I had high hopes for Graduation Day, available now from MVD. Over the years, I’ve built up my slasher film bona fides, but I still have a ton of blind spots. This offering from Troma looked to be a fun hidden gem. Why else would it be getting this new “Tromatic Special Edition” blu-ray when Vinegar Syndrome had already given it that treatment years ago? It must be crazy.
It’s just okay.
I assume, due to the multiple releases, that this has a soft spot for those who saw it originally in the ‘80s, but I was expecting a breezier, gorier, and much more fun time for this revenge slasher film. The premise alone is ripe for a good time. A promising track star dies during a race, casting a dark shadow over the program and the entire class. Months later, as graduation day looms, the victim’s sister comes to town to accept an award on her behalf, and people start dying in increasingly inventive and sometimes track-related ways.
It is certainly silly, and it has the hallmarks of a high school film written by someone who is either too far-removed from the experience or never went at all. First off, no one gives a fuck that much about track. Way too much stuff is going on around graduation day, which is usually the sole focus of the school. At one point, a victim is just walking around in full football gear, even though it’s out of season. Stupid shit like that.
But it’s not very fun, even in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way. Worse, it’s just okay. And the kills aren’t very shocking or funny, either. Even the best kill involving a pole vaulter is neutered by just showing the aftermath rather than the kill itself.
There is a whodunnit aspect that kept me mildly engaged, and the ridiculously shitty step-dad character had a couple insane lines of dialogue. But overall, I can’t imagine I’ll remember anything about this weeks from now. But for old-school fans of the film, this release should please them.
Transfer and Special Features
This looks fine, and is undoubtedly an upgrade from the VHS quality most people probably saw it in originally.
As I mentioned above, this got the Vinegar Syndrome treatment years ago, and all of those special features are ported over. There’s plenty of interviews, and I can’t imagine a fan of the film would want more from this.
But I’m not exactly sure what warranted this new version. I imagine it must be a rights thing in which they reverted back to Troma or something. And in true Troma fashion, they just released the exact same thing, but with an emphasis on the Troma of it all.
In fact, the only new special features are just Troma oddities that have nothing to do with this film. So if you want to see some extra Troma shit, this is the release for you. But if you already have the Vinegar Syndrome copy, I think you’re good.
There are a few go-to movies for me when it comes to sports. When baseball season starts, I’ll re-watch Bull Durham or Major League or Cobb. With golf, I go with Tin Cup. With football, it’s Any Given Sunday, Oliver Stone’s frenetic film that both celebrates and condemns the sport. It’s a film that’s messy and unsure of itself, which is perfect for football.
Any Given Sunday makes it quite clear that pro football players are modern day gladiators. And while gladiators are typically given glorious treatment in history and pop culture, they were basically slaves putting their life on the line to distract the masses. In that way, it’s an apt comparison, though obviously there’s a lot more money and fame involved for modern athletes, and the deaths are far slower. I don’t think it’s an unfair comparison, especially cinematically-speaking.
Stone, of course, isn’t subtle about any of this; just watch the dinner scene between Pacino and Foxx with the chariot race from Ben-Hur playing in the background and intercut into the scene. That doesn’t make it wrong, but the bluntness of it is distracting at times. Then again, is there a more blunt sport than football?
This is why it actually feels natural for there to be so many scenes of men discussing their legacy and whatnot in relation to a game. It’s silly, but it’s real. These broken men abuse drugs, women, their families, etc. They might be gladiators, but they live like they’re in Caligula. It makes all the talk of the importance of leaving behind a legacy of greatness seem pretty fucking stupid. Sanctioned excess will do that to people, and what organization is more hypocritically perfect for this than the NFL?
The NFL, which unsurprisingly did not participate in the film (the Dolphins are referenced at one point, implying that the fictional league of this film co-exists with the NFL somehow), presents the sport with the same reverence Any Given Sunday does. But they try to bury any negative side effects of the sport like drug abuse and CTE and abhorrent off-field behavior. At least Any Given Sunday presents both sides of the game.
This is all getting appropriately sloppy, and it’s not necessarily by design. And I don’t think Stone was going for some meta-commentary with his sloppy film, either. But when you address both this film and the sport it portrays, it’s impossible to be simple about it. The viewers of both are complicit. I’m okay with Stone’s head-spinning approach because I find it enjoyable, much the same way I’ll still cheer for the horrible Miami Dolphins while also condemning the NFL from time to time. That’s America, and Oliver Stone, for better or worse (especially in the ‘90s) was great at capturing that dichotomy.
One of the worst DVD menu screens of all time.
My basement was the go-to weekend hangout spot in high school and beyond, and I always had a movie on when everyone would fall asleep. This was no big deal until the movie ended and the DVD menu screen came up. Auto-play wasn’t a feature back then (or my DVD player simply didn’t have it), and interactive menu screens were the norm. Any Given Sunday is one my friends and I talk about to this day.
First off, when I watched this on my new 4K player, it only played through twice, and then the movie started. Not sure if this is more modern technology taking over or what, but I could have used it twenty-five years ago. Anyway, as you can hear, that bland ass hard rock music is terrible, but imagine that blaring on a loop at three in the morning.
Some others that came to mind were Fight Club and Super Troopers:
There are plenty of others I’m just not remembering now, but even though these were annoying years ago, they take me back now. Even though I still watch plenty of physical media, the technology has still made this mostly obsolete. First off, I almost always go to sleep with something streaming playing, so the worst case scenario now is an annoying show or movie auto-playing or a series of previews constantly cycling. As for blu-rays and whatnot, even without auto-play, the vast majority of menu screens these days are still images or maybe a little music from the film. They are much more subdued whereas the early 2000s DVDs wanted you to wake the fuck up and watch a movie.
The modern situation is undoubtedly better. But popping in an old DVD like this and seeing that awful menu screen takes me back to a simpler time. And it also reminds me that this movie needs a 4K upgrade. What the fuck is going on here?
Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes
I tried to watch the streaming option on Fandango, but it’s the theatrical cut, which I've never seen, and there were so many little differences it annoyed me. Not to mention the three minutes of commercials every five minutes.
It's not that the director’s cut is better, it's just what I'm used to. For instance, the DC has Beamen getting yelled at for not being ready whereas in the theatrical cut he just appears next to Pacino, ready to go. I wasn’t committed enough to stick it out the whole movie and look for differences.
The editing of Stone's films of the 90s should be studied in film school. How coherent films, much less good or arguably great ones, are cobbled together from all that footage and different film stock is a miracle to me.
“Cherubini? What'd he fall off the bench? What's next? Stigmata?”
Love that triple take Pacino gives Foxx.
Can't believe I just found out Jim Brown's name in this is Montezuma Monroe. Still not sure if the full name is said on screen, but that's what he's credited as in the credits.
That caricature of Oliver Stone at the bar is fucking diabolical.
“I don't get strokes, motherfucker, I give ‘em!”
I bet Dick Butkus calling Pacino a f****t was a Butkus adlib.
Met-Rx went all in fast on Willie Beamen.
Pacino says he's glad he's old then pays a prostitute with a check. Consistent.
“Fuck you, coach! I ain't buyin' yo brand!”
I see the DP went to the Last Boy Scout school of cinematography for that rainy night game.
Dennis Quaid wearing a chef's hat while grilling hot dogs is fucking hilarious.
I like what they do with the playoff game having an announcer from each team calling the game, bickering the whole time.
Heston understood the assignment. Show up, bear those bottom teeth, and deliver the hell out of this line: “I honestly believe that woman would eat her young.”
The Weight, from first time director (but long time editor and producer) Padraic McKinley, is being heralded as a “throwback” movie akin to great thrillers like Sorcerer or Wages of Fear, but beyond the basic premise of moving precious material through a dangerous landscape, that comparison does not hold up.
First, The Weight isn’t going to be remembered as much as those films, but more importantly, it’s not trying to be those films. It’s less about the perilous journey of Ethan Hawke’s character and more about his willingness to do whatever it takes to gain his freedom.
The Weight takes place during the heart of the Depression, and it feels like it. Misery pervades the opening of the film as single-father Hawke tries to make ends meet to support his daughter. We first meet them having fun during a feigned car chase (foreshadowing, anyone?). They’re having fun and clearly love each other. But the fun ends quickly as a sequence of events leaves them homeless, and Hawke ends up on a chain-gang. The boss of the chain-gang, Russell Crowe, strikes a deal with Hawke. If he can help a local mine owner steal his own gold before the government seizes it, he can have his freedom.
Hawke and Crowe work well together, and their scenes are the film’s most memorable. But this is not the two-hander the previews and poster make it seem to be. This is Hawke’s film, and Crowe is a footnote in it. Don’t get me wrong, Hawke is great, as usual. He looks the part, and you truly believe his desperation. But it would have been even better had Crowe been more of a foil to his character. I wanted a scene-chewing villainous turn from Crowe, but instead we get a handful of scenes of him as just being kind of a bad guy. It’s understated, and I simply don’t want that from Crowe these days.
With Crowe out of the film, The Weight is primarily about a group of prisoners moving backpacks of gold through the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. And while it looks beautiful and old-timey (the cinematographer was clearly a fan of the blurred edges of The Assassination of Jesse James), it’s not very thrilling. There is a moment on a rope bridge that is the film’s one moment that attempts to be Sorcerer, but I found it more silly than harrowing.
Hawke, the visuals, and the stakes of the film just weren’t enough for me to ignore some issues I had with the plot and melodrama. With the melodrama, some moments at the beginning were simply corny in their presentation of the Depression with the little girl deciding to sell her teddy bear. And the moment she’s taken away from Hawke goes on far too long. It’s a necessary scene, but the moment with Hawke in the cell after she is gone is enough to convey what has just happened to him. It’s as if the film doesn’t trust Hawke to portray that emotion, so a soap opera-esque scene plays out first.
Once I start pulling at threads with The Weight, a lot of it falls apart. The basic premise didn’t work. The mine owner claims he can’t trust any of his own men to take the gold, but then he sends…two of his own men with the crew to make sure they don’t steal it? And the plan is to meet up with the men and load up the gold in a car; so why not just take the gold in a car from the mine in the middle of the night or something? I get that there is no movie without the need to move the gold, but they didn’t put enough thought into why it had to be done this way. I just spent the whole movie waiting for Crowe to show up again.
And that was the biggest issue overall. This could have been an exceptional movie with Hawke and Crowe going head-to-head in the chain gang. Crowe mentions baseball a lot because he fields a team with his inmates. This would have been more interesting if that was the focus of the film and a Longest Yard situation played out with Hawke having to win his freedom on the baseball field. I mean, if we’re going to try to be like a better classic film, why not go with a fun one?
This is a lot of complaining, but only because The Weight had a lot of potential that didn’t pay off. Take all those expectations off of it, and you’re left with a perfectly fine and simple film with plenty of emotion and harrowing moments. Perhaps it's my fault for wanting something else from the film. With this talent, though, I want something special worthy of the big screen. Instead, this is destined to be an “okay” movie people half-watch on streaming while scrolling on their phones, which, I suppose, is a fitting legacy of a film this Depression-coded.
Random Thoughts
Perhaps I’m being too harsh on a film that I didn’t really hate. It’s just that I’m seeing some glowing blurbs and Letterboxd entries for this claiming it’s a modern classic, and it’s just not. I try not to even look at stuff like that before I write a review, but it’s a little overwhelming for this one, and I’m suspecting it’s more about marketing than it is real opinions from real people. I’m not saying people who love this aren’t real. They are, and I’m glad this worked for them so much, but the five star reviews and hyperbolic blurbs are far too numerous for a film that will be forgotten in a month. Or maybe I’m just really missing something with this one.
What was with all that baseball talk, anyway? Why was that a kind of plot point with Crowe sizing up new prisoners for his baseball team? I know he brings it up again later, but I really thought a big baseball game was going to be a plot point, and it wasn’t.
The rope bridge scene is being hyped by people (and the movie itself since the image of the bridge is being used on some posters), but I just thought it was stupid. Don’t get me wrong, rope bridges are inherently tense, and the idea of walking on a good one makes me nervous (not that I have ever or will ever actually encounter one). But I was expecting a scene of them having to very slowly walk across it with one or two of them falling, but leaving behind their bag of gold that Hawke has to perilously retrieve. Instead, they have to throw each bar one at a time to Hawke in the middle of the bridge who then tosses it to the other side? Could they not have had to the two handler fuckers take a few to lighten the others’ loads and try that first? How did they land on, let’s toss every single bar two times across a bridge? Not to mention, they have been told they will be killed if a single bar is missing. It’s just stupid.
