Inbred Redneck Vampires has exactly one thing going for it, in the form of its DVD cover, in which a “tramp stamp” Confederate flag tattoo rises alluringly over a pair of jeans, blood trickling down the bare back of its cover model. Unfortunately not even this potentially lucrative one-sheet image is clearly rendered; it’s awash in muddy grey, which is a telling metaphor for the across-the-board failure of what could otherwise be a stupid-fun romp through an exploitative, made-for-video premise.

A micro-budgeted, schlocky 2004 comedy only now receiving a home video
release, the provocatively titled Inbred Redneck Vampires finds sexy vampire Catherine (Felicia Pandolfi) and her lackey/underling Lendel (Werewolf Tales‘ Warren E.B.B., impressively preserving the anonymity of three-quarters of his name) on the run from a ruthless vampire hunter. After stumbling across Billy Joe Barney Bob (Robert Olin), they take refuge in the small rural burgh of Backwash, where Catherine hatches a plan to turn the backwoods folk into an army of vampire slaves. Beer drinking, bean eating, tripe cooking, shower peeping (above), competitive farting, terrible puns, and all other manner of forced line readings and sigh-inducing inanity ensue, leading up to the town’s annual Tripe Days Festival.

The back of the DVD cover box touts the movie as “combining the gross-out and physical comedy of Animal House and American Pie with the country humor of Hee Haw,” but that’s sort of akin to saying Fear Dot Com shares a lot in common with The Exorcist since they’re both horror films. Director and co-writer Joe Sherlock may be a veteran of over two dozen independent features and anthologies, but his work here doesn’t even have any sleazy sexploitation value for avowed fans of off-the-beaten-path regional video. (The movie was shot in Washington and Oregon, with a cast of largely local non-professionals.)

A lot can be forgiven by way of shoddy technical execution if there’s just a little pop to the material — some snarky fun to be had in the tangled weeds of the dialogue, or a performance that’s wild, zonked and/or enjoyably amusing. Inbred Redneck Vampires simply doesn’t have any of those things going for it, however. (There is a dwarf [also above, leering], if that matters to anyone.) The set-ups are mostly flat, the framing and camerawork is atrocious, the performances uniformly cringe-inducing (broad, without benefit of a backdrop and pacing that tonally matches), and the nature of the material unsettled and very much up in the air. Don’t judge a book by its cover, they say. The same applies to shlocky B-movies, if anyone needed a reminder.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Inbred Redneck Vampires comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen, divided into 29 chapters, with an English language stereo audio track. Bonus material arrives by way of 10 minutes worth of bloopers (in which tubby guys reveal some man-cleavage and one gal mock-fellates a microphone), a trailer for the movie, and an 11-minute behind-the-scenes featurette, which reveals the movie’s original title as Bloodsucking Redneck Vampires, and spotlights the nature of DIY indie film production, by way of a wardrobe story involving a panicked run to the nearest Target, one town away. There are nine trailers for other Sub Rosa Studios releases, too, including for movies entitled Ski Wolf and, ahem, Terror at Blood Fart Lake (yes, seriously). A braver critic would have perhaps given due diligence and investigated the latter; I skipped it, alas. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. F (Movie) C- (Disc)

The idea of mechanized roving security cameras that go schizoid and start slaying people — perhaps at the behest of nefarious establishment masters, perhaps not — inescapably aligns with surging modern fears about privacy, and technological intrusion. That’s Eyeborgs, in a nutshell. There’s delicious potential here, if it’s in the right hands — someone like Paul Verhoeven, perhaps, or David Cronenberg. But Highlander‘s Adrian Paul and some kid who looks like he might be cast as Robert Pattinson in a high school production of some emo Twilight fiction… well, they’re not the right hands. That’s all I’m saying.

Set in the near future, when the fear of terrorism has escalated into absolute, media-stoked hysteria (i.e., after the next successful Stateside terror attack), Eyeborgs posits a world where, in order to deal with the paranoia, robotic cameras are everywhere — in people’s homes, on the streets, in the workplace — in order to monitor things, and keep everyone safe. But are the cameras really being used to keep America safe… or to safekeep Americans?

Federal agent Gunner Reynolds (Paul, perhaps operating under the assumption that he’s being paid in per-ounce emoting) becomes suspicious of this prowling, precautionary system after a series of murders occur in which the video records don’t seem to align with the physical evidence. Recruiting the help of TV news reporter Barbara Hawkins (Megan Blake) and the President’s punkish, purple-haired nephew, Jarett Hewes, (Luke Eberl), Gunner angles to discover who’s really controlling the eyeborgs, with reclusive political dissident G-Man (Danny Trejo) providing the valuable initial assessment that the little buggers seem to be weaponized.

