When you start out a movie with a text crawl, you catch my attention most every time. See, there’s this old principle in writing called a “brick”, so named for the old comic strip Krazy Kat. And in same, this mouse by the name of Ignatz was constantly hucking bricks at the titular cat because he was in love with her. And in writing terms, the “brick” is something you use to catch a reader’s attention right from go. That’s what a text crawl often does, at least for me, and that’s why I definitely started off liking Yellowbrickroad, which the folks out at Bloody-Disgusting sent over. Thankfully, they could keep up with what they started.

Yellowbrickroad follows a mysterious story of the town of Friar, NH, which was host to a bizarre incident back in the 1940s. I’ll explain more about that in a minute. But suffice it to say that, in the future, the records behind the incident were declassified, and the coordinates of the town of Friar were released along with them. Now, an expedition is launched to find out just what happened, and the results are more bizarre than most could imagine.

But the title crawl that caught my attention so well? It went like this: “One morning in 1940, the entire population of Friar, NH, walked north up an unmarked trail into the wilderness. Some were later found frozen to death. Others were mysteriously slaughtered. Most, however, were never found. Among the classified records is this audio recording of a lone survivor, conducted at the outset of investigation.”

Creepy? You’d better believe it. A pretty impressive bit of creepy, when you come right down to it. And watching it reveals a pretty well set up affair, with just enough exposition tossed in at just the right times to keep the whole thing moving and sufficiently compelling to hold interest throughout.

Watching these people break down slowly on their expedition, even as we have no idea what’s going on, is especially unnerving, and leaves the whole movie to be a deeply nerve-wracking, chilling experience. It may not have a whole lot in the way of shocks, but this atmospheric chiller is a thing of beauty. Bloody-Disgusting’s really got a winner on their hands with this one. I thought their earlier Rammbock was pretty good stuff, but it was too short. Yellowbrickroad is everything Rammbock was and then some.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Yellowbrickroad a ten out of ten for being a deliciously creepy romp that’s occasionally tough to follow but well worth your time to watch. You won’t be able to catch this until June 1st, and even then in limited theaters only, but man, will you ever want to get your head around this one if you have any taste for horror at all.

Morgan Freeman is one of those great universally recognized voices. So seeing him host a show about the universe as a whole is a thrill to say the least. That’s exactly what you’ll get with Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman, a copy of which the folks out at the Science Channel sent out for me to review.

Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman is going to take us through the universe as we know it, and often, as we had no idea about it. They’ll go looking at things like whether or not there’s a creator in the universe, or what drives black holes, or what’s beyond the outer rim of the galaxy. You’ll be going places you never imagined and seeing things you never believed you would as part of each forty-odd minute episode. There will be eight of them in this two disc set.

Let me be frank: you’ve got to have an interest or a knowledge of science to get anywhere with this. Because frankly, I took physics classes in both high school and college–did reasonably well with them, too–and frankly, I spent more than a little time lost in this one. While there was quite a bit I did get, and certainly enjoyed, there were also plenty of times I wasn’t sure what on Earth they were talking about. And when you consider that, most of the time, they weren’t actually on Earth, that’s saying something.

See, this is science excelsior. Incredible piles of science–physics, chemistry, biology, these are just starts. We’ll go all the way to quantum physics and that weird sector of physics known as “stuff Stephen Hawking did”.–come at you hard and fast here, and frankly, large swathes of it will probably be over the regular person’s head. But at the same time, this is so much fun to watch that that same regular person should want to try. Morgan Freeman’s distinctive voice is backed up by incredible visual imagery to create a combination that is so thoroughly compelling, it’s hard to turn away from.

So yes, you’ll do better here if you have an interest in or experience with science, but even if you don’t, you may want to give it a try anyway.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman and eight out of ten. While it may require a little background in science to get the most out of it, it will still offer plenty of great entertainment as well as a whole lot of learning. It’s well worth your time to watch, and even more worth your time to try and understand.

So we’ve got something interesting from the folks out at Anchor Bay, who sent over a copy of Daydream Nation for us to review. And we’ve seen a whole lot of great stuff come out of Anchor Bay, and while this one is certainly one of the weirdest, it’s also

Daydream Nation is a strange sort of tale that follows Caroline Wexler, a seventeen year old girl who’s staring down the barrel of most every seventeen year old’s horror coming to life: to move from the city to a rural school in the middle of nowhere. And while things could be worse–turns out most of the kids at Caroline’s new school are perpetually stoned, and the world around her is somewhat preposterous. There’s an industrial fire burning almost perpetually outside of town, there’s a serial killer roaming around, and Caroline’s in the middle of a love triangle between a stoner and a teacher. Freaky? You bet. But Caroline’s first year is going to be a doozy.

Daydream Nation is a strange sort of movie; there isn’t much of an actual plot here so much as there is a series of interspersed concepts (almost daydreams, really) connecting to each other in something of a vague fashion. But at the same time, the stories are interesting, especially if you’ve been in high school recently, or know someone who has. The overmastering plotline featuring the love triangle only occasionally crops up, while the rest of the various proto-plotlines show up to fill in the holes.

It’s weird, but it’s different, and frankly, different is good, especially in an environment where More Of The Same so often rules the day. And the performances here are great–Kat Dennings is an absolute showstopper here, and she’s backed up more than ably.

This is not for people who like clear narratives, unless you’re willing to basically just sit back and have a story told to you, a story that you may only occasionally get, and a story that will wildly meander from point to point.

Daydream Nation is fun, but not any kind of really well-structured fun. This is Calvinball, if I can borrow a metaphor, not baseball. There will be times when this gets dark, and there will be times when this gets downright hilarious, and all of these things will mix together, and be not only strange, but very, very watchable.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Daydream Nation an eight out of ten for being strange, but for being so endearingly strange that it’s just as watchable as it is bizarre to watch. You probably haven’t seen a movie like Daydream Nation lately, and while that’s a good thing, it’s also a bad thing. We need more movies like this, and as such, you need to see this, if for no other reason than to support this kind of bizarre and entertaining experience with the greatest measure there is for a movie: dollars.

On behalf of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Screenhead is pleased to announce the official winner of Sniper: Reloaded, which is available on DVD and Blu-ray. Michael Mayhew is our winner. Michael says, “I would love to add this to my movies.”

It looks like Michael you will be adding Sniper: Reloaded to your movies.  I hope you enjoy watching the movie, too.

The movie is about Marine Sgt. Brandon Beckett, son of renowned sniper Thomas Beckett, must turn to his former protégé (Billy Zane) to track down and kill a mysterious sniper before he kills his next target.

While working with the UN Forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Marine Sgt. Brandon Beckett (Chad Michael Collins), son of renowned sniper Thomas Beckett, receives orders to rescue a European farmer trapped in the middle of hostile rebel territory.

When he and his men arrive at the farm, a mysterious sniper ambushes them, wounding Beckett and killing everyone else. With the help of his father’s former protégé, sniper instructor Richard Miller (Zane), Beckett must learn to think like a sniper to track down the assassin before the sniper returns to finish the job.

Witness an exorcism performed by legendary Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) in The Rite.

Believe it or not, this movie is inspired by true events and is being released on May 17th. Screenhead is working with Warner Bros to help promote the thriller. I have a movie night package to give three (3) lucky readers. It includes a free iTunes download of The Rite and a coupon for a large pizza from Papa John’s. If you are interested in this giveaway, you can find out below how to enter.

That’s right three (3) prize packs – We get to pick three lucky winners!

Prize Pack Contents:

Papa John’s Pizza Card
iTunes gift card for the purchase of the movie.

Watch it your way: On Demand, For Download or on Blu-ray combo pack.

Inspired by true events, this supernatural thriller follows a seminary student (Colin O’Donoghue) sent to study exorcism at the Vatican in spite of his own doubts about the controversial practice and even his own faith.

Only when sent to apprentice with legendary Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins), who has performed thousand of exorcisms, does his armor of skepticism begin to fall. Drawn into a troubling case that seems to transcend even Father Lucas’s skill, the young seminarian glimpses a phenomenon science can’t explain or control – and an evil so violent and terrifying that it forces him to question everything he believes.  What do you believe!?

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winner May 27, 2011.

We’ve got a big treat for you today, folks, as the crew out at new contact HBO sent us out an advance copy of True Blood: The Complete Third Season for us to review, and I’ll tell you this: if you can’t get enough vampires, Louisiana, or Sookie Stackhouse, then you’re absolutely going to love this when it hits shelves May 31st.

True Blood: The Complete Third Season takes us back down to the bayou for more fun with vampires. But this time, we’re not going to be so focused on Sookie and Bill, but rather a much broader picture of things, as the vamp-blood trade gets more involved, the King of Mississippi make his appearance, werewolves get into the picture, the supernaturals are a little less involved, and we’ll finally find out just who it is that Sookie Stackhouse is sharing genes with. So if you’re a True Blood fan, it’s going to be a big season for you.

And even if you’ve already seen it, well, that’s all the more reason for you to have it all in one place.

Assuming you haven’t seen True Blood yet, well, this is not the place you’ll want to start. You’re going to be abjectly lost by the end of things if you don’t have a good idea of what’s going on going in. But, if you have at least some idea of what’s going on, you’re going to have a grand old time here, make no mistake about that.

But be forewarned, this is an HBO series, which means a lot of the traditional defenses you might expect from a television series. There will be nudity in both directions, profanities of every description, and lots and lots of blood.

And if you can get around the…enhanced…content, you’ll get a surprisingly deep, surprisingly involved vampire story that runs the gamut from romance to action to even a bit of comedy, and that makes this one something really impressive and downright fun to watch. It really blew my mind, because I’ve never been much of a one for vampire stories. And yet, this one is actually pretty good, despite the fact that it’s absolutely thick with Ventrue-style vampires that normally irk me. Maybe it’s the environment, maybe it’s the comedy thrown in, but either way, I like True Blood.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, in turn, gives True Blood: The Complete Third Season an eight out of ten. It’s fine stuff, though you’ll have to have some love for the horror genre to really get anywhere with it, and you’ll need to start from the beginning to get the most out of it, but still, for those willing to take the ride, you’ll find a very welcome treat in this package.

The folks out at Lions Gate have been doing a lot of Marvel stuff lately, and considering that we just got through with the theatrical release of Thor, it’s probably no real surprise they came out with Thor: Tales of Asgard. They sent out a copy for me to review, and the end result wasn’t half bad.

Thor: Tales of Asgard takes us to a time before Loki was evil, and before Thor was the hero of Midgard–or rather, Earth–said brothers took a few folks (otherwise known as the somewhat famous Warriors Three) out on a quest for the lost Sword of Surtur. But this quest goes from treasure hunt to apocalypse in rapid fashion, and now Thor, Loki and the Warriors Three must work to save Asgard from a horror beyond even their imagination.

What will really surprise you here is how well put together this is. Yes, it’s a cartoon, but it’s actually a solid piece. It’s got a decent plot package–of course, purists here will likely be somewhat dismayed by the portrayals of the various characters, which seems to be at least somewhat off canon by a fair margin.  But then, that’s been the kind of thing we’ve been dealing with in these sorts of movies for years now; it’s never exactly according to Hoyle when it comes to the canon.

But still, it’s feature length (well, not too far short, anyway), it’s involved, it’s actually got some nice twists packed in here too…in short, it’s a fully-featured feature, and there’s plenty to like about it.

That’s actually been the case with a lot of Lions Gate / Marvel work, which is, admittedly, something of a surprise, but a very welcome surprise at that. I’m happy to see how well this was developed. And of course, for those who like action in their movies, you’ll have plenty of that. You’ll also have a few good laughs, which are also welcome, and best of all, you’ll almost be sad to see this one end. It was a good story, while it lasted, and though there may not be as much of it here as some would like, there’s enough of it to make it worthwhile.

So if you’re looking for a shot of Thor before he was Thor, then Thor: Tales of Asgard will give you a bit of that unique adventure you were hoping for.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, in response, gives Thor: Tales of Asgard an eight out of ten for putting on a fine show, just not so much of it is they should have. It’s well put together, and a valid feature in its own right, but just a bit lacking in the end.

We’ve seen a lot of versions of the Robin Hood story. Multiple movies, a cartoon featuring anthropomorphic animals from Disney, at least one television series from the folks at BBC, and now, Acorn Media sent out a copy of one more: Robin of Sherwood.

Robin of Sherwood takes us back, way back, to the whole medieval period of England back before it was an empire. Young Robin, following the death of his father, has to grow up and take up the mantle of the resistance against the oppressive regime of the Sheriff of Nottingham and the like. But this time, it won’t be just archery that runs the day here, but also just a little magic getting thrown in to make this a really rather full featured experience.