And once again, why the fuck did they have to do this at all? The mine owner trusted two of his goons enough to escort the gold, but he didn’t trust them enough to just drive away with the gold? And why was the gold safe to transport in a car later on? Maybe I just missed something when the owner was going over why it had to be done this way. Did he say something about the roads being watched day and night? If so, then why weren’t those road agents already taking the gold. What were they waiting for?
I can’t stress enough how much Crowe is wasted in this. He just comes across as sad, not menacing. And he truly disappears for the majority of the film. I wanted the guy from the meme screaming about having a bad day. Instead, I got…I don’t know…Body of Lies Crowe?
Reanimator Academy, out now from Visual Vengeance, is one of those movies slopped together for the name alone. Director Bret McCormick admits that he pretty much forgot about the movie before he was approached for some special feature stuff for this release. He simply needed work, and someone was willing to spend a couple thousand bucks on him to make a Reanimator knock-off, probably hoping people would rent it or buy it just because it had Reanimator in the title.
It is about a scientist bringing the dead back to life, but it’s all goofy as hell. It largely takes place at the lamest fraternity party of all time, and there are old-timey gangsters, and a prostitute named Hot Lips, and the head of a shitty comedian is brought back to life, and…fuck it. There’s a reason McCormick forgot about this movie. But it still has a low-budget charm to it. And the hooker starts punching dudes’ heads off at one point, and it’s short, so it’s all harmless.
But this release is for any nostalgic fans who came across this silly shit over thirty years ago. As always, Visual Vengeance is all in giving movies that don’t deserve it the royal physical media treatment.
Transfer and Special Features
This was shot on video, so the transfer is the best they can do, but it’s still quite clear that this was shot with the same kind of camcorder a dad of the time would use to film Christmas morning.
In the interview with Bret McCormick, he explains that he went with the pseudonym of Judith Priest because the budget was so low, and he was worried about how it would turn out. He picked the name because of a running joke on the Batman TV show, but I didn't really understand the connection.
He talks about pretty much forgetting the movie as it was just a job. He asked for a link to it for this new release to refresh his memory, and he refers to it as a “terrible little movie.” Agreed. And he calls Visual Vengeance “Video Vengeance.”
I appreciated his honesty.
There's a short featurette of McCormick revisiting the shooting locations. It was nice to see Hot Lips's street corner thirty years later.
There's a featurette on the score. The music is okay, I guess. It's mainly from his band, Lithium X-Mas. But it always sounds like shit because everything is so low budget. Just like McCormick, the composer doesn't remember much about the movie.
Ha ha, they tracked down the dude who played the cop that gets decapitated. He must be buddies with McCormick because he does his interview from the same location as him.
There's also an interview with Fred the Head. They recreated the prop, aluminum pan and all. It's filled with head puns and Fred claiming he was in pretty much any movie with “head” in the title.
You can also watch the film with a new alternative soundtrack the director did in 2023. I won't, but you can.
There's also another Bret McCormick short film included: Children of Dracula. I'm not watching it. There's also an interview with McCormick about it.
Finally, there’s a Zoom interview McCormick did after a screening of the film at the Nitehawk in NYC. There’s a lot of crossover between that and the other stuff, but he does bring up that he wanted to go back and fix some sound effects and whatnot, so that’s why there’s the alternative soundtrack cut, and I wish I had known that’s what it was before I watched the film, because I would’ve gone with that cut. Oh, well.
There’s all the usual Visual Vengeance stuff, along with a fake movie rental store membership card. As always with stuff like this, I don’t know what to do with it, exactly, but I’m still glad they make shit like that.
Random Thoughts
While looking up McCormick's IMDb, I found that he played one of Pesci's crew in Casino. He's the one who gets shot by the cops for holding a sandwich.
Didn't know what to expect from this, but I certainly wasn't ready for Three Stooges-esque old-timey gangsters doing schtick before they kill a prostitute.
At the Ded Hed party, they're mainly drinking Bud Dry, a truly vile choice. And they must've been told to amp up the partying, because everyone is holding at least two beers, and one dude is holding four.
