FILM FRENZY

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in The Drama (Photo: A24)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K, and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968). It was eight years after the Hammer Films franchise starter Horror of Dracula before Christopher Lee finally returned to the role of the bloodsucking count in 1966’s Dracula: Prince of Darkness (he did not appear in 1960’s The Brides of Dracula), but following that hiatus, he appeared in six Dracula flicks within an eight-year span. Following Prince of Darkness is Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, which finds the vampire accidentally freed from the icy tomb that had ensnared him at the end of the previous picture. He seeks revenge against a local monsignor (Rupert Davies) and goes about it by targeting the man’s beautiful niece (Veronica Carlson). The film initially (and interestingly) makes its young heroic lead (Barry Andrews) an atheist rather than the usual follower of Christ, but some script deficiencies and (as was too often the case) not enough screen time for Lee hamper the overall project. Director Freddie Francis directed several horror films for Hammer and Amicus (including The Evil of Frankenstein and Tales From the Crypt), although he was better known as one of cinema’s leading cinematographers and earned a pair of Oscars for shooting 1960’s Sons and Lovers and 1989’s Glory.

There are no Blu-ray extras.

Movie: ★★½

THE DRAMA (2026). There’s been so much drama surrounding The Drama, and most of it hinges on the end-of-act-one plot reveal that powers the rest of the film. At the time of its theatrical release, A24 asked critics not to spill the big secret — does that directive also apply to its home release? It shouldn’t, because much of the controversy surrounding the movie directly relates to the secrecy, which led audiences to expect a frothy romcom rather than an uncomfortable and thought-provoking dark comedy. After Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) engage in a sort-of-meet-cute, they soon decide to get hitched — at a tasting with their best friends, married couple Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), they all agree to answer the question, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Once Emma reveals that as a teenager she planned a school shooting but didn’t go through with it, everything changes: Rachel, whose cousin was paralyzed in such a shooting, pretty much ends their friendship, while Charlie becomes increasingly paranoid that he may not know the woman he loves as much as he should. For her part, Emma plays up the fact that she no longer possesses these feelings since they manifested during her bullied teen years. It’s understandable that many found The Drama distasteful, but this prickly picture successfully tackles themes involving the perils of relationships and the importance of honest communication, and it’s often wickedly funny.

Extras in the 4K edition include audio commentary by select crew members; a making-of featurette; and a wardrobe & camera test.

Movie: ★★★

LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY (2026). Well, at least it’s not the awfulness known as Tom Cruise’s The Mummy. Then again, it isn’t even Lee Cronin’s The Mummy as much as it’s Lee Cronin’s The Exorcist, with generous dollops of Lee Cronin’s The Evil Dead, Lee Cronin’s Hereditary, Lee Cronin’s Bring Her Back, and probably every other terror tale this side of Lee Cronin’s Frankenhooker. The primary horrific hook is child possession, as Katie (Emily Mitchell), an American girl living in Egypt with her family, is snatched by a strange woman (Hayat Kamille) — she’s found eight years later (now played by Natalie Grace) trapped inside a sarcophagus and chosen to serve as the human shell for an ancient demon. She’s reunited with her family members, who are initially unaware of her Regan MacNeil status and only see a physically grotesque girl prone to peeling off her own skin and munching on rodents and arachnids. Clearly, outside help is required, but her parents (Jack Reynor and Laia Costa) figure they can handle this by themselves — good luck with that. The imbecilic nature of the characters is only one of the problems found in a sloppy picture that pumps up the gore while minimizing tension and not even bothering with scares. It’s also fatally overlong — Boris Karloff and co. got the job done in 72 minutes, but it takes Cronin 132 minutes for what could have been accomplished in 100.

Extras in the 4K + Digital Code edition include audio commentary by Cronin; a making-of featurette; and deleted scenes.

