Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Brian De Palma’s 1976 Carrie is viewed as a quintessential piece of horror cinema. Based on Stephen King’s work of the same name, Carrie has terrified audiences over the subsequent decades and remains a true classic to this very day. In 1999, however, fans were treated to a sequel of sorts called The Rage. Now available on Blu-ray in the UK for the first time, let’s take a little look at this new release of a follow-up that, let’s be honest, nobody really asked for in the first place.

In terms of plot, this time out we find the story driven by Rachel Lang (Emily Bergl). A high school student, Rachel is looked down upon by the supposed cool kids and pretty girls in much the same way that a certain Carrie White was in De Palma’s ’76 picture. Well, that is until football player Jesse (Jason London) takes a shine to her. Is Jesse genuine in his affection? Is he simply your run-of-the-mill jock looking to get his rocks off? And just how will Rachel handle the telekinesis that seems to have been reawakened after the suicide of her best friend?

When looking at The Rage: Carrie 2, the movie is of course going to be held up against its predecessor. And when said predecessor is viewed as utterly iconic by so many, The Rage was always going to be fighting an uphill battle. Unfortunately for the sequel, it’s a battle that it simply cannot win.

Don’t get us wrong, there are some plus points to The Rage. For instance, Emily Bergl and Jason London impress as the duo heading up the picture. Both come across as genuinely likeable and do enough to have you actually caring what happens to their characters. As for the rest of the film, sadly it’s hard to fully get behind any of the other characters, for they’re all just thoroughly unlikeable for the most part. And no, not in a “ooh, we hope they get what’s coming to them” sort of unlikeable; more “ooh, this character is making me want to watch something else” sort of unlikeable. Even Amy Irving, who reprises her Sue Snell role from the original movie, struggles to get you onside despite now being the reformed school principal who is a totally different person to the bully that tormented poor Carrie White.

Like so many films of the day, The Rage: Carrie 2 is one that is dripping in the styles of its time. Make no mistake about it: this is as cheesy ‘90s horror as it gets. From the fashion, to the haircuts, to the dialogue, to the soundtrack, to the fonts used on the credits, to the fact that so many of these high schoolers are played by people in their mid-late 20s, this is a true time capsule and checklist of the teen-driven horror movies of the day. For those of us around in the ‘90s, there’s a hazy nostalgia element at play that will often put a smile on your face. But with that in mind, it’s still a tough task to label The Rage a good movie. It’s not.

In amongst all of the clichés and overplayed tropes, mind, there are some pretty good kills in The Rage’s third act, and some of the visuals and editing work well when highlighting the darker moments of the story. It’s just that these kills and stylish cuts are massively overshadowed by the lesser components of Carrie 2. Of course, regardless it’s always fun to watch the meek victim flip the tables on her tormentors, and that is again the case in The Rage.

Where the bonus material is concerned, the audio commentary with director Katt Shea is particularly entertaining; Katt coming off as a hugely interesting and engaging character. Other than that, an alternate ending is always fun to explore, as are deleted scenes and collector’s booklets.

All in all, The Rage: Carrie 2 still feels like a completely unnecessary sequel that, while having its own merits, feels totally misjudged, rushed and sadly redundant.

Special Features: Two audio commentaries / Alternate ending / Deleted scenes / Limited edition collector’s booklet / Limited edition slipcase

THE RAGE: CARRIE 2 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: KATT SHEA / SCREENPLAY: RAFAEL MOREU / STARRING: EMILY BERGL, JASON LONDON, AMY IRVING, DYLAN BRUNO, ZACHERY TY BRYAN / RELEASE DATE: APRIL 8TH

Science fiction created behind the Iron Curtain has always held a peculiar interest for a western audience. Authors and filmmakers working on the fringes of literature and film were often afforded more freedom to express their own worldview, albeit through a Soviet tint, than their more traditional, high culture comrades. Thus watching and reading Eastern Bloc sci-fi can sometimes seem like a glimpse into an alien world, through dispatches sent by a resistance keen not to arouse too much attention to its dissent.

Ikarie XB-1 is a 1963 Czechoslovakian production, which concerns itself with a voyage to Alpha Centauri. The movie is set two hundred years into the future, where everybody may speak Czech but there seems to have been an international conciliation (Communism was designed to be spread worldwide, after all), which was surely an influence on Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek. The crew will spend fifteen years on the eponymous ship, although when they return to Earth it will only have been 28 months for them due to time dilation, which is especially distressing for those leaving loved ones behind.

The movie is loosely based on The Magellanic Cloud, a story by the Polish author Stanisław Lem, who’s twice-adapted Solaris is recognised as one of science fiction’s finest novels. The plot retains much of Lem’s story, but often deals with events in an offhand manner; this is a film which has action and peril, but the true concern appears to be how these things affect the people involved rather than any lasting dramatic effect. In this you can see the seeds of 2001: A Space Odyssey, another tale of very big things happening from the perspective of the humans carried along by them.

There is a smattering of ‘look at the decadent west!’ when they encounter a past incursion into deep space, but there is little beyond that to really mark Ikarie XB-1 as a true product of the Soviet era. Perhaps Czechoslovakia’s proximity to the West, or that Stalinism struggled to take hold there until shortly before the film’s production (the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was only proclaimed in 1960), didn’t allow for the cynicism that pervades much classic Russian sci-fi to develop? Regardless, Ikarie XB-1 is – on the surface at least – in many ways a similar movie to one that might have been produced in Hollywood at the time.

And Hollywood did take the film, and dub it, and retitle it Voyage to the End of the Universe, where many of us may have seen it in late-night rotation, and written it off as just another space exploration B-movie. The American version is represented here in the extras by a new title sequence, and by a slightly altered ending, which renders the rest of the movie nonsensical. Also included are a booklet and a video essay by Kim Newman, which help to flesh out the context of the movie, as well as a short film from the same period.

There’s much to recommend Ikarie XB-1 to fans of space exploration and historical curiosities, and that’s before you consider the movie’s most engaging moment: an attempt to divine how dancing may look in two hundred years’ time (a very mannered, structured affair, as it turns out). Director Jindřich Polák mostly made children’s films after completing Ikarie XB-1, and missed out on the Czechoslovakian New Wave, but fans of that era of filmmaking may also find some interest in how mainstream movies were made in that period. Regardless, Ikarie XB-1 is 88 minutes well spent.

IKARIE XB-1 (1963) / CERT: PG / DIRECTED: JINDRICH POLÁK / SCREENPLAY: PAVEL JURÁCEK & JINDRICH POLÁK / STARRING: ZDENEK ŠTEPÁNEK, RADOVAN LUKAVSKÝ, FRANTIŠEK SMOLÍK, OTTO LACKOVIC & JOZEF ADAMOVIC / OUT NOW

In 2027, Los Angeles is a wasteland populated by cyber-altered humans and Goddamn cyborgs. It’s a battle for supremacy where the only line of defence is the police force. Or at least that’s how it seems. As cyborg cop Alex (Arnie wannabe, Olivier Gruner) tracks down a cell of Goddamn terrorist cyborgs, he unwittingly becomes embroiled in a deeper plot that threatens to shake his loyalties and question what it is to be human.

Let’s cut to the chase: Director Albert Pyun’s original concept was a solid one, especially for 1992. But while Pyun was intent on paying homage to the epic sci-fi films of the era, the minimal budget served only to expose the film’s weaknesses. That said, what they accomplished with what little they had, was exemplary, it just wasn’t enough to stop this feeling like a B-movie actioner that wanted so much to be Blade Runner. Then Terminator. Then Robocop. Then Rambo… you get the idea.

The cast is equally hit and miss. Gruner is staggeringly miscast – while he looks the part, he is required to act here and it’s clearly not one of his strengths. Thank God then for Tim Thomerson who elevates the film every time he appears on screen, while genre legend Brion James plays accent roulette again, this time settling on German. Also, keep your eyes peeled for a young (and very naked) Thomas Jane.

All of that said, the main event kicks in once the film ends as this release by MVD has a staggering amount of content. The gorgeous retro VHS O-Ring reveals a two-disc edition that features a Blu-ray and DVD. The former has an incredible 1080p transfer of the original cut in both 2.35:1 and 1.78:1 ratios. It also features brand new interviews with Pyun and producer Eric Karson that shed some interesting light on the project and how Pyun effectively sold its soul to get it made (by agreeing to change the protagonist from a 13-year-old girl to an unintelligible French male kickboxer). The disc also features the 2012 Director’s Cut of the film, featuring new CG moments and no unintentionally hilarious voice over by Gruner (dubbed Nemesis 2.0) with director’s commentary. But here’s the rub – the quality of the transfer is so bad, it’s almost sub-VHS, and as such it’s a very difficult watch.

So what’s the DVD for? Well, that Goddamn awful transfer is back sans Commentary, accompanied by the extended Japanese Cut (which is better quality than 2.0 but still not hi-def) and a flurry of extras compiled for a previous Nemesis box set, including original Behind the Scenes featurettes, Introduction by Pyun and Gruner, Photo Galleries and Pyun’s Afterword.

If 90s sci-fi actioners are your thing (and, frankly, why wouldn’t they be?) and you can handle the constant repetition of the word ‘Goddamn’, then this is for you. It might not be a cult classic, but Nemesis still qualifies as a guilty pleasure.

NEMESIS / CERT: UNRATED (USA) / DIRECTOR: ALBERT PYUN / SCREENPLAY: REBECCA CHARLES / STARRING: OLIVIER GRUNER, TIM THOMERSON, CARY-HIROYUKI TAGAWA, BRION JAMES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

A miserable Scott Henderson picks up a melancholy woman, with an unusual hat, in a bar. She agrees to spend some time with him as long as it’s on a no-name basis. When Scott returns home he discovers the police waiting for him. His wife has been murdered and he’s the prime suspect, particularly as it’s revealed that his marriage had problems. Witnesses are questioned and all state that Scott was alone; there wasn’t a woman with an unusual hat. When Scott is charged with murdering his wife, it falls to his devoted secretary ‘Kansas’ to find the phantom lady and save Scott from the electric chair…

The Phantom Lady was German born Robert Siodmak’s first Hollywood noir, starring Franchot Tone, Alan Curtis and Ella Raines whom Universal hoped would be as big a box office draw as Maureen O’Hara, Bette Davis, Lana Turner et al. The film itself is an odd beast. The acting is fine, particularly from Raines, but much of the dialogue is risible. Then there’s the crazed killer whose craziness is anything but subtle, what with their dizzy spells, eye ticks and feverishly staring at their clawed hands. Yet Siodmak’s imaginative direction keeps the train from completely derailing. His use of German expressionism in the lighting, especially with the exterior scenes is mesmerising. In one truly great scene, Raines relentlessly stalks a mendacious witness through a soft mist that hangs over the swelteringly hot summer streets.

The picture quality on this presentation is unusual. The picture itself is sharp and clear and benefits from the Blu-ray treatment. What’s unusual is that all the negative’s scratches and drop outs are evident. It would be interesting to know if this was an aesthetic decision and, if so, why, as the uncompressed mono audio is crystal clear and really packs a punch.

The extras themselves are sparse. There’s the usual gallery of stills and posters, as well as Dark and Deadly: 50 Years of Film Noir, an hour long documentary from 1998 featuring contributions from Robert Wise, Edward Dmytryk and Dennis Hopper amongst others. There’s some interesting trivia nuggets, such as Wise considering Noir a style of film making rather than a genre, and Dmytryk (deemed to be Noir’s first practitioner) stating that the noir look was created due to budgetary constraints. It was easier to hide a sets lack of detail in shadow.