Eyeborgs might sound schlocky, but the potential for derisible special effects hampering its effectiveness actually ranks far down on the list of problems. Director Richard Clabaugh keeps things moving at a decent clip, and the CGI work is… adequate, at least. Let’s say that. Clabaugh doesn’t succumb to the feeling or need to feature a straight-on effects shot when something a bit more integrated and fleeting might work just as well. And if Eyeborgs doesn’t quite, on an intellectual level, fully dig into the provocative themes that its conceit raises, the film at least amply earns its R rating without dipping too far into over-the-top gore. Unfortunately, the movie’s dialogue is hammy and on-the-nose, and its acting simply not up to snuff. Repeatedly, the movie fumbles away any sense of accrued momentum or suspense, with screwball inflections and other oddly timed freak-outs.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Eyeborgs comes to DVD presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track, and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Special features consist of a small handful of deleted scenes, the movie’s trailer, and a nice, lengthy behind-the-scenes featurette which blends cast and crew interviews, some on-set footage and clips from the film. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. In addition, the film is available via digital download. C (Movie) B- (Disc)

Movies detailing the lives of corrupt, disinterested and/or tempted New York police officers could and probably should constitute their own subgenre Netflix listing, and that’s where Brooklyn’s Finest, a very masculine, surface-level slice of familiar cop drama, slots. Those inclined to like this sort of thing will find enough about it to like; others will likely shrug.

Unfolding over the course of one chaotic week, the movie centers around three conflicted Big Apple cops whose discrete stories eventually come together in a massive drug sting operation. There’s burned-out veteran Eddie Dugan (Richard Gere), one week away from retirement; narcotics officer and family man Sal Procida (Ethan Hawke), who’s grappling with a gnarly house mold problem (yes, seriously) and struggling to make ends meet for his seven children; and equally stressed-out
Clarence “Tango” Butler (Don Cheadle), who’s been undercover so long his
loyalties might have started to shift from his fellow officers to old
friend Caz (Wesley Snipes), a drug dealer just out of prison. With
pressures bearing down on them, each man is forced to make some tough
decisions that have lasting consequences, both anticipated (to them) and
unforeseen.

It’s not a grade-A slur to say that Brooklyn’s Finest
feels entirely constructed from prefabricated parts, or like the
comeback single from a reconstituted band. There’s Fuqua and Hawke,
reuniting from Training Day; Snipes, playing a character who could be a
cousin of New Jack City’s Nino Brown; and Cheadle working undercover, as in
Traitor. Fuqua shoots the film with much style and pop-off energy, but the plotting here is
strictly by the book — except for Gere’s story strand, actually, which
flirts with intrigue in detailing his complicated relationship with a
hooker (Shannon Kane). Unfortunately, audiences can’t dictate which
story of the triptych to stick with, so the finest portions of Brooklyn’s Finest are forced to exist in timeshare lockstep with the more boring portions. That makes even a curious, look-see rental a 50-50 satisfying proposition, at best.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Brooklyn’s Finest comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English stereo and Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio tracks, and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Four separate behind-the-scenes featurettes run a combined 25 minutes, and track the film’s 41-day production schedule fairly well. Fuqua is an articulate guy who has a lot of thoughtful empathy for his movie’s characters, and Hawke also has some interesting things to say about how Fuqua has gotten even better as a director since their previous collaboration. Furthermore, screenwriter Michael Martin’s personal biography (he was working as a toll booth operator while penning the script at night, and eventually leveraged a second place finish in a script contest into a production sale) is an inspiration to those that would continue to pursue their dreams against considerable odds. A whopping 30-plus minutes of deleted scenes is also included. There’s also the movie’s trailer, and a small clutch of other previews, including for Pandorum, The Crazies and three other films. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, meanwhile, click here. C (Movie) B (Disc)

Christopher Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical novel forms the basis of fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut, an exactingly constructed, mostly well acted period piece drama about a broken man who, in the wake of his longtime gay companion’s death, can scarcely see any sort of future on the horizon. It hangs on a superb performance from Colin Firth, and features a few stirring moments of quiet, aching melancholy — the sort of private, swallowed pain that is infrequently attempted and even less successfully captured on screen in Hollywood studio fare — but isn’t quite a gobsmacked-level dramatic keeper for the ages.