Nice of someone to get some Biggie sized Wendy's drinks to add to the refreshment table.
Pretty hilarious that they keep Fred the Head in a disposable aluminum roasting tray.
The movie “ends” a little over a half hour in, then turns into a preview for “Reanimator Academy 2” which is just a recap of what we just watched, and then the “sequel” begins. Truly bizarre.
It got a little more enjoyable when the reanimated prostitute started talking shit to everyone, but just a little.
And then she starts punching motherfuckers’ heads off. Okay, this is growing on me.
Cyclops, out now from Visual Vengeance, is basically a short film that was a direct to video release in Japan back in the late ‘80s. As usual with these foreign films, this was confusing either because of bad writing or shoddy translating, but most likely both. But who cares? As you can see from the gruesome slipcover, this is all about gross ass practical effects work.
There is a bit of a story to Cyclops, but the short run time (right at an hour) doesn’t allow enough time to, pun intended, flesh everything out. There are secretive doctors doing experimental shit to people born with defects. They can cover up the defects, but great stress brings out their true form. I think.
Cyclops is entertaining enough for the first two-thirds with a decent, if extremely repetitive, score. Bad guys eat at a Denny’s (which I think is some kind of commentary on America, maybe?). There’s murder and nudity. That’s all just there to tide you over for the showstopping final moments of gross goo and tentacles and shit.
This certainly isn’t for everyone, or maybe anyone. But that final sequence is fun if you’re a Cronenberg fan like me. Overall, it just felt strange that they didn’t go for feature length. I think this would have had a bit more of an impact if they had tried to make a whole movie. Instead, it feels more like a trial video to try to get more effects work in bigger movies. Still made for a short, interesting watch, though.
Transfer and Special Features
This was shot on 16mm, so it looks better than a lot of the Visual Vengeance stuff. That’s not a knock on them. They’re working with low quality stuff from the start, and it’s a minor miracle that they get such good transfers from these forgotten films.
I’ll be honest: I checked out on the special features with this one. I just don’t care that much about this director’s career, so the interview with him didn’t interest me.
And then Justin Decloux strikes again with a commentary and a couple featurettes in which he shows his extensive knowledge of a sub-genre I didn’t even know existed.
Finally, there’s all the usual great stuff from Visual Vengeance: a slipcover, a reversible insert, some VHS store stickers, and a booklet with an essay on the making of the effects.
Laurin, available on blu-ray now from Visual Vengeance, surprised me. Based on the imagery on the case and the little plot description I read, I was expecting some fucked up shit, especially since I had never heard of it, and it takes place in old-timey Germany. But the story of murdered children is much more atmospheric than straightforward horror. And it captures more of a fairy tale childhood darkness than typical horror movie dread.
Is that all vague enough? It’s all just very European, for better or worse. So it’s certainly slow and needlessly mysterious at times. But it kept me interested throughout, and I appreciate a movie more concerned with expressing the vibe of a time period and situation rather than drowning me in gore and jump scares.
Laurin is about death, but from a child’s perspective. In that case, I think it captures that feeling. The adults are either absent (literally or figuratively) or antagonistic to the children. Laurin is left to figure everything out on her own, and at a young age, or any age, that’s going to be dark and confusing at times.
Laurin isn’t some hidden masterpiece, but it was an interesting curio that is refreshing compared to more recent films about death and darkness.
Transfer and Special Features
This looks great, which is important since it’s a much more atmospheric film than one might expect. There’s also a “VHS” version included, which is something Visual Vengeance does a lot, and I’m all for it. Of course the best quality is preferred, but for people who grew up watching movies like this on VHS, it’s nice to have that nostalgic option.
This includes postcards. This has been common with special editions for years, and I’ve never understood what you’re supposed to do with these things. I never even take them out of the plastic. And honestly, if someone sent me a Laurin postcard, I'd call the FBI.
There’s a new audio commentary with a dude who literally wrote a book about Laurin, so I’m sure it’s great. I just can’t devote the time to check out all the commentaries on these releases.
The interview with director Robert Sigl is lengthy and covers everything you would want to know about the film. I found it very interesting that he said German films at the time could not address death in any straightforward way. Is that true of Germany in the ‘80s? Anyway, that's his reason for this being more of a dark fairy tale than a traditional horror film. And he claims the house they used and he stayed in was haunted.
