Episode 2: July 2024 Releases!

of any budget, from anywhere and during any time. This is what I hope is the only episode I'm not going to have a guest. I already have some exciting guests lined up for September and even one in October, which i'll promote his channel here in just a moment. But yeah, I thank you so much for joining. What I want to do with these mid month drops is this is dropping in the middle of August, so I

want to go through all the July releases. I've watched thirteen movies since I got my subscriber shipment in so it's been a marathon, and as typical Vinegar Syndrome fashion, seen a ton of movies from all over the board, and I can't wait to get in and talk about these. It's been a fantastic journey. So the way I want to go through these with y'all, I want to do the mainline titles first. Then just the way my brain works, I want to go alpha through the sub labels so

it'll be cinematographed. Then we're gonna do Degausser. There's no distribt picks from July, and I hope I didn't mess that up. I don't think there's any. Then Vinegar Syndrome Archive Labs, and then pictures, so we'll go through all those titles. I'll give you my review. I'll tell you what I thought about it. Who would tend to like this kind of movie? What I thought? You know, if it's something that you have to just rush out and get, or if it's something that is more of just like

for a specific audience. As this is a podcast dedicated to the love of Vinegar Syndrome, I'm probably not gonna just straight up shit on any of the movies. There's one this month that I didn't love, but even that I can tell it's more of like a style thing. And everybody I told about why I didn't love it, they were like, oh, that sounds interesting. So sometimes it's just a matter of preference. So we're gonna go through

them all. We're gonna go through spine number four seventy two, four seventy three, and four seventy four, and I'll talk a little bit about the letterbox views just to give a sense of kind of how many other people have seen this. I'll talk about what I can tell in terms of how it's selling from them. This is not inside information. I'm just getting it from their website. But we'll kind of go through that and then talk a little bit about the films themselves, what stood out to me.

And there's gonna be some I'm just gonna be a fair warning. There's gonna be some that I'm a huge homer for this time. There's some that I think are must owns, especially for Vinegar Syndrome fans, really for any fans of any movie. So be prepared for a little bit of homersm coming up. And I will try to get to the four partner titles that I saw as well, so we'll get to that at the end. As long as this does take too long, all right, let's jump.

the English director is Sidney Pink. Again, it's a little bit confusing, and it does sound like semantics, but these are two separate movies that were filmed at the same time with the same cast about roughly the same subject matter. But they were determined and intended to be two separate films, not one, not one with just like a language translation, so they were actually filmed as two separate ones. VS. As always does a fantastic job of getting both the

additions on there. It's that case that it's like a They call it a gloss hard slipcase plus slipcover combo, so it goes inside a slipcover, then it goes inside the hard slip case. As always, Vinegar Syndrome did a fantastic job on these special features and including all versions of the film. So this is a three disc set. It's a UHD disc and two Blu rays. It's a new scanned four K and the print I saw look beautiful.

I saw the Danish version when I watched it. As far as I remember, they're claiming this is the for the Danish version of the film. This is the first time it's been in the US on any disc, DVD, Blu ray anything. They redid the subtitles for the transfer, and as you can imagine, the sub the features are fantastic. There's a commentary track with a film historian. They have a great retrospective thirty two minute retrospective on the film itself.

There's an eleven minute feature called Life After Reptilicus. There's a thirty minute I guess another documentary with a film historian named Steven Bissett who's also an illustrator and he kind of walks through the legacy of Reptilicus, and a thirty minute feature. So there's just a ton of special features. It's packed beautiful art as always, and beautiful film, beautiful packaging all around. All right, as far as I can tell, this one has sold about two thousand copies. There's just

under two thousand copies left. It's you know, this has been a big seller for them. This is a popular release, and I kind of get it. You know, this is there's a there's this whole subgenre of kaiju movies or monster movies. Obviously for fans of Godzilla, obviously for fans of Gamada, but even beyond that. You know, there's a whole bunch of movies that were made in Korea and in Europe that had these monsters in them. Obviously the US had some monster movies, and so this fits just

very snug in that genre. I wouldn't say there's anything to me that necessarily stands out as like, oh, this is the best one in the genre. But I like this movie a lot. It's very snug, it's very comfortable, it feels very known, and you know, it's it has a message in it as well. It's just it's a

perfect example of one of these genre films. The basic story is there's some miners that are digging up in Lapland, which is where Santa Claus is from, obviously, and they're digging in the eyep there and they accidentally cut off a tail. It's frozen, so they bring it back to Denmark for science, and there's a you know, a sleepy scientist that forgets to close the door in the freezer, wakes up. The tale is thawing out. Unfortunately for them, this is a

regenerative beast. So even though it's been asleep for you know, hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years or whatever, the tale immediately wakes up, starts to grow, and wreaking havoc ensues. I think you'll know by now by the way I'm describing it if this is a movie you would like or not. For me, it's a film I'm

really happy to own. I like monster movies. They're the kind of thing that I can have on sometimes it's nice to have on, either to sleep or to if there's chores, or if it's just like a lazy Saturday afternoon. I like having these kind of movies in my collection that are on and that are very relaxing and calm. This is a fantastic example of that nothing is for me. Nothing is necessarily stand out. It's not like it's hilarious or you know, the the special effects work is amazing

or anything like that. I just it's a solid entry. They hit all the beats, uh and it's a ton of extras, so it's a it's a fun all around package. I'm very happy I own this one.

