Here at CHUD, we get a lot of DVDs. Like, A LOT. We handle as many as we can, but sometimes, the discs pile up in the Sewer and with all the toxic waste down here, they can start to get a little…well…hot. When that happens, we gotta hit the purge button and clear them out before the whole joint melts down.
A Hijacking (Buy It Here)
I’ve already given A Hijacking some love a couple of times. I gave it very high marks, first in a review, and also ranked it near the top of The Underground’s Top 15 last year. Truth be told, I got nothing left to say about the movie itself. It’s an excellent piece of cinema. As far as the blu-ray itself goes, it’s likewise good, although a bit light in special features. The five behind-the-scenes featurettes total about 14 minutes. One thing I was shocked to learn though is that the MV Rozen, the ship on which half the movie was shot, was actually captured by pirates about five years ago and the crew that acted as the crew extras were also taken hostage, including the captain. Tobias Lindholme also utilized the CEO of a company that had a ship taken and that owns 250 cargo ships worldwide as a consultant. So there was some real life experience directly going into this movie, which helps account for its realism.
How Hot Is It?
Pretty steamin’. This is a great disc to add to your collection.
Rating: 
Out of a Possible 5 Stars
Chilling Visions (Buy It Here)
Still a shame to see that horror anthologies, especially good ones, are still something of a rarity. I don’t think I’ve seen one since Trick ‘R Treat, and that one is the new standard by far. Chilling Visions, from Chiller Films and the Scream Factory, is somewhere in the middle. It contains five horror shorts that loosely connect to each other, each one focusing on a particular sense. “Smell,” directed by Nick Everhart centers on a corporate drone Seth Kyle, (Cory Scott Rutledge) who is given a bottle of special perfume that will turn around his fortunes in love and at work, but at a terrible price. “See,” directed by Miko Hughes, finds an optometrist (Ted Yudain), who has discovered a method to steal people’s memories through their eyes as eye drops and then relive them. His involvement in a domestic abuse case with one of his patients, however, backfires on him big time.
“Touch,” directed by Emily Hagins, finds a cunning blind boy (Caleb Barwick) who must find help for his parents after an accident in the woods, that just happen to be the chosen territory of a serial killer. “Taste,” directed by Eric England, finds a hacker (Doug Roland) in a job interview with a lady who really doesn’t take no for an answer…and apparently has Jigsaw as her orthodontist. And “Listen,” directed by Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton, is a found footage tale (actually, it’s a found footage of found footage tale) of a group of grad students working to reconstruct a song that has deadly side effects when listened to in its entirety.
How Hot Is It?
Medium. It’s a fine effort that doesn’t quite reach its full potential. “Smell,” and “Listen” bookend the movie nicely. Although the choppiness to the found footage in “Listen” was a bit too choppy. I love the premise of it though “See” wasn’t that great, and “Touch” was far too short for such an interesting possibility and good performance by Caleb Barwick. “Taste” was more of a bridging vignette than a full story, but holy crap does it have some incredible mangled face make-up. There was an attempt to interconnect the films a la Trick ‘R Treat, centering the events around a mysterious corporation called Watershed, but it was half-hearted and vague at best. Chilling Visions would be a good pickup when its on sale.
Rating: 
Out of a Possible 5 Stars
To Jennifer (Buy It Here)
I chose to take a look at To Jennifer for the novelty factor. It’s reputed to be the first feature film ever shot, edited and distributed on the iPhone 5. It wasn’t too long before the novelty wore off, however. Found footage movies are only tolerable if A) the acting is exceptional, and/or B) the action onscreen is compelling. Here it’s neither. There’s actually a pretty good premise behind To Jennifer, and a secret that you can figure out if you’re paying attention. The story centers on a guy, Joey (Chuck Pappas) who is planning to make a video on his phone to show his girlfriend, Jennifer (Jessica Cameron), whom he suspects of cheating on him.
So he involves his obnoxious cousin, Steven (director James Cullen Bressack) and Steven’s pal Martin (Jody Barton) on a road trip to confront her, filming their experiences the whole way. It’s just that what mostly happens on screen is so inane and filled with extraneous shit as to virtually bleed any interest you have in getting to the end. I won’t ruin it, but suffice it to say, the execution and writing (so to speak, most of this looked improv’ed) can’t live up to the premise. And the video, since it was shot on an iPhone, is generally good to bad VHS quality at times. Although I did get a kick out of the fact that the phone being featured during calls was a Samsung. I’m thinking of ripping the movie and watching it on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 to see if the whole thing explodes.
How Hot Is It?
It’s a Blackberry.
Rating:
Out of a Possible 5 Stars
The Canyons (Buy It Here)
I got The Canyons to see Lindsay Lohan nude. She’s been such a train wreck the last five years, but her figure (i.e. her awe-inspiring cans) has never disappointed. I’d heard generally unfavorable things about the movie, that it wasn’t very good, despite being written by Bret Easton Ellis and directed by Paul Schrader. So after seeing it, 1) Lohan still looks fabulous naked, despite the fact that her face at times looks like Kramer’s when he went on that smoking binge and turned his mug into a 1920s catchers mitt. 2) It’s not that good. Supposedly Lohan was the one getting most of the praise for her acting in this movie. But I think James Deen was the big surprise here. He has some pretty good ability as an actor, unless he’s naturally just a rich douchey little prick and was just playing himself, but I doubt it. The Canyons sets out to be a shocking erotic thriller, but doesn’t really make it. There’s very little shock to be found and you’ll find more salacious stuff in 30 seconds of Skinemax. In the end, it’s really just a quartet of people banging each other and lying about it to each other. This is barely a rent, certainly not a buy.
How Hot Is It?
Pretty smokin’ when Lindsay Lohan and co-star Tenille Houston are nude. All other times, lukewarm. There are some very minor behind-the-scenes and another eight-minute featurette for special features.
Rating:
Out of a Possible 5 Stars