Category: Direct to DVD Goodness

Kevin Sorbo Stars in BERNIE THE DOLPHIN Coming to DVD February 5th

 
A heartwarming story about siblings and their passion to help sea life, Bernie the Dolphin arrives on DVD and Digital on February 5 from Lionsgate. The film is currently available On Demand.
The trailer look adorable:

In this family adventure starring Lola Sultan and Kevin Sorbo, two siblings befriend a dolphin and devise a clever plan to save the beach and protect sea life, including their new dolphin friend, Bernie. Also starring Patrick Muldoon and Logan Allen, the film is approved by the Dove Foundation for all ages, and “shows a lot of heart” (The Dove Foundation).
The Bernie the Dolphin DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $14.98 and includes a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Pizza Delivery Gets Dangerous in SLICE – Arriving on DVD January 29th from Lionsgate

Small-town pizza delivery is about to get dangerous when Slice arrives on DVD January 29 from Lionsgate. Grammy Award® winner Chance the Rapper makes his acting debut alongside Primetime Emmy nominee Zazie Beetz (Best Supporting Actress, TV’s “Atlanta,” 2018) in a horror-comedy from Austin Vesely (longtime director of Chance the Rapper’s music videos), who makes his directorial debut. Hilariously spooky and unlike anything you’ve seen before, the Slice DVD will be available for the suggested retail price of $19.98.

When a slew of pizza delivery boys are slain on the job in a spooky small town, two daring survivors (Zazie Beetz of TV’s “Atlanta,” and Chance the Rapper in a wild film debut) set out to catch the culprits behind the cryptic crime spree.

DVD SPECIAL FEATURES

  • Deleted Scenes
  • Audio Commentary with Director Austin Vesely, Producer Elijah Alvarado, and Actor Paul Scheer

CAST

Zazie Beetz                             Deadpool 2, Dead Pigs, TV’s “Atlanta”

Chance the Rapper                Feature Film Debut

Rae Gray                                TV’s “Fear the Walking Dead,” Dismissed

Chris Parnell                           TV’s “Archer,” Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween,

Paul Scheer                            Summer ’03, TV’s “Veep”

Joe Keery                               TV’s “Stranger Things,” Molly’s Game

Direct-to-Video Pioneer DAVID A. PRIOR – The Career Restrospective

Article by Mark Longden

David A. Prior is one of those people who filled up video shelves for us back in the days of Blockbuster. If you’re a normal movie fan, chances are you passed over one of his incredibly generic sounding titles while looking for something else; if you’re a cult movie nerd, then you’ll have probably seen “Deadly Prey” and you might be interested in what happened to him and his actor brother Ted. Either way, hope you enjoy this retrospective.

When you watch the movies of David A Prior, you’re struck by the sense that, like so many famous / notorious low-budget directors (Ed Wood, Coleman Francis, Albert Pyun, a hundred others), his personal obsessions are aired out over and over again. They feel more personal than the sort of thing you’re going to see at a multiplex, and while that doesn’t make them good, it at least makes them interesting. I’ve done this as a gag a few times, but there are a few things that crop up in multiple Prior movies:

  • A military base which is actually some tents in the woods
  • Someone being tortured in a tent (or occasionally a tin shack)
  • Violent flashbacks / nightmares about the Vietnam war
  • Retreads of the plot of “The Most Dangerous Game”
  • Homoerotic subtext
  • Helicopter battles
  • Multi-racial groups of bad guys, even when it’s supposed to be the Vietnam war
  • Film-within-a-film twists

Biographical detail is a little hard to come by, but here goes. Ted moved from New Jersey to LA to try his hand at acting and modelling in 1979, and David followed soon after. The two had made movies together as kids, so when David arrived he came with scripts and tried to get them made. He put adverts in the Hollywood newspapers looking for investors, and due to his way with words, he was able to round up some money and make movies, which, thanks to the explosion in the VHS market at exactly that time, turned a profit. Eventually he met David Winters, the actor / choreographer / producer, and the two of them formed AIP, the notorious straight-to-video company that gave us so many gems. Prior was incredibly prolific, making five movies a year throughout the late 80s / early 90s. This business arrangement came to an end in the late 90s, as the VHS / DVD market was just about to start an irreversible downward slide, and he appears to have retired from movie-making until around 2007, when a rich fan approached David and began funding a new series of movies from him. He made a decent handful of new ones before his death in 2015, including a few that remained unfinished and which will probably never see the light of day.

