JOHN WICK Highlights this week in Blu-ray, DVD and VOD Releases

By PETER BROWN / Associate Editor

Posted: February 7th, 2015 / 10:00 AM

Your time is short. We know this. So in order to expedite your buying and Netflix decision making, we provide you with a list of the cool and not-so-cool titles coming out for movies, television and everything in-between. So put your feet up, grab some popcorn and check out this week’s selections.

Movies:

JOHN WICK | © 2015 Lionsgate Home Entertainment

JOHN WICK – I don’t know what it is but I really enjoy watching Keanu Reeves in action flicks. I can’t really name any flick he’s been in over the years that I haven’t enjoyed of the action variety. JOHN WICK is no exception. Reeves stars as Wick, an ex-mobster hitman that went off and fell in love and quit the business. But after the loss of his wife, he only has a puppy for love and a kick ass car. But when the cocky son of a Russian mobster breaks into Wick’s house and kills his dog and steals his car, Wick begins a brutal revenge campaign on the mobsters partly because of the death of his dog but also because of he was trying to mourn his wife when everything went down. JOHN WICK is one brutal of an action flick. It is filled with Reeves just going ham on a slew of nameless Russian bad guys shooting almost every one of them in the head at some point … sometimes after fighting them hand to hand, other times after killing a number of them at point blank range. The fight scenes are extremely crazy and awesomely choreographed as are some of the car chase/driving scenes where Reeves is doing a good deal of his own stunts.

On the Blu-ray version of the film, there are a lot of good behind-the-scenes featurettes that showcase how Reeves went about training for the film, learning Kung Fu, mastering stunt driving and much more. In terms of home video, JOHN WICK is one of the best action flicks to be released so far in this early year.

OUIJA | © 2015 Universal Home Entertainment

OUIJA – If you are a child of the 80s or 90s, no doubt you have heard about or even played Ouija, the ghost board that has numbers and letters and a “floating” centerpiece that goes to answers after you ask questions. Throughout the years there have been numerous reports about how these boards are haunted or tied to some demented spirits or something. There have also been numerous movies about this topic in cinema. OUIJA takes it to a new level with a brutal tale of a group of friends that try to determine why their other friend killed herself but get cursed in the same way and are systematically taken out by a very pissed off spirit. Turns out, the friend moved into a very bad house where she found an Ouija board that was used in some demonic ritual involving the killing of a family member. While there is nothing new here in this version of an Ouija flick, the kills are pretty cool and the overall feeling of dread is pretty real especially as the friends start to fall victim and a sense of desperation sets in. So if you are jonsing for some horror, this will fit the bill nicely.

EXISTS | © 2015 Lionsgate Home Entertainment

EXISTS – Big Foot is freaking real. And he’s real freaking pissed off. EXISTS is another found footage film where a group of friends, of course, travel to the middle of nowhere and end up getting on the wrong end of Sasquatch. At first, he just scares them a bit with crazy yells and screaming but later he gives up just being a shadow in the forest and attacks them in broad daylight and their cabin ripping it apart with his inhuman strength. The thing with the found footage movies is that while they can be good, the shaky filmmaking gets annoying about an hour into the flick, which makes the rest of the film hard to watch because you become focused on this aspect. And there is a sh**ton of shaky footage in EXISTS. I like the premise, it is interesting and while you can see the reason for Big Foot attacking them coming from the very beginning it still works well in delivering a monster flick and the terror of fighting for your life from an unhinged beast.

ZOMBIE KILLERS | © 2015 Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

ZOMBIE KILLERS: ELEPHANT GRAVEYARD – Obviously, there is no stopping the zombie craze that has impacted the genre scene over the last few years thanks to many factors including THE WALKING DEAD and these low-budget zombie flicks run the gamut from really awful to not bad. ZOMBIE KILLERS falls in the middle of this with an interesting take on the zombie lore but with some really bad CGI. A town has survived the zombie apocalypse by forming a local band of zombie hunters that help protect the people of the town while training for bigger and badder things to come. Call it a poor man’s Woodbury but with youths being the muscle. Apparently, for some reason this zombie apocalypse has to do with some sort of plague that wiped out the dinosaurs that has resurfaced and now targeting humanity. And also for some reason not really explained very well at all but trying to tie into this whole “elephant graveyard” thing that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, is a ginomous zombie horde headed for the town that will wipe them all out. So instead of just packing up and leaving because there is enough time, the leaders of the town decide to put everyone out of their misery before they get eaten. All in all not the worst zombie flick to come out but don’t expect much and the CGI is terrible but Billy Zane is pretty great in it.

TALES FROM EARTHSEA/PORCO ROSSO/POM POKO – A host of cool Disney Studio Ghibli titles are coming out this week for the first time on Blu-ray. Very cool and these titles have been in strong demand from fans for a high definition version and finally the fans are getting what they want. TALES FROM EARTHSEA is set in a mythical world where dragons have reappeared and humanity is torn into chaos where a wizard and a prince must find a way to defeat the dragons before they destroy the world. PORCO ROSSO is the story of a flying ace that had his face turned into a pig by a mysterious spell and must fight off sky pirates after he defeats a group of them with his heroics. POM POKO tells the tale of a group of raccoons that are forced from their homes because of construction and have to band together to fight back to save their home and learn to live in a modern world.

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