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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Drama > Puppets > Supernatural > Dark Comedy > Korea > Abruptio (2024*/**)/Block Island Sound 4K (2020/Synapse 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray**)/Crust (2024/*both Anchor Bay Blu-ray/**all MVD)/Seire (2021/Film Movement DVD)

Abruptio (2024*/**)/Block Island Sound 4K (2020/Synapse 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray**)/Crust (2024/*both Anchor Bay Blu-ray/**all MVD)/Seire (2021/Film Movement DVD)



4K Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B/B/C/B- Sound: B/B+/B-/B- Extras: C+/B/C+/D Films: C/C+/C/C+



Now for some odd and supernatural releases...



Abruptio (2024) is an semi-serious drama played out entirety by puppets. Hoping to reel in an audience on this premise alone, Abruptio is a nightmarish experience that you should only wish on your greatest of enemies or friends who are deep down the horror rabbit hole.


The film features the voice talents of Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street), Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us), and the late Sid Haig (The Devil's Rejects.) The puppets are grotesquely designed but expertly performed by the puppeteers behind the lens. I would definitely say that Abruptio will likely only be enjoyed by cult film enthusiasts or those who really like to go over the deep end. It will most certainly be deemed repulsive by average movie goers, but I think that's the whole point of what its going for. Shock value.


A man wakes up with a bomb injected in his neck. In order to survive, he has to commit horrible crimes in order to stay alive, all the while figured out who implanted him with the device to begin with.


Abruptio 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 lossy, English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles. The transfer is fine for the 1080p format.




Special Features: ''A New Kind of Horror'' featurette and two Feature Length Audio Commentaries.


Abruptio is skillfully made but crude in execution, limiting its audience to mainly those who seek out extreme cinema.



An interesting independent thriller that's worth checking out on 4K UHD is The Block Island Sound (2020). Great locations and a convincing cast help propel the film directed by the McManus Brothers - who also are writers/producers on Cobra Kai and American Vandal.


The film stars Chris Sheffield, Michaela McManus, Neville Archambault, Robyn Payne, Ryan O'Flanagan, and Matilda Lawler.


Set in an eerie small town near a large body of water, a fisherman's family succumbs to an odd anomaly when out to sea - a creepy sound belonging to an alien entity that penetrates their minds and influences them to do its bidding. Not once does the sound make its victim a threat to those around him but eventually they even resort to ''feeding'' them things when at sea. Which results in a short of vacuum that sucks up whatever is brought to the source of the sound. The sensation first affects the father in the family and then passes onto his son - who gradually disconnects from reality and succumbs to the wishing of this voice.


The film in essence views our world as to that of a creature in the water. An unknown voice brings the fish (or person) up into another realm of being. To study and to better understand it, much as we take creatures from the ocean and study (or maybe eat) them.


The Block Island Sound looks pretty exceptional for it being an independent production with a smooth transfer that clearly indicates a high end camera (likely an Arri Alexa) was used. The film is presented in 2160p on 4K UHD disc with HDR10, an HEVC / H.265 codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and an audio track in lossless, English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) and lossy (192 kbps) Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo for older systems. Synapse has done a great job with translating the filmmaking elements to disc.



Special Features:


Original Theatrical Trailer


A Practical Apocalypse featurette


Finding the Cast featurette


Filming on the Water featurette


Special Effects on a Shoestring featurette


Los Angeles Behind-the-Scenes (Super 8mm) featurette


McManus Family Home Movies


and a Special Limited Edition slipcover featuring new art from Joel Robinson, while supplies last.



The Block Island Sound has a vibe that is a bit Lovecraftian in nature and uses minimal locations and characters effectively to tell its macabre story.



A few familiar supporting actors take the stage in Crust (2024), a black and white modern day killer sock movie that takes place entirely within a laundromat. Written by, starring and directed by Sean Whalen (Twister), the film centers on a lonely has-been TV star who lives in and operates a laundromat and lives a dull life after his brush with fame at an early age. When he's not dealing with his drunk landlord (Daniel Roebuck), he's pleasuring himself into a sock and creating a pile of ''crusty'' socks in a corner of the grotesque back office that he lives in. One day after getting humiliated by some punks, he cries into the sock pile, magically creating a murderous sock monster that becomes known as Crust. Mixed with an awkward love story and an attempt at themes of jealousy, loneliness, and rejection, Crust attempts to be funny and dramatic with an outrageous and gross premise that doesn't really make a shred of sense.


Borrowing more than a little from the plot of Little Shop of Horrors, the dim-witted actor gets involved with random customers in one bumbling situation after another, which is resolved by the Sock Monster eating the perpetrator.


The Sock Monster Puppet is okay for what it is trying to be, but it stretches the realms of realism as it just absorbs its victims with no sign of blood stains or puddles even left behind. If the film went in the direction of Basket Case, which it also mimics in some regards, it could have been a gorier and much different film than what it is. I guess the answer is who is this film really for? It's a bit too adult and gross to be suitable for a younger audience and not really gory or insane enough outside of its premise for a horror crowd. So it's kind of stuck in the middle of being an odd indie dark comedy that's really 50/50 in its execution.


The film also stars Daniel Roebuck (The Munsters), Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp), Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Twister), and Rebekah Kennedy (Two Witches) to name a few.


Crust 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 an audio mix in lossy English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround with optional English Subtitles. The black and white HD presentation on the disc is needless to say underwhelming. There is a large amount of compression in the image that's very evident in certain sequences. Crunchy pixelation is notable more than once and the TV segments have a noisy line that runs at the bottom of the screen, which is the result of lackluster post production work. The film is shot well enough for being an independent but the focus drifts on characters here and there, resulting in a troubled presentation overall. Some of the audio levels seem a little off with some scenes a bit harder to hear than others. Overall, the presentation is average and lackluster even for Blu-ray.


Special Features include:


Commentary with Sean Whalen


DOROTHY: 50 Years Later


DOROTHY: The Bump and Run


and CRUST Los Angeles Premiere.


Crust is a mix of Little Shop of Horrors and Clerks with a splash of Basket Case, but doesn't really do anything that those films didn't already do better. It's a nice acting exercise for the underused actors involved, but isn't zany or creative enough to really stand out.



Park Kang's Seire (2021) is a South Korean horror film that centers on a delicate time after a newborn's birth where supernatural elements can influence the child in evil ways. One family lives out the curse as their innocent child is subjected to unnatural forces partly due to their irresponsible actions as adults. The film is well crafted and plays on the urban legends style narrative of the Seire.


The film stars Ryu Abel, Seo Hyeon-woo, Shim Eun-woo, Kim Woo-kyum, and Ko Eun-min.


Seire is presented in standard definition (480i) on DVD with an anamorphically enhanced 2.39:1 widescreen aspect ratio and a lossy Korean Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix with English subtitles. The standard definition presentation is up to par with the aging format, but the film is shot and presented well enough.


No extras.


Seire has a creepy premise and operates on a suspense level similar to The Conjuring or The Grudge.



- James Lockhart

https://letterboxd.com/jhl5films/



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