Ejecta

Ejecta (made/released in 2014) is about a mythical blogger obsessed with extra-terrestrial activity and his fanboy companion, who together encounter a threatening lifeform from the stars, the story being intercut with the blogger's subsequent capture by a hostile authoritarian organisation who are willing to torture him to acquire the details of his mysterious experience.

Occasionally an underdog comes along that you've never heard of, turning out to be an undiscovered classic that blows you out of your recliner, leaving you with an inert smile pasted across your face for days.  Unfortunately, it was not this occasion.  Ejecta is science fiction produced on the very cheap, although I would never hold that specific characteristic against a film.  The greater sin that it is thoroughly uninteresting and the viewer may find it difficult to engage with anything that happens on screen.  Odd-looking Julian Richings puts in a reasonable performance as the disturbed blogger, countered by the cringe-worthy take on a nutty woman in charge by Lisa Houle, who appears to be attempting to emulate John Travolta's headcase character performances (which always annoyed me anyway).  There is a lot of dark scenery and plenty of not-particularly-appealing wobbly camerawork no doubt designed to trick the viewer into thinking the production is bigger than a couple of rooms and some woodland, but there will be few who are fooled.  I looked at director Chad Archibald's filmography on IMDb, and aside from The Heretics from 2017, which sounds potentially interesting, there is nothing else much good by him to seek out by the looks of it.

Released by Signature in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray, I viewed the latter to find an average image that probably recreates its digital origins accurately enough, demonstrating multiple aspect ratios intended to reflect different types of footage.  The stereo soundtrack is serviceable and there are, perhaps mercifully, no extras.  If you must buy the film you may as well pick it up on Blu-ray because it's generally as low-priced as the DVD and in fact I bought it for less than most people will have paid for the DVD (it turns up in Poundland occasionally, which is more than its worth).  Better things have emerged from Canada, and this is eighty soul destroying minutes that I have lost forever!

Return of the Living Dead 3

Curt, the son of an army colonel, sneaks with his girlfriend into his father's base to witness tests being conducted on resurrecting the dead for militaristic purposes.  Later on they are both involved in a motorcycle accident, fatal for Julie.  Recalling what he saw at the base, Curt takes the body over to the lab and uses the same techniques to bring life back to the fresh corpse.  The only trouble is, Julie now has a propensity for eating live meat, and perpetually suffers.  Much to the lad's disgust, she finds that the only way of curbing her pain is to actually inflict pain on herself.  The two run into trouble with local thugs and battle ensues between the group as they make their way down into the sewers.

Eschewing the comedy of the first two films, essentially borrowing one or two core elements only, Return of the Living Dead 3 actually proved to be a pretty good film made at the tail end of the prosthetic make-up and gore golden age.  Mindy Clark as Julie puts in quite a fascinating performance of endless suffering mixed with a strange orgasmic response to self-harm (quite a brave theme to tackle, and approached in an unorthodox manner).  In her early twenties at the time, she has mostly moved on to TV work since.  Director Brian Yuzna himself made a number of nice genre entries around the period, including this one, Necronomicon, and Society alongside a moderate sequel to Re-Animator - all worth checking out on Blu-ray.  Of course, in Return there are issues that one has to put to the side (most notably the ease with which Curt is able to sneak into and around the army base, although comment is made early on that security is somewhat lacking), but there are plenty of good set-pieces and surprisingly effective drama along the way.  It also contains a great turn by Sarah Douglas as Colonel Sinclair, who is competing for command of the base and experimental project.

Lionsgate have decided to bless the UK with its Vestron Video range that has recently been pleasing fans in the US.  The Blu-ray package comes in a neat glossy slipcase and features the film (uncut as far as I can tell) in a widescreen ratio with DTS HD MA Stereo sound.  It also includes a commentary and some interviews.  The image quality is okay, but I somehow feel that Lionsgate are palming fans off with an ancient master here, with marginally-better-than-DVD results.  I feel conflicted about it - on one hand it's the best the film has ever looked (aside from any projected screenings back in the 90s no doubt), but on the other we've seen significantly better results from the likes of Arrow when this kind of cult material is re-scanned and mastered properly.  In some respects I guess we can't complain too much because it's better than the film not being released at all.  The audio is clear whilst showing its age and budgetary restrictions, however, I would recommend switching to Pro-Logic if you are watching with a home cinema receiver - the stereo track splits quite nicely, with pleasing rear speaker activity.  In summary, a film that has aged well finally appears in a reasonable HD edition for UK fans to pick up.