The extras highlight has to be the hour-long 1944 radio dramatization of Phantom Lady by the Lux Radio Theatre, with the film’s stars Alan Curtis and Ella Raines. Films of this period often had radio adaptations. In fact it was common practice for the big stars to appear on radio in such programmes as Suspense, or even have their own shows like Vincent Price in The Saint or James Stewart in The Six Shooter. The production values were often exceptional, as they are here.Siodmak would soon direct the superior The Spiral Staircase, The Dark Mirror and the much-lauded The Killers, but The Phantom Lady shows, if nothing else, why he would become one of noir’s great directors.

THE PHANTOM LADY / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: ROBERT SIODMAK / SCREENPLAY: BERNARD C. SCHOENFELD / STARRING: FRANCHOT TONE, ELLA RAINES, ALAN CURTIS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Considering the prescience of much of its storyline, it’s really quite remarkable that 1999’s Kolobos has disappeared from view and not been exhumed and re-evaluated in the years since it failed to make much of an impact or find much of an appreciative audience. Kolobos touches on so many of the fads and fashions that have contributed to the diminution of our cultural landscape and now, viewed with the hindsight of two  decades, it unfortunately  presents as less of a cautionary tale and more as a sometimes gruelling and intense, if deeply flawed, horror movie.

The set-up is one we recognise now from hundreds of tacky TV shows and low budget slasher movies. We open on a badly injured girl named Kira (Weber) found in a city street, able to mutter only the word ‘kolobos’. The story proceeds to unfold in flashback as we meet pre-trauma Kira and a group of youngsters arriving at a snow-covered house under the guise of participating in a ’ground-breaking’ new experimental film. The entire property is fitted out with cameras and their every move is being recorded. Sound familiar? The group are indulging in random flirting and the inane banter of a million Big Brother-type reality TV shows (they spend a lot of their time watching slasher movies… ironically just before one of their number is gruesomely slashed by a kitchen razor-blade contraption) when the house is suddenly plunged into lockdown and it becomes apparent that something extremely sinister is afoot and that not everyone is going to get out alive…

Kolobos feels like we’ve seen all this before because we have; what’s frustrating is not only that Kolobos did it first (before films like My Little Eye and Cube), but that it’s never signposted as one of the first movies to touch on the ‘reality’ angle, which became so hideously popular in the early 21st century and onwards. Yet there’s rather more to Kolobos than just a story about a bunch of annoying teens stuck in a house; the movie is pregnant not only with creeping dread and dripping with gory, highly wince-inducing violence as the cast list starts to shrink it also boasts a commendable sense of ambiguity as we’re not entirely sure if what we’re seeing is actually real or just the deranged imaginings of a sick and twisted imagination. The film doesn’t quite manage to live up to the promise of its premise, though, mainly due to some unconvincing performances and production values that aren’t always able to support the frame of the story when it needs to be at its most compelling. The twist ending is a little too opaque to satisfy and there remains the feeling that Kolobos is a film which tries to subvert its own genre, predicts the rise of another one and yet isn’t quite able to score a direct hit on its own terms. Horror hounds will enjoy the nods to the likes of Suspiria and, indeed, recognising the films it inadvertently foreshadows (particularly the rise of so-called invasive torture porn horror) but – even making allowances for its low budget – Kolobos isn’t really accomplished enough to enjoy the landmark status it could have deserved it had just been a little bit tighter and a little bit slicker. Arrow’s Blu-ray transfer is a bit on the grainy side, but the special features will tell you all you need to know about a film you probably weren’t aware even existed.

KOLOBOS (1999) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: DANIEL LIATOWITSCH, DAVID TODD OCVIRK / SCREENPLAY: NNE EBONG, DANIEL LIATOWITSCH, DAVID TODD OCVIRK / STARRING: AMY WEBER, DONNY TERRANOVA, NICOLE PELERINE, JOHN FAIRLIE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

If rumours are to believed, Wheels on Meals was originally titled Meals on Wheels but changed because superstitious execs at production company Golden Harvest were concerned that their last two films beginning with M – Megaforce and Ménage à Trois­ – had done a Box office belly-flop. If it’s true, then it’s entirely in keeping with the bizarre random insanity of a film very much of its time (the mid-1980s are in full effect here), which mixes slapstick, leery comedy, and high-octane kung fu thrills to create a film that ultimately wears out its welcome but with plenty to appeal to dedicated connoisseurs of Chinese action cinema.