So I’ll take you through a few of his classics and try and illustrate the big themes, or just the best and worst of his filmography. Notice, too, how generic his titles are, like he just plucked two random words out of an action-movie-cliche bag and went with whatever he found.

SLEDGEHAMMER (1983)

His first movie, made with whatever tiny investments he could find from his adverts and hustling. Shot almost entirely inside Prior’s small apartment, where they tried to make one or two rooms into many more – the sheer blankness of the backgrounds and the washed out quality of the images makes it creepier than it perhaps deserves to be.

Sledgehammer is interesting because it’s perhaps the first-ever shot on video slasher movie, for the home video market. There’s one called “Boarding House” from 1982, but that got a brief cinema run (a fine hair to split, but we’re at the bottom of the pile here). It is, of course, absolutely terrible, but it made money.

KILLZONE (1985)

The first movie to feature damaged Vietnam war veterans, and his first to feature a reality-bending twist – the prisoner-of-war camp we see at the beginning is (spoiler, I guess, but seriously, it’s over 30 years old) actually a survivalist holiday camp where people roleplay as prisoners. But they reveal this at half an hour in, which is one of those weird choices that an experienced / good filmmaker would never do.

Killzone is also the debut of several of Prior’s stock company – Fritz Matthews, David Campbell and William Zipp – and also the knowledge that low budgets meant multiple jobs for everyone. Zipp was a casting director for multiple movies and Matthews was a stunt coordinator and worked in the art department, for example. It’s also the first of many spins on “The Most Dangerous Game”, beloved of low-budget filmmakers since time immemorial.

DEADLY PREY (1987)

Prior’s most famous movie, another rip-off of “The Most Dangerous Game” by way of “Rambo”. Colonel Hogan runs a military training camp where, for some reason, the trainees hunt people through the forests and kill them. If you think about it, not a lot of military work is a large group of people chasing one person through some woods, so I’m not sure what skills this is training. Ted Prior is a special forces guy captured at random while taking his trash out, which has to be some of the all-time worst luck.

This also has Cameron Mitchell, B-movie legend and the biggest actor Prior had worked with to that date. He decided, apparently, to write most of his own dialogue, improvising a few of the bizarre monologues we’re treated to. It was Prior’s fourth movie, and still has some really odd plot choices in it – deaths of certain characters, and so on – which he corrected with the sequel but never really learned from.

JUNGLE ASSAULT (1989)

This is an extraordinarily bleak movie about the minds of traumatized Vietnam vets, masquerading as a normal bit of late 80s action video. Two men drink their lives away, ignoring the bills and living in a scummy apartment; their old CO’s daughter is kidnapped and he asks them to help get her back. They discover the only time they really feel alive is when they’re killing people.

This is my reading of it, of course, and it’s possible Prior meant nothing of the sort. This is from the middle of his most prolific period, where he was making four or five movies a year, and he apparently wrote the script for this in one evening. It is, by a distance, his darkest movie, though, and one which must have puzzled the people who accidentally rented it back in 1989.

RAW JUSTICE (1994)

Probably his best movie, with some incredibly fortunate casting – Pamela Anderson, just as “Baywatch” was forever putting her out of the reach of directors like Prior, signed on to play the part of a hooker with a heart of gold, and is surprisingly good too. It’s also got David Keith, Robert Hays, Stacy Keach and Charles Napier, which is like Ocean’s Eleven-level casting for a guy like Prior. It’s a gentle riff on “Midnight Run”, with the added bonus of seeing doughy guys like Hays and Keith mauling a mostly naked Anderson (separately, I add mercifully).

This represents the second stage in Prior’s directing career, which started around 1991. AIP, the company he worked for / co-founded with producer David Winters, was making money, so the volume of movies he made went down while the quality went up. His 1991-1997 period, while still depressingly poor to the typical movie fan, represents his high water mark – see also 1992’s “Double Threat” and 1994’s “Felony” for more examples.

NIGHT CLAWS (2012)

Prior retired around 1999 or so, and was only tempted back to movie-making after…well, I have no idea, and biographical information is hard to come by. I wish there were a good reason! A guy by the name of Fabio Soldano, who also has co-writing credit on this and other later Prior movies, appears to be the money man behind everything after 2007’s “Lost At War” (which feels more like a super-bleak traumatised war vet movie left over from the first part of his career, anyway).