a surprise for all of y'all. This movie is fucking amazing, Okay, it is. It is everything I love about Kathrey. It has some brutal moments, but it's hilarious. It's way over the top. There's nudity in the film, but it's all done in just to perfection. I think this is I couldn't you know, for a long time I said, Ricky, oh is my favorite? KA three, this is pushing it. I might be willing to say this is better. I don't know. I have to see it again. But this

movie is amazing. What a surprise by far and away the surprise of twenty twenty four in terms of viewing for me. Oh yeah, it's by number four seven three if I didn't say that. But this movie is an absolute and must have for I would say for anybody that's willing to put up with, you know, some of the edge of your content within movies. What you get in exchange for that is just pure joy. And like this is a party movie. It's a fantastic movie to

watch in a group. It's hilarious. Absolutely something that's gonna shoot up the ranks for you know, horror lists or best movie of all time lists. This is a great job by Vinegar Syndrome and Sam Deagan, who did a lot with the disc public, you know, from the production side commentary and really kind of added some amazing context for this one. This is just this is one of those ones that people are gonna wish they own it. Looks like it's also sold about four thousand copies, so

it has some left. It's not like a mad panic to get it. But I would please please get this before it sells out. This is one of those ones that for years people are going to be talking about, and I guarantee at some point in your life there's gonna be a moment where you have not seen Chinese Torture Chamber story, and then there's gonna be a moment where you see it and you're gonna wish you had

seen it ten years sooner. So I don't even really want to give too much away, but I'll give a little bit obviously to kind of tantalize and tease a little bit here. There is a This is a story that's very loosely based off of a collection of stories that came out around torture in sort of you know, ancient Chinese history, right, So there are elements in this story that are very real and that happened, and they kind of built on that to make the story all right.

So this movie came out in nineteen ninety four, directed by Bosco Lamb. I haven't seen a lot from Bosco Lamb. He's a name that I know, but in terms of the movies that he's directed, I haven't really seen a ton. He was a kind of ad and actor, and he was around a lot of Hong Kong cinema. He's he was involved with God of Gambler's series Casino Raiders. He's been involved in a lot of movies, but as far as directing, you know, he doesn't have a lot on disc.

So it's and he only has twelve movies that are kind of titled to him, credited to him, So you know, it's possible we get a few more Bosco Lamb movies if there anything like this, I want them all. He what he's able to do in this movie so well.

The reason I'm so crazy for a Chinese torture chamber story is he takes these historical documents and this historical kind of torture stories which are obviously horrific and terrible, and he puts this sort of magical twist on them, and he and he tells the story of one particular lord who brings a woman into his harem, and he there's a there's an order of command to kind of get time with him, but he falls for one of the new recruits that the new women that come in

he he dies, and so most of the movie is a trial about the woman who is accused of murdering this this lord, and it goes back in time and sort of catches up the story of of what's going on. So that's the structure of it. But what happens within that structure is this insane beautiful like I don't even know.

It's almost like a Princess Bride or something where you know it like it cuts back to the scene where they're in a courtroom and then it kind of goes to this fantasy land of events, and the difference between the fantasy and the reality in the courtroom are stark. This movie is nothing like a Princess Bride. That's an insane comparison only in structure. But the scenes in the

courtroom do involve some torture. But then when they flash back, they show this kind of budding romance and they show sex in a way that is just hilarious, Like there's a woman who's playing with all these different sex toys. The most famous scene in this film is this wusha scene, this beautiful kind of wusha scene that's filmed very authentically it would fit in any you know, martial arts film, this kind of wusha based, this beautiful kind of ballet,

and the whole time this couple is fucking okay. And so it's just there's this crazy there's this crazy sex going on. They're yelling things at each other. I was dying in this scene. There's but the comedy is throughout even before when this lord he's married to his wife. Obviously he's having sex outside of marriage, as is she. But when he has sex with his wife, she's into all these crazy things, and those scenes are really funny.

It's just it. Don't be Curtis said this, and I'll say this too, don't be, you know, dissuaded by the name. This is not a torture movie. If you're looking for a torture movie, we'll talk about that in just a second, because the sequel is closer to that. But Chinese Torture Chamber Story one has light on the torture chamber and just freaking hilarious throughout the rest of it. Just a pure joy to watch. I don't really know how else to say it. It's just a movie that I want

to recommend to everybody. Shout it from the Hills. This should be in your collection. It's not a risk. If you're a fan of laughing and just kind of enjoying movies and having fun. This is right up there with anything you could name it. It's not so bad. It's a good movie. If you want to call it like that, I don't. I don't even like that term. Anyways. It's not like that. It's a very well made movie. It's just hilarious, and they're The commentary from San Digan is amazing.

And there's a special feature of Rika Schultz from on Some Horrors. By the way, if you're not listening to Unsung Horrors podcast and you're listening to the Vinegar Syndrome podcast, I think you'll love Unsung Horrors. Not that it's all Vinegar Syndrome, but there's a lot of crossover and content and in kind of mentality of listening listeners, So listen

to that podcast. But she but Erica breaks down a video essay where she goes through and finds historical documents and like scans the images in and like goes a very academic but entertaining discussion on like the history of Chinese torture. It's an extremely well made video essay. I don't I'm not going to call out a lot of individual special features, but this one is top notch. It's very good and it's worth the disc in and of itself,

let alone the movies which are just fantastic. So I could gush forever about Chinese Torture Chamber Story one, I'll stop there, staying on spine four seventy three for a moment. Chinese Torture Chamber Story two. The first one had eleven hundred views on letterbox. This one only has three ten as a recording, not as many people have seen this. This is definitely a film that is probably way underseen and is a good idea. I think to include it

as part of a double feature. I don't know how many people would you know, buy, although anybody that saw the first one would rush out to buy the sequel, But I think fans of the first one purely for that fun element might be a little disappointed by the sequel. I think it's good in its own way, but it's a very different movie. So the director is Ken Nam Cho, probably most famous. Most of y'all probably know him from

Chinese Eerotic Ghost Story. I'm sure you might say there's one that you like better, but as far as I know, that's sort of his most famous film. This film has a lot more actual torture. So this is much closer to the name. And you know, this is what you're probably looking for. If you just pass by the shelf and you see torture Chambers story, this one probably has

a lot more of what you want. The interesting thing about it is that although it can be pretty brutal at times, there's certain you know, there's certainly levity in the movie. It's not all just pure brutality. In fact, some of the characters are very light and not quite Samo hung funny, but they're just lighter and just kind of more goofy. They would probably fit in like a you know, mister Vampire series or something like that. But the overall tone is certainly much darker, and it's it's

a movie that I think is is good. I'm guessing that it's gonna be pretty split in terms of people that watch the first one. I go in to watch this, I would say, just kind of know who you are. If you want to have a good time and laugh, watch the first one. If you want something a little darker, then this is the one for you. A little more, a little more nasty, a little more gnarly. This is where to start. It's just similar. The the other thing I think it's probably worth calling out is that it's

very historically accurate. So this is where Erica's essay video essay really stands out to me, because it's actually extremely accurate when she starts breaking down like the different types of torture that was used. Some of it is in the first movie, for sure, but a lot of it's

in the second one. And it's interesting. I mean, you know, it's it's a horror movie because of the horrific things that happen, and it's even crazier that this was common, and you know, it was the way that a lot of people got sort of the justice system used these torture devices to get information from people. So that's interesting part of history, right, I mean, you know, it certainly doesn't.

