Originally made in 1999, mere months after the Columbine High School massacre, the ultra low-budget, shot-on-video indie film Duck! now on special edition DVD recreates the scenario, to lukewarm results. Writers/directors William Hellfire and Joey Smack are the troubled outcasts, who, after being picked on mercilessly, cash in on some violent retribution. This is great and all, but the film is loaded with blisteringly unfunny jokes, and a late-in-the-game attempt at a social message, that it pretty much ruins any attempt to really grab the audience. Never as envelope-pushing as it wishes to be, Duck!, is a valiant attempt at edgy, subversive cinema, but, sadly, comes off more like the work of a disgruntled 14-year- old Insane Clown Posse fan. Louis Fowler
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Kill Devil (NR)
Directed by Yuichi Onuma
UrbanVision/AsiaVision Entertainment
At first glance, this dystopian Japanese thriller looks like a subdued rip-off of the infamous Battle Royale, which, in all honesty, it kind of is. But if I'm going to be even more honest, I have to say that I enjoyed Kill Devil way more than BR mostly due to its small, yet impressive, teenage cast. Unlike BR, you actually get to know these characters, and feel for their plight. In the year 2025, the Japanese government, in an attempt to rehabilitate teens with the "murder gene," sends the kids to a secluded island to test their murderous impulses, causing them to knock one another off. Like BR, it's haunting, realistic and, as I'm sure we'll see in years to come, harrowingly prophetic. Louis Fowler
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Day of the Animals (NR)
Directed by William Girdler
Media Blasters
Ever wanted to see a shirtless Leslie Nielsen take on an angry grizzly? You'd have to be an America-hating communist to say no. A delicious slice of '70s cheese, Day of the Animals is the type of grainy, ridiculously over-acted, hilariously special-effected film that I grew up watching on TV, back when UHF channels independently owned gems would program some of the best, long-lost schlock on weekend afternoons. In Day of the Animals,the depleting ozone causes animals from hawks and cougars to the aforementioned grizzly to go nutso on the best cast of stock actors this side of The Swarm. This special-edition DVD not only has the original theatrical version, but the original TV print there is a God. Pop it in, grab a Fla-Vor-Ice and re-live those wonderful UHF memories. Louis Fowler