“Night Claws” is about sasquatch, and is an example of people not necessarily getting better at something the more often they do it. It’s competently made, I guess, but baffling in its script choices, sets an all-time-worst record for day-for-night shots, and while I imagine it made them some money on the SyFy Channel, it’s (to put it mildly) unessential and is reminiscent of the late movies of Don Dohler. Dohler made some entertaining low-budget sci-fi monster movies in the late 70s and early 80s, and then came back for a run of cheap, ugly, miserable sci-fi monster movies that entertained no-one (also with a money-man with no appreciable talent for the movie business).

DEADLIEST PREY (2013)

Made at least in part because the people behind the “Everything Is Terrible” series thought it’d be a good idea, this is basically a remake of “Deadly Prey” with the worst plot problems (the death of his wife, the fact the villain escapes) corrected. The original central three cast members return along with Prior, but it’s very difficult to escape the feeling it’s a glorified home movie.

Prior died in 2015, with a couple of movies in post-production (I’m going to take a wild guess and say they’ll never see the light of day). Were it not for the ironic levels of fame “Deadly Prey” achieved, he’d be completely unremembered today, much like dozens of other directors of Blockbuster-shelf-filler. But, if you pan long enough, and set your expectations really low, there’s gold to be found. “Death Chase”, “Jungle Assault”, and “Raw Justice” are all decently entertaining movies; William Zipp, one of his regular actors, is under-appreciated and ought to have had a decent career for better directors, and the same could be said for Ted Prior too, who seems happy enough not to be acting any more.

If you have your own favourite genre director you’d like to see get this sort of career retrospective, please leave a comment below and if there’s enough that sounds entertaining, we’ll make it our next project. Thanks for reading!

 

POLLY – The DVD Review

 

Review by Dane Marti

“Polly want a cracker?” This old phrase floated into my subconscious a few times while watching, ‘Polly,’ a low budget horror movie.

There are a number of elements within this film that make ‘Polly’ better than many other films of this genre. For instance, the structure is unique and laid-back. It has a detached documentary feel, especially during the first twenty minutes, which makes it seem like we’re looking at actual, true-crime images! These first images are striking and haunting. Some look very realistic.

Directed by Jason Hoover, the film makes good use of its low budget. Falling somewhere between: HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, HOSTEL, SAW and other movies which, to me, often seem as much like snuff films as anything else, the film’s main character is a psychopath.  No surprise there, right? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this out. One look at his dumb visage and you can figure out that something isn’t copacetic in his old’ noggin.

Played with subtle menace by Brandon Williamson, the acting works well because we don’t expect the nut to play his role in a Shakespearean mode or like Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. He isn’t a great actor, but for this film, and the horror audience, he is good enough! The crazy monster here is so blandly normal, with a beefy, flabby body (it seems so many guys start to bloat up as they enter middle age.), that even when he goes on a handyman job in his neighborhood, the woman who needs his help would never fathom in a million years that the ‘nice guy’ is a very sick pervert. This scene is one of the best in the movie. It is subtle, stark and holds the viewers’ attention; something is definitely going to happen, right? I felt it was a well-filmed and suspenseful moment.

Although the start of the film shows a montage of still images of murder and torture, the bulk of the movie’s story details one woman—Polly—who is trapped and tortured in the basement. She is roped to a chair that resembles something out of a Gothic Horror film.

The film isn’t extraordinary, but there are definitely moments of suspense, with a cinematic attention to detail on the director’s part. For instance: Polly is trapped in the psycho’s basement, but unfortunately for her, the weirdo can have ‘fun’ with her whether he’s literally near her or not: Polly has a sharp hook cutting into the back of her head. A wire runs from the hook and up through the home’s floorboards, across the living room floor, finally winding up in the psycho’s hand while sits in a lounge chair, leisurely enjoying some television. Therefore, when he gently moves the position of his hand, it causes horrible pain for poor Polly downstairs– her distant screams can be heard in the background.

I hated the metal music playing in the background. Luckily, it was often in the background and didn’t overwhelm the movie. It felt cliché to me. It was as if the writer/director, the musicians and psycho were all one and the same person. It needed music that complimented and mimicked the inner workings the madman.

