Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Since The CW’s Arrowverse came to life back in 2012 with Arrow, this ever-expanding TV realm has become a must-watch part of many a genre fan’s viewing habits. And now, one of the very best parts of the Arrowverse’s last year is heading to DVD. Yes, the fourth annual crossover – Crisis on Earth-X – is now available on home release.

As alluded to, this is the fourth straight-up crossover spectacle between these shared universe shows, and the big question going in to Crisis on Earth-X was how could you possibly top the alien invasion angle of last year’s crossover event. For that, the minds behind Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow decided to take the action to a literal other world. A parallel world, to be precise. Or an alternate Earth, if you will. Laying the foundations for all of these heroes and villains coming together, Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) and Iris West (Candice Patton) decide to finally tie the knot – and everyone’s invited! Of course, a spanner is soon thrown into the works when the group’s evil doppelgangers from Earth-X arrive to crash the wedding.

Not only are these doppelgangers from an alternate Earth, but they also happen to be Nazis. Led by Stephen Amell’s Dark Archer and his wife, Melissa Benoist’s Overgirl, the mission objective of this group is essentially to steal the heart of Benoist’s Supergirl and give it to her nefarious alt-world doppelganger. Before you know it, our established heroes of the Arrowverse find themselves on Earth-X, locked up in a concentration camp – because in this world, the Nazis were the victors of World War II – and a whole host of skewed versions of familiar heroes and villains are on display as our core group look to fight the good fight and make it back to their own Earth. Old favourites return, new faces are showcased, and plentiful fists meet plentiful faces as the four-episode Crisis on Earth-X arc shuttles through a true roller coaster of a ride.

For those familiar with the Arrowverse to date, Crisis on Earth-X delivers everything you’d expect. There’s stunning spectacle, there’s fist-pumping adrenaline, there’s grin-inducing humour, and there’s a story that runs through every possible emotion you can think of. Make no mistake about it, there are stakes here – extremely high stakes – and this is a tale that is never afraid to deliver a gut punch mere moments after having you championing our heroes as they look to overcome the odds. And let’s face it, for as long as we can all remember, readers and viewers have always loved to see distorted, alternative versions of their favourite heroes; DC Comics and the use of their multiverse being a major favourite of many. And here, we gloriously get to explore that concept in live-action television.

In terms of bonus content, Crisis on Earth-X only includes one piece of extra material – but it’s a humdinger! Bringing together executive producers Marc Guggenheim (Arrow), Todd Helbing (The Flash), Robert Rovner (Supergirl), and Phil Klemmer (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), we’re treated to a 40-minute roundtable of sorts that explores how this crossover came together. The featurette flies by at a pace that would impress even Barry Allen, as four of the Arrowverse’s key players give an energetic insight at creating such an all-encompassing televisual spectacle.

Crisis on Earth-X is never anything less than fun, being a perfect example of how to bring the energy, action, and emotional heart of a comic book-style story to life on the small screen. The only problem now is, how could this December’s crossover possibly manage to top this brilliant adventure? Well, introducing Batwoman and Gotham City into the fold is a more than solid start…

Special Features: Crisis on Earth-X: Inside the Crossover featurette

CRISIS ON EARTH-X / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: STEPHEN AMELL, GRANT GUSTIN, MELISSA BENOIST, CAITY LOTZ, WENTWORTH MILLER, EMILY BETT RICKARDS / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 3RD

Remember when you were a child, settling into bed and all you wanted to send you off to sleep was a good story? Well, if you’re unlucky enough to have an uncaring uncle (Michael Mesmer) like Little Brian (Brian DePersia), you probably won’t get a sweet tale. You’ll be told one of the Deadtime Stories, a Troma-style retelling of beloved fairy tales.

To start, we get two witches and their assistant who is charged with finding them innocents to be killed and harvested to aid in spells, but the tables turn after he falls for one beautiful victim. Secondly is Red Riding Hood which casts Red as a young teen and the wolf as a leather-clad bad guy, and throws itself into a sexual awakening subtext. And lastly is Goldie Locks and the three bears, where two of the bears are fresh from the mental institution and Goldie is a serial killer with psychic powers and a strong libido.

