First I´d like to thank the makers of Psycho Street for sending me a DVD screener.
Welcome to the small town of Kronanburg. On the surface this quaint, little town appears to be the perfect place to settle down, relax and raise a family. but the core of this seemingly "perfect" town is dark and vile.. and the residents of this town live in a world of deranged insanity. In Kronanburg, terror lies behind every door and death is only a heart-beat away. Join Kronanburg´s happy home-maker, Leyla Barker (Tiffany Shepis) as she leads you through three tales of murder and madness that can only come from the dark nightmares of life in this town... but beware, Leyla might just have a dark secret of her own! The wrap around story is called "COME ON DOWN" Start with "HYPOCHONDRIAC". When LA physican, Dr Oliver Combs (Marv Blauvelt) trades in the stress of his big city medical practice for the "simple" life of practicing medicine in the small Kronanburg medical clinic, he may have gotten more than he bargained for.. because the patients who frequent this clinic have problems far more bizarre than anything he encountered in LA, and he finds that he may have made the biggest mistake of his career.. and his life. Next in "ANTI-BODIES", Susanna Sullivan (Brigid MaCaulay) is a cruel and immoral woman who keeps her teenáge daughter (Kayle Williams) locked away in a bedroom of her farmhouse, "Selling" her sexually to the men of Kronanburg. Expecting a night of unhibited sexual pleasure, instead these men find themeselves plunged into an unspeakable nightmare of pain and death. Finally, in "LEWIS", when Amanda Reece (Deneen Melody) returns to Kronanburg with her young daughter, searching for clues to her past, she is startled that the residents of this town are very familiar with her... and seem to have sinister plans that involve her and her daughter. Psycho Street is written by Marv Blauvelt, Anthony G. Sumner and Trevor Wright. It is directed by Patrick Desmond (segment "Come on Down Part 1"), Arthur Cullipher (segment "Come onDown") , Pete Jacelone (segment "Hypocondriac") and Anthony Sumner (segment "Lewis"). The director of the segment "Anti-Bodies" is unknown at the moment when I´m writing this review. The acting is uneven througout Psycho Street, some of it as in "HYPOCHONDRIAC" is very tounge in cheek, in some parts it good, it´s quite unsettling to see Kayle Williams tied down and left at the mens mercy (but they don´t know what´s coming) in "ANTI-BODIES". The best acting appears in "LEWIS", who gave a tounge in cheek protrayal earlier plays it straight here and it works. Deneen Melody is also very good as Amanda Reece. The camerawork and editing is pretty good for most of Psycho Street but somehow it gets better in the final segment.
While "HYPOCHONDRIAC" is pure comedy and "COME ON DOWN" has some humorous moments, "ANTI-BODIES" is much darker and nastier with nudity, scenes of forced sex and incest. Very twisted stuff but it suffers somewhat due to the limitations of its budget. The final segment "LEWIS" features the best plot, occult sect, a lot of sex and nudity, gore (good looking make-up fx) nasty nuns and priests. Psycho Street is gory, its practical make-up fx and the quality varies through the different segment. The best fx can be found in "LEWIS". There is also some creature make-up fx, some look good while one looks really bad. There is gratitous nudity in "ANTI-BODIES" and "LEWIS", plenty of T & A and several sex scenes, a couple of rape scenes and even incest.
Psycho Street is available by VOD and will get a DVD release from R-Squared by October 2012.
This review is based upon the region all (Region 0) DVD release from Muscle Wolf Productions.
Rating: 6½ out of 7. I enjoyed this but Psycho Street is uneven as is often the case with multiple part anthologies. I didn´t care too much for "HYPOCHONDRIAC" even if it has some really fun moments, "COME ON DOWN" was pretty good and works well as a wrap around segment, I liked "ANTI-BODIES" which is really sleazy but "LEWIS" is by far the best segment, partly due to the fact that they more or less skip the comedic and bizarre parts of the earlier segments but it is also better made (I suspect that it had a bigger budget than the other segments), features better acting and so on and I love, truly love the concept of this 70´s style occult thriller and I would love if someone sat down and tried to make a feature film from it.
/JL
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