Thomas (Chan) and David (Biao) are two brothers running a fast food operation on the streets of Barcelona (the location filming – this is one of the first high profile Chinese movies to film outside the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong – is one of its plus points). An encounter with pickpocket Sylvia (Forner) leads the dumb-headed love-struck pair into a breathlessly wacky adventure alongside chunky bumbling private eye Moby (Hung) who is on Sylvia’s trail as it turns out she’s the heir to a considerable inheritance – a fact that has come to the attention of a vicious gang who will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. Sylvia is kidnapped and the limber-limbed trio infiltrate the villain’s castle lair, which leads to an energised, kinetic, kung fu masterclass.

Wheels on Meals is what it is – and fans of shamelessly broad slapstick (we looked in vain for Benny Hill’s name on the credits), gurning and mugging masquerading as acting and paper-thin plotting will be in their element here. The film deftly demonstrates the twinkling, slightly tongue-in-cheek humour and commendable disregard for his own safety which turned Chan into a crossover star, making his name in western cinema in the 1990s as much he had on home ground in his youth. Aficionados won’t really give too much of a damn about distractions such as plot, narrative, love interest and anything much to do with general story dynamics; they’re here for the rough stuff and the quickly film sets out its store with a lively tussle between Thomas and David and some bikers and the film is punctuated with bruising battle action until its explosive climax with Chan matched punch for punch and kick for kick by Hung and especially Baio, whose tussle with Keith Vitali’s aptly-named ‘Thug #2’ is a particular highlight.

Eureka has scrubbed Wheels on Meals up well for this shiny new Blu-ray release and packed the disc with new special features which will delight fans of the genre. Those not familiar with Chinese action cinema might find it all a bit clunky and baffling (but then they’re not the target audience) but there’s some fun to be had here for anyone who appreciates the artistry of action movies in general, and the emerging star power of Jackie Chan in particular.

WHEELS ON MEALS (1984) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: SAMMO HUNG / SCREENPLAY: EDWARD TANG, JOHNNY LEE / STARRING: JACKIE CHAN, SAMMO HUNG, YUEN BIAO, LOLA FORMER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

First screened in 1964, BBC sitcom The Likely Lads chronicled the exploits of Bob Ferris (Bewes) and Terry Collier (Bolam), two young Geordie Jack-the-Lad factory workers whose world largely revolved around having enough loose change for a game of snooker and a pint down the pub, one eye always open for any ‘bit of skirt’ that might attract their attention. The show ended in 1966 when Terry inadvertently joins the Army to join a bored Bob, who is rejected because of his flat feet. Terry – and the show – returned to huge acclaim in 1973. Retitled Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads, it saw an older – but not necessarily wiser – Bob and Terry reunited in a Newcastle that was slowly changing, tearing down their childhood memories and leaving them adrift in the brave, if cold, new world of the 1970s. The series was often bittersweet, beautifully written and performed, an elegy to lost youth, middle class ambition, working class frustration and it’s rightly recognised as a textbook example of how to bring back an old series and old characters with integrity and intelligence.

Two years after the resurrected series ended in 1974, Bob and Terry returned for one last curtain call in the 1976 feature film The Likely Lads and, like many of the other 1970s sitcoms that made the transition to the big screen, it’s a broader and largely more slapstick affair than the TV series that inspired it. Yet The Likely Lads is not without its charms and it often touches on many of the same raw human truths that underpinned the show. Bob is still married to the sweet if overbearing Thelma (Forsyth) and apparently happily ensconced in the Elm Lodge housing estate. Terry is eking out a living driving an advertising promotions van and he’s moved into a flat in a tower block. He’s even found himself a girlfriend in the exotic Christina (Tamm), a Finnish beauty who works in a local boutique. The film deftly reverses the narrative of the series by presenting a listless Bob and a more contented Terry. Thelma sees an opportunity to encourage Terry to settle down, thus removing what she sees as the constant threat of her husband being drawn away from wedded bliss and arranges a weekend caravanning around Northumberland for Christina’s benefit. Much hilarity ensues and whilst it’s often unsubtle stuff – the last twenty minutes or so are classic bedroom farce material – Clement and Le Frenais’ script balances the need to open the show out and take it on the road but keeps the characters and their relationships true to those we’d grown to love in the classy TV series. It’s a fitting swan song for one of the great British TV comedy shows – Bewes (who died in 2017) and Bolam fell out shortly after the film’s release and never reconciled, scuppering any hope of a further reunion – and Network’s Blu-ray transfer is often astonishingly crisp and colourful.