Deadtime Stories wears its silliness with pride – it’s out to entertain, but it only just manages it. The two very 80s theme songs are the only lasting things you’ll really take from it, though it does have some solid practical effects, especially in the first story. It nips along at a fair pace, with a running time of only 83 minutes, but it never makes an impact.

It’s difficult to know who Deadtime Stories is for. It doesn’t have the cult credentials of others films of its time like The Toxic Avenger or its much better known compendium contemporaries like Creepshow, and it’s difficult to imagine many people rooting around to find a copy. It doesn’t have the scuzzy nastiness to make it a morbid-must-see, and the self-consciously silly pun title will only attract so many. It’s not exactly a genre classic crying out for the special release treatment. Whoever it is for, though, are served well by this edition from 88 Films. The limited edition is packed with features starting with the high-def transfer from the original negative and reversible sleeve to audio commentary and interview with the co-writer, director, and comprehensive booklet notes.

Deadtime Stories is a slight if mildly entertaining entry in the horror compendium genre. The release has a good host of extras but it’s not a film that will stick in the memory.

DEADTIME STORIES / DIRECTOR: JEFFREY DELMAN / SCREENPLAY: JEFFREY DELMAN, J. EDWARD KIERNAN, CHARLES F. SHELTON / STARRING: SCOTT VALENTINE, NICOLE PICARD, MATT MITLER / CERT: 18 / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

A bizarro mix of cannibalised elements of every decade of the horror genre pre-1970 and a Scooby-Doo episode without either the talking Great Dane or Shaggy but instead a sex-obsessed Mystery Inc. crew, Miss Leslie’s Dolls is an intriguing oddity from the Grindhouse era. Unashamedly mashing up the old dark house horror, the psycho-thriller and the Gothic amongst many others, there’s not an original idea to be found. Despite this, it’s off-kilter and agreeable fun.

When their car runs out of gas in the middle of a vicious storm (rolling to a stop in a graveyard), a teacher and her three students take refuge in the only nearby building, the home of the titular recluse. Miss Leslie it turns out is some kind of kook, but it’s either bunk down for the night there or take their chances outside. Besides, there’s beds in the house and all four have various physical unions on their minds. For her part, Miss Leslie is concerned more with a spiritual transfer of sorts, and the nubile young women now in her home give her an opportunity she can’t pass up.

What follows takes elements from other, better films like Psycho, Universal horrors of the 1930s, and the Gothic drive of the 50s and 60s, and meanders along with a fairly languid pace until ramping up for a suitably bonkers conclusion. There’s no sense of urgency to proceedings, most of the small cast don’t exactly give their all, and you’re never really sure whether the air of weirdness that permeates the film is something that was done on purpose or just a by-product of don’t-know-better ineptitude. It has a serious Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood vibe. And yet, just like that film, it’s often hypnotically odd, so much so that regardless of whether it’s arguably good or bad, it is definitely interesting. It also has its biggest asset front and centre with Salvador Ugarte’s admirably committed performance as Miss Leslie.

Miss Leslie’s Dolls was considered a lost film for many years, when in actual fact it was more a case that it hadn’t been found, with a few prints still remaining. For this Network Blu-ray release the film has been cleaned up as much as possible from the prints available. It’s not the most dynamic of films in terms of visuals (apparently the director credited doesn’t even remember making it, and probably didn’t) but we do get for the most part a remarkably sharp and detailed picture. There’s a photo gallery but no other extras so it’s only the film you get here, but for fans of the somewhat outré horror thriller, it’s certainly worth your time.

MISS LESLIE’S DOLLS / DIRECTOR: JOSEPH G. PRIETO / SCREENPLAY: JOSEPH G. PRIETO, RALPH REMY JR / STARRING: SALVADOR UGARTE, TERRI JUSTON, MARCELLE BICHETTE / CERT: 12 / RELEASE DATE: 3RD SEPTEMBER 2018

In the mid-80s, Troma Entertainment gained a reputation for their super-cheap and super-nasty exploitation pics, most notably 1984’s splatter-tastic The Toxic Avenger, now a cult classic. But they outdid themselves – at least in the cheapness and nastiness stakes – with 1987’s Surf Nazis Must Die.

Surf Nazis is set in a near-future California, shortly after an earthquake that we’re told was devastating but the main effect of which is that the beaches have become a warzone of rival surfer gangs. If you’re struggling to make sense of that, you’ll want to brace yourself before trying to follow any more of the “plot”.