Luckily we're not in that situation anymore. But you know, before the mythology of like truth serums and all that kind of stuff came out and you know, tough interrogators, tough FBI interrogators, before all that, there was just straight you know, physical torture to get information, and in both movies actually the torture is used in a way to

have people admit guilt even when they weren't guilty. So you know, there's certainly some parallels there to like the Salem witch trials and you know, just the conquistadors and a lot of these you know, really shitty kind of leaders that abuse their power to get what they want out of out of people that they have in power over. So yeah, it has good history to it. It's interesting. I personally like the first one quite a bit better because I just like to have fun with these movies,

but the second, the second film, is quite good. The other thing worth calling out is that Frank Jang does the commentary for Part two. As usual, It's a fantastic linguistic and cultural commentary. Frank is amazing at kind of breaking down what's going on and why and why they're using certain phrases and just you know the history of it. It's very different. Sam Degan's commentary is incredibly well researched

and gives a lot of context. Is anything Frank Jang is just that's his specialty, right as being actually Chinese and knowing all these like little linguistical nuances and stuff, so that's there too. There's a really cool feature by Justin Declo of the Important Cinema Club called The Cat Three Films of Wang Jing. I think it's worth a watch. It's very good. The video essay that I was talking about is called Titillating Torture, and there's a good booklet

that's written by Grady Hendrix. So yeah, I mean, this is a I don't know how to say it to me, this is a slam dunk, absolutely must own. No matter how much I pare down my collection, this one's staying in and it's probably going into my top one hundred films of all time.

It's just it snuggles right in there right with the best of the just these kind of fun, exploitation action movies. There's a biker film, punk rock film. Anarchy is throughout. I mean, this is we'll get into in just a second. This is truly an anarchic film. So they really captured the spirit of what it is to be punk rock. It didn't shy away from it. It has sold slightly less, but it's still selling really well best I can tell.

It's sold around through thirty five hundred copies so far, so I have no idea how this one's not sold out. This movie is awesome, and I'm only guessing it hasn't sold out because maybe people haven't heard about it. But it is a yeah. I really do think this is like a must own this is it's just fun. It's extremely energetic in all the best ways. I loved it. It's a nineteen eighty seven movie. Francisco Guerrero is the director of it, and he's sort of this great genre filmmaker.

Like if you go through his you know his filmography, He's got stuff like the White Condor, Condo Branco. Anyways, he just his filmography looks super fun, lots of action movies. Again just I don't really know how to say it other than he just seems to be a genre film director, like in His Blood, and it seems to make some really fun action movies. In Trepido's Punks Is it's just a wild film. So there's not there's really no good

guys in this. It's funny the way they set it up, because there's this gang of punks that come through and they terrorize. They just love doing coke, they love breaking things, they love murder. They're just like, you know, they're bad people. They don't hide shy away from anything, but they're so awesome. Oh they rape too, so you know they hit all

the beats. But they're just awesome people. Like they're I mean within the movie, like within the logic of the film, they're awesome and they're not shying away from all the bad things they do. But they're portrayed as just like, look how cool these people are, And honestly, they are pretty cool. They have great costumes. The music, the soundtrack is awesome. It's a there's a theme song created for

this and it's super fun. The music is super fun, so you know, you have these punks that are doing terrible things, and then you have these sort of really lame, boring, dumb cops that are written to be that way. I don't think it's like a budget issue or the way they're filmed or something. They're just written to be uninteresting and you don't really want them to win, even though

they're doing the right thing. And so of course there's shootouts, and of course there's some action in the film, and I guess like the basic premise is that, you know, these punks to get revenge on the cops for imprisoning them and kind of making their life hard. They go back and they abduct the wives and kill the wives of these wardens and jailers and cops, and then you know, there's a war that ensues between these groups. It's a This is just a I know I've said fun like

twenty times. I don't really know a better word for it, but this is just a great time again, kind of like Chinese torture chamber story, although for a different reason. This is a fun party movie. I think like this

is a great movie. In a group, You'll be singing along the soundtrack, You'll be tapping your toes to the good punk song, and yeah, it's just one of those movies where I think, as weird as this might sound, it kind of you want to talk about it afterwards and maybe kind of diagnose it a little bit because it's just it leaves you with this weird feeling of like, well, who am I supposed to be rooting for here? I think the Francisco Gotreto pulls off that balance flawlessly. He

nails it. I think he really gets it. And this I don't know. I don't know if this is going to be like a top one hundred movie for me, but it's a contender. It's very good. I liked it a lot. And again, I want to be really careful with this as we go through. And I'm, you know, representing vinegar syndrome here of course unofficially, but like, you know, I want to be really careful with this. Term so bad it's good. I'm going to try not to use it anymore after episode two. I just want to like

kind of start to draw a distinction here. And the only reason I'm using it is to stay like there's a temptation to say, like, oh, it's good because it's funny, or whatever. But like, no, like this is you know, they had some budget constraints and stuff, right because they were trying to put together these movies in nineteen eighty even nineteen eighty eight in Mexico off of you know, whatever money they could find, right. But like, it's a very well made movie. I mean, you put it up

to Mad Max. You could put it up to like I said, a lot of the exploitation, a lot of the Italian genre cinema, has a good score, It understands story, the characters are phenomenal. So yeah, it's good. I think this is all around a fun movie. I'm super glad to I've seen it so shot at the same time, although it was released later, is the direct sequel La van Ganza delos Bunks or Vengeance of the Punks. This had a different director. His name was Domian Lacostas Bartosa.

He's not quite as His films are a bit more kind of I don't know how to say it, like maybe a little bit all over the place. But he was another one of these directors that made a ton of action movies, and this was near the end of his career. He's a little bit He had been working for a while, but yeah, this is kind of near the end of his career. A lot of his movies have death or vengeance in the title, so this fits

in pretty well there. But this has even less views on letterbox, so similar to Chinese Torture Chamber Story too, this is almost exactly the same, So yeah, that's interesting. Actually, So Chinese Torture Chamber Story had eleven hundred ended epidos Punks had nine hundred, so pretty close. And then both of the sequels have almost the exact same number. This one's at three h five instead of three to ten,

so the sequel drops off quite a bit. I would say this one, it picks up right where we leave off, has a lot of the similar characters, not everybody, but a lot of similar characters, And this one just jumps right into like quite a bit of rape and just like long kind of extended sex scenes. I guess you could say orgies, but it's not really like it's just sort of like, again, this kind of anarchic spirait to it, right,

So it's not that everybody's having sex. It's like when they get back to camp, they're just kind of lounging around. Some people are drinking. Some people are super excited to be doing cocaine. Some people are just naked, you know, getting getting into it. So it's just like this sort of lifestyle that they've built up, and you know, it's a vibe. I guess you could say film. Both films are. I think both directors capture the sentiment of it and like the tone of it perfectly. This also has a

good soundtrack. I think it's a great sequel. I don't think there's a big drop off in quality. These are two Interrepredos Punks and Vengeance of the Punks, just back to back, fantastic double feature. And this is vs. Four seventy four. And so if you know, for me rounding out the month, as far as the main line goes, you have two films that are I don't really care who you are like in terms of what you like to watch in movies, I would say must watches, if

not must owns, for sure must watches. And then the sequels for those films, which it's nice to have as a package, and then Reptilicus, which some people are going to be mad at me for not calling a must own. I mean, if you're a fan of these kind of monster films. It's a slam dunk again. Like I said, I like it a lot, so I could just understand why some people wouldn't want to have it. It is close to that kind of thing that mister Sands Theater would make fun of in terms of like the quality

of it. So if you know, if that's not your thing, just just be forewarned. But I had a great time with all these and I think VS Mainline killed it this month. Maybe on leave for a couple of months, but that is a pen and you had a breakdown. You want a sanitarium. It wasn't a leave, it was a breakdown. What are you force me to say these things? All right? Cinematograph, I'm gonna go through the sub labels now. Cinematograph is primarily, as far as I can understand, the

baby of Justin La Liberty. I think Justin has, as far as I can tell, meticulous taste. Everything he's recommended or everything he's put out that he's kind of been a part of, has been fantastic. This is title number six in his cinemat Cinematograph. Line one through five has been something I've really liked. In fact, title five is an Able Ferrara movie called Dangerous Game, and the movie

is fantastic. It's just kind of I guess the probably the closest thing you would compare it to is like a Leaving Las Vegas type of self destruction movie, although it's done in different way, but it's Harvey Kaitel self destructing for you know, our forty minutes or whatever. But the special feature, the documentary with Abel Ferrara, it's just well, it's more of just a frank discussion with him kind of goes into why I love Abel Ferrara so much.

It's this extremely raw, brutally honest take, kind of introspective look very similar vibe to Yodaawski when he does his commentaries where he's just like nothing to hide and so he you know, Abel Ferrara gives this fantastic description of what it was like to work with Madonna, what it was like to be in the studios, why he was kicked out of Hollywood, Like, he just gets into all of it. And I love that special feature. So that's title five, which came out I guess most likely June.

I think they try to put out one a month, maybe make because of the partner month thing. But that's a to number six, which is a Jonathan Demi movie. It is a extremely underseen Jonathan Demi movie. If you think of how popular he is as a director, this one only has forty four hundred views on letterbox, which, again just for those tracking at home, is less than Reptilicus, which had sixty eight hundred. So not a lot of people have seen Last Embrace. This was a movie that

came out. It was a pretty early movie in his career. You know, he got his start through AIP. He did a lot of films for American International, and then this came out in nineteen seventy nine, right before he kind of got into his golden years. He was still doing a lot of music videos here. He was still doing a lot of other types of kind of artistic projects. For me, the only movie from Jonathan Demi that I love, truly love is Stopped Making Sense. I know he's done

Silence of the Lambs. I think it's a pretty good movie. I think Manhunter is a better Hannibal Lecter story. But Jonathan Demi for me, is as a director that I'm okay with. Last Embrace did not change my opinion of him as a director, so I can't lie and say that I love this movie. The video essay from Sam Degan is is fantastic. The commentary I've listened about half of the commentary. I don't know how much you've heard of Howard as Berger, but he's just this fantastic kind

of historian. Steve Mitchell does a great job on this as well. So it's a beautifully packaged film typically you know, vinegar syndrome fashion, the packaging, the art, the special features, everything is top notch. This is a four K and a Blu ray together, so it's a double feature or double disc feature, you know. Really, Last Embrace. It's what I what I don't like about it is it kind of plays into a lot of genres that I struggle

with in general. So again, this is kind of like I said in the beginning, as I describe why I didn't like it, you probably more than half of y'all will probably be like, well, yeah, I definitely want to

see that. The best I can I can put it to you know, put it is that it's to me, it's a combination of like a circa, like a Douglas cirque melodrama with the spy sort of mystery film, and it also has a layer of that paranoia that you might see in a movie like the conversation that you know is that it has that new Hollywood vibe at times, but it also definitely I think tries to lean into that classic fifties kind of melodrama aesthetic. I don't want

to shit on the film. I think there's gonna be a lot of people that watch this and give it five stars. A lot of people are probably gonna love the aesthetic. A lot of people are probably really gonna resonate with this because they like melodrama or because you know, that whole paranoia aspect is done very well. The main actor in this is Roy Schneider. Excuse me, Roy Scheider, and you know he's actually really good. He has to play a part where he's coming out of an institution,

a mental institution, a psychiatric hospital. He's being released and he lives with this paranoia that he's being followed. And it's that whole thing that's in a lot of thrillers, I guess to say, where you don't know if they're being paranoid or if they're paranoid is based on something real and you just don't really know, so it adds to the drama. There are some elements to this movie I think they nail. For me, it was a little bit of a confusing tone and I didn't really register

