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John Allman

If you’ve ever wandered the aisles at the video store or surfed the DVR pay-per-view options and seen a bunch of movies that you’ve never heard of, chances are John has watched them. Why? He loves movies. All kinds of movies. Good, bad, so-bad-they’re good, even the truly unwatchable ones. He mostly loves horror and science-fiction and drive-in exploitation movies that most upstanding model citizens wouldn’t dare watch. Then he writes up his thoughts so you can decide - watch, don’t watch or avoid at all costs. Sometimes he even gets to talk to the cool folks who make some of your favorite films.

Blood, Violence and Babes
John Allman

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New Releases for Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010

Posted Sep 3, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Sep 3, 2010 at 07:16 AM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

The Vampire Diaries
Genre: TV/Horror
Created by: Kevin Williamson
Run time: 935 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Kevin Williamson can be very hit or miss. He scored two early critical and fan favorites with “Scream,” the Wes craven-directed revitalization of the horror slasher genre, and “Dawson’s Creek,” a television series that took equal parts “90210” and “The Wonder Years” and mashed them together in a frothy high school mix. Then Williamson stumbled with “Cursed,” a failed 2005 effort to do for werewolves what Ghost Face did for serial slayers, and “Hidden Palms,” a soapy who-dun-it for TV that never found an audience.

Now Williamson has scored big again with “The Vampire Diaries,” an adaptation of the young adult series by L.J. Smith.

“The Vampire Diaries” focuses on the brothers Salvatore. There’s the brooding but mostly good Stefan (Paul Wesley) and the bad boy Damon (an intense and electric Ian Somerhalder). The brothers, both ancient vampires, are equally interested in Elena Gilbert, a high school senior whose parents both died tragically. This love triangle forges the emotional core of the show.

But with the best of Williamson’s projects, the true core of the show is its sharp writing, wickedly funny pop culture references and perceptive understanding of how young adults think and speak and act.

The whole vampire thing, yeah it’s cool, but the characters are actually interesting enough that they take center stage for good chunks of each episode so that when the well-done horror elements do surface, they’re much more effective.

Living in the age of “Twilight” and “True Blood” and even the wonderful import “Let the Right One In,” vampires continue to enthrall audiences, whether cheesily presented, ala Team Cullen, or shown having sex as much as drinking blood, God bless you “True Blood,” or actually being scary as the diminutive but lethal Eli proves in “Let the Right One In.”

The Salvatore brothers are actually a welcome addition to the overstuffed cast of iconic blood-drinking characters that saturate today’s market. They’re sexy, smart, appropriately menacing and tough enough for guys to appreciate and romance-novel cheesy enough to make the women swoon.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – No.
Gore – Yes.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Do vampires count if they only feed to survive?
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – The following features are spread out over the entire multi-disc set: Audio commentary with writer/producer Kevin Williamson; deleted scenes; gag reel; Audiobook of L.J. Smith’s “The Awakening,” the first volume of “The Vampire Diaries” series; multiple featurettes, including “Into Mystic Falls,” “A New Breed of Vampires,” “When Vampires Don’t Suck!” and “A Darker Truth” webisodes.
On the Web – http://www.cwtv.com/shows/the-vampire-diaries

Thriller: The Complete Series (Image, 3,354 minutes, Unrated, DVD): It’s the granddaddy of horror anthology shows, the precursor to the Cryptkeeper, to the spooky opening voiceover narration of “Tales from the Darkside,” even the uber-serious, but could be kidding, delivery of Henry Rollins on “Night Visions.”

Boris Karloff, the man who was both Frankenstein’s Monster and the Mummy, hosted “Thriller” for both seasons of its brief network run from 1960 to 1962 on NBC. The show aired immediately after “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” but “Thriller” took a decidedly darker turn. Karloff set the tone in his original introduction, walking out to the camera and welcoming audiences like a stately, but creepy, patriarch ushering extended family to the dining room for dinner. You’re not quite sure you can, or should, trust him, which is exactly how such hosts on such shows should be regarded.

Then there was the content, which pulled from classic horror and thriller authors like Robert Bloch, Edger Allan Poe, Robert E. Howard, and others, to present an at times gruesome array of zombies, ghouls, ghosts, even Richard Kiel as a sort-of Frankenstein. Presented in black and white, with an amazing score provided by such composers as the legendary Jerry Goldsmith, the show effectively ratcheted up tension by emphasizing the heavy shadows lurking just off-frame, the unknown, unseen dangers skulking about.

The revolving-door cast was a Who’s Who of A-list and rising films and TV stars: Rip Torn, Robert Vaughn, Mary Tyler Moore, Leslie Nielsen, Ursula Andress, Cloris Leachman and Shatner, William Shatner.

The show has never been compiled before in its entirety, and this incredible boxed set features all 67 original episodes on 14 discs with a whopping 24 hours worth of audio commentaries accompanying the episodes and more than 30 hours of isolated score, music and audio effects.

“Tales from the Crypt” was campy and fun. “Tales from the Darkside” was a low-budget hoot at times. “The Twilight Zone” remains iconic to this day. But “Thriller” is a true original, well-made and actually intense one-off stories told with respect to the material by actors drawn to the work, not desperate for a paying gig to stay relevant. This one you need in your collection. It’s the real deal.

The Evil Dead (Anchor Bay, 85 minutes, NC-17, Blu-Ray): There’s not much that hasn’t been said about “The Evil Dead,” one of cinema’s most respected and revered independent films of all time. Nearly 30 years after its release, the film, its director, Sam Raimi, and breakout star Bruce Campbell still entertain. That’s why it’s so refreshing to find that despite being an iconic horror movie that’s been praised and debated to death for years, the high-definition, Blu-Ray release still manages to surprise. That’s because the special features rock, starting with the 54-minute, in-depth documentary “One by One, We Will Take You: The Untold Saga of The Evil Dead”; there’s also the hour-long gift basket of raw alternate takes and cut footage, “Treasures from the Cutting Room Floor”; the 30-minute interview round-table, “The Ladies of The Evil Dead Meet Bruce Campbell”; a 30-minute Q&A panel/cast reunion from the 2005 Flashback Weekend Horror Convention; and much more. The hours of extras alone justify this double-triple-hell, maybe quadruple dip, but it’s money well spent. Longtime fans won’t be disappointed, and new fans will get a Master’s level course in why this movie remains the standard by which most low-budget horror films are judged.

Red Riding Trilogy (IFC, 308 minutes, Unrated, DVD): This five-hour British import, told in three parts, each titled after the year in which they’re set, 1974, 1980 and 1983, presents a haunting who-done-it focusing on police corruption and a serial killer on the loose in Britain. The cast, featuring such well-knowns as Sean Bean and up-and-comers as Andrew Garfield, the next big-screen Peter Parker/Spiderman, is spot on. Each installment is helmed by a different director, Anand Tucker, James Marsh, Julian Jarrold, but all three men manage to keep the tone consistent, the plot urgent and the tension high.

Harry Brown (Sony, 103 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Michael Caine goes Charlie Bronson by way of Clint Eastwood in “Harry Brown,” a vigilante thriller about an aging ex-military soldier who can’t help but take a stand when his neighborhood becomes overrun with young thugs. Vigilante films have come a long way from Bronson’s “Death Wish.” The underappreciated “Death Sentence” starring Kevin Bacon was like vigilantism on crack, a violent opus of life spiraling out of control. Eastwood’s own “Gran Torino” was a thoughtful meditation on forgiveness, honor and self-worth. “Harry Brown” is a more measured affair, allowing Caine to be both bad-##### and introspective as he embarks on his bloody path.

Sons of Anarchy: Season 2 (Fox, 595 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): The bad-##### Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original Chapter bikers of Charming, CA, return for a second season that one-ups the inaugural season with some of the best acting on TV, particularly Adam Arkin as a vicious white separatist leader, and Katey Sagal as the gang’s maternal anchor, whose Season 2 story arc is profound and brutal.

NCIS: Los Angeles – The First Season (Paramount, 1,080 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): Spin-off fever hits “NCIS” as the white-hot CBS show launches a West Coast counterpart and provides work for LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell. It’s a formula that has worked wonders for “CSI” and “Law and Order,” two other popular police procedurals, and “NCIS: LA” was one of the top new shows after its debut. The first season gets the ficw-disc boxed set treatment with all 24 episodes just weeks before the new season premiere.

House M.D.: Season 6 (Universal, 967 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): Paging Dr. Cranky. Television’s most lovable narcissistic physician, the foul-tempered, razor-tongued Dr. Gregory House, returns in season six of the long-running Fox TV show. “House” is one of those shows that, improbably, continues to mine medical mysteries well past its expected shelf life. Very few shows of this kind can sustain both creativity and popularity. “E.R.” was the exception. “House” is fast proving to be one too. Despite multiple cast changes and crazy story arcs, the show somehow manages to retain its soul, which is a fascinating character study of an incredibly flawed genius trying to make peace with himself and his place in the world.

Beatdown (Lionsgate, 90 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Can’t get enough MMA? That’s Mixed Martial Arts, to the uninitiated. Well, if it’s a new month that means TapOut must have another fight fest for hungry octagon aficionados. This one is actually a little better than recent releases, if only because it has a bit more story and the awesomely awesome Danny Trejo. Just don’t expect Bobby Lashley to be able to act any better than he did when he was with the WWE and you won’t be disappointed.

OSS 117: Lost in Rio (Music Box Films, 97 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Since MGM can’t seem to get their finances straight, and the James Bond franchise dangles in the balance, its fate uncertain, fans of suave super-spies who always get the girl and the bad guys can satiate their thirst for action by…laughing? “OSS 117: Lost in Rio” follows the comic misadventures of French Intelligence officer Hubert Bonisseur (think Inspector Clouseau, but with a hip ‘60s vibe) as he tries to keep the peace while solving a mystery that includes Nazis, a sexy Mossad agent and more.

Legends of the Canyon (Image, 110 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills was a cultural mecca in the 1960s, spawning some of rock music’s most iconic acts whose creative voices helped define a generation torn apart by war, racial strife and a seismic shift in the nation’s history. This DVD celebrates many of those, including Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, America and Buffalo Springfield.

Brothers and Sisters: The Complete Fourth Season (Disney, 1,032 minutes, Unrated, DVD): The Walker clan returns with laughter, tears and a pretty remarkable cast for TV – Sally Field, Calista Flockhart, Rob Lowe and more. Season Four is memorable for the “wedding no one will ever forget” and Lowe’s departure from yet another popular series near the peak of its vibe.