There are plenty of interviews from a 2017 release, conducted by Sigl. These include the actors who portrayed Laurin and Stefan, the cinematographer, and a critic. I skimmed these, but I’m sure they’re informative, especially for fans of the film.
There’s an archival making-of doc that seems to be mainly about how cheap it is to film in Hungary. I’m pretty sure it was simply a promo made by the Hungarian film commission or whatever. Still, plenty of footage from behind the scenes which is always nice.
There’s a clip from the 1988 Bavarian Film Awards (the trophy is wild), and it's odd because there are no speeches from Sigl. It’s just him getting a couple awards.
Two short films from Sigl are also included. They’re not really related to this particular film, but I still checked them out. One certainly shows his love for David Lynch as it has shades of Eraserhead (he also mentioned multiple Lynch movies in his interview as examples of movies that don’t get made anymore). The other is a lockdown movie made during Covid. There’s a lot of mask stuff and paranoia. It’s fine, but aside from Eddington, I’m just not into the pandemic being used in film.
There’s also a slip cover, a mini-poster, and the aforementioned postcards.
Overall, as usual, Visual Vengeance gives you everything you would want from a physical release.
Random Thoughts
I'm not trying to judge anyone's parenting, but Laurin looks like she's in her twenties and is still sleeping in a crib. (The actress was twelve or thirteen when this was made, to be fair, but that’s still pretty fucking old for a crib, even in weird old-timey Germany.)
Went with the dub instead of the original German. It wasn't bad. Actually, it turns out it was filmed in English, and there was a dialect coach on hand to help the actors, most of whom spoke little to no English. There is a German language track available, though, too.
The grandma right after taking a rip off her one-hitter: “Beware the evils of the city, my son.”
Based on the behavior of that entire classroom, maybe it's a good thing that some of these kids are disappearing.
I don’t have much to say about this one, but I did have a lot of fun with The Nine Demons, a recent release from Visual Vengeance. It has all the old martial arts movie stuff you’d expect like the sound effects and bad dubbing, but the supernatural element amps things up a bit. This seems, at first, to be a simple Faustian revenge story as Joey (why they Americanized the names of the main characters is beyond me, but it did make me laugh every time “Joey” or “Gary” was invoked by these characters) stumbles into the Black Prince of Hell’s lair and is given the power of, you guessed it, the nine demons.
The nine demons come in the form of dollar store Halloween decor skulls on a necklace. But when Joey does some psychedelic shit and puts on some eyeliner, they morph into a couple ladies and some kids, all flipping around and cackling. They’re great at killing, so revenge is easy for Joey. But there is a catch: all the demons need fresh blood every single day. Joey’s response? Go to a brothel and let the demons kill prostitutes every night.
Of course, the constant feeding of the demons creates a bit of a reputation for Joey, and…what am I even doing here? It’s crazy, and everyone has to fight every couple minutes. What else is there to tell?
The downside of the film is that the fighting isn’t all that spectacular. The demon shit is funny, but they get annoying after a while. This was certainly an interesting film, but it’s not nearly as enjoyable as it should be, what with the blood-thirsty demons and all. But if this was your shit from back in the day, Visual Vengeance has you covered.
Random Thoughts
The translated names are hilarious. Some of these dudes being called Gary and Joey is fantastic.
When Joey falls into Hell, the subtitles are “mysterious blooping.” Accurate, but still goofy as shit.
“Black Prince of Hell, please save Gary's life!”
The dubbing for some of these characters is Kung Pow-esque.
If part of my Faustian bargain was to feed nine back-flipping cackling demons fresh blood every single day, I'd tell the Black Prince of Hell to get fucked.
At one point the score to Blade Runner is used for ten minutes or so. Can…can you just do that?
“Just kill the really bad rotten ones, and then stop.”
One of the last big fights takes place on water with everyone wearing little water-skis on their feet. I appreciate how this goofy ass movie keeps upping the silliness ante.
Transfer and Special Features
There’s an audio commentary with podcasters, which I’m typically not a fan of, but if you’re really into this and want to geek out along with a couple people, I’m sure it’s great for that.
