Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

How does somebody market a film and when is the right time to release it? This is a question that Calum Waddell poses in the excellent booklet-flyer that is provided with 88 Films’ brand-new Blu-ray release of the cult 1976 Shaw Brothers occult classic Black Magic 2, with his insightful analysis of the evolution of its release from the Far East to the Big Apple – and all points American.

A product that became synonymous with much of the American grindhouse releases that the likes of Jerry Gross unleashed on the 42nd Street crowd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Black Magic 2 is certainly going to stimulate some interest.

Given that it was released to great domestic success in the Far East (before Fulci made Zombie; and Romero had started making the likes of Dawn of the Dead), there is a significance to how influential this film has turned out to be four decades plus later.

A man and woman arrive in a nameless ‘Tropical City’ at the outset at the request of a local doctor who is having trouble explaining weird skin conditions that have plagued patients at a local hospital. The cause? A ‘Black Magician’ who preys on the blood of women, creating potions that – via a mix of voodoo and black magic – place them under his spell. He has also developed a fetish for breast milk which helps him extend his centuries of life-blood.

Further complications abound when a young man requests a love spell that can give him the girl of his dreams, but the curse and voodoo is about to take shape with more extreme consequences…

Black Magic 2 is another deserving release ripe for re-assessment by cult fans and Shaw-Scope students. It may say at the end of the credits ‘Another Shaw Film’, but in terms of production values, it is clearly well set apart from other Shaw offerings.

However, we must reveal now that if it wasn’t for a rather ridiculous out-of-context Martial Arts fight about two-thirds of the way through, this film would rank far higher on the radar, as it pre-empts City of The Living Dead and The Beyond (a bit of trivia flagged up in Waddell’s writing)

Some questionable back projection doesn’t improve the experience in this one moment, but that is forgivable given the more primitive effects techniques that were in the development phase when ILM was in it’s infancy in the development and production of the original version of A New Hope.

Despite this one moment of Shaw Brothers self-indulgence, Black Magic 2 is a delight for the majority of its ninety-one-minute running time. The stall is set out perfectly and there are some gleefully cringe-worthy moments of excess, not to mention a wonderfully innovative version of acupuncture that helps our baddie try and execute their plan.

If you covet a dash of nudity alongside your horror, then there is a lot here. The Blu-ray imaging is a great showcase for your plasma and please do ensure you watch it in its original language with English subtitles.

BLACK MAGIC 2 (1976) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: MENG HUA HO / SCREENPLAY: KUANG NI / STARRING: LUNG TI, NI TIEN, LIEH LO, TERRY LIU / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Anyone who’s acquainted with Nickelodeon’s current animated version of Peter Rabbit, in which the eponymous bunny is reinvented as a loveable small-scale scoundrel along the lines of a furry Han Solo, will know what to expect from Will Gluck’s first movie adaptation. Following the success of Paddington – another vintage children’s character who made his screen debut in a very low-key, low-fi TV series, now modernised via a mix of live-action and CGI for twenty-first-century cinema – something of this kind was inevitable. That it’s one of Beatrix Potter’s characters that has been updated has outraged her fans, the early trailers set the forty-somethings’ pulses rising (the ones with fond memories of a more pastoral version), and yet the film has made $350m at the box office.

If you want to hate it, Gluck’s picture will give you plenty of ammunition with which to do so. If, on the other hand, you’ve lately seen Peter Rabbit on CBeebies and enjoyed the Paddington films, and you’re of an open enough mind to accept this new iteration of Potter’s Peter on its own terms – as an exact halfway point between these two approaches – then there is more than enough to enjoy here.

The plot is achingly simple. Our four-legged friends happily co-exist with Mr. McGregor, being well enough acquainted with his tactics to make his garden their primary food source, until one day he suffers a fatal heart attack and the house is bequeathed to the old man’s nephew Thomas – who, never having heard of his uncle, receives the bequest on the day he’s fired from his job at Harrods. The rather uptight, obsessive McGregor Junior moves in with a view to doing the place up for resale, only to find himself falling for the neighbour and recommencing his uncle’s war against the wildlife.

The small live-action cast is impeccable, Domhnall Gleeson almost unrecognisable from Star Wars and excellent as a mellowing McGregor, and Sam Neill (this was shot in sunny Australia) equally disguised and just as much fun in his short turn as the doomed uncle. Rose Byrne, on the other hand, is delightful as the nature-loving, unheralded artist Bea, not only giving the film a little heart thanks to her chemistry with Gleeson but also making it something of an origins story in disguise.

Much of the pre-release negativity, however, rested on the decision to cast uber-lad James Corden as Peter – with the trailers suggesting this iteration of the rabbit’s story would be just as uncouth as Corden’s reputation suggested – but Corden’s earlier career is distinguished by actual talent and when he brings it, as he undoubtedly does here, the results speak for themselves. For sure, there are moments of cartoon violence and twerking animals and an awful lot of contemporary pop music – and that’s what modern kids expect. But there is a great deal more to this film than that – including, whether intentionally or not, an inherent message about the dangers of Brexit – and the beautifully animated creatures bring the whole thing to life with a verve and charisma that’s hard to ignore.

This isn’t as soulful or heart-warming as Paddington, but as children’s movies with adult appeal go, it is considerably more entertaining and engaging than you might have been led to expect. No classic, but terrifically enjoyable nonetheless.

 

Extras: Flopsy Turvy short film / Dance-along / Making of featurette

PETER RABBIT / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: WILL GLUCK / SCREENPLAY: ROB LIEBER, WILL GLUCK / STARRING: JAMES CORDEN, ROSE BYRNE, DOMHNALL GLEESON, SAM NEILL, DAISY RIDLEY, ELIZABETH DEBICKI, MARGOT ROBBIE / RELEASE DATE: JULY 23RD

Assembling all of the Pokémon movies set during the Best Wishes iteration of the show, Black and White is four films that while not being terrible are nothing special either.

The 14th Pokémon movie was the first (and to date, