Into the Deep (2024)

"Above Average Modern Exploitation Film"

INTO THE DEEP, is getting a Digital, Blu-ray and DVD release from Signature Entertainment, and, despite the generic box art, it's a film that's definitely more fun than a lot of similar fare currently out there.

As a child, Cassidy (Scout Taylor-Compton from Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN films) was traumatised by seeing her father partially eaten and then dragged to his death by a shark. She's now an oceanographer, but that's thanks mainly to the efforts of her grandfather (Richard Dreyfuss) helping her overcome her fears.

On holiday on Reunion Island (south west of Madagascar) with her husband, the two of them embark on a sea trip on the rickety old boat of her husband's old friend Daemon (Stuart Townsend - THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN's Dorian Gray). 

There's another couple along for the ride, too, and when they all decide to engage in a spot of diving a shark appears and bites the arm off one of them. Then a gang of drug smugglers looking to pick up a cache of heroin that has been dumped nearby turn up and everything gets a whole lot worse.

INTO THE DEEP starts off like a lot of modern-day low budget movies of its type - glamorous location footage, name star wheeled onto give a speech that justifies their name being on the credits, and diving scene that goes on a bit too long and allows you to start thinking you can find better stuff on YouTube. But when the pirates turn up the film suddenly decides to become a proper, good old fashioned action movie, with Jon Seda's snarling pirate leader just the right side of moustache twirling, and plenty of shenanigans and gun battles to liven things up. 

INTO THE DEEP is being sold as yet another shark movie but it's actually better than that, so don't be put off by the poster. If you fancy the modern equivalent of the kind of stuff a studio like Cannon Films used to put out you'll have fun with this. Here's the trailer:

INTO THE DEEP is out from Signature Entertainment on Digital Platforms on Monday 27th January 2025 and Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 3rd February 2025

The Gift (2000)

 

Sam Raimi's Georgia-set tale of murder laced with the paranormal is getting a 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Arrow.

Recently widowed Annabelle (Cate Blanchett) supports her three sons by making a meagre living as a psychic. One of her clients is battered wife Valerie (Hilary Swank), who is married to Donnie (Keanu Reeves). When Jessica King (Katie Holmes) goes missing, Annabelle starts having visions that Jessica might have been murdered and her body submerged in a body of water. It's not long before the police, led by Pearl (J K Simmons) find Jessica's body in a pond on Donnie's property. It seems an open and shut case, but of course it isn't.

Utilising the same kind of swampland setting as we see at the beginning of Raimi's seminal THE EVIL DEAD, THE GIFT gives us a murder mystery in which the paranormal plays a part (based apparently on screenwriter Billy Bon Thornton;'s mother's psychic abilities) played by a top notch cast and executed by a director who had matured considerably since making his debut feature nearly 20 years previously. Everyone brings their A game but special mention in the acting stakes go to Keanu Reeves acting against type as the redneck accused of murder, and Katie Holmes as the archetype shanty tramp rich girl. The locations are captured beautifully by DP Jamie Anderson, and Christopher Young (a last minute replacement for Danny Elfman) provides a memorable score.

Extras include an isolated music and effects track and two commentary tracks, one by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson, the other by Meagan Navarro. All three individuals are film writers and provide an enthusiastic walk through of the movie, and there are enough differences between the two commentaries to make both worth a listen.

There are new interviews with Chelcie Ross (who plays Jessica's father), editors Bob Murawski and Arthur Coburn (13 minutes) and composer Christopher Young (8 minutes). Archive material includes four promotional making of featurettes (26 minutes in al) which include some behind the scenes footage, and interviews with Raimi, Blanchett, Reeves and Giovanni Ribisi (15 minutes in all). There's also five minutes of footage from the world premiere, a music video and trailers.

Sam Raimi's THE GIFT is out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 27th January 2025

Mother Father Sister Brother Frank (2024)

 

"Jolly Black Comedy Fun"

Writer-Director Caden Douglas' black comedy is getting a Digital release from Miracle Media.

The four members of the Jennings family are settling down to their regular Sunday night dinner together, and it turns out they all have secrets. Mother (Mindy Cohn from Apple+ TV show Palm Royale) and Father (Enrico Colantoni, still probably best known to genre fans for playing Mathesar in 1999's GALAXY QUEST) are reluctant to reveal theirs, although it's essential they do so.

Meanwhile brother Jim (Iain Stewart) is about to get divorced, while his already divorced sister Jolene (Melanie Leishman from 2014's musical STAGE FRIGHT) is pregnant. Then Uncle Frank (Juan Chioran) turns up and it quickly becomes obvious that something needs to be done about him.

A quirky, gory comedy that feels a bit like if the director of WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIE decided to make a feature length episode of sitcom Friday Night Dinners, MOTHER FATHER SISTER BROTHER FRANK starts quietly but director Douglas skilfully allows things to get riotously out of hand as incident is piled upon incident. It's a deliciously silly film centred around murder and the subsequent disposal of the body, and if you're in the right mood you'll find plenty to smile at. Here's a trailer:

Caden Douglas' MOTHER FATHER SISTER BROTHER FRANK is out on Digital from Miracle Media on Monday 27th January 2025 

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979)

 

"Russ Meyer's Nutty, Nudie, Under Milk Wood?"

The last (for now) of Severin's UHD and Blu-ray releases is a 4K transfer (after what sounds like a great deal of painstaking restoration of the original camera negative) of cult director Russ Meyer's final feature, all with the cooperation of the Russ Meyer Trust.

BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRAVIXENS couldn't exactly be called poetry, but with its narrator introducing us to each of the characters and many of the situations, and its detailing of the (frequently bizarre) goings-on in a small town it stands up to comparison with Dylan Thomas' classic 'play for voices' Under Milk Wood.

The inhabitants of the community of Small Town USA get up to all kinds of strange things, from Martin Bormann watching a stripper from a coffin while covered in a sheet (based on a true story told to Meyer), to lead Francesca 'Kitten' Natividad trying to find a cure for husband Ken Kerr's predilection for being a 'back window' man. 

It's a film that's considerably sillier than either 1968'S VIXEN or 1975's SUPERVIXENS, with the result that it's less erotic than the former and less thrilling than the latter, although of course your mileage may vary. However, if lots of scenes of vigorous breasty bouncing up and down to the repeated twangs of a Jew's harp is for you then you'll think you've died and gone to heaven.

Once again Severin's transfer is eye-popping in the vividness of both colour and detail. Extras include an archival Russ Meyer commentary, an interview with Natividad (17 minutes) that looks archival but boasts a copyright date of 2024, a 1979 talk show in which Meyer is interviewed (23 minutes) and a new piece with Ellen Adelstein whose talk show it was (seven minutes). There's also a trailer.

Russ Meyer's BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRAVIXENS is out from Severin Films in either a UHD  / Blu-ray combo or just Blu-ray alone on Monday 27th January 2025

Supervixens (1975)

 

The second of Severin's new 4K Russ Meyer releases, scanned and restored from the original 35mm negative in conjunction with The Russ Meyer Trust, is 1975's SUPERVIXENS. Made after Meyer's brief Hollywood studio career, it's a film that contains all the elements his fans had by now come to know and love, including lurid plotlines, frequently odd choices of soundtrack music, and of course beautiful women with enormous gravity-defying breasts.

SUPERVIXENS plays like a cross between film noir and a road runner cartoon, with a big break for some sex comedy shenanigans right in the middle. Psychotic cop Harry Sledge (Charles Napier) murders SuperAngel (Shari Eubank), the wife of petrol station attendant Clint Ramsey (Charles Pitt). While the film opens with the usual bouncy breasty fun be warned that the violence against Eubank's character, and especially her murder, is unexpectedly unpleasant.

Sledge tries to frame Clint for the murder and Clint goes on the run, travelling through a Russ Meyer landscape that is every bit as unique to its auteur as Sergio Leone 's westerns or Hammer's horror films. Every woman Clint meets is not just attractive but has huge breasts and chases after him with sex comedy verve. By the time he has met SuperVixen (Eubank again in a different role) Sledge is back on his trail and the film culminates in a ludicrous climax straight out of Warner Bros. cartoons. And no, I have no idea why every girl in this has 'Super' attached to their name. Perhaps Meyer just thought they were really, really great, which in a number of ways they are.

Severin's 4K UHD transfer is once more an eye opener, with the vivid reds of vehicles contrasting with the desert landscape, and yet again fans familiar with this one will probably shake their heads in disbelief at just how good it looks.

Extras include an archival Russ Meyer commentary, a Meyer interview from 1990 (24 minutes), a previously unseen interview with star Charles Napier (19 minutes), the episode of Jonathan Ross's Channel 4 Incredibly Strange Film Show (40 minutes, and providing a nice bit of nostalgia for those of us old enough), a trailer and TV spot.

Russ Meyer's SUPERVIXENS is out from Severin Films in either a UHD  / Blu-ray combo or just Blu-ray alone on Monday 27th January 2025

 

Vixen (1968)

Severin Films are releasing, on 4KUHD and Blu-ray in both the UK and the US, three of exploitation auteur Russ Meyer's movies as part of a planned ongoing partnership with The Russ Meyer Charitable Trust, with all transfers taken from negatives restored by The Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with Severin themselves.

If you're not familiar with the works of Russ Meyer, perhaps the first thing you notice (apart from them featuring ladies with large gravity-defying breasts) is just how good a film-maker Meyer is. There's a technical skill on display here that puts him leagues above exploitation contemporaries like Herschell Gordon Lewis, such that if you're in two minds as to whether you're going to end up watching intermittently tedious trash be assured that's absolutely not the case.

First up on Severin's release slate is 1968's VIXEN, and as soon as you press play prepare to have your eyes popped out, both in the way Mr Meyer intended but also by just how gorgeous and crisp and beautiful this new transfer is. The film almost looks as if was made yesterday - admittedly it's an 'Anna Biller LOVE WITCH'-type yesterday, but that's how vibrant and colourful the image here is.

We're in British Columbia, with the beautiful locations shown off their best advantage on Severin's UHD disc. Vixen (Erica Gavin) is married to a local pilot who takes couples on fishing-cum-swinging trips (or at least that's how it seems) while Vixen also satisfies her free-loving / nymphomaniac urges with Mounties and others. There's a little bit more plot towards the finale that involves the plane being hijacked which really just serves as a bit of extra seasoning to the film's raison d'etre, which is to display the physical attributes of both Ms Gavin and co-star Vincene Wallace as much as possible. 

Extras include an archival Russ Meyer commentary with an intermittently chatty director, and a new one with star Erica Gavin that's moderated by Severin's own David Gregory. These and a trailer are included on the UHD disc. You need to go to the Blu-ray for the rest which include the 1981 censor prologue (just a minute and a half of text scrolling that's a bit of a rant), archival interviews with stars Gavin and Harrison Page (20 minutes), an edition of Davd Del Valle's The Sinister Image TV show with guests Russ Meyer and Yvette Vickers that could previously be found on Arrow's (now out of print) Blu-ray of BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (21 minutes), and a piece on the film's censorship battles in Cincinatti (13 minutes). 

Vibrant, sexy, well-paced and well made, Severin's excellent transfer of VIXEN is a very much the place to start if you're unfamiliar with the oeuvre of Russ Meyer. And if you're already a fan of his work that you'll likely be blown away by just how good this looks. 

Russ Meyer's VIXEN is out from Severin Films in either a UHD  / Blu-ray combo or just the Blu-ray on Monday 27th January 2025

The Cell (2000)

 

Arrow Films are releasing Tarsem Singh's stunning directorial debut feature in both 4KUHD and Blu-ray editions, with two discs in each set.

Psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) is part of a pioneering experiment to treat psychological trauma by entering into the subconscious of the individual. Meanwhile, serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has abducted his latest victim and locked her up in a tank where she is subjected to 40 hours of isolation before eventually being drowned, after which he turns his victims into life-sized dolls. 

The FBI are closing in on Stargher but before they can apprehend him he suffers a massive catatonic episode and becomes uncommunicative in a form of locked in syndrome that serves THE CELL's plot. The only way to find his final victim (who is still alive) is for Jennifer to enter his mind and confront what she finds there. And it's not pleasant.

It does, however, consist of a series of remarkable tableaux that are achievements not just of direction but of costume and production design and photography, too. In fact it could be argued that the entire plot is just an excuse to get to the gorgeous visuals, and there's nothing wrong with that. Lopez isn't entirely convincing as a psychologist but D'Onofrio is his usual superb self, while Vince Vaughn provides an important reality anchor as the chief FBI officer investigating.

Arrow's set comes either with one UHD and one Blu-ray disc, or two Blu-rays. The first disc gives you two cuts of the film - theatrical and director's with the latter being about two minutes longer. Extras on disc one include two new commentary tracks - one from writer and producer Mark Protosevich moderated by Kay Lynch, and another academic commentary with Josh Nelson and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There are also two archival commentaries - one with Singh and the other with other members of the crew including composer Howard Shore and director of photography Paul Laufer. There's an excellent new feature length interview with director Singh who covers all aspects of his experience with the production (and inevitably repeats some of what's on his commentary track, and a lengthy 43 minute career overview interview with Lauter.

Disc two contains a previously unreleased version of the film in 1.78:1 aspect ratio and with different colour grading which does make the 'dream' sequences less grainy but providing overall a more subdued image. Extras on disc two include Paul Laufer talking about this different version and how it arose from his use of two different types of lenses (11 minutes), a ten minute piece on the costume design, and a 12 minute visual essay from Heller-Nicholas about the director's predilection for combining popular movie genres with art history . Archival extras include a 12 minute featurette on director Singh, six deleted scenes and two extended scenes with optional commentary, special effects vignettes, trailers and an image gallery.

Finally both sets come with an illustrated collector's book with new writing and a reversible sleeve.

Tarsem Singh's THE CELL is out in a two disc set from Arrow in 4KUHD and Blu-ray editions on Monday 20th January 2025