To me, the climactic moments of the film are predictable and life affirming, but after such a grim, cinematic character study, there needed to be a little ‘light’ in the basement. The final moments of the movie aren’t as terrifying when compared to what had gone on before. Plus, some of the acting seems a little forced, motivation for certain behaviors do not seem right. Other viewers might disagree with me. If the director had utilized more Hitchcockian camera placement, storyboarding and editing, there might have been more dynamic tension within the final moments of the film. It’s frustrating for me to write this since much of the movie definitely has clever camera placement and an eerie sense of foreboding, with sick menace right out of camera range.

POLLY is available from JABB Pictures

Visit their website HERE

http://www.jabbpictures.com/default.html

DYSTOPIA: 2013 – The DVD Review

Review by Dane Marti

The post-apocalyptic film DYSTOPIA: 2013 is an honest, often exciting cinematic effort, with a story that takes place after a mysterious and life-changing cataclysm on earth – or at least the Midwest. Obviously an independent film, a viewer shouldn’t go into the film expecting earth-shattering visual effects or top of the line acting. To enjoy the film, one must accept it as it is. It’s low budget and fun. The viewer should use their imaginations. If you do these things, you will find the film to be a cool and entertaining trip.

The film is directed by Johnno Zee. He definitely has a vision, but due to budget restraints, much of the story must focus on the characters and not on special effects depicting a devastated world. The film is good when the characters are interacting, but less impressive when showing the horror of the world they now find themselves in.

As the film starts, a midwestern guy has a terrible day: He loses both his job and his wife. Can’t much worse than that, right? Wrong. He seems to be a stoic sort of guy, an okay kind of dude. After his depressing day comes to an end and he is going to bed, there is an off-camera explosion. He survives and the scene fades out. When we see him in the next scene, a certain amount of time has transpired since the big bang that changed the world and he is pushing a cart and looking for food and supplies. I think there should have been a larger transition between the off camera explosion and our hero pushing a cart around a landfill looking for anything to utilize in his survival. Basically, it is a subtle transition, but it also is slightly confusing. Perhaps this was part of the director’s vision.

Within a short time, he meets another guy, a kindred spirit, and another survivor hiding from mutant nomads like, presumably, our original character. This second man might have a dubious past, though. Throughout the rest of the film, these two characters will try to bond, but never completely trust each other: The tension between them brings a dynamic tension to the film, even if some of the dialogue between them seems forced and awkward.

Speaking of dialogue and acting, much of the dialogue in the entire film is hard-boiled and terse, making points in a very simplistic and blunt way – as you would expect from people who find themselves living through the aftermath of an Apocalypse. Unfortunately, the acting isn’t too professional, but don’t let that ruin the fun. As I said before, this is a B Movie, and in that spirit, the scenes in which the two new partners banter and argue in a neo- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid-type of way, are fun.

The overall direction, as well as the camera work is professional given the limitations in money and equipment. The editing could be tighter, but the films weakness is basically due to the screenplay and acting. The director and the cameraman have obviously seen a lot of these types of films. The scenes that show the passage of time are effective, and in keeping with the overall post apocalyptic storyline as seen in countless films. Although the film has moments of cliche, it also has enjoyable and fun scenes, including an elderly character that is always offering verbal commentary about their predicaments: Whether he quotes a famous author or a film quote, it is fun and/or poignant. I enjoyed this.

The story is nicely paced, although the end of the film (once the characters are taken prisoner by some masked freaks) seems to plod a little – it also shows the films low budget. There needed to be a more palpable threat to the characters. Semi-punk, semi-Road Warrior evil, mysterious characters appear on motorcycles and haunt our good guys. The editing, camera angles and pacing could have added more kinetic menace to these scenes. Filming the action in long shots, the viewer can tell that the cars and bikes are simply not driving very fast or very maliciously. It doesn’t scare or thrill.

I would have had the main characters walk through more unique and visually interesting landscapes. After awhile, they all tend to look very similar. And the visual effects that show the St. Louis Gateway Arch are okay, but the film could have benefited, given its subject and genre, with a few more establishing shots of a world that has been completely decimated and changed by the Apocalypse.

Some of the film reminded me of ROAD WARRIOR and LOGAN’S RUN.

