Ranger Security offers its clients a revolutionary way to protect their businesses, using an electrical system to defend stores from thieves. Inventor David (Boris Karloff) has an upgrade for owner Stephen (Samuel S. Hinds), but the moneyman desires to screw the nearly blind genius out of a fortune. Upset with his treatment, David teams with lowlife Petty Louie (Alan Baxter) to showcase his ability to crack Ranger Security systems. However, what was once envisioned as protest turns into trouble for David when local gangsters try to take command of the technology. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While primarily known for his screenwriting credits (including “Jurassic Park” and “Panic Room”), David Koepp has been quietly building a filmography as a director. Of course, his last effort was the maligned “Mortdecai” (silly fluff, nothing to get upset over), but his early years were devoted to genre efforts, taking great interest in the vastness of human paranoia and delusion. There was “Stir of Echoes” and “Secret Window,” and Koepp returns to his first love with “You Should Have Left.” It’s meant to be a spooky tale, adapting a novella by Daniel Kehlmann, but Koepp isn’t 100% committed to delivering scares, endeavoring to make a movie about the strangeness of relationships and the weight of guilt. “You Should Have Left” needs to be approached with lowered expectations, as it’s not much of a fright film, doing much better with troubled characters and the secrets they keep. Read the rest at Bu-ray.com

“7500” offers an unusual blend of procedural drama and hijack chiller, and it manages to take on such a challenge with almost complete authority. It’s the feature-length directorial debut for Patrick Vollrath (who also co-scripts with Senad Halilbasic), who goes close-quarters while depicting a horrific terrorism event, only remaining inside the cockpit of a plane flying from Germany to France. The camera doesn’t leave the claustrophobic space for most of the run time, staying tight on the main character as he makes brutal choices concerning life and death, left with only training and remnants of compassion to see him through a situation that changes his life forever. “7500” is as nail-biting as a top-tier thriller gets, managing to shred viewer nerves with filmmaking precision before evolving into something else to defy expectations. It’s one heck of a breakout movie from Vollrath. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Mr. Jones” presents the story of journalist Gareth Jones, who not only managed to make his way into the Soviet Union during the early years of conflict before World War II, he witnessed the ravages of the Holodomor in Ukraine, exposed to the horrors of a man-made famine utilized by Joseph Stalin to destroy the country, using its riches to as “gold” to demonstrate power to the rest of the world. For 2020, such a dire tale of political exposure isn’t an easy sell, but in director Agnieszka Holland’s hands, the feature becomes a riveting study of reporting and corruption that greatly mirrors the world’s struggles of today. “Mr. Jones” maintains a steady pace and sense of dramatic urgency throughout, giving Holland one of her most effective movies in years, and one smartly designed by screenwriter Andrea Chalupa (making a fine debut), who encourages suspense while delivering a powerful message on the value of the press. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With 2018’s “BlacKkKlansman,” director Spike Lee achieved something that’s actually been quite rare during his lengthy career: a big hit. The picture managed to wow critics, inspire the awards circuit, and lure audiences into theaters to see one of the helmer’s better features, which bristled with angry energy and indulged cop movie theatrics. Coming off the powerful “Chi-Raq,” Lee was suddenly on a roll again, ready to cash in some of his clout to make an epic for Netflix, the company eager to spend anything on anyone. “Da 5 Bloods” isn’t Lee’s most ambitious effort (1992’s “Malcolm X” wins that prize), but he’s swinging for the fences with this examination of the black experience in Vietnam, which is intertwined with more defined elements of wartime action and guilt-ridden madness. It’s a messy endeavor, overlong and yet somewhat ill-defined, but Lee’s mojo carries the project most of the way, offering a periodically vivid understanding of pure racial and political frustration. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Cult movies aren’t born, they’re made by audiences willing to put in the time and money to celebrate features that either died while trying to be mainstream, or never stood a chance when offered for universal acceptance. Cult entertainment is a topic that’s been explored repeatedly in all forms of media (it’s bread-and-butter content for podcasts), but director Danny Wolf hopes to provide expanse and access with “Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time,” which is a three-part examination of cinematic offerings that’ve become a secret language for some, creating legacies few could predict but millions adore. Next up is “Volume 3: Comedy and Camp,” examining the efforts that, for the most part, died during their initial theatrical runs trying to delight audiences with strangeness and satire the general public wasn’t ready to accept at the time. With the box office bloodshed over, Wolf is now taking on the endeavors that managed to hold on due to unique perspectives and low-budget ingenuity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1973, Peter Medak directed “Ghost in the Noonday Sun,” a pirate adventure starring Peter Sellers. In truth, he didn’t really direct the feature, he survived it, and barely that, going into the project with slight hesitation, coming out a changed man with a profound fear that his career was killed by the experience. Over four decades later, Medak’s blood still boils at the thought of the endeavor, wrestling with unresolved issues pertaining to Sellers and his atrocious behavior on-set, showing little care for anything but himself. With hopes to reconcile with the past and see if there’s a way back into the time lost while making “Ghost in the Noonday Sun,” Medak turns to documentary therapy for “The Ghost of Peter Sellers,” where he recounts his days spent on the doomed project, managing a star who hired him but ultimately didn’t want to participate, methodically destroying the movie in the process. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Screenwriter Rita Kalnejais has her heart in the right place with “Babyteeth,” constructing a lived-in ode to adolescent heartbreak and parental anxiety. It’s an Australian production that aims to explore painful relationships exploding under one roof, delving into all sorts of uncomfortable realities and stunted interactions, with the story basically out to understand the mindset of frustrated people who can’t communicate with the precision they hope for. It’s about messiness, and director Shannon Murphy tries to respect the free spirit nature of the material, securing a loose feel for characters experiencing the highs and lows of life. Murphy also spreads the roaming narrative over two hours, which tends to strangle elements of intimacy that work so well for the effort. “Babyteeth” has moments of emotional clarity that are exquisite, but there’s also a large portion of the overlong feature that resembles a filmed acting class. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Dismissed as a 100-minute-long commercial for Nintendo during its initial 1989 theatrical release, "The Wizard" has managed to shed such contempt over the last three decades of cult appreciation. Make no mistake, the feature is one big plug for the video game company, with the production making sure to highlight new games and controllers, while nearly every character has a fever for the NES and all the video adventure it provides. However, there's a bit more to "The Wizard" than promotion, with screenwriter David Chisholm and director Todd Holland making an effort to get the picture to a point of emotional connection, trying to stuff as much family business as possible into the corners of the endeavor. It's up to the viewer to decide how successful the creative vision is, as the movie isn't the sturdiest dramatic offering, often struggling with tonal extremes as the sugar rush of gaming meets the sobering reality of death and familial denial. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After experiencing success with "Good Will Hunting" and "Finding Forrester," director Gus Van Sant decided to cleanse his filmmaking system with 2003's "Gerry," a deliberate attempt from the helmer to get back to his experimental roots. Taking inspiration from the work of Euro talent such as Bela Tarr, Van Sant delivers a purely observational viewing experience with "Gerry," which consists of lengthy takes and limited dialogue, examining the gradual deterioration of two men (Casey Affleck and Matt Damon) lost in the desert, left with nothing to do but walk as they search hopelessly for a rescue. It's as spare as it gets, which is exactly what Van Sant wants for this initial installment of his "Death Trilogy." Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While 1970's "Hollywood Horror House" provides a lively cult movie viewing experience, it never quite tops its opening sequence. Writer/director Donald Wolfe introduces the audience to the Hollywood of yesterday, which was fueled by star power, with actors selling their glamour and polish to the masses, creating a unique time in the entertainment industry when such incredible fame could be achieved just by appearing in features, creating tremendous excitement. Wolfe cooks up an introductory montage of glitz before cutting to the then-current state of the Hollywood Sign, carefully photographed by the production, using main title time to study its rusted, peeling appearance, signaling the end of Old Hollywood and the dead splendor of the town. It's a powerful statement on the changing times, and the last bit of intelligent commentary from Wolfe, who quickly leaps into the B-movie muck with this riff on multiple dramas and thrillers, endeavoring to create a nightmare for the drive-in audience using the remnants of a bygone era of stardom and filmmaking. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Three years ago, "47 Meters Down" enjoyed a movie release miracle, rescued from a DTV fate by Entertainment Studios, who purchased the film on the day of its DVD debut, with the company trying to cash in on shark fever at the cinema. The plan worked, with "47 Meters Down" managing to find an audience, keeping the subgenre alive for another season. This summer, the real aquatic action remains with alligators (from last July's excellent thriller, "Crawl"), but the suits aren't about to leave money on the table, returning to the deep with "47 Meters Down: Uncaged," which has nothing to do with the first picture, merely taking its title and sharks for another underwater joyride. Co-writer/director Johannes Roberts returns as well, newly empowered to dump character work and suspense, focused primarily on making a cheap scare machine that's brainless and joyless, sticking with limp exploitation basics. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There’s a bit of nostalgia tied to the release of “Artemis Fowl,” which returns viewers back to a time when “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” managed to become a bigger hit than anyone was expecting, triggering a gold rush from studios trying to get their hands on similar properties. It’s hard to remember the specifics of “Eragon,” “The Seeker,” and “The Mortal Instruments,” but they all wanted in on the YA fantasy lottery. “Artemis Fowl” is cut from the same cloth, presenting a complicated universe of humans, fairies, trolls, and dwarves, all on the hunt for a special weapon of power while a shadowy figure plans multiverse domination. The mixture seemed to work for author Eoin Colfer, who turned his 2001 book into a popular literary series, but the film adaptation from director Kenneth Branagh is baffling for much of its run time, burdened with way too much story to tell and only 88 minutes to work with. It’s “Exposition: The Movie,” and while visual might is there, this picture is a chore to sit through. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It’s no secret that writer/director Judd Apatow has a filmmaking formula. He takes biographical scraps from the lives of his stars and uses comedy to press a story into place, going for emotional authenticity while trying to score laughs with improvisational humor. He did it with Adam Sandler in “Funny People,” himself in “This Is 40,” and, most recently, with Amy Schumer in the 2015 hit, “Trainwreck.” He’s been away from the screen for five years, but Apatow returns with “The King of Staten Island,” which pairs his helming habits with “Saturday Night Live” player, Pete Davidson. The combo is more effective than it initially appears, finding Apatow not only able to make Davidson likeable, but understood in many ways, creating a seriocomic journey into the man’s personal history and professional charms, which were previously a source of heated debate. “The King of Staten Island” isn’t fresh, but it’s lived-in and amusing, with Apatow coloring inside the lines with a cozy vision for childhood trauma and maturation blues. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

How director Olivier Megaton still finds work as a filmmaker is an industry mystery that might never be solved. He’s a franchise killer, ruining “The Transporter” and “Taken” brand names with awful sequels, and he’s done dreadfully on his own, guiding “Columbiana.” Now fully departed from the ruins of Luc Besson’s company, EuropaCorp, Megaton is back with “The Last Days of American Crime,” and, no shock here, it’s an abysmal picture. Actually, it’s the worst movie he’s ever made, put in charge of visualizing a graphic novel adaptation that perhaps didn’t need cinematic representation, dealing with blank characters and a non-starter of a plot. It’s all coated in grungy style and ultraviolence, while casting is atrocious, unleashing bad actors on worse material. I’m sure the production is aiming to shine a light on the failings of American society (the effort was shot in South Africa), but the first mistake was hiring the graceless Megaton, who has no idea how to put together a scene, much less a punishing 150-minute-long viewing experience that can’t successfully put one foot in front of the other. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Darkness Falls” runs a hair over 80 minutes. It’s a lean run time for a serial killer drama, and what’s so odd about the movie is how it portions out the horrors it wants to share. Director Julien Seri spends the first ten minutes of the endeavor highlighting a slow, agonizing murder involving the forced digestion of sleeping pills and a staged suicide, never introducing the characters beyond their crude depiction as predator and prey. It’s just ugliness without context, which does nothing for tension or storytelling. However, what initially seems like a single offering of editorial mismanagement becomes a feature-long problem for the helmer, who merely supplies select scenes of rage and reflection, not a nail-biting viewing experience involving a haunted cop and two deranged individuals causing problems for the women of Los Angeles. It’s an 80-minute-long time commitment, and nothing really happens in “Darkness Falls.” Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1982's "Xtro" is just one of those genre movies that benefited from the VHS boom of the 1980s. It offered provocative box art and provided a gruesome ride, with co-writer/director Harry Bromley Davenport ignoring good taste to deliver something nasty and sellable, trying to make his mark. It's not a memorable feature, but it did inspire ire from the likes of Roger Ebert, who described the film as "one of the most mean-spirited and ugly thrillers I've seen in a long time." Whatever it was to fans and detractors, it was a meal ticket for Davenport, who returned to the saga with 1990's "Xtro II: The Second Encounter," trying to restart the brand name. In 1995, he finally cried uncle with "Xtro 3: Watch the Skies," which hoped to offer the faithful more creature anarchy, only here Davenport tries to go all "Aliens" with the project, bringing in big guns, explosions, and Hanks. Well, Jim Hanks. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1999's "Terror Firmer" is often sold by Troma Entertainment as a satire of their usual production mayhem, with co-writers Patrick Cassidy and Douglas Buck using parts of director Lloyd Kauffman's book, "All I Need to Know About Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger" (sharing authorship duties with James Gunn), as a starting point for the company's usual outrageousness, this time focusing on the chaos of no-budget moviemaking. It's not easy to identify the cleverness of such a creative attempt, because all Troma really does is provide noise, and their runaway train sense of humor frequently destroys anything imaginative about "Terror Firmer," which could be an illuminating study of Kaufman's lifelong pursuit of independent freedom in the film world, but it mostly wants to be a grotesque serial killer endeavor with a wafer-thin plot and boundless appreciation for all things disgusting. It's certainly one of the more extreme efforts from Troma, and one of their most disappointing, with sections of satiric clarity quickly clouded by every single bodily fluid imaginable. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There are no major displays of dramatic firepower in "The Parts You Lose," and the plot is simple, dealing with issues facing the main characters, without going beyond the core dynamic to pad the runtime. Writer Darren Lemke doesn't go for flash with his screenplay, trying to land more of a literary atmosphere to the feature, which often resembles an adaptation of a young adult novel. "The Parts You Lose" may not have a fireworks display, but there's consistency to the picture, providing a full sense of character and heart. The modest nature of the production isn't a problem, as director Christopher Cantwell creates an inviting sense of tension and interaction, always preserving the human side of the story to best retain viewer attention. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It doesn't come as a tremendous surprise to learn that "Luz" is actually a thesis film from writer/director Tilman Singer. The German production doesn't aim to go big with its tale of possession and obsession, preferring to play everything with a slow-burn study of performance as tensions rise in small rooms. It's largely inexplicable, with Singer playing homage to Euro cinema brain-bleeders of the 1980s with the picture trying to reach a specific audience with its avant-garde antics. It's all a great big question mark of behavior, history, and domination, and while "Luz" has something, it visibly struggles to fill a scant 65-minute-long run time, with Singer clearly trying to taffy-pull a minor idea into something major, leaning into the stillness of the effort instead of developing its level of dread. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com