Movie: ★½

LOONEY TUNES CARTOONS: THE COMPLETE SERIES! (2020-2024). An update of the Looney Tunes brand for modern times sounds like a recipe for disaster, and while MAGA morons online have been squawking “Woke!” when learning that guns are noticeably missing from most of these newer cartoons (as usual, they were schooled by folks with actual IQs), the shocking truth is that this series, originated by animator and Tunes fan Pete Browngardt, does an exemplary job of capturing much of what made the originals so captivating, from the color schemes to the gags to the choice of voice actors who sound like the pros of yesteryear. This collection is admittedly geared as much toward kids as their nostalgic parents — unlike the OG LT sets, there’s no “Intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children” warning on the packaging — but there’s plenty of sops to the grownups, even in the titles (“Eyes Wide Fudd,” in which Elmer leads a cult that Daffy wants to join).

The Blu-ray set offers all 82 episodes from the show’s six seasons. The only extra is Looney Tunes Presents: Sports Made Simple, consisting of six shorts created for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games and another half-dozen shorts created for the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games.

Series: ★★★

TROLL (1986). I actually caught Troll during its original theatrical run back in my college days, and the only things I remembered about the experience were its setting of a San Francisco apartment complex and Sonny Bono turning into an assemblage of plants. Revisiting the picture, it turns out it offers other goofy pleasures as well, including 80s-tastic makeup schemes on the titular creature (played by Phil Fondacaro and voiced by Frank Welker), Gary Sandy (likable Andy on TV’s WKRP in Cincinnati) as a macho right-wing buffoon, a va-va-voomish Julia Louis-Dreyfus (in her film debut) a loooong way from Seinfeld as a neighbor who transforms into a forest nymph, and Michael Moriarty and Noah Hathaway as characters named Harry Potter and Harry Potter Jr. You won’t be bored watching Troll, but you’ll hate yourself in the morning. Four years later saw the release of the in-name-only sequel Troll 2, considered by many bad-movie buffs as the worst film of all time.

Troll has been reissued in a Blu-ray edition that’s only available exclusively on the MVD website. Extras consist of a making-of piece; a gallery of behind-the-scenes photos; and the theatrical trailer. A mini-poster is also included.

Movie: ★★

YOU, ME & TUSCANY (2026). How much of a debt does You, Me & Tuscany owe to Under the Tuscan Sun, the 2003 charmer starring Diane Lane (and reviewed in From Screen To Stream below)? Enough of one that director Kat Coiro and writers Ryan Engle and Kristin N. Engle actually have a character give it props by calling out its name. This picture isn’t quite as memorable, but it offers the same sort of low-key charm, affable characters, gorgeous location shooting, and, yes, predictable plotting that makes it go down rather smoothly. The Little Mermaid’s Halle Bailey is Anna Montgomery, whose plans to become a professional chef went up in smoke once her mother passed away. In between her gigs as a house sitter, she meets Matteo (Lorenzo de Moor), an Italian traveler who tells her about his perpetually empty villa in Tuscany. On a whim, she heads to the region for some R & R; once she’s unable to find vacancy at a hotel, she remembers Matteo’s vacant property and decides to crash there. She’s discovered by his family members, who assume she’s his fiancée — too scared to correct them, she instead hangs out with them and finds herself falling for Michael (Regé-Jean Page), Matteo’s hunky cousin. The “live your dream” theme is strictly old-hat and some of the comedic interludes are borderline embarrassing, but Bailey is charming, the food looks scrumptious, and the movie invites audience participation with all those tempting glasses of wine, the perfect accompaniment to a couch viewing.

Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by Coiro and producer Will Packer, and various making-of featurettes.

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? (2009). Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Two city slickers whose knowledge of world history extends only to the NYC boroughs are forced through contrived situations to stay a spell in rural America, where they adapt to the regional cuisine (lots of mayonnaise employed), view animals as alien beings (horses and cows and bears, oh my!), and understandably remain leery of the locals (gun-toting Republican rednecks who love their rodeos but hate those libtards). If you’ve heard that one, then you’ve certainly heard about Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a dimwitted comedy in which an estranged couple (Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker) find themselves hiding out in Wyoming after they witness a murder back in the Big Apple. Old pros Sam Elliott and Mary Steenburgen (representing the small-town law) provide some lift, but otherwise, here’s yet another movie that should be neither seen nor heard.

Movie: ★½

THE DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS (1985). Mel Brooks (who recently turned 100 years old!) may be known foremost as a brilliant comedian, but through his Brooksfilms company, he nurtured such acclaimed dramas as The Elephant Man, The Fly, and 84 Charing Cross Road. Although directed by the estimable Freddie Francis (Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, above) and based on a screenplay Dylan Thomas wrote back in the 1940s, The Doctor and the Devils was deemed a misfire, although it deserves a fresh look today. Timothy Dalton plays Dr. Rock, a 19th-century professor (clearly not the other Dr. Rock, the boozy DJ of the same name that Jim Belushi played in Salvador) who employs a pair of grave robbers (Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea) to supply him with fresh cadavers for his medical research. A fictionalized take on the real-life grave-digging ghouls Burke and Hare, this benefits from the script’s moral musings, a suitably grungy atmosphere, and a top-notch supporting cast that includes Patrick Stewart, Julian Sands, and Twiggy.

Movie: ★★★

HOLES (2003). Disney’s adaptation of Louis Sachar’s award-winning children’s book is good enough to be enjoyed equally by kids and their parents. Sachar himself wrote the script, which focuses on the plight of hapless teen Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf), who’s wrongly convicted of robbery and sent to Camp Green Lake, a boys’ correctional facility located in the middle of a desert. There, he and the other guys are subjected to the demands of the warden (Sigourney Weaver) and her two sidekicks (Tim Blake Nelson and a hilariously over-the-top Jon Voight), who order the boys to spend every day digging holes. Sachar and director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive) have crafted a fresh comedy-drama that nicely weaves the present-day story together with related flashbacks set in the Old West (Patricia Arquette stars in this section of the film); while the ending may tie everything up a bit too tidily, there’s no denying that there’s real imagination at work here.

Movie: ★★★

MAN ON FIRE (2004). Man On Fire is a remake of a forgotten 1987 flick starring Scott Glenn; that version barely ran 90 minutes, and it’s a sign of director Tony Scott’s arrogance that this interminable revamping clocks in at 145 minutes. Denzel Washington is effectively cast as a former government assassin whose constant boozing is interrupted once he agrees to serve as the bodyguard for an American girl (Dakota Fanning) living with her parents in Mexico City. Scott’s meaningless stylistics immediately grate on the nerves, but the strong work by Washington and Fanning — and the bond their characters create — cuts through all the show-offy b.s. and initially draws us into the picture. But once the child is kidnapped and then believed to be dead, this turns into a tedious revenge yarn, with Washington’s character glumly offing everyone involved with the snatch. Don’t miss the concluding title card assuring viewers that Mexico City, seen as nothing but a haven of murder and corruption for over two hours, is actually “a very special place”!

Movie: ★½

UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN (2003). In writer-director Audrey Wells’ largely fictionalized adaptation of Frances Mayes’ memoir, Diane Lane is wonderful as our heroine, who, on the heels of a nasty divorce, heads to Italy on a vacation arranged by her best friend (Sandra Oh, playing a character more suited to a network sitcom). There, she falls in love with the Tuscan countryside and on a whim purchases a dilapidated villa in need of dire restoration. But as she works on the house and gets acquainted with the locals, she realizes there’s still one thing missing from her rapidly improving lot in life: amore. This warm and luminous film largely plays out as one might expect, although the journey is so enjoyable that many viewers won’t mind being led down this familiar path once more. Lane’s heartfelt performance provides pools of depth to her character’s plight, and the supporting players are for the most part a finely drawn bunch, especially Vincent Riotta as a sympathetic realtor whose married status forces him to suppress his attraction to Frances and Lindsay Duncan as a flamboyant actress constantly rhapsodizing about the brief time she worked with Fellini.

Movie: ★★★