with it. But please please comment, tell me why I'm an idiot. I would love to hear from people that love this movie. It has been selling less. I don't think that's any tie into you know, my views on it. Obviously, I'm not saying that. I just as far as I can tell, it has sold only about two thousand copies, which is still pretty good for a movie that a lot of people have seen. You know, for a Jonathan Demi picture, you probably would have thought it would have

sold more. I'm imagining this is going to sell a lot during the sale the you know, biennial sales. If I was going to pick it up and give it a chance, it would certainly for me, I would wait for the sale. But don't let me dissuade you. If you're into cerchi and melodrama or that kind of conspiracy theory genre, it does a good job in both of those, all right. Moving on from cinematograph, moving on to Dicaser video. There was a release from de Goster in July, it

was Blood Cult. The story behind Blood Cult is pretty cool. There was a filmmaker named Christopher Lewis. He was one of the first or maybe the first filmmaker hired specifically to make direct to video movies. So he made some horror films. Vinegar Syndrome has released a lot of them and previous to this, and one of the ones that

came out this month was Blood Cult. It has under a thousand views on letterbox and it's an interesting one to have such a little views because it's got kind of a cool history, right, I mean, it was a pioneer in a lot of ways. Blood Cult the Ripper was a movie that came out from De Goser last month, I believe, or within the last two months. And then separately on the VS mainline, there's a Homegrown Horrors box set that has Blood Cult too, but it has a

differ I think it's maybe Revenge. It has a different name, but it's in the Homegrown Horror set, and so it's the first three these kind of early three direct to video horror films from Christopher Lewis. He has a very distinct style. This movie is a lot of fun actually, so it opens up well within the first five minutes anyways, there's this killer is beating someone to death with someone else's head, just to give you a sense of, you know,

the wildness here within Blood cult. Right, So Christopher Lewis had a good sense for horror creative in the Kills. I think if you think about the budget on this one was pretty low and that shows at times. I mean, it's not flawless, and people are people that don't like this are going to point out maybe some of the acting or some of the aesthetics of it are pretty

low budget, which I mean fair. But if you once you kind of get settled into this story, I think you see Christopher Lewis was trying to do and I think it's it's a pretty solid story. Actually, it's a pretty solid horror story. I think it's done really well. I think the kills are very kind of imaginative, obviously in a very macab way. I think the mystery, sort of the suspense of who the killer is is kept pretty well and the whole thing has this sort of

dreamy vibe to it at times like that. I think they use the camera well when they want to convey like for example, when when the Cult comes in. When you first meet the cult, they sort of pan out to where the there's not a lot of detail. You lose the fact that it's like a low budget film that you smoke a lot, that you shadows a lot. They use the music well to create atmosphere. I think they do a good job. I think there's a lot of artistic vision in this uh. And it's a really

good release, this one. See it's sold at least the limited edition, you know, because the standard always sells as well, but at least the limited edition has already sold over a thousand copies. It's selling pretty fast, it seems like. And as far as features go, it's cool because they actually found an old commentary truck with the director, so

they put that on here. And there's a new commentary truck with the producer of the movie and a film historian named John Woolley produces Linda Lewis, who's related to Christopher. And then there's a bunch of documentaries and kind of shorts on there. I guess there's a new interview with Linda Lewis. There's an interview with Bob Blair, which is pretty cool because he's the son of the person who

produced this movie, so he gives that background. That's an eight minute interview with him, and there's a full hour long documentary they found and put on this disc as well, from twelve and a few archival interviews. So it's extremely stacked release, very similar to the way that Saturn's Core.

I don't know if y'all have a lot of those in your you know, in your shelves, but if you don't have Saturn's Core and you're okay with shot on video or like a lot of low budget filmmaking, you know, they're one of the best at just stacking hours of content on the disc, and Degasser certainly is doing a good job of feeling like that. There's also an early short film that was also produced by this guy, Bill Blair. It's called The Appointment. It's fine, it's it's cute, it's

it's a fun little watch. It's short, it's like seven minutes. But yeah, so you know, it's definitely sov you have to kind of know if that's something you're comfortable with and that's something you're interested in. But it has this great history of being an early, you know, kind of a movie made specifically for the home video market. So the I said Linda was related to Chris, I'm sorry,

it's his wife. So you know, you get to see the movie and then you get to hear the wife of the director talk about it, and she has obviously all the history and and everything, so it's uh, yeah, I mean, I think this is a fun one. I like it. I do like SOOV movies I have. I have a lot of them. I watch a lot of them. For me, I'm really happy to own this and I'm excited to go check out The Ripper pretty soon so

I can complete the trilogy. All right. Moving on from Degasser is, I don't think there's a distrib Pics title from July. Please forgive me if I got that wrong, but I don't believe there is. So going right into we have three more left. We're gonna do Vinegar Syndrome Archive, Vinegar Syndrome Labs, and then Vinegar Syndrome Pictures. Okay. The Archive is a movie that similar to Chinese Torture Chambers story.

It's one of these like siminal events in my life where there was a time when I had not seen this and a time when I had, and I am

so happy to have seen this one. Okay, A Vinegar Central Archive is an interesting line because they're forty five titles in, so I can imagine that they might be entering into like a phase where you don't know what to buy, or you know, it's hard to keep up with them, or some of the early titles are going for these crazy prices on eBay, so the completionists get frustrated and don't want to buy because they don't, you know,

they don't want to feel like they can't complete. I get all that this is one you need to own. I swear they call me Macho Woman is so good, it's so funny. I don't know how there's only five hundred and eleven views on Letterbox. First of all, this must be one of those movies that just kind of snuck under the radar. It is a produced by Trauma,

not made by Trauma, but it's distributed by Trauma. It is a if you want to compare it, it's not a perfect comparison, but if you're going to compare it to a modern movie, it's sort of like a proto You're Next, where you meet this woman and you don't realize what she's capable of and as the film unfolds, you just see her getting stronger and stronger and stronger and smarter and more savvy and more handy and more you know, better ingenuity. And it's just crazy the stuff

that she's doing. By the end of the film, you know, she's like this stone cold killer. And she starts off as this meek, meek but there's this traditional kind of suburban you know, housewife or girlfriend, whatever it would be other than your next The other comparison for this would probably be something like a rape revenge movie, although there's no actual rape in the movie, so you don't have to sit through that to get to the revenge part.

