10 TO MIDNIGHT's Trashy Thrills Are Now Available on 4K UHD Alongside Two More Charles Bronson Gems

Charles Bronson's filmography is filled with tough guy action films, but he has a few titles that also compete for the label of sleaziest.

1982's Death Wish II and 1989's Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects are definite contenders, but my pick goes to 1983's trashy, violent, and exploitative 10 to Midnight.

Leo Kessler (Bronson) is a veteran detective who knows better than to let his feelings get involved with the job, but his latest case is testing that resolve. A sadistic serial killer named Warren (Gene Davis) is stalking and slaughtering young women, and he knows how to play a system stacked more in favor of the suspects than it is towards the victims. The body count rises, and Leo is forced to bend some rules when his own daughter becomes a target.

Bronson's fourth feature with director J. Lee Thompson -- they made eight films together in total -- feels inspired as much by the Dirty Harry movies as by the real-life exploits of Richard Speck and Ted Bundy. Warren is a smart sociopath whose vile actions lead to an assault on a nursing student dorm that leaves multiple women harmed or killed, and as with the rest of the kills, Thompson captures the sequence with an eye for both suspense and sleaze. It's a definite highpoint in the Cannon Films library as it gleefully checks all of the studio's boxes when it comes to content and tone.

It's surprisingly brutal at times, and its exploitative bent is equally on display when it comes to onscreen flesh. We get the expected female nudity, but Thompson and Davis made the choice to have Warren strip completely down during his kills. They commit, too, as evident by the shots of a fully nude Davis chasing women in the woods or down a city street. It serves to raise the trash level in delightfully graphic ways.

Bronson is solid, as always, and shows both an energy and an anger that benefits the character well. Davis, by contrast, gives a less than memorable performance, whether by design or lack of acting chops, but it works to make his character creepily flat in presence. Andrew Stevens, Lisa Eilbacher, Geoffrey Lewis, Wilford Brimley, and a very quick turn by Kelly Preston all add to the watch.

The film's seen a few Blu-ray releases over the years, but Kino Lorber's new 4K upgrade is the clear winner. The 4K UHD showcases the film's numerous nighttime sequences and shadows with terrific depth and detail while retaining enough of its original grain to keep it feeling authentic and of its time. The remastered Blu-ray is an upgrade, too, and includes radio spots, a trailer, and both old and new special features.

Two previously available commentaries are included on both discs, one from Bronson expert Paul Talbot and the other with film historian David Del Valle, producer Pancho Kohner, and casting director John Crowther. Four interviews are ported over to this release including Andrew Stevens, producer Lance Hool, and actors Robert Lyons and Jeana Tomasina.

Bronson's loyalty to directors was also evident in his long-running collaboration with Michael Winner. The pair made six films together with half of those being the first three entries in the Death Wish franchise. Their best film, though, is 1972's The Mechanic, which still stands as a smart, classy thriller with fun characters, terrific action beats, and an unforgettable ending.

Arthur Bishop (Bronson) is a veteran hitman who's found success as a killer by making the hits appear to be accidents. As creative as his kills can be, though, he finds himself growing tired of the job and agrees to mix things up by taking on a young apprentice named Steve (Jan-Michael Vincent). The pair work well together, but ambition and guilt lead them towards an inevitable confrontation.

Winner opens his film in a way that few modern studio releases would ever dare as his lead spends 16 minutes planning, crafting, and executing a hit -- all without speaking a word of dialogue. It's a methodical display telling all we need to know about Arthur and his job, and it creates a sharp contrast to the more impulsive methods favored by his apprentice.

The 2011 remake with Jason Statham is fine, but it favors spectacle and set piece over suspense and structure. Here we're given a smartly crafted thriller that lets its characters and plot points breathe in refreshing ways. That engaging patience is a hallmark of genre cinema from the 1970s, whether they're terrific or merely good, and it's a sadly lost art these days.

As is the norm with Kino Lorber's 4K upgrades of older films, the results here are fantastic. Deep blacks, sharp details, and a solid blend of clarity and grain make for a killer worthwhile upgrade. The discs feature three older commentary tracks -- one with Bronson historian Paul Talbot, one with film historians Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth, and one with cinematographer Richard Kline, moderated by film historian Nick Redman. There's also an informative interview with screenwriter Lewis John Carlino.

Both 10 to Midnight and The Mechanic are well known films considered to be classics in Bronson's filmography, but Kino Lorber has also released one of his earlier European hits that never found the same success in the U.S. Rider on the Rain is an odd thriller that becomes less and less conventional as time goes on.

Mellie (Marlene Jobert) is a young woman whose night is shattered when a stranger invades her home and assaults her. She survives the attack, guns him down with both barrels of a shotgun, beats him with an oar, and then dumps his body into the sea. She moves on with her life until an American named Harry (Bronson) arrives with questions, suspicions, and unexpected motives.