Set in Los Angeles over the course of but a few days in 1962, A Single Man centers on George Falconer (Firth, Oscar-nominated), a 52-year-old British college professor struggling to find meaning after the sudden death of his boyfriend Jim (Matthew Goode). George is consoled, if rather brusquely, by his closest friend, Charley (Julianne Moore), a 48-year-old Tanqueray depository wrestling with her own questions about the future. As George ponders suicide, a young student coming to terms with his own true nature, Kenny (About a Boy‘s Nicholas Hoult, all growed up), feels in George a sort of kindred spirit, and makes it a point to reach out to him.

On a certain level, A Single Man seems to posit that isolation and loneliness is an inescapable and inherent part of the human condition, which makes the performance of Hoult, who communicates in batted eyelashes and seems a little too cutesy-pinup to pull off the necessary emotional maturity required in his increasing flirtations with his teacher, additionally problematic. (George’s chance liquor store encounter with a Spanish hustler, played by Jon Kortajarena, meanwhile, comes across as intriguing but still fairly believable for this very reason — because it’s a fantasy digression from the order, structure and “safety” of his previously settled world.) Mine is something of a minority opinion on Hoult, I realize. His performance was praised by numerous critics, and tabbed for a Rising Star nomination at last year’s BAFTA Awards. But to me, Kenny comes across as an idealized angel ripped from the pages of some Calvin Klein ad, and not someone that George would be interested in, particularly given what we see of his relationship with Jim.

There’s an delicateness to the production; Ford’s fashion sense informs every frame, and Eduard Grau’s cinematography is striking. But there’s also a bit of fussiness in some of the art direction — by the time the third symbolic underwater sequence comes along, it feels a bit much. Still, Firth is absolutely excellent, sublimating some of the bumbling charm that’s made him such a crush of the literate thirtysomething female crowd. In almost single-handed fashion, he makes A Single Man worth seeing.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, A Single Man comes to DVD presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital audio track, and optional Spanish and English SDH subtitles. Supplemental bonus features come by of a quite thoughtful audio commentary track with Ford, as well as a 16-minute making-of featurette, which splices black-and-white interview clips with cast and crew with on-set footage and film clips in relatively obligatory fashion. A gallery of trailers for other Sony home video releases rounds out the affair. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B (Movie) B- (Disc)

An ultra-racy comedy from Danish erotica maestro Werner Hedman, 1972’s In the Sign of Scorpio centers on a secret agent who’s on the trail of a highly coveted roll of CIA microfilm he believes to be hidden in a loaf of bread.

Like fellow Tegn imports In the Sign of the Virgin and In the Sign of the Taurus, this movie blends slapstick action, comedic misunderstanding and dialogue laden with double entendres, along with a healthy pinch (five to eight percent, I’d calculate) of hardcore action. All the usual sorts of adult flick set-ups are here (some hot tub intrigue, an under-the-table encounter), but Hedman has a gift with sustaining a fun, randy tone, and seeds his work, of which this is a top-shelf example, with enough outlandish screwball elements (a dwarf assassin, say) to keep an audience engagingly off-balance.

Hedman was a jack-of-all-trades, serving as his own writer, cinematographer and editor, and his exacting authorial presence is evident throughout, as the production value, costumes and settings aren’t chintzy, and there’s a complexly choreographed ballroom dance sequence that would, were it not for the nudity, likely draw some nice scores and judges’ comments on Dancing With the Stars. Some of the ladies are easy on the eyes, certainly, but also gifted comediennes. Most engaging, though, is Ole Soltoft, whose loose-limbed work as mock-suave Special Agent Jensen Master is a thing to behold. Poul Bundgaard, Gina Janssen, Kate Mundt and Judy Gringer also star.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, In the Sign of Scorpio comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Danish 2.0 stereo audio track and optional English subtitles. The main menu is animated, as is the DVD’s separate chapter menu, which divides the movie into 12 scene selections. The only bonus feature is a two-and-a-half-minute slide show of images from the movie. Werner passed away in 2005, and his frequent collaborator Soltoft died in 1999 from heart complications, making their participation in any sort of retrospective interviews an obvious impossibility, but it’s really a shame that this title and the other Tegn releases from distributor Smirk didn’t include at least some sort of talking-head/critic interviews, because these films aren’t empty masturbatory fodder. Far, far from it, in fact — I’d argue that Hedman had something few filmmakers of his era or any era since have had: a clear and direct connection to conveying, within an otherwise goofy and ridiculous narrative conceit, just how thrilling and fun sex can actually be with the right, engaged type of partner. B+ (Movie) D (Disc)