 2 (2020/RLJ Blu-ray)/Malignant (2021/Warner Blu-ray)/Never Back Down: Revolt (2021/Sony Blu-ray)/Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch (1968/MVD/Arrow Blu-ray)/St

Eli Roth's History Of Horror: Season 2 (2020/RLJ Blu-ray)/Malignant (2021/Warner Blu-ray)/Never Back Down: Revolt (2021/Sony Blu-ray)/Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch (1968/MVD/Arrow Blu-ray)/Stunt Rock (1978/Umbrella Region Free Import Blu-ray)



Picture: B+ (Rock: B) Sound: B+ (Rock: B-) Extras: C+/C/D/B/B+ Main Programs: B/C+/C/C+/C+



PLEASE NOTE: The Stunt Rock Import Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia, can play on Blu-ray and 4K players and can be ordered from the link below.



Horror, suspense and action mix in these new releases...



Horror Filmmaker Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever, Green Inferno) hosts this documentary series for Shudder on The History of Horror, which is presented here in Eli Roth's History Of Horror: Season 2 (2020) that spans two Blu-ray disc.


The themes for this season include Houses of Hell, Monsters, Body Horror, Witches, Chilling Children, and Nine Nightmares.


Interviewees include Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino, Bill Hader, Greg Nicotero, Piper Laurie, Rob Zombie, Slash, Jordan Peele, and more.


The series is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and a lossless English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo mix, all of which look and sound fine on Blu-ray disc and improve over the original streaming broadcast on Shudder.


Special Features:

CGI vs Practical Effects

The Chilling Children of Horror

and Movies That Scared My Pants Off


There have been many documentaries on horror movies in recent years with the best still being the independently produced The History of Heavy Metal and Horror, which is still making its rounds on the film festival circuit and the In Search of Darkness series, which is very long and involved and goes through just about every title you can think of.


What this particular show / documentary has going for it are the names they get in the interview chair, all of which are pretty impressive and informative about the subject. Despite what your opinion on the work of Mr. Eli Roth may be, which in this reviewer's opinion is a mixed bag, his love for the genre is clear and he speaks about it with enthusiasm and so that alone makes the show a bit more fun than usual.



Filmmaker James Wan has climbed the Hollywood ranks over recent years with his Conjuring and Annabelle franchises, not to mention helming the Aquaman films. Here, Warner Brothers gives him a chance to make an original if not bizarre horror movie, Malignant (2021), which has a strong first two acts and then gets downright silly in the third. Despite its less realistic qualities, Malignant is entertaining and commendable for its originality if nothing else.


The film also stars Maddie Hasson, George Young, Michole Briana White, and Jean Louisa Kelly.


The beautiful actress Annabelle Wallis (the Tom Cruise The Mummy) ends up haunted by visions of grisly murders and terrible things as if she herself is experiencing them. With periods her life forgotten, this terrified woman slowly unlocks the mystery to her past that is shocking to say the least.


SPOILERS:...


Essentially, she ends up realizing that an alternate personally goblin lives inside the back of her head and ends up taking over her body while she is asleep or unconscious. The build up to the reveal of the creature is pretty cool, but once he starts fighting ninja style and taking out a police station like Jackie Chan on bath salts; the realism tends to go out the window. Had he made it maybe a bit more subtle, this would have been more effective, but I feel the reveal is so silly that for some people it will just end up to be a laugh fest which isn't what Mr. Wan clearly had planned. For others, it might work. The absurdity of the twist is what makes the film stand out, but whether it works or not is dependent on the viewer really.


Malignant is presented in 1080p on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1, and a lossless English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) mix. The film was not released at this time on the 4K UHD format, and so this is the best presentation available for now. That being said, it is up to blu-ray standards, but with a film with such an interesting choice of color and darkness, the 4K update would/should produce a better image.


Special Features include:


Malignant: James Wan's Visions featurette


Borrowing a bit from campier films like Basket Case or Retribution (now just released on disc from Severin Films, reviewed elsewhere on this site), Malignant is an exercise in freedom on behalf of James Wan, but feels almost like an R-rated episode of Goosebumps or Creepshow at times. It's worth a watch, but probably won't go down as a classic.



Never Back Down: Revolt (2021) is a martial arts sequel that isn't necessarily bad but painfully average. The film centers around a fighter (Olivia Popica) who ends up fighting in an elite underground fighting ring against her own will.