Director Rene Clement is best known for films like Purple Noon and Is Paris Burning?, but he deserves extra credit for giving Bronson one of his earliest leading roles. Harry feels like a proper Bronson character at first, but the uncertainty behind his intentions grows in some oddly unexpected ways. He keeps control of the character, though, and it's an effective turn that wouldn't see a lot of similarities in his American work.

The film is arguably too long for its weight -- the American cut is six minutes shorter than the two-hour European version -- but there's an odd air about it that engages and still manages to hold the attention. The story is part of that, but it's really Bronson who carries the film on his charisma and performance. We see him bowling (complete with bowling shoes) and buttering toast, two wholly mundane actions that he makes weirdly compelling, but it's his intense investigation and strange knowledge of events that raise the stakes.

It's not quite as straightforward of a thriller as the premise suggests, and that's both a strength and a weakness (depending on your patience), but the end result is still an engaging time for Bronson fans and non-fans alike. A slow burn, definitely, as the story takes its time to unwind itself, teases Harry's intentions, and exists mostly as a story about one woman's growth, yet it's rarely less than interesting.

Kino brings the film home, including both the American and French cuts, the longer of which runs six-minutes longer; they're both remastered in 4K (each available on its own 4K UHD). Clement shoots an attractive film -- the French cut looks the best for some reason, sharper and bolder, suggesting differences with the color grading as well -- and it hasn't looked better than it does here. The American cut includes a commentary with film historians Howard Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, while the French cut features a commentary with film historians Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson.

Charles (Alex McArthur) is a regular guy by all accounts, but one day he enters a stranger's house and commits a truly heinous act of violence that extends into a spree. Anthony (Michael Biehn) is the district attorney tasked with trying a case that tests both his views on the law and on humankind.

The basic plot synopsis of William Friedkin's Rampage makes it sound every bit like a film that could have starred Charles Bronson had it been made a decade prior -- and had it let the DA cut loose with some old-fashioned retribution. Friedkin manages some truly chilling and visceral sequences early on, as Charles' rampage is unsettling without being overly graphic. Some foot chases and a later scene briefly recapture that feeling, though too much of the rest of it gets bogged down in argumentative, masturbatory banter about culpability and the death penalty.

Both are interesting topics, to be sure, but Friedkin lets the conversation outweigh the story. So much of the dialogue in interviews and court scenes feels expected and dry, and it's all in service of questions that the filmmaker isn't interested in answering or even fully embracing. Still, this is Friedkin, so there's an energy and vitality about much of the film that makes it worthwhile all the same.

The film faced an uphill battle towards release given both its content and the response to it, and that left two versions -- the 1987 original version that played festivals and early screenings, and the eventual theatrical release re-edited by the studio. Kino's new 4K release includes remasters of both versions. The later cut is arguably the more traditional, but both see the same strengths and weaknesses.

Kino's new release features both cuts on 4K UHD and Blu-ray, and each version gets its own new commentary from film historians Howard Berger and Nathaniel Thompson. They note the differences, both big and small, throughout each cut. There's an interview with McArthur that offers up some very interesting anecdotes, and another with true crime writer Harold Schechter talking about the real-life inspiration for the film's antagonist.

Chris Vaughn (Dwayne Johnson) is a military veteran returning home to the small coastal Washington town where he grew up. He's looking for work, but he finds only trouble as he discovers corruption, drug dealing, and thuggery are their only exports these days. Chris decides to go into work for himself and starts cleaning up the town.

Walking Tall is another title that, in another life, could have starred Charles Bronson as the tough talking guy who comes into town and starts laying down the law -- but it's a remake of a film from the 70s that starred Joe Don Baker instead. This version feels far less inspired by a true story, as it ramps up the action a bit more with sequences and stunts that are well beyond its 70s counterpart.

This stage of Johnson's films career saw him moving between lead roles and smaller turns without really finding his footing in either. There are standouts including The Rundown and, err, well there's one standout. While slightly better than the likes of Faster and Snitch, it's still a fairly generic action film from the early 2000s. It's also better than most of what he's done lately, although the box-office results would disagree.

The film has a good villain in Neal McDonaugh, who excels at playing chilly creeps, and it carries the vibe of the original, even if it's avoiding many of the true details around the real Sheriff Buford Pusser. Director Kevin Bray crafts a passable tale that delivers a watchable piece of entertainment -- high praise, I know -- that will likely fade from your mind as fast as it did from Cobie Smulder's who stars here as "Exotic Beauty" in her feature film debut.

Kino's new 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo release looks good, but like the film itself, it's far from memorable. The extras include a brand-new commentary from journalist Brandon Streussnig along with two archival tracks, one with the film's director, cinematographer Glen MacPherson, and editor Robert Ivison, and another with Johnson himself. We also get an archival featurette as well as deleted scenes and a gag reel.