The most prominent gang is – you guessed it – the Nazis. They give themselves names like Adolf and Mengele and adorn their surfboards with swastikas, and they also have a hideout with rude words like “DICK”, “HEROIN”, and “SPIT” graffitied on the walls, in case you were in any doubt they’re a bad lot. As the Nazis gain territory, they push other gangs out; one scene sees Mengele murder a bearded hippy called Jesus and crack “there’s no room for Jesus on the New Beach, that’s our final solution”, in what is, depending on your point of view, either the most tasteless line of dialogue you could get, or simply the most talentless.

But at least it provokes a reaction, unlike the more tedious section of the movie that sees various generic surfer gangs fighting back against the Nazis and invariably losing out. The fight scenes are bland, with the gangs both undermanned and lacking in memorable characters. What may stop you switching off at this stage, however, is that we know what’s around the corner. The Nazis have murdered the son of Eleanor “Mama” Washington, an aging African American woman. Played with relish by Gail Neely, Mama doesn’t play by the rules of her retirement home and decides to go vigilante. Mama’s vengeance is the campy shoot-‘em-up fun that you want from a Troma movie; it’s just a shame it takes the film most of its 82-minute run time to get to it.

This Blu-ray release from 88 Films is an odd product. Like many of its era, the perfect home for Surf Nazis was probably the VHS rental shelves, and restoring the picture to HD only draws attention to the poor camerawork and the graininess of the surfing footage. Nevertheless, for exploitation enthusiasts, there’s a fair selection of extras, notably a brand new interview with actor Tom Shell. There’s unintentional comedy in the pair of archive interviews with director Peter George, who it turns out is as cringe-inducingly incompetent on camera as he is behind it, while producer Robert Tinnell comes across a little better in his brief spot. Plus the usual deleted scenes and trailer.

Special features: Smeg’s Lament: A 2018 Interview with Tom Shell, Deleted Scenes with Audio Commentary, Interview with Director Peter George, Interview with Producer Robert Tinnell, Scenes From the Tromaville Café, Original Trailer

SURF NAZIS MUST DIE / DIRECTOR: PETER GEORGE / SCREENPLAY: JON AYRE / STARRING: GAIL NEELY, BARRY BRENNER, DAWN WILDSMITH, MICHAEL SONYE / CERT: 18 / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 27TH

Ever wondered what Spooks might have been like had it been made on the border between North and South Korea? Probably not, but now’s your chance to find out anyway, because 88 Films has just released the movie edit of Iris (a hugely popular twenty-episode TV series broadcast in the autumn of 2009) for the first time on Blu-ray here in the West. Basically it’s South Korea’s answer to the aforementioned Spooks. Or perhaps J.J. Abrams’ Alias, to which it actually bears a greater resemblance.

Iris stars the immensely charismatic Lee Byung-hun as Kim Hyun-jun, a special agent with the National Security Service (NSS) who’s sent on a black ops mission to Hungary in order to perform a tit-for-tat assassination. Little does Kim know that it is in reality a suicide mission, and when he survives, a chain of events is set in motion that ultimately leads to the threat of a nuclear bomb detonating in Seoul.

The similarity to Alias comes when Lee discovers he’s not actually a pawn in a game of espionage between the South and North, but that there’s a third party involved – the eponymous organisation Iris – with ties to both sides and with a vested financial and political interest in stirring up war between the nations. All this is happening against the backdrop of Lee’s relationship with co-worker Choi Seung-hee (the rather fetching Kim Tae-hee), a secret affair that gets tested far beyond any ordinary limits during the course of the film. Fans of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service might like to try and second-guess how this all pans out, but there’s major chemistry going on between the two actors.

Iris on TV was directed by Kim Kyu-tae, and shot concurrently with this two-hour movie version (overseen by Yang Yun-ho), which whittles a twenty-hour story down to just a tenth of that length – to greater and lesser degrees of success. It’s incredibly fast-moving, with sequences that you can imagine might have filled an entire television episode lasting mere moments in the movie version. The relationship between Kim and Choi perhaps suffers most, despite the editors’ attempts to keep it front and centre of the story. And keen eyes will notice the frequent but thankfully brief shots that have been speeded up – mostly during the equally frequent action sequences.