One of this new release’s biggest selling points, however, is two long-lost black-and-white episodes from the 1960s, recently recovered from a private collection and restored and remastered. Far Away Places is great fun, Bob and Terry taking on second jobs to fund a planned exotic holiday (although Terry would be happier staying nearer to home) but A Star is Born is a creakier ‘pub talent show’ episode, which is not nearly as funny or engaging. At a time when consistently good new genuinely funny British sitcoms are rarer than cat’s eggs, The Likely Lads is a welcome reminder of the days when British TV really knew how to tickle the nation’s funny bone.

THE LIKELY LADS (1976) / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: MICHAEL TUCHNER / SCREENPLAY: DICK CLEMENT, IAN LE FRENAIS / STARRING: JAMES BOLAM, RODNEY BEWES, BRIGIT FORSYTH, MARY TAMM/ RELEASE DATE: APRIL 1ST

Doctor Who entered the 1980s with a new spring in its step, the cobwebs of its late 70s decline into silliness blown away by freshman producer John Nathan-Turner’s ‘new broom’ approach. Tom Baker’s propensity for broad comedy (often encouraged by previous script editor Douglas Adams) was dialled right back, a glitzy new starfield title sequence was underscored by an electronic reworking of the classic radiophonic signature tune and the stories became, under the auspices of new script-editor Christopher H. Bidmead, a little stodgier and under pinned by solid scientific concepts such as entropy, block transfer computation and tachyonics. Imagine the fun to be had in the nation’s playgrounds!

Unfortunately, audiences turned away from Doctor Who’s rather po-faced new look in favour of glitzier US import Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Needless to say, Doctor Who’s eighteenth season has stood the test of time rather better and this gorgeously-presented and lavish new Blu-ray box set should serve to at least some way rehabilitate a season often unfairly maligned amongst the hardcore fan community.

Classic Doctor Who in high definition has always seemed like a contradiction in terms; this is, after all, standard definition television material recorded on videotape or on OB cameras or sometimes with an uneasy mix of film and video. True HD is therefore pretty much impossible. It’s a credit to all involved that this box set – more even than the previously-released seasons 12 and 19 – makes decades old BBC studio-based television look so close to high definition that it’s virtually impossible for the naked eye to tell the difference. The picture quality across all seven stories presented here is absolutely remarkable; crisp, clear, pinpoint sharp. It’s genuinely worth the upgrade investment for anyone who has harboured doubts about the wisdom of paying yet again for material already well-served on previous excellent DVD releases. Classic Doctor Who can never look better than this.

The actual episodes are, however, a mixed bag and although better than many might remember them they’re really far from great Doctor Who. Baker, his wings clipped, quickly handed in his notice and throughout the season he looks not only unwell (he was ill during the recording and lost a significant and noticeable amount of weight) but bored and distracted, hamstrung by an unflattering new maroon take on his costume and a string of new teenage companions he clearly wasn’t gelling with. The loss of Romana (Lalla Ward) at the end of still-baffling Warriors Gate seems like the last straw and there’s a sense throughout the following two stories that the actor can’t wait to hang up his scarf and get the Hell out. Stories like The Leisure Hive (a riot of glorious colour and hammy performances) and Baker’s low-key swansong Logopolis are a slog, dragged down by dreary writing and heavy-handed science, but there’s fun to be had in Full Circle and the blood-red vampire romp State of Decay. Keeper of Traken is full of pomp and pomposity but serves as an effective rebirth of a classic old Who bad guy and Meglos – only the second story of a bold new era for Doctor Who – is as tacky and pantomime as anything from the previous much-derided season. The villain’s a talking man-sized cactus, by the way.

