Photo © Highland Film Group
Colson Baker and Kevin Bacon in 'One Way'
Colson Baker and Kevin Bacon in 'One Way'
The Harbinger
(Limited Theatrical Release & Streaming on VUDU & AppleTV, Sept. 2)
When Daniel and Theresa Snyder (Will Klipstine and Amanda MacDonald) realize something’s not right about their daughter Rosalie (Madeleine McGraw), they move to a quaint Midwestern town hoping to reboot their lives. Almost immediately, locals die mysteriously while eviscerated animals turn up in their yard. Angry neighbors threaten the Snyders and a strange man wearing a trench coat, shows up nearly everywhere they go. The Snyders consult a Native American seer (Irene Bedard) who believes their daughter is demonically possessed and advises a radical solution.
Director, co-writer Will Klipstine blends Christian imagery with Native American lore into this PG-13 horror, shot in Minnesota. The film broke records by constructing the state’s largest film set ever. Working through a nonprofit Veterans Film program, The Harbinger employed numerous local Native Americans and reportedly, plans to focus on tribal mythology in a planned sequel and threequel. (Lisa Miller)
One Way
(Limited Theatrical Release & Streaming on AppleTV, Sept. 2)
Freddy’s having a rough night. He’s a minor-league thief, hotly pursued after stealing a bag of cocaine and cash from the city’s most powerful crime boss. Freddy’s been shot and fears he’s losing too much blood when he boards a bus out of town. Realizing he needs help, Freddy (Colson Baker, AKA rapper Machine Gun Kelly) calls dear old Dad, Fred Sr. (Kevin Bacon), despite knowing Dad is unreliable and can’t be trusted. While trying to formulate a plan, Freddy begins to suspect he’s being watched by a mysterious girl and is being stalked by a menacing passenger. Fred Sr. wrestles with his own course of action, but one thing’s certain: director Andrew Baird’s R-Rated One Way is no Father’s Day film. (Lisa Miller)
“Starhunter Redux: The Complete Series (Collector’s Edition)”
(Shout! Factory Blu-ray)
The original 2003-2004 Canadian-UK coproduction won enough fandom in sci-fi circles that a redux became feasible for release in 2018. The new version is equivalent to an album that has been remastered. As explained in one of the “Behind the Scenes” bonus features in the new Blu-ray release, the pacing is faster than the original, the episodes are tightened, the special effects are upgraded, the sound mixes are brightened, and numerous small details are superimposed through digital technology. For example, the surface of Mercury appears hotter in the new version and the old spaceships have gained a patina of rust.
Set several centuries in the future, when the Earth has colonized the solar system, the story concerns interplanetary criminals and bounty hunters, an alien scheme to genetically alter humanity and lots of explicitly choreographed sex. You can spot DNA from Bladerunner, 2001, Star Wars, Alien and many other familiar pathfinders. “The Complete Series” includes all 44 episodes on ten discs. (David Luhrssen)
YellowBrickRoad
(Lightyear DVD)
The story goes that on a fall day in 1940, the inhabitants of a small New Hampshire town walked up a mountain trail and … most of them vanished, a few were found dismembered and one gibbering man survived, utterly mad, and is heard on an FBI audio recording. Seventy years on a team of history buffs visit the town hoping to reconstruct what happened for a book, documentary or whatever. The FBI file on the incident is heavily redacted. The locals are unfriendly—you’d think that want to go Roswell around an event like this! And as the merry campers march toward destiny, odd occurrences accumulate, personalities change in this 2010 riff on Blair Witch. (David Luhrssen)