On the other hand, if you’ve ever sat in front of episodic serial TV and wished it would get to the point a bit more quickly, this is the perfect antidote. Several instalments’ worth of narrative set and filmed in Hungary is over within the opening half an hour, and things just accelerate from there. It’s perfectly easy to follow, but brutally quick. And surprisingly entertaining.

Extras: none

IRIS – THE MOVIE / DIRECTOR: KYOO-TAE KIM, YUN-HO YANG / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: BYUNG-HUN LEE, TAE-HEE KIM, SEUNG-HYUN CHOI / CERT: 15 / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

After Hatchet III it seemed that Victor Crowley had finally been laid to rest for good. But for reasons his creator Adam Green explains in the 25-min ‘Raising the Dead…Again’ interview featurette that accompanies this release, between that 2013 film and this fourth in the series from last year, a lot of things happened in Green’s personal life that eventually led him back to Crowley.

The film begins with Andrew Yong, the survivor of the original massacre, pimping his book about the tragedy some 10 years later. Desperate to finally break free of the events that have followed him through the last decade, and shake off the accusations of a group that consider him the real killer, Yong is convinced to accept a life-changing deal to lead a television crew’s expedition back into the swamp to catalogue the horrors that took place. At the same time, a naive young trio of wannabe filmmakers have also headed into Crowley’s old neighbourhood, and it’s not long until the hack-happy madman is back and literally crushing people.

Green and his cast and crew achieve exactly what they set out to do with this film. There’s zero pretence, just a desire to make a slasher film for the fans with the gore dial turned up to 11. Along the way, there’s plenty of humour and it never takes itself too seriously. Despite this, Green tries and mostly succeeds at pumping a bit of emotion into proceedings when it’s called for. Made for a comparatively small budget, the action is wisely kept to just a handful of locations which allows Green to focus on his preferred off-kilter character beats and – the most important thing here – a series of wildly gloopy and gory kills. This film is not going to change your life, but if you’re a fan of the Hatchet series or slashers in general you’re probably going to have a good time. For a film loaded with blood and smashed up bodies, it’s oddly inoffensive.

As for the disc itself, along with the aforementioned interview, there’s an hour-plus making-of documentary that covers pretty much anything you might want to know about the production. If you do want however, there are also two commentaries – the first with the cast and the second with crew. It’s a comprehensive set of supplements indicative of Green’s desire to please the fans, and none the worse for it. That describes the film too, and if you’re after a good time horror that will make you chuckle, you should check it out.

HATCHET 4: VICTOR CROWLEY / DIRECTOR: ADAM GREEN / SCREENPLAY: ADAM GREEN / STARRING: BRIAN QUINN, KANE HODDER, LAURA ORTIZ, KALI COOK / CERT: 18 / RELEASE DATE: 3RD SEPTEMBER 2018

Donald Pleasence gives such a uniquely eccentric performance as Inspector Calhoun in this low-budget Brit horror from the early 1970s – filmed in and around a disused Tube station one freezing cold November – he’s almost as memorable as Death Line’s extraordinary premise, one guaranteed to have chilled television viewers catching this on late-night broadcasts during the following decade. Thanks to Network/Blue Umbrella’s decision to source this newly restored 2K edition from the original camera negative, viewers can now go back and enjoy the film once again in pristine condition; the underground sequences are completely grain-free and look stunning.

Death Line – retitled Raw Meat in America, to accentuate its cannibalistic undertone – starts with a highly distinctive sequence (evocatively scored by heavy metal producer Wil Malone) in which we see the bowler-hatted James Cossins visiting a strip club and subsequently attempting to procure sex for money in the Tube station. When a female student (Sharon Gurney) and her American boyfriend (David Ladd) board the last train of the night, they discover Cossins – now revealed to be cabinet minister James Manfred, OBE – unconscious and possibly the victim of an attack. But once they’ve reported the incident, the body has disappeared, and so Pleasence and his sidekick, the amiably dry Norman Rossington as D.S. Rogers, are brought in to investigate.