The original film came out (way back) in 2008 and is reviewed here:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7318/Never+Back+Down:+Extended+Beat+Down+Edition


The film stars Michael Bisping, Nitu Chandra Srivasttava, Brooke Johnston, Diana Hoyos, and James Faulkne.


Never Back Down: Revolt is presented in 1080p high definition with an MPEG-4 AVC codec and an original aspect ratio of 2.00:1 with a lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mix. The HD transfer is up to Blu-ray standards and doesn't have any visible flaws.


No extras.



The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch (1968) gets a startling new restoration on disc thanks to Arrow in this collectible new edition. The film is pretty interesting and would be prime for a remake film in the same vein now.


A little girl is reunited with her family after many years of being an orphan, but her mother has changed and her father is deep into his studies of snakes. When the little girl meets a new sister, she suspects that she is a snake herself! The film is based on Umezu's comics and from the director of the Gamera series.


The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1, and a lossless Japanese DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) Mono mix. The black and white presentation overall looks and sounds fantastic.


Special Features:

A brand new feature-length audio commentary track by the great film historian David Kalat

This Charming Woman, a newly filmed interview with manga and folklore scholar Zack Davisson

Theatrical trailer

Image gallery

Reversible sleeve featuring new and original artwork by Mike Lee-Graham

and First Pressing Only: Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing by Raffael Coronelli.



Last but not least, we have a new upgrade of Brian Trenchard-Smith's Stunt Rock (1978) mixing heavy metal music, split screen, smart editing and insane stunts by Australian stunt man and film legend Grant Page. A one-of-a-kind piece, this partial documentary piece is worth a good look and we originally covered it years ago on a now out-of-print DVD import we reviewed at this link:


http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9802/Stunt+Rock+(1978+aka+Sorcery+aka+Crash/Regio


Now here restored in an impressive and notably improved 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer, you may get some more grain (especially in optical printing of the split screen) but color, depth, detail and clarity improve nicely throughout and males the impact of the stunts much stronger and impresses just how dangerous they were and are. Any viewer will be pleasantly surprised.


The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is also a nice improvement, but a 4-track magnetic stereo version was mixed, but apparently is lost or has not been recovered yet. Still, you can hear everything much clearer that on the old DVD. Umbrella had included a low def version as a bonus on their great Blu-ray of Trenchard-Smith's wild The Man From Hong Kong (1975, reviewed elsewhere on this site) void of any of its extras.


Extras from the older DVD are here, then new ones added, expanding the offerings to include:


  • ALL NEW: 16-PAGE COMIC BOOK ADAPTATION BY DARK OZ (LIMITED TO 3,000 COPIES)

  • ALL NEW: THE ULTIMATE RUSH: A CONVERSATION WITH BRIAN AND MARGARET TRENCHARD-SMITH

  • EXTENDED INTERVIEWS FROM NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD WITH DIRECTOR BRIAN-TRENCHARD-SMITH AND ACTOR/STUNTMAN GRANT PAGE

  • 2008 AUDIO COMMENTARY WITH DIRECTOR BRIAN TRENCHARD-SMITH AND CAST MEMBERS GRANT PAGE AND MARGARET TRENCHARD-SMITH

  • 2008 AUDIO COMMENTARY WITH DIRECTOR BRIAN TRENCHARD-SMITH, PRODUCER MARTY FINK AND ACTOR RICHARD BLACKBURN

  • 2009 INTRODUCTION TO THE FILM

  • 2009 INTERVIEWS: BRIAN TRENCHARD-SMITH, SMOKEY HUFFS AND MARTY FINK

  • 2009 AUDIO INTERVIEW WITH SORCERY DRUMMER PERRY MORRIS

  • BRIAN TRENCHARD-SMITH'S ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE APPEARANCES

  • CANNES PROMO REEL

  • ALL NEW: BRIAN TRENCHARD-SMITH TRAILER REEL (40 minutes of promos for his many other action films)

  • HD THEATRICAL TRAILER

  • and TRAILERS FROM HELL WITH COMMENTARY BY BRIAN TRENCHARD SMITH



To order the Umbrella Stunt Rock import Blu-ray, go to this link for it and many more great web-exclusive releases at:


http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/



- Nicholas Sheffo (Stunt) and James Lockhart

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/



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