It's like, as they start to attack her, she uses her sexuality to entice them in to then destroy them, so it happens in kind of rapid fire. She's somebody you don't want to mess with. It's the villains in this movie are what make it really fun. And I guess I've said this three times now, this is a fantastic movie. In a crowd, at a live event, at a party, it's a great time. Like there's this wonderful training montage where she's in this shed like sharpening her

tools because she's about to go back. Even though she's you know free or can escape, she's about to go back to the people that tried to hurt her and get her revenge on them. And this whole montage around getting all of her weapons ready is just beautiful film making. It's fantastic. It's the way she sharpens the weapons, the way she creates them, thinks about it like kind of you know, utility belt that she builds to hold them

all in, and just the whole thing is wonderful. And then the final kind of act of the movie is her using all these weapons and sitting traps and just becoming this like expert assass and just off of her wits. It's fantastic. They call me Macho woman is It's the most fun I've had in you know, vs archive has Action USA, which is the movie that got me into VSA a couple of years back. So I think it's I don't know if it's as good as that. It's one of my favorite movies of all time, but it's

in that same vein as Action USA. It's just a movie that has no business being as good and as fun as it is. And this is right up there for me, which I don't know if you haven't seen Action USA. That may sound like a joke or like I'm being sarcastic or something, but that's about the highest compliment I can give an action movie. I don't know how else to heap love on a movie other than to say it's it's in the ballpark of Action USA.

Just in terms of the creativity and the madness that goes into the writing and the making of this movie. It's pretty NonStop action. It doesn't really take a lot of breaks. It's just super fun. And I wish that Patrick donahue made a bunch of more movies. He only has a few credits to his name. Probably the most famous one outside of this would be a movie called Kill Squad. So hopefully some of you all have seen that.

I can't wait. I've heard about it for years. I haven't seen it, but I'm definitely gonna go check it out because Patrick got Donna, Who's somebody that I wish he was just still making movies. The other thing about Oh, I should say they kill me or they call me mach a woman. Seems like it's sold around two thousand copies ish in that range. It's just it's a shame. This movie needs to sell ten thousand copies and it needs to be on everybody's shelf. It's that good. I

can't wait for it to get recommended. You're hearing it here first. I just can't wait for more people to see this and start recommending it around. I hope it gets a huge cult following, and I hope everybody involved has a long career at conferences talking about how much fun they had making it all right. As about the opposite of the spectrum as you can possibly get from they call me macho woman. Let's talk about VS Labs. So VS Labs is a fascinating sub label for me.

They have, you know, the sci fi box that they put out of Peter Schalkin Movies is possibly my release of the year it came out. I love those movies. Obviously Radiance you know, put them out at the same time or whether it's like a split release or whatever. But the VS release was fantastic for them. As always, the Labs line I think has just it's fast, like the difference. It's truly it feels like a lapse, like

it really lives into the name. And this movie is another great example of truly living into the name because it's a nineteen eighty nine movie made for Polish TV, so right around then in Polish television, it's kind of like a golden era, right That's when you have the decalogue that came out right around the same time, and then you have this movie by Risad Bugaiski and these apologies.

Polish names are always tricky for me, but Interrogation is if anybody has seen Tom tick Vers Heaven, it reminds me a little bit of that's It also has some parallels, although this is going to be an odd comparison talking about Polish people coming up out of the war, but it has a little bit of comparisons to a Nazis politation movie. There's no Nazis in this movie, but there is a kind of secret police and there is this

kind of control. The world of Interrogation is a world where police can bring people in and hold them for no reason and interrogate them if they think there's a crime, if they think they're involved, they can hold them and torture them and do whatever they want to. So it's about the story of a woman who's brought in and you know, interrogated, and it's a very strict police regime. They have no respect for these Polish prisoners that they view them a lot of them. They view them as

conspirators or specifically communists. Is kind of like the bad word of the time. And so they're in there trying to get information for them to break up the communist you know, rebels I guess in the area at that time, and a love story kind of develops. It's complicated, right, but there's a love story that develops between the prisoner and one of the guards. I don't want to give away too much, but the way that it plays out, you know, it has its own twists, and it has

its own kind of angles there. This is for sure, you know, an art house movie. It's for sure a more serious festival film. It would be interesting to see what happens if this one sells like hotcakes for them. I think as of the time I'm looking at this, it's not exactly been as hot as a seller as some other titles. I don't know, you know, maybe this is exactly what labs is for, is to kind of figure out which ones are going to sell more and less. It'd be really interesting to see if if Yes starts

to dig into Polish movies. Obviously those wells are pretty deep. There's a lot of fantastic directors and filmmakers that have still not been released even though they've been mined for films for years, and so I think, similar to Italy, Sweden, France, you know, this is one of those countries that has a pretty rich film history and a lot to pull from. So if this one does sell well, I'm assuming there

might be more. Honestly, even if it doesn't sell well, justin whoever's listening for the vs Labs line, please put out more Polish films. For the most part, there there's always something interesting, you know. This one I think suffers a little bit in my mind of being a little bit melodramatic at times. I think it's not very subtle in what it's saying and the way the writing is

done and the way the characters are written. It's certainly I think lacks a bit of subtlety, but it's very engrossing the way the story plays out is and I had a great time with this one. It's somewhat well seen on letter box, not great. It has thirty two hundred views, so it's somewhat known. The special features on this are a little bit light, although there's a really

good one. So they have a forty eight minute documentary with one of the people that's interviewed for that is agnieko Holland, who she's just been in some of the best sort of Polish films ever, and so it's really cool to hear her talk about it, as well as director Bogeyski's widow. So it's some archival footage that they found of her talking about it, and then there's an essay and booklet written by a Polish historian, so it creates some nice context around what was happening and what

was going on why this film is important. So yeah, I mean this is a nineteen It shows nineteen eighty two when it was made. It was released many different years all the way up until nineteen eighty nine. So this is one of those movies that has a you know, like a complex release history. It was yeah, I don't know.

