Dead Again in Tombstone - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Dead Again in Tombstone

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
It’s interesting to watch Danny Trejo in his later years. Once a real life gang banger, Trejo turned his life around and became an actor, usually portraying some variant of his old lifestyle due to the gang tattoos and rugged physical nature of the Hispanic actor. I’ll forever remember him as the knife wielding assassin in Desperado, and the guy has actually carved out a very nice career for himself ever since the early 90s. The last 15 years or so have been what I call the “downward side of the bell curve” for an actor, as he has been making do with lots and lots of direct to video films. A career choice that many older actors fall into when they’re no longer cast as leading men, or in prolific films. I can’t blame the guy, he’s got a niche and he does quite well in it.

Dead again in Tombstone is quite obviously a sequel to Dead in Tombstone, a supernatural western that felt a bit too much like a Jonah Hex, but it’s a western and I have a big weakness for them. Even weak westerns like Dead in Tombstone, and the subsequent sequel. The film opens up with a quick recap of the fist movie, explaining how Danny Trejo’s Guerrero De La Cruz became an immortal six gun toting hand maiden of the devil and his subsequent role as soul gatherer. Then shifts over to the undead bounty hunter of the devil getting into a bit of trouble. He’s got a crazed confederate Colonel on his back named Jackson Boomer (Jake Busey), and Boomer wants one thing. A bone box that Guerrero’s family supposedly has hidden somewhere. A box that Guerrero knows nothing about. Well, that doesn’t keep Booker and his disgraced confederate soldiers from trying to hunt the man down and use his family as a bargaining chip.

Realizing that his mother (Michelle Rios) and daughter Alicia (Elysia Rotaru) are in danger, Guerrero heads out to his old home town of Silver River to make sure they’re OK and ends up leading Boomer and his men RIGHT to them. With his mother slaughtered, and daughter being used as leverage, Boomer things that he has all the power in the world, but now he’s going to find out just why the devil chose Guerrero to capture souls for him, and the undead old killer is about to teach him a lesson in pain.

Dead again in Tombstone is kind of an amusing supernatural western. It flaunts its over the top style at every turn, showing us countless slow motion shots of characters sweeping their rain jackets open, or twin wielding six guns that never run out of ammo (I literally was rolling on the floor as Trejo unloads probably 30-40 shots out of two six shot revolvers in ONE battle), and the occasional bit of gratuitous T&A for some ridiculous reason. Roel Reine is obviously having a blast with the genre, and revels in the ludicrous and insane, making it a part of the action and winking at the audience the whole time. Sure, there’s plenty of DTV weak dialog, hard angle camera shots, and an overabundance of cheap sets, but the movie isn’t half bad if you know what you’re getting into.

The sequel is a bit weaker than the first film (not surprising, they usually are), and it really goes a bit too far with ignoring its own rules about Guerrero and his resurrections, as well as the fact that it doesn’t come anywhere NEAR Tombstone this time, but hey. I actually had some fun with it. Trejo plays his tough hardguy role to the T, while Busey hams it almost as much as his legendary father with the role of Boomer (just without some of the insanity that poor Gary is known for). Everyone else is pretty much DTV fodder and has the acting chops that mirror that genre.




Rating:

Rated R for strong violence, sexuality, nudity and some language




Video:

Shot entirely on Red Epic cameras, Dead again in Tombstone comes to Blu-ray with a nice and shiny 1.78:1 framed transfer. The movie looks a bit digital glossy at times, and the low budget used for the film means lots of cheap sets and not a WHOLE lot of color from the image. There’s a slightly dull and flat look to the film most of the time, except for when Alicia was fighting in the middle of the forest with Bulldog, where we got to see some really sharp clarity and excellently saturated colors. Fine detail is usually exceptional, allowing us to see every crease and crack on Trejo’s face, as well as fibers on the rough hewn coats worn throughout the film. There’s some murkiness to the black levels, but it’s not overly murky, but shadow detail does suffer a little bit.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is more than a bit aggressive, with an awesome use of surrounds as well as a really heavy amount of bass. The surrounds and mains show some incredible directional cues with thunder and lightning, while horse hooves thud in the background, or boards creak under footsteps in the local bar. Vocals are well done, with my ONLY complaint being that some of the voices get a bit muffled when the person moves from the center of the camera. LFE is simply punishing, with deep waves of bass hitting the listener from all over, ranging from the before mentioned thudding hooves, to the gunshots that sound like cannon fire, or the dynamite explosions that go off every other shot. Simply put, it’s a heavy duty action track and rips and tears up the sound stage with gusto.





Extras:

• Resurrecting the Western: The Making of Dead Again in Tombstone
• Home in Tombstone: Danny Trejo as Guerrero
• Deleted Scenes Montage
• Feature Commentary with director Roel Reiné, Editor Radu Ion, director of photography Rolf Dekens, co-writer Ethan Wiley and Grid VFX CEO Jan Goossen

Final Score: ​

Is Dead again in Tombstone a great movie? No. Is it a good movie? Again, no, but it’s a serviceable action-western that doesn’t take itself too seriously, making it a decent amount of fun for a cheap rental. The audio and video are very good (especially the audio), and there are some decent extras on the disc for a cheapie DTV film. Universal Blu-rays rarely disappoint in terms of technical specifications and Dead again in Tombstone is really no different. Worth a cheapie rental.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Danny Trejo, Jake Busey, Elysia Rotaru
Directed by: Roel Reine
Written by: Roel Reine, Ethan Wiley
Aspect Ratio: 1.78.1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French, Spanish DTS 5.1
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 99 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: September 12th, 2017

Image

• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Low Rental

 

[Asere]

Danny Trejo. Man this guy is everywhere from movies to commercials like Sling Tv. I like him though.

 

[Michael Scott]

haha, yeah he is. He's a fun guy though .

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will see this on a slow day. lol.