A couple featurettes with Justin Decloux in which he lists a bunch of movies I've never heard of. If you're as into this stuff as much as he is, I'm sure these are informative. But for me, I just get lost after the tenth movie I've never heard of gets name-dropped.
There’s a “Dirty VHS” version if you're nostalgic for how you first saw this as a child.
There’s an interview with actor Yu Tai-Ping.
There’s also an episode of a podcast about the film, but no way was I going to listen to a podcast on a blu-ray. I have a little bit of dignity left. But nice of them to include it, I guess?
Look, this is nothing against Visual Vengeance. Special features for obscure stuff are hard to come by, so hats off to them for compiling all this stuff. I'm just not into this film enough to go into a deep dive with it.
This is my first Donald Farmer experience (if you don’t count seeing his movies discussed on Red Letter Media’s Best of the Worst videos), and I’m not sure if I’ll be delving back in anytime soon. But for those who are fans, Visual Vengeance has your back with this new blu-ray release.
At first glance, Scream Dream appealed to me on a lot of levels. It’s a metal movie with Satanic panic elements, and it’s filled with terribly funny performances (that first dude is amazing, as is the record exec), and the new artwork made it look like it could be a hidden gem. Then I turned it on and realized just how low budget this thing is.
By Farmer’s own admission, the budget was less than $5,000. Knowing that is important for your enjoyment of the film because if you go into this expecting a traditional horror film, you’ll probably turn it off ten minutes in.
I stuck it out, though, and came away with a few laughs, unintentional as they were. The special effects, janky as they are, were decent for the budget (more on that later). And that title song has been stuck in my head ever since I watched this a couple days ago. It’s not a good song, I don’t think, but there’s something to be said for something that’s capable of becoming an earworm, right?
And there’s something to be said for people who made low-budget stuff like this back when it was much harder. Now with AI and phone cameras being so good, making shitty no-budget movies is easier than ever. But back in the ‘80s you had to hustle to get shit made. You had to find some real collaborators and work with distributors and put in a lot of fucking work. I respect that even if the final result isn’t something I love.
So yeah, Scream Dream isn’t my thing. But the behind the scenes stuff intrigued me, and Visual Vengeance went above and beyond in that department.
Transfer and Special Features
Look, this is a shot-on-video (SOV) movie, so the blu-ray aspect of it is a little silly. But sure, I feel safe saying this is the best this movie has ever looked.
There’s an audio commentary with Farmer that I skipped, but only because I watched the nearly hour-long interview with him, which I enjoyed. He gets into how such a low budget movie gets made, in which he points out that you make the movie that is possible. In other words, he had access to a club and a house band, so he made a horror movie with a musical element to it.
The club didn’t shut down or anything. He was just friends with the owner, who was cool with him filming while they were open. And the band was happy to contribute, as well. Overall, I think I found the interview with Farmer more interesting than the film.
The interview with the actor is okay, but he does the whole thing from his shower, for some reason. And that distracted me to the point that I don’t remember much of what he said.
There’s an interview with an actress, as well, and I do find interviews like this interesting because these are not stars, so I like hearing their stories of how they came to be in these movies and what they’re up to now.
The interview with Rick Gonzalez is interesting since the effects are pretty good (except for the hand puppet) for such a micro-budget. He kept calling the movie “Scream Dreams,” which I enjoyed.
The demon suit was too big for the body double. Apparently if she had turned around there would've been visible duct tape.
The budget makes sense now as Gonzalez points out that most of their props were from other movies.
On the physical side of the special features, Visual Vengeance always has great new artwork and reversible sleeves with original art. There’s also a mini-poster and the usual VHS stickers. The most unique addition is the fake ticket stub for the Michelle Shock concert and a guitar pick. Little touches like that make releases like this special for fans.
Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes
The subtitles were nice, and a necessity. Still, at times even the subtitle person gives up and just goes with “indistinct.”
It's a thankless job to have to scream for over a full minute of screen time, but I was relieved when the naked lady at the beginning was killed. Her screaming was awful.
Something tells me that the lady at the beginning with the chainsaw has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.
“I need that for my car payment!:
“So you get behind a little. We're gonna rock!”
“You go out there and tell that dyke to shove that microphone up her tight ass!”
“You are just the drummer’s fucking girlfriend. That's all!”