Within the constraints of the budget, the climactic, “nightmarish” scenes within a factory are effective. We’ve seen scenes like this before, but it works within this movie, because, we still care about the main protagonists! Damn it, we want them to survive and not to end up strangled or tortured! Since the acting is serviceable, but not amazing or riveting throughout the film, this is quite an accomplishment: As an audience, we have looked past the things in the film that didn’t completely work and still care about the well being of the characters. To that extent, the film works and is an enjoyable little adventure.

Visit the DYSTOPIA: 2013 website HERE

http://countzeecom.ipage.com/2013.html

THE RESIDENT – The Review

In the thriller genre one subset popular with film makers ( and often audiences ) has been the psychological thriller. A theme seen in these films has been an infatuation that turns to  ( usually deadly ) obsession. It’s been explored in older films like Hitchcock’s REBECCA and VERTIGO through the sixties with THE COLLECTOR and had a big resurgence with FATAL ATTRACTION and SINGLE WHITE FEMALE. Many times the plot will involve a young woman striking out on her own in a new city. This is at the heart of the new film THE RESIDENT which bypassed American theatres and is premiering on home video.

Juliet ( Hilary Swank ) is an emergency room surgeon living at a hotel after a nasty break up with her boyfriend Jack ( Lee Pace ). She finally decides to get a place of her own. After several dissapointing  tours with real estate agents, she posts an apartment wanted notice on the bulletin board at the hospital. She responds to a call and arrives at the building managed by Max ( Jeffrey Dean Morgan ). He’s in the middle of rehabbing the place and informs her that cell phone reception is lousy and the subway trains rattle the foundation. But Juliet is smitten with the view ( you can see the bridge right outside the window ), the opulent space, and the very affordable price. Max rents her the place without a reference check and soon she’s hauling her stuff up the elevator. Max introduces her to his ailing eccentric grandfather August ( Christopher Lee ) who lives down the hall from her. It takes a bit for Juliet to grow accustomed to the creaks and groans of the building, but soon she’s settled in. Later Juliet is invited to a local gallery party by a hospital co-worker and there runs into Max. As they walk and talk she wonders if Max will help her get over Jack. At her door she leans in to kiss Max who backs away. Perhaps she’s crossed a line. The next day she finally takes a call from Jack after he’s left countless messages and texts. She also gets a call from Max. He wishes to make up for the awkward previous evening with dinner. At the end of the meal she invites him into her bedroom. Just as things are heating up, Juliet rebuffs Max by stating that her feelings for Jack are still too strong. He understands and then reluctantly leaves. A few days later Juliet re-connects with Jack. It looks as if they will repair their relationship. All seems to be going well except that she’s constantly sleeping through her alarm and is always exhausted. And it seems that Max is not so sweet and understanding  anymore. Is there something sinister going on here?

Well, of course there is. Director Antii Jokinen telegraphs the creeps during her first night alone at the new place. He also lingers on a very graphic emergency room heart repair, perhaps to show us Juliet’s proficiency with tools. The gore there seems more than a bit gratuitous. Swank doesn’t have much to do here besides looking tired, worried, and confused. Morgan has the more complex role. He shows some of what charmed the many fans of his work on the TV show ” Grey’s Anatomy “. He also goes to a much darker place like his role in WATCHMEN. Pace, also from TV ( “Pushing Daisies” ) has little to do as Swanks’s rekindled romance. The real wasted opportunity here is the small , inconsequential role given to the great Christopher Lee. He’s there as a plot red herring who leers at Juliet through his front door. I was intrigued when I’d heard of his casting in this film. THE RESIDENT is a co-production with th newly re-formed Hammer studios. From the late 50’s through the early 70’s  they were famous for there Gothic horror films especially the Frankenstein film series with Peter Cushing and the Dracula  film series starring Mr. Lee. This film was to be their first big new theatrical release along with the English language remake of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, LET ME IN. That film was critically lauded,but sank like a stone at the box office. Perhaps that had a factor in THE RESIDENT going right to video. More likely that despite the presence of the two time Oscar winning Swank ( who executive produced this along with Renny Harlin ) the film plays like a slightly sexed-up, gored-up, version of a story you’d see as a Lifetime-type TV movie. Certain character behaviors seem very implausible, and the cat and mouse chase through the building’s walls and crawlspaces at the film’s finale  ends flatly. I’m rooting for Hammer’s comeback. I hope they’ll bring us something more exciting and original next time. THE RESIDENT ( with only a trailer as an extra ) is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Image Entertainment.