This isn’t just a grim and gruesome British answer to the rising tide of low-budget, explicit American horror flicks, though – although the make-up effects are pretty gruesome, it has to be said. Rather, there’s an attempt made to understand and even empathise with Hugh Armstrong’s near-mute troglodyte, and from around the half-hour mark we’re treated to occasionally rather long excursions into his underground lair, which unfortunately break up the pace of D.I. Calhoun’s investigation as much as they add atmosphere to the narrative. Writer and director Gary Sherman at least succeeds in creating a film that bothers to flesh out its antagonist, and this also pre-empts the similarly-themed The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by a couple of years.

As is often the case with vintage British films of a particular budget and ambition, it’s the actors who draw you back to it. Donald Pleasence is given free rein to pretty much play Calhoun as he pleases, and if the portrayal is somewhat fanciful, it’s also incredibly engaging. Meanwhile, Christopher Lee turns up for a single scene to bring a bit of balancing gravity to proceedings, while Hugh Dickson is terrifically understated as Dr. Bacon and even Clive Swift adds a little unconventionality.

Beyond the trailer there’s only a rather sweet quarter-hour interview with Armstrong to bulk the release out, but between the feature and its wonderful restoration there’s more than enough here to tempt the discerning Blu-ray consumer.

Extras: trailer, Hugh Armstrong interview

DEATH LINE (aka RAW MEAT) / DIRECTOR: GARY SHERMAN / SCREENPLAY: GARY SHERMAN / STARRING: DONALD PLEASENCE, NORMAN ROSSINGTON, DAVID LADD, SHARON GURNEY, HUGH ARMSTRONG, CHRISTOPHER LEE / CERT: 18 / RELEASE DATE: 27^TH AUGUST 2018

Ghost Stories, the film adaptation of the stage-play of the same name, written and directed by Andy Nyman (primarily known for his acting in projects such as Severance and Dead Set) and Jeremy Dyson (the one from The League of Gentlemen who tends to stay behind the camera), is an astounding debut into film-making. A love letter to classic British horror anthologies from the likes of Amicus and Hammer Productions, the film is accomplished to the point that it completely transcends its peers.

Professor Goodman (Nyman), a paranormal investigator and sceptic who makes a living debunking supernatural frauds, hoaxes and misunderstandings, is invited to meet his childhood hero, fellow paranormal investigator Charles Cameron. Cameron presents him with the files pertaining to three cases he could never solve, asking Nyman to disprove them, having himself concluded that they can only be real.

What follows is, mostly, a fairly conventional portmanteau dynamic where Professor Goodman interviews each of the three casefile subjects before we watch their stories unfold in flashback. Ghost Stories is an intentionally confusing film at times and one that embraces an ethereal quality over any sense of realism. The end result sits somewhere between an extremely accomplished haunted house fun-fair attraction and the sort of nightmare that forces you to turn the light on for a few minutes after you wake up.

The film attempts to inject some emotional resonance and depth into its proceedings towards the end, which doesn’t work nearly as well as when it’s operating as a purely technical exercise in generating scares. That said, it’s a commendable effort to create something more than just a disposable adrenaline rush, and given how effortlessly the rest of the film flitters from intense jump-scares to manic, Evil-Dead-esque energy to slow, brooding, Jamesian dread, it’s very easy to forgive these shortcomings.

Nyman is great in the lead and Martin Freeman (playing one of the three case subjects) is his usual high-quality self. Of particular note here is a surprisingly powerful performance from Paul Whitehouse – usually known for broad comedy – and yet another phenomenal genre performance from Alex Lawther who, if this film is any indication, is at the very beginning of a remarkable career.

The Blu-Ray features some fairly interesting, if somewhat typical, making of featurettes as well as a very pleasant commentary track from Nyman and Dyson. There are also a couple of more unusual features such as one in which Nyman, Dyson and the rest of the cast are filmed undertaking a classic Rorschach test.

Most importantly, the film’s gorgeous visuals and meticulous sound design are preserved perfectly, which is particularly important for a film of this nature, where dialogue is less important than the moments where the torch batteries cut out.

GHOST STORIES / DIRECTOR: ANDY NYMAN, JEREMY DYSON / SCREENWRITER: ANDY NYMAN, JEREMY DYSON / STARRING: MARTIN FREEMAN, ALEX LAWTHER, ANDY NYMAN, PAUL WHITEHOUSE, KOBNA HOLDBROOK-SMITH / CERT: 15 / RELEASE DATE: 27TH AUGUST 2018