As well as the beautifully upscaled image and sharp soundtrack, the boxset is supported by all the special features from the original DVD releases and some highly-watchable specially-commissioned material (and upgraded VFX here and there, especially in Logopolis). The best of the new stuff is A Weekend with Waterhouse, in which comedian/Who fan Toby Hadoke travels to Hastings to spend a couple of days with actor Matthew Waterhouse, whose portrayal of Adric, introduced in Full Circle has never especially endeared him to fans across the years. Here, a settled and happy fifty-something, Waterhouse comes across as a quiet, thoughtful individual content in himself and with his life but whose estimation of the importance of Adric and his place in the scheme of things will probably still be quite at odds with that of most viewers. But it’s a lovely, warm piece and, along with the new Behind the Sofa segments which see Tom Baker, amongst others, viewing the episodes and passing often barbed comments, is worth the price of purchase alone.

It seems that Blu-ray really is the way forward for classic Doctor Who if what’s been achieved in this Season 18 box set is any indication. The stories present a series in transition, struggling to find its way in a post-Star Wars world and if, in honesty, there are more duffers than delights on show here, it’s still a worthwhile purchase just to have the episodes looking and sounding this good and supported by a fantastic and absorbing selection of additional material.

DOCTOR WHO – THE COLLECTION: SEASON 18 / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: TOM BAKER, LALLA WARD, JOHN LEESON, MATTHEW WATERHOUSE, SARAH SUTTON, JANET FIELDING, ANTHONY AINLEY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Some films are about more than what you see on the screen. Their social context, impact and influence can become diluted or lost when they are seen so many years later. Sebastiane is such a film which, upon viewing some 40 plus years since its release, gives little indication of the big deal it was back in 1976, or what a huge figure in independent cinema Derek Jarman would become. As such, it’s a film that can’t be reviewed in isolation from other considerations.

Roman soldier Sebastiane is exiled for refusing to give up Christian beliefs. In an isolated outpost, his fellow all-male exiles allow sexual frustrations to become both lustful and loving acts. But when Sebastiane refuses to either fight with or have sex with Centurian Severus, he is tortured and becomes a martyr.

Made in 1976 as a direct challenge to the way films were being financed and made, Sebastiane was completed in just three weeks, financed by Jarman himself and funds raised from wealthy gay men. Jarman had made his name as a designer on films such as Ken Russell’s 1971 film The Devils, and had the contacts, clout and desire to make the sort of film he wanted to without compromise.

As such it’s a largely improvised affair with a ponderous pace, its dialogue spoken entirely in Latin, almost no plot and some dodgy acting. But it also displays occasional beauty, a fantastic score by Brian Eno, a genuine punk spirit and what was, for its time, an absolutely astonishing display of homosexuality.

Younger readers may find it hard to picture a time when gay men on screen were rarer than honest politicians. Rarer still were ones who were young, beautiful and, look away do, actually having sex! At a time when gay men and women were struggling for any form of recognition or equality, in a period when AIDS and Section 28 had yet to happen, and when homosexuals in film were either pervs or queens, the films of Derek Jarman, who would go on to give us Jubilee, Caravaggio, Edward II and Tilda Swinton, were made by gay people for a gay audience, and that was revolutionary, making Sebastiane an important film rather than a particularly enjoyable one.

Extras on this BFI Blu-ray include what’s described as a ‘making of’ but which is actually more ‘home movie’ footage of the shoot, a short interview with one of the extras from an orgy scene and, most interestingly, Sebastiane – a Work In Progress, which is basically Jarman’s incomplete rough-cut of the film.

SEBASTIANE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: DEREK JARMAN, PAUL HUMFRESS / SCREENPLAY: DEREK JARMAN, PAUL HUMFRESS / STARRING: LEONARDO TREVIGLIO, BARNEY JAMES, NEIL KENNEDY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW