Twisted Tales is an interesting concept taking more than a little cue from “Tales from the Crypt” and getting together some decent talent by Tom Holland who wrote and directed each of the nine vignettes. However, more than a few of those aren’t very good or well acted yet there’s a couple that are at least watchable including the one starring William Forsythe and Danielle Harris.
Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz is actually a decent little horror-thriller combining Nazis and zombies for a third time in this series (which honestly I had never heard of). The DVD release by Xlator doesn’t have much going for it with only a trailer and merely adequate video and audio transfers.
Birds of Paradise is an average, down-the-road, direct-to-video flick attempting to take advantage of high profile movies, in this case duplicating Rio. As cheap entertainment, it’s OK but the animation isn’t great though the audio/video transfers are adequate enough and at the one featurette isn’t terrible.
Anna Nicole is the typical Lifetime Channel tripe with subpar acting, even from actors who tend not to be half-bad, and screenplays seemingly written by interns. The gravest sin going against this movie is that you really don’t learn a whole lot about her past and instead we get most of the items we saw in the news.
Sorority Party Massacre fails in almost all phases from the title itself, the casting, acting and direction. I understand what the filmmakers were going after, mixing different movies and genres but it doesn’t mesh well enough, unfortunately because it did have the opportunity to be the fun kind of bad movie instead of just plain bad.
Big Sur is a solid drama featuring great performances, particularly from Jean-Marc Barr while the cinematography and score are both absolutely beautiful. The DVD released by Ketchup Entertainment is pretty minimal with good audio/video transfers but limited in the bonus feature arena.
Mischief Night is your typical and cheap direct-to-video horror movie with nothing new to offer although I did find star Noell Coet to be one of the few highlights, so hopefully she finds better material in the future. The DVD released by RLJ Entertainment isn’t overly impressive with merely adequate video/audio transfers and a forgettable bonus feature.
3D Sun/Mars 3D is a nice addition to the ever-growing series of videos not only expanding our universe, but Earth’s history as well. The selling-point of this disc is the 3D and while some parts of it aren’t fantastic, others do look incredible and well worth checking out especially if you’re a fan of educational documentaries.
Not my cup of tea, but Casting Me… is a funny enough movie. The DVD comes with a good amount of features including an audio commentary, 3 featurettes, production diaries and trailers.