I mean, it was nominated for a Palm d Or when it came out in nineteen ninety right, So look, I mean it's it's a film that has a lot of critical success behind it, and I think there's elements of it that I liked a lot, and I'm a sucker for Polish cinema, so I'm pro on this one. Yeah, I'm just I'm fascinated every time VSL has a new release because it's all over the place. It's like, you know, a western sort of comedy, Western or I said, Polish

sci fi. Now this one. But while we're on the topic of interrogation, if you haven't seen Tom Tickfers Heaven, it's something I've been meaning to revisit. I remember loving it. I saw it in theaters. Actually I don't even know twenty years ago, now, twenty two years ago, whatever, but I remember loving it and I still vividly remember the ending and sort of some of the way this story plays out. So I do want to go see it. After seeing this kind of made me want to go

back and revisit that. If anybody's seen Heaven recently, please talk to me. I'd love to hear if it still holds up, and y'all, we have done it. Last one Vinegar Syndrome Pictures VS. Pictures. This is released number seven. It's eight eyes. It's directed by Austin Jennings. If y'all know the name. It's I believe his first feature of film or second. But he has done over eighty episodes of The Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs, so he's you know, he has a lot of connections in

the industry. This is a horror film that he he has made. It was released last year twenty twenty three, played at a bunch of horror festivals, got a lot of attention. Lead actresses Emily Sweet, who obviously is kind of becoming a scream queen in her own right, been in quite a few horror movies. Before I get into the movie itself, just a little bit of background. It has about eleven hundred views on letterbocks. I imagine that's gonna go up quite a bit as word gets out

around this. I'll get into that in just a second. Has a lot of ties to just a lot of things that I love in general. Obviously, the Joe Bob Briggs is great. The producer of this is a guy named well Vinegar Syndrome has a hand in the money for this and producing it. One of the producers it was really involved in the Serbia side of this movie was a gentleman named Segar Dixon, who kind of has a trauma background, and it has sold pretty well. It's

going pretty fast. There's just over a thousand copies left of the time I'm recording this, but it's selling pretty fast. I imagine it'll still be around in the sale, but probably not that much longer than that. I think it'll probably at least the limit, it will probably be gone. It's selling pretty fast. So the basic premise here is some kind of combination of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre with you know, maybe like an Eli Roth movie, like Hostel,

something like that. Taurusts going to in this case at Serbia and Macedonia meet a local turns out to be the wrong person to hang out with. Terror ensues. Final girl comes out and has to claw her way out of a horrible, horrible, terror filled, horrific situation. This movie has a lot of pretty gnarly imagery, and I think one of the things is that I loved about it is it's obvious that Austin Jennings and maybe Matthew Frank the writer, I don't know who did it or if

this was living put from Viennager syndrome. I'm not sure, but the actual horror scenes in this film are fantastic. It's like, you know, art in the truest sense macabre and you know, fucked up for sure, but definitely art. They are filmed well designed well you immediately you don't have to have any background though. The whole set design, everything is just pure terror and the feeling of being trapped, the feeling of being tortured. They capture it all falllessly.

That's all done very well. The main villain in this the actor's name is Bruno. In the film, his name is Saint Peter. In real life his name is Bruno Velyanovsky. He's phenomenal. I think he does a really strong job

in this. He has to play like a couple different tones, and he has to go back and forth between being charming, being kind of like serious, being funny, just being like a good pal, and then really deeply believing in the cause and why he's bringing people into this kind of den of torture as the movie goes on, and he plays it all believingly. I think he's a fantastic find as an actor. He does a really good job. And again the makeup and his makeup in particular really helps.

But he pulls it off without it. I mean, he's just a great He seems like a really good actor, and he nails it. I hope he's in more horror movies. This is a gnurally nasty little number. There's no you know, there's a lot of tension early on, and certainly you get the vibe as they go deeper into Serbia and deeper into Macedonia that's something bad is about to happen.

But then every time Saint Peter turns it around and he turns on his charm and he pulls them in further and pulls them in further until they find themselves in a situation they can't escape from. And you have to get that final girl energy from Emily sweet Who and to her credit, she's written well and she does a great job in this. She's a very strong female lead.

Even early on in the movie, she's fighting I could get each step of the way of going deeper, and it's the husband who's kind of encouraging her to go along with this charming dude who's just having fun. And so the way that her character is written is very good. I think, you know, she's certainly the star and she's a believable star. This is a movie that probably doesn't need as many actors as it has, even I mean, this is a movie between Emily Sweet and Bruno Veglianovski.

This is a standoff between two powerful actors, good and evil. However you want to think about that, I will say that Bruno's family when they do go into the family home and you see that and the terror really starts. Those characters are designed well. This is a This is a movie by somebody that's seen a lot of horror movies and has a good eye for what's scary and what's horrific. And I think they pull it off. It's a It's a really good movie and VSP has been a lot of fun to watch just as a sub

label so far. I think this is release number seven, so it's crazy to think they've had a hand in producing seven movies already. But yeah, this is a really fun label to watch. I'm very curious to see kind of what they do. I mean, Riddle of Fire I believe was fully produced by them. But then you even go back into movies like Divinity from a few months ago, which is just unbelievably good and people have to watch Sick of Myself is so good. Scary of sixty first

is way better than I thought. It would be. Really cool, little fun m I don't even know what the word is for that, like a horror movie kind of based on psychosis and very frenetic and chaotics, similar to Possession almost Obviously, New York Ninja is a fun story. If you haven't don't know that story. They Live By Film has an episode on it, and there's a million interviews that Curtis has done on New York Ninja, and then Censor is one of the first ones that they did.

It was a really fun throwback kind of horror film with some really great kind of sploshy, kind of squishy kills and that are surprising. Yeah, we did it. So Okay. That is all of the Vinegar Syndrome mainline and sub label releases for July. I hope you got something out of that. Oh, I promised to go through the some of most of the end titles that I saw. Okay, I'm gonna do this very quickly because I did promise I was going to do it now.

and they're still finding really cool pieces of culture. So Amanda in the Alien is a little bit like Starman if you've seen Starman from Carpenter, but if you can imagine it was made by somebody who loved clueless and maybe a little bit like Reality Bites. It's extremely nineties, but it's a really fun piece of kind of a time capsule of the nineties, with a story that's pretty similar to Starman and also ven a little bit like.

It's about this alien that comes in and takes over bodies and has a sexual exploration and awakening and then learns to love and then yeah, I won't spoil the third act, but it's a fun one to watch for sure. Bleeding Skull put out Way Bad Stone. If there's any tabletop fans in this audience, this is a movie that is just absolutely a must own. I don't know how to say it. There will never be a more faithful Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, I guess you could say than this.

I don't think it's I don't think they claim it's a Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, but if it's just it's basically people that were actually real Renaissance fair folks getting together with a filmmaker from Florida and creating like a journey, like a story from one of these tabletop games, and filming it with their friends. And there's some really cool

costumes and set designs. Considering the whole budget with two thousand dollars, and from the quote from the director was a ninety percent went to feeding the fifty people that were working on the film. So Way Bad Stone from Bleeding Skull really cool. Find a great, great fun movie to watch. Go down. Death from Factory twenty five. As much as I talk about different labels here, I think this is the first Factory twenty five release that i've actually seen. I'm going to try to watch more. It's

an interesting one. This is a definitely a modern art surrealist, nonlinear kind of work of art, more than more than a linear film. Very experimental. Yeah, I don't this is a this is something there's you know, when art label broke off of culture shock and art label was started. This has a similar vibe to what I think Warren was talking about trying to start with art label. This is just a yeah, it's a very experimental movie, and

I wasn't quite in the mood for it. I'm going to watch it again so I can talk more openly about it and kind of give a more measured response. It cut me off guard and I struggled to follow it, but that's more on me than the film itself. I'm ready for it now. I don't ever read much on movies before I go in. I like to go and blind and let the movie kind of surprise me. But occasionally, for movies like this, it doesn't mean I need to

see them twice. Claire Denny. Okay, so I have C Films, you know, as a relatively new partner label, and Bastards from Claire Denny is out and it's a masterpiece. I don't know what else to say about it. It's an art house masterpiece. And it's gonna continue to rise on cit and sound list. I'm sure. I'm sure it'll continue to rise on they shoot pictures. It's a it's a

beautiful it's dark, it's very dark. It's very uncomfortable, and there are some scenes that are very horrific, as Claire Denny can do sometimes, but it's it's a fantastic movie. The basic premises there's a guy trying to find this this person who's sexually abusing kids. I guess I'm trying to think of what to say without spoiling too much. It's just I guess it's sort of like a ifnything Taken.

The premise of Taken, I guess, but you remove a lot of the hollywoodness of it and you kind of strip it down to the idea of a chase to find to prove somebody's guilty of committing these horrific crimes and turn it into more of a French art house picture. That's kind of what Bastard is. But it's a masterpiece. It's really good. And then speaking of experimental Saturn's cores. I mentioned them earlier. Saturn's Core put out a double feature. I have not seen Kittie Killers, but I have seen

Living a Zombie Dream and the movie's really good. Like it's another one of these ones, similar to maybe Cornshucker or some of these ones where it's an s OV film, but the way they construct the story is experimental and it makes it to where I'm watching it, I forget that it's a SOV and I'm just captivated in the way that they're editing and like the stories they make. This one is literally kind of looks asked the question

of what would zombies dream about? But it does it in a very interesting way and extremely creative, and as always, it's chocked full of a ton of special features. So Living in Zombie Dream is a cool release from Saturns Court. And speaking of high numbers, they're up to thirty seven, So some of these partner labels from Ocean are getting up to becoming, you know, legitimate labels and to themselves. But I'm glad they're there. It's easy for me to kind of go in one place and buy them. Also,

I hope they stick around for a while. I am on Instagram, I am on Reddit. I'll post the links in the episode. I would love to chat about this, like this is the fun thing I want to do. Like I said, I hope this is the only episode where I'm by myself. I'm trying to get guests for the next three or four episodes. We already have guest line up, so that we should be good. I'm going to try to keep that going as much as possible. Try to get people from VS and I try to

get people from around the community as well. This is something that's important to me to not make mine, but to truly make the something for the community, right, So I hope we can do that. If you have anything on this that you don't like or you want to

hear more about, just tell me. I'm wide open. And one of the things I do want to highlight there's a relatively new podcast coming out called the Trash Mechs Podcast by Armando, and episode one just came out and he's going to be a guest on here in October. If we can pull that off. I'm hoping that that works to get him on in October. But yeah, Armando is a super talented, knowledgeable person. Go check out the Trash mechs podcast and what else came up in this episode.

Go check out aerosplus Massacre at Sam Degan's podcast. Go check out On Some Horrors. That's Eric Schultz's podcast. I mean, how can we possibly name all the great podcasts out there. Obviously we're on someone's favorite production. Go check out Disconnected. If you want to see live they live by film. We have other than the recent Fast and the Furious

series that we just went through. If you go back through our history, we have a lot of interviews with the OCN labels and a lot of the different boutique labels really trying to be passionate about promoting this industry. Y'all. Thank you so much. I can't you know anybody who's

listening this far. Thank you so much. I can't wait to do announcements on September first, right around September first, And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to pick a label to highlight, a partner label to highlight as well.

I'm going to keep it as surprised, and I'm going to keep it a surprise because I don't have the guest finalized yet, but you know, we have time, so I'm going to get a guest finalized and try to bring in somebody from that label to talk about their films and and really go a little bit more in depth after announcements to spend time talking about their films.

So it should be fun, should be I hope this is a good addition to the episode and give a chance to get to know some of the back you know, catalog titles a little better for some of these labels. Love you all again. You know on Instagram, I'm on Reddit. I'm not on Reddit under punk Vacation I'm on, so check the links to If you're on Reddit, come talk to me there. I try to write reviews. I average somewhere about three hundred reviews a year that I write

on Reddit and also Letterbox. I'm obviously on there. But then you know, they live by film as a place you can find some more of the interviews we've done and some discussion we've done. Uh and then I can't wait to do a hundred of these, So all right, seell later.