Blu Ray Review: Tales from the Hood (1995)

Debuting just three short years after the racially-motivated LA riots of 1992 and perfectly capturing the tensions of the time --and, sadly, the current tensions as well-- EC inspired Tales from the Hood might be my favorite horror film of the 90s (well, that particular battle for the top spot is between it and Candyman).

The wraparound segment of the film involves three gang bangers picking up a shipment of drugs at a funeral home that were supposedly found abandoned in the alley by mortician Mr. Sims, played by the deliciously creepy and over-the-top Clarence Williams III. As he takes them through the suspiciously opulent parlor, he regales them with four tales of inner city violence:

The first segment, Rogue Cop Revelation, is the story that's clearly been influenced the most by the Rodney King beating, as the narrative of a local civil rights leader murdered by three corrupt white cops illuminates the worst fears of African Americans at the time. This is followed by Boys Do get Bruised, a tale of domestic abuse told from the point of view of a child, and features a surprisingly strong dramatic performance from comedian David Allen Grier. Next up, Corbin Bernsen stars in KKK Comeuppance as a former Klansman running for the Senate who makes a former plantation, and site of a horrific slave massacre, his campaign headquarters. While the other segments play their material deadly serious, this voodoo-inflected episode has a healthy dose of comedy thanks to Bernsen playing the character up as the buffoon his type are.The final, and possibly most disturbing, episode, Hard-Core Convert, is a fascinating meditation on black-on-black violence and really puts the kibosh on critics who claim the film (sort of like the recent Get Out) is "racist against white people." Imprisoned gang banger Crazy K is subjected to an experimental rehabilitation technique, Clockwork Orange style, that involves a spinning torture table and a montage of real photos of actual lynchings. The twist at the end is one of the most powerful and depressing in my memory.

As far as the technical aspects, the surprisingly colorful film --I assume the palette is thanks once again to the influence of EC Comics-- practically jumps off the screen, and the sound, including an excellent soundtrack featuring super dark and heavy hip hops acts like Gravediggaz and Spice 1, is great. Special features include director's commentary, a new informative making-of, and vintage featurette. While more would've been nice, Scream Factory put together a nice little package of a severely underrated film.

Blu-Ray Review: The Phantasm Collection (1979-2015)

Saying Phantasm is a weird movie is like saying the sun is warm, water is wet, and Johnny Depp's next film role will involve a silly wig. Saying the entire 5 film serious is perplexing, bordering on baffling, is like saying that Johnny Depp film is going to be terrible and flop like a motherfucker. However, much unlike every Johnny Depp film of the past decade (at least), what many might consider flaws in other films work perfectly in Phantasm's favor. The bizarre, mysterious, stream-of-conscious style of the films, in addition to startling originality and the chemistry of series leads Michael Baldwin, Reggie Bannister and Angus Scrimm, is what keeps people coming back 38 years after the original; and now all that glorious lunacy is in one Blu Ray box set out now from Well Go USA Entertainment.

For those not in the know, the very basic plot of the series is essentially that classic good vs evil story; Mike, his sometimes alive, sometimes dead, sometimes something inbetween older brother Jody, and their friend/former ice cream man Reggie against an entity known simply as The Tall Man, an indestructible necromancer who transforms human bodies into dwarf creatures to use as labor in an alternate dimension or another planet or something. Sound weird? Oh my sweet babies, that was only the most basic way I could think to explain this decades-spanning series. Add to all that a healthy dose of dream logic that would befuddle even Argento or Fulci at their most nonsensical and you have something fans (or phans, as they like to call themselves) have endlessly debated since the 70s.

Luckily, not knowing what the hell is going on at any given time won't be the fault of the transfers as these movies have never looked better. Even the first film looks fresh and crisp, and unless you want to shell out the cash for the  recent 4K release that was supervised by JJ Abrams (one of the series' many loyal celeb phans) this is probably the best we're gonna get. In fact, I really only have one complaint about the technical aspects of the set. A big home video pet peeve of mine is when the audio levels aren't mixed and levelled properly, and unfortunately Phantasm 2 didn't fair as well as the others in that regard. What's especially strange is that this is the Scream Factory BRD, which is especially crazy as their technical work tends to be consistently great. However, I'm willing to let all that slide as everything else is so good.

In terms of special features, there's plenty of new stuff here to justify the upgrade from whatever DVD or Blu Ray you already have. As far as I can tell all special features from the Anchor Bay and Universal releases have been ported over, and they've been supplemented with new commentary tracks, new making of docs, and some more unique stuff like cast Q&A sessions filmed in various cons. In addition to all this, the set comes with a book of even more interviews and a massive double-sided poster which features the artwork of Tall Man featured on the outside of the box on one side and a redux of the first film's nightmarish original key artwork.

Series writer, director and producer Don Coscarelli has crafted one of the most unique, original, and just plain awesome franchises in the history of horror, and while admittedly this set isn't quite as cool as the DVD set Anchor Bay released in the UK back in 2005 that had the four films packaged inside a replica of one of the iconic silver spheres, but it's pretty damn good.