Overall Rating: Two and a Half Out of Five Stars

DVD Review: THE TOURNAMENT

the tournament

THE TOURNAMENT is one of those films where the premise is so corny and overplayed that it’s strengths have to come from it’s execution. Luckily The Tournament doesn’t disappoint and is actually something of a gem. In the world of films about televised or secret death matches between over the top badasses THE TOURNAMENT stands out for having a great cast and some of the better, bloodier and more interesting action moments ever.

The Tournament itself happens every seven years, when the world’s best assassins all gather together in one random small town to do battle until one is left standing and is declared the best assassin in the world. I think the winner gets a giant pile of money as well, but that’s never made clear. Each Assassin is outfitted with a tracking device so the other killing sociopaths know exactly where to go, keeping the insanity to a clean 24 hours. OH and the trackers are explosives, so if there are too many people left alive at the end of the day, BOOM!

This time around a civilian is brought into the mix when a Frenchman (played by one of the creators of parkour/free running, Sebastien Foucan) cuts out his tracker and places it in a coffee pot. This is when it’s swallowed by alcoholic priest Father Macavoy (played by Robert Carlyle). Now this washed up, hung over shambled priest has to figure out how to stay alive when the world’s best are trying to kill him. Luckily he has Kelly Hu playing a very sexy trained killer named Lai Lai Zhen. Hu seems exceptionally buxom in this role… but that’s got NOTHING to do with the story… just makes her that much more interesting to watch. Her fight scenes are top notch though, as are most in the film.

Also being a complete and total badass is Ving Rhames as Joshua Harlow, a man who was once retired at the top of his game, but is now pulled back in when the murderer of his wife is pulled into the competition. He’s out for revenge and looks damn cool while he’s there.

I can’t lie about somethings this film has that you’ll see coming a mile away and you’ll just have to suspend your disbelief for. Of course the entire small town is wired up with HD video cameras that are part of some safety network and of course two really smart computer hackers who live off red bull and talk like they’re from a Diablo Cody film have hacked into the system and are letting the gambling billionaires see who’s winning everything. Basically they have my dream job and are the nerds everyone like me (IT Majors) wants to be.

Where the movie falters is just that it’s a played out idea and the budget isn’t nearly big enough to make all the effects look as good as they probably should. Thank god most of the gore is practical effects and the movie relies on very little CGI. There is one scene that completely took me out of the experience involving a montage of murder done to a sweet song. It’s very over the top and comedic but doesn’t fit the rest of the film at all and doesn’t do anything to push the narrative forward.

I can’t help but wish this film was getting a very wide theatrical release here in the US because it’s worth it. Sure it doesn’t have any A-list stars, but the cast here is amazing and the characters are very memorable.

Direct to DVD Goodness … American Pie Presents: ‘The Naked Mile’

What do you do when you go into blockbuster (or any other movie chain/store) to see something you haven’t seen before and you have already seen all the good stuff? Well then you rent the direct to DVD movie, if for no other reason then to laugh at how awful it is. Well sometimes that direct to DVD movie surprises you and its actually kind of good. Well that’s what brings us to this new column.

The first movie to get this treatment is … American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile.

For those of you that haven’t seen any of the American Pie movies past American Wedding … let me fill you in. All of the movies since then follow the Stifler clan and only contain one of the original characters, Jim’s Dad who is played by Eugene Levy. I started the watch the one right after American Wedding which was called Band Camp … but got bored and turned it off. This one, actually held my attention, and several laughs.

The story follows Erik Stifler played by John White who sets off with a couple of buddies on a road trip to his Erik’s cousin Dwight Stifler at a college in Michigan for the “Naked Mile Run”. A tradition that was done up until 2004 at the University of Michigan. Erik has hit a rough patch with his girlfriend and she gives him a free weekend pass to do whatever he wants. What follows is an insane weekend of partying, ladies, and Erik’s battle with himself to decide if he would use his weekend pass, or stay true to his girlfriend.

The highlight of the American Pie Presents series has been Steve Talley, who also stars in the latest installment ‘Beta House’. He plays Erik’s cousin Dwight … aka Stifler. A ladies man who is the president of Beta frat house. He is quick witted, but not in the typical asshole Stifler fashion. You really come away from this flick with an appreciation for him, and I hope to see him in more movies soon.