LATE PHASES (2014) Blu-ray Review

Late Phases (2014) d. Adrian Garcia Bogliano (USA)

Retired Vietnam War veteran Ambrose McKinley (Nick Damici) has a disability and a problem. The disability? He’s blind. The problem? He’s been “reassigned” to a retirement community, or, in less politically correct parlance, an old folks’ neighborhood. As Ambrose puts it, “This isn’t where you go to live, it’s where you go to die.” Unfortunately, a bigger problem lies within the first, issuing forth once a month like a wolf in human’s clothing. Yes, Crescent Bay has become the favorite feeding spot of an insatiable lycanthrope, and the old soldier’s new neighbors are being picked off like so many sheep, quite possibly by one of their own. Will he be able to pick out/pick off the shapeshifter in time, or will the cycle of death and mutilation continue?

CHEAP THRILLS (2013) movie review

Cheap Thrills (2013) (1st viewing) d. Katz, E.L. (USA)

Struggling schmoe Pat Healy can’t seem to catch a break. The same day an eviction notice shows up on his crummy apartment’s door, he is let go from his grease monkey job at the local auto lube pit. Oh, and did I mention the crying baby with Amanda Fuller at home? Drowning sorrow in a well-earned glass of brew, he runs into childhood buddy-turned-legbreaker Ethan Embry; while catching up on old times and cursing the new, the mismatched pair is joined by rich mystery couple David Koechner and Sara Paxton. Games of derring do and straight-up foolishness are slyly introduced into the proceedings...with the almighty dollar the stick-end carrot leading the asses to the slaughter.