ANCHOR BAY is Back

CRUST, CURSED IN BAJA and ABRUPTIO

(Blu-ray)

FROM ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT

Review by Mr. Bonnie, the Beastie🙀

For those who don’t pay attention to this sort of thing, Anchor Bay Entertainment was a prolific home video label that made a name for itself back in the early days of DVD. They were renowned for releasing classic cult and horror films, sometimes putting together superlative boxed sets. To this date, nobody has put out a better physical media release of the original Dawn of the Dead. 

Now Anchor Bay is being resurrected, perhaps in name only, starting with three brand new B-movies that might appeal to the cult horror crowd...

This particular hotel will be getting a one-star review.

CRUST (2024/102 min) - Though his name may not ring a bell, Sean Whalen is one of those character actors you’ll undoubtedly recognize. He’s probably best known for supporting roles in Twister and a number of comedies, as well as commercials and TV guest spots.

Whalen directs, co-writes and stars in Crust, a black-and-white horror comedy about Vegas Winters, a depressed former child star who’s now a reclusive laundromat owner. He’s regularly abused by bullies and his ex-girlfriend, at least until a pile of stray socks he’s been collecting comes to life to exact revenge on his behalf.

Crust has obvious cult aspirations, beginning with the title creature, which is amusingly presented through puppetry. There’s also an emphasis on absurd humor and situations, as well as characters who run the gamut from charming and sympathetic to exaggerated and obnoxious. Though the film is fun for awhile and Whalen is wonderful as Vegas, a little of this goes a long way and it eventually runs out of gas. But at least Whalen avoids beating viewers to death with a one-joke premise.

EXTRA KIBBLES

LOS ANGELES PREMIERE Q&A - Featuring most of the main cast.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By director/co-writer/star Sean Whalen.

2 SHORTS - Dorothy: 50 Years Later and Dorothy 2: The Bump and Run feature Sean Whalen in drag as an older, chainsmoking Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Hopelessly lost.

CURSED IN BAJA (2024/80 min) - Like Whalen, Jeff Daniel Phillips is another recognizable character actor turned B-movie auteur. His frequent appearances in Rob Zombie films has apparently rubbed off on him, since Cursed in Baja has an aesthetic similar to the Firefly Trilogy, albeit on a much smaller budget.

Phillips plays Pirella, a former cop, con and junkie who’s hired by a dying millionnaire to find his missing son, Quinn. His search leads him to Baja, Mexico, where Quinn has apparently fallen in with drug dealers and a weird cult that worships Chupacabra. This cult regularly sacrifices victims to the beast, including the guy who was first-hired to find Quinn.

Despite Phillips’ earnest efforts on both sides of the camera, this thriller/horror hybrid struggles to successfully combine the two genres. While the film maintains a slightly surreal atmosphere and Pirella is kind of an interesting character, the horror elements feel shoehorned into the narrative, and pretty late in the game, too. The monster is nicely rendered and the death scenes are pretty cool, but they’re not enough to overcome a meandering story and drab supporting performances. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

MAKING-OF FEATURETTE - Featuring writer/director/star Jeff Daniel Phillips.

AUDIO COMMENTARY - By writer/director/star Jeff Daniel Phillips.

Horror for Dummies.

ABRUPTIO (2023/94 min) - Insanity time, kids…in Abruptio, Les Hackel is a miserable thirtysomething. Struggling with alcoholism, he still lives with his mother, is stuck in a dead-end job and his girlfriend just left him. Life is drab, daily routine…at least until he learns that a bomb has been implanted in his head by some mysterious organization. It’ll explode if he doesn’t comply with each demand they make, so Les is forced to commit some unspeakable acts, including gassing his co-workers to death and executing an innocent family.

But Abruptio is just getting started. The plot also involves mass waves of violence, body disposal, slavery and malevolent aliens trying to crossbreed with humans. The film is relentlessly gory and has a pitch black sense of humor. But here’s the kicker…the characters are all life-sized puppets, which not only renders everything more surreal, it elevates the film above just another slaughterfest. At the same time, this element somehow makes the extreme violence and cruelty little easier to endure. Had it been done with human actors, Abruptio might have been unwatchable…maybe unfilmable.

The use of puppetry for a horror film initially feels like a superfluous gimmick, but it does make this one immediately more interesting. The story itself grows increasingly bizarre and hallucinatory before coming to a conclusion that, depending on the viewer, is either ingenious or a cheat. Either way, Abruptio isn’t for everyone, but chances are good that adventurous horror fans will love every minute of it. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTE - A New Kind of Horror features interviews with writer/director Evan Marlowe and most of the main cast.

2 AUDIO COMMENTARIES - 1) By writer/director Evan Marlowe % producer Kerry Marlowe; 2) By puppeteer Danny Montooth.

It remains to be seen whether or not any of these low budget oddities achieve any kind of cult status. Of the three, Abruptio probably has the best chance, since it’s easily the most bizarrely original. At any rate, welcome back Anchor Bay.