Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Devil's Revenge (Cleopatra) Blu-ray Review

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Horace Cordier
    Senior Member

  • Devil's Revenge (Cleopatra) Blu-ray Review

    Click image for larger version

Name:	Devils-Revenge-Blu-ray-Review-cover.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	29.1 KB
ID:	385574


    Released by: Cleopatra

    Released on: October 15th, 2019.
    Director: Jared Cohn
    Cast: William Shatner, Jeri Ryan, Jason Brooks, Ciara Hanna, Annmarie Giaquinto
    Year: 2019

    Purchase From Amazon

    Devil's Revenge - Movie Review:

    William Shatner is a fun actor and Jeri Ryan is a good actress who pretty much defines middle-aged hot lady. And that's about all the good stuff I have to say about this terrible film.

    Directed by a guy with 50+ credits this is the kind of movie that is expressly designed to be made cheap and dumped into the streaming market or sold off as Z-list filler to plump up the catalogs of Netflix or its cheaper cousins. The most expensive things in it are the Shat's salary and probably Ryan's (because I guarantee you that even if the price tag on this thing was one and a half million dollars - at least 50% of that went towards the two actors' salaries). This looks like the kind of thing The Asylum guys (remember those shitty knockoff flicks with titles like THE TRANSMORPHERS?) bilge-pumped out at a steady clip 10+ years ago. And surprise, surprise it WAS made by an Asylum guy who made quite a few films for that hallowed studio.

    Plot you say? Family man and cut rate archaeologist John Brock (Jason Books) returns from a cave expedition in Kentucky both thoroughly freaked out and minus one dead buddy from the expedition. Seems John was hunting for a relic that's tied into a supposed curse on his family. His crazy-ass father (a wildly overacting Shatner) believes that the family will be beset by demons until the relic is recovered. Jason's wife (Ryan) thinks gramps is crazier than a shithouse rat in a meth lab. After being tormented by visions of demons and a near fatal cardiac episode, John decides to go back to the cave to recover the relic and destroy it once and for all and thereby lift the family curse. Except for some inexplicable reason he's talked into taking the whole family along for the ride - son, daughter, wife and Pops.

    I could tell you what happens in the cave but I'm trying to keep any readers still with me so far awake so I'll make it brief. Demons - decked out in weird Japanese looking battle armor and horns resembling creature refugees from bad German heavy metal album covers of the 1980's show up, the world's most brightly lit caves are explored and William Shatner fires off a huge shotgun. But who will survive and what will be left of them and who will give a shit?

    Shatner has what I would guess amounts to about 15 minutes on screen. The scenes consist of him shouting at his son and threatening to kill him and some cave spelunking and weapon firing. Seems Mr. Ineffectual archaeologist is incapable of making decisions and dad finds him to be a miserable coward. Or something.

    Shatner's histrionics provide a certain amount of entertainment and that's all you're getting people. Ryan is completely wasted, the two college-age kids look cute but don't do anything and the pacing of the film is atrocious. This is a film where characters go for a walk for 10 minutes and you get to watch them every step of the way. Ditto for a car sequence. Want to experience driving for 10 minutes on film? Well, here's your chance.

    Lame.

    Devil's Revenge - Blu-ray Review:

    Cleopatra's 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded presentation looks fine, framed at 2.35.1 widescreen. This looks to have been shot digitally though and some of the CGI is very dodgy. That said, the film doesn't look unduly harsh. And some of the nature footage looks lovely. But the director's affection for overly bright lighting does lend an air of soap opera artificiality to the proceedings at times. And the demon costumes show their seams a bit too much. Overall this is a more than acceptable presentation though.

    Audio is a choice of Dolby Digital tracks of the stereo 2.0 and 5.0 surround sound variety. I watched on the 5.0 and had a fairly standard surround sound experience with good separation and surround activity. I did sample the stereo track and it was solid.

    Extras consist of the films fairly good spooky soundtrack on a separate CD, some dodgy looking trailers for other films by the studio, and an image gallery.

    Devil's Revenge - The Final Word:

    Unless you have an uncontrollable need to see all things William Shatner, I would skip this one. Cleopatra's package isn't terrible but the movie is.

    Click on the images below for full sized Devil's Revenge Blu-ray screen caps!






























    Posting comments is disabled.

Latest Articles

Collapse

  • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Severin Films
    Released on: April 30th, 2024.
    Director: Lee Frost
    Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
    Year: 1969
    Purchase From Amazon

    Hot Spur – Movie Review:

    Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
    ...
    03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
  • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Mondo Macabro
    Released on: April 9th, 2024.
    Director: Max Pecas
    Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
    Year: 1985
    Purchase From Amazon

    Death Squad – Movie Review:

    Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
    ...
    03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
  • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Quality X
    Released on: February 28th, 2024.
    Director: Chuck Vincent
    Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
    Year: 1982
    Purchase From Amazon

    Roommates – Movie Review:

    Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
  • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Blue Underground
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Jess Franco
    Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
    Year: 1970
    Purchase From Amazon

    Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

    Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
  • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Saul Bass
    Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
    Year: 1974
    Purchase From Amazon

    Phase IV – Movie Review:

    Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
  • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Radiance Films
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
    Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
    Year: 1969-1972
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

    Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
    ...
    03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
Working...
X