Nefarious
(2023/Mill Creek Blu-ray)/Ride
On (2023/Well Go
Blu-ray)/Shredder Orpheus
(1990/AGFA Blu-ray)/The
Warriors 4K (1979,
2005/Paramount/MVD/Arrow 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays + Blu-rays Limited
Edition sets)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B+/B+/B-/B Sound: B+/B+/B-/B-
Extras: C+/C/B-/B Films: C/B-/B-/B & B-
Now
for more genre and cult films, old and new, all of which you should
know about...
Nefarious
(2023) is
an interesting psychological thriller that reminds me a lot of Fred
Vogel's indie feature The
Final Interview
(2019) in more ways than one. And if you are not familiar with the
former, I suggest you track a copy of it down if you like unique
movies about serial killers.
In
the film, Sean Patrick Flannery (Young Indiana Jones, Boondock
Saints) plays a serial killer who claims to be possessed by a
demon on the night of his execution. Upon which all hell, literally,
breaks loose.
Nefarious
also stars Jordan Belfi, Robert Peters, Cameron Arnett, and Stelio
Savante.
Special
Features include:
Filmmaker
Commentary (Directors and Producer)
Cast
Commentary (Flannery and Belfi)
Interview
With An Exorcist with Father Carlos Martins
Speak
of the Devil
and
Nefarious Easter Eggs.
Jackie
Chan returns in Ride
On
(2023), which is an ode to Jackie Chan films of old with a new age
spin and a lot of impressive stuns mixed with off the wall humor. In
the film, Jackie Chan has a new protege: a stunt horse who is very
gifted, intelligent, and has a sense of humor as well (paging Mr Ed!)
The film is fun for the whole family and shows that Jackie Chan only
gets better at his craft with his age!
The
film also stars Haocun Liu, and Kevin Guo.
Special
Features include the Behind the Scenes Oh My Horse featurette
and a Trailer.
Robert
McGinley's Shredder
Orpheus
(1990) is
the writer/director's first feature film, taking more than a few
liberties with Greek Mythology, but creating a very interesting film
set in a near future in this sci-fi/horror film about a (then analog)
TV station run by Satan (!) and only Rock Music and Skateboards can
break their hold on evil control. Taking cues from films like John
Carpenter's They
Live,
Brian
Trenchard-Smith's Dead-End
Drive-In,
a little of Walter Hill's The
Warriors,
New Wave music from bands like Split Enz and
even the Weird Al Yankovic comedy UHF,
it is a wild combo of things and the skateboard culture and rising
Grunge Rock are also here as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s.
The
acting is mixed and genre visuals and aspects are pure B-movie, but
the whole film is supposed to be from a low-fi punk perspective, so
that only ads to its authenticity as a time capsule and is even
trying to make a statement about media brainwashing, which is goes
out of its way to do and does well without being stupid about it.
But the director is also the star, playing singer/guitarist Shredder
(no Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference intended, but somehow from
the same culture, sort of) and he goes for broke playing the
character, from being beat up to his physical objectification (he is
nearly nude in several scenes, including with the female lead) and is
pretty fearless, knowing this film might work and put him on the map.
It is more of a success than expected and there are other surprises,
including visual, that do work and I will not ruin. Needless to say
it has a great love of music, pop culture, skateboarding and Seattle.
This
is why I recommend it and that his next directorial effort was the
underrated Jimmy Zip with Brendan Fletcher (reviewed on
Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) and was an even better, stronger film
shows what a talented filmmaker he was becoming and stands for so
many such talents we never get to see because the system does not
encourage such talent like it did in the late 1960s and 1970s. The
new music here is also interesting and authentically period.
Peter
Hyams' Stay Tuned was made, takes place in a hellish cable TV
system (with John Ritter and Pam Dawber) and issued a few years later
and I would not be surprised if this film did not at least partly
inspire it. Shredder Orpheus
deserves to be rediscovered and now is as good a time as any.
Extras
include a Feature Length Audio Commentary with director Robert
McGinley and AGFA's Bret Berg, Bombshelter Video promo from 1993,
Behind the scenes photo gallery, presentation of the original VHS
version, Original home video trailer and a quality booklet with a
Robert McGinley interview by David J. Moore and writing by Amy Rose.
Walter
Hill's
The
Warriors 4K
(1979,
2005) was only the writer/director's third feature film when it
arrived and in the same year, he was co-producer on Ridley Scott's
Alien,
so a golden era of filmmaking continued and this hit film with its
share of fans and critical acclaim has only gained in popularity.
During a graphic novel craze cycle, a 2005 version was made with some
comic book art inserted into the film, but it was very unneeded, yet
it is also a cut that many were introduced to the film with, so it is
here in both the 4K and regular Blu-ray sets. The original cut is
still more realistic and has a better pace, though no one knew it at
the time, its realistic portrayal of gangs and gang violence would be
considered optimistic versus where we are in society now with
violence.
The
title gang is led by Swan (Michael Beck, a big, upcoming star off of
this until he unfortunately co-starred with Olivia Newton-John in the
musical bomb Xanadu
a few years later) as his group is accused of killing the head of
another gang, but we know this is a lie. Nevertheless, they have to
stay alive all night and run and fight, or be killed. Also a film
out of the late Disco era, an anonymous female radio DJ keeps
(without a police or FCC inquiry) updating where to find and get them
for revenge. It is a strange pre-Internet/pre-iPhone twist all the
more interesting all these decades later.
Well,
the mostly unknown actors are good here (though James Remar, Deborah
Van Valkenburgh (later know as one of the two sisters on the
underrated TV sitcom Too
Close For Comfort),
David Patrick Kelly and others did have notable careers) and they are
joined in solid turns buy the likes of Mercedes Ruehl and Lynne
Thigpen. Up there with Kubrick's A
Clockwork Orange
(1971) as one of the best fictional films about gangs ever made, it
was a larger production to pull off than many realized at the time,
but Hill would visit these themes again in 1986's Streets
Of Fire and
this still remains one of his best films. That's why its great that
Paramount and Arrow have given this at least minor classic a stellar
upgrade.
Extras
for the 2-DISC 4K ULTRA HD LIMITED EDITION are many and include:
DISC
1: THEATRICAL CUT (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY)
New
roundtable discussion in which filmmakers Josh Olson (A History
of Violence), Lexi Alexander (Green Street), and Robert
D. Kryzkowski (The Man Who Killed Hitler and then Bigfoot)
discuss their love of The Warriors and the work of Walter Hill
DISC
2: 2005 ALTERNATE VERSION (4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY)
The
Limited Edition regular Blu-ray set also has these extras.
Now
for playback
performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10;
Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on both cuts
of The
Warriors 4K
comes from a brand
new 4K restoration approved by director Walter Hill and looks great
and as good as the 35mm print I saw eons ago. As a reminder, this
was all shot at the time on 35mm color negative film and even then,
being able to shoot a film at night like this was a very new thing,
so you get plenty of grain here. Because the light-sensitivity of
the film stocks of the time, it took much light to get the look here
and you can compare to Argento's original Suspiria
from the same year (see our 4K review elsewhere on this site) to see
the common denominators in look and image. Both directors also
pushed vivid color and it paid off in both cases. This applies to
the 2005 Alternate Version cut too, but you can see the newer comic
book panel inserts are much newer and have far less grain. Director
of Photography Andrew Laszlo, A.S.C., does some of his most memorable
and distinctive work here, which says something because he was
excellent at what he did. I expect he'd love this 4K upgrade if he
were still with us.
The
1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on the regular Blu-ray
versions of both cuts look good for the format, but the color is not
as rich or solid, the definition not as sharp or depth not as
palpable. Still, they are fine for the format, but just cannot match
the 4Ks. All four versions offer the film sound in PCM 2.0 Mono and
PCM 2.0 Stereo, but the big surprise here is the lossless Dolby
Atmos 11.1 (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) upgrade. It
sounds pretty good and better than the 5.1 mixes from the 2005
upgrade, but it is not quite as good as the few other monophonic
films that have
had their theatrical mono sound upgraded the way Hitchcock's Psycho
4K,
the original The
Exorcist 4K
or Enter
The Dragon 4K,
is a little better than the also just released Barbarella
4K
and is better than Anatomy
Of A Murder 4K,
so the effort was worth it here and when seen with the 4K original
version in particular, is very impressive.
Nefarious
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,
English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) mix. The
Blu-ray presentation looks pretty good for the format.
Ride
On 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
Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) and lossy Mandarin
Dolby Digital 2.0 mix (both with English subtitles.) The Blu-ray
presentation is up to standards and you can tell a lot of money was
put into this film as it looks and sounds great. I could see this
being worthy of a 4K UHD upgrade in the future!
That
leaves us with a very interesting 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High
Definition image transfer on Shredder
Orpheus,
which can show the age of the materials used, but is unusual in that
it is a 35mm
blow-up print (Ganja & Hess is another rare example of such a
film on Blu-ray) but this version was created not only from the
original 16mm color film, but parts of the movie were also shot on
Beta SP, and 1" videotape, making for three master elements.
That also happens to be the formats less-expensive Music Videos were
being produced in by then, so this is as authentic a presentation as
you can get, though who knows what happened to the older elements or
if the tapes in particular even survived. Still, it is a rare,
interesting mix worth seeing, especially now that we are deep into
the digital Ultra HD era and the VHS version is here in 1.33 X 1, so
you can see more of the image in other ways. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless mix is simple stereo,
but not bad for its age, though you get no particular surrounds to
speak of, you can experiment if you have a home theater system to try
various surround formats to see how these tracks might decode. All
serious filmmakers should see this for it just being so different and
what the makers tried here.
-
Nicholas Sheffo (4K, Shredder) and James Lockhart
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