Seriously, I don’t remember the last time I saw magic figure in heavily to a dose of Robin Hood, and this one actually does a nice job. The soundtrack is a bit weird, heavy on the synthesizer, but then I discovered that this was originally made back in 1984, well, then it suddenly made a lot of sense.

One problem I had with Robin of Sherwood is that the subtitles only occasionally match the dialogue. This isn’t a huge problem, you understand, but really rather irksome. Aside from that, it’s definitely a winner. It’s a huge, sprawling epic lasting fully seven hundred minutes (or just short of twelve hours), and this is just Set One.

I was very impressed by this. Some of Acorn’s stuff, especially their older stuff, has shown its age. But Robin of Sherwood is not only a fine presentation for an English television show from the eighties, but has a downright timeless quality to it that’s not only surprising but welcome.

Folks, if you’ve got any love at all for the Robin Hood mythos, you’re absolutely going to love Robin of Sherwood. It’s terrific stuff, well acted, well put together, and downright credible. It’s a treat. A downright treat to watch, minor subtitle issues aside, and it’s not every day I find something that I can actually refer to as a treat.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands over a full ten, once again (we’ve had a lot of those lately, and while I’m glad to see it it still doesn’t quite sit right), out of ten to Robin of Sherwood, a series that’s going to put on a fantastic show with terrific performances, credible plotlines, annoying synthesizer music, and all the action you could hope for from an installment of Robin Hood.

Documentary fans, strap in, because the folks out at Lions Gate sent over a copy of The Cove, and if you like documentaries, water scenery, or the environment, you’re going to be all over this one like Shark Week on chum.

The Cove follows a group of free divers and environmentalists, especially former dolphin trainer on the set of Flipper Ric O’Barry, who’ve made a horrible discovery out in a secret cove in Japan, near the town of Taiji. And what they find going on in there has deep ramifications for huge swathes of the ecosystem as we know it. But their discovery isn’t without risk, and there are those who want to keep this find silent. But The Cove exists as a monument to those who wouldn’t remain silent, despite the dangers around them.

The first several minutes of The Cove are actually profoundly confusing. Something very, very significant is going on in front of us, but we don’t know just what that something is and won’t know for quite some time into the movie. And we know it’s significant; they keep beating around the bush, describing how O’Barry’s colleagues are dying off, and how shady events are going on, sometimes tied to major names like Sea World.

And when The Cove isn’t being oblique, it’s downright beautiful. There are plenty of amazing scenes of underwater vistas and dolphins moving in rapid fashion, and it’s really impressive to see. But this beauty almost seems contributory to many of the issues that end up facing dolphins. By the time you figure out what Taiji’s secret is, and how it relates to everything else that’s going on, it’s not hard to end up feeling downright horrified by what you’re seeing.

But in the midst of your horror, you’ll also get some really exciting moments in which you watch the environmentalists fighting back, using bizarre and outlandish methods.

The end result is an attention-grabbing concept that melds espionage, outright action, and a beautiful oceanic documentary in one fell swoop. It’s impossible not to follow this obsessively, and does a magnificent job of compelling attention.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Cove a full ten out of ten. It’s hard not to enjoy a movie like this that not only manages to pack a bit of action and adventure into a documentary about dolphins, but also create a compelling, haunting piece that will keep your attention very nicely throughout the entire piece. Even the run time, around ninety minutes, is just right. Everything about this is just right.

Screenhead is hosting an online giveaway for the release of The Hit List. We are giving away (1) DVD copy of The Hit List.

The DVD will be released on May 10, 2011.

The movie looks like a story I would never want to live. Ever wish you had the chance to get back at the boss who undermined you…the spouse who cheated on you…or the friend who deceived you? One night, a down-on-his-luck businessman, Allan Campbell (Cole Hauser), meets a mysterious stranger, Jonas Arbor (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who claims to be a professional hit man.

Jonas offers to take out five targets, free of charge. Thinking it’s a bad joke, Allan jots down his private hit list. The next day, the people he named start turning up dead, and all the evidence points to Allan. Hunted by the police and haunted by guilt, Allan races against time to stop the murders he set in motion. In this world, vengeance always has a price.

To enter the giveaway, post your name and we will pick the winner May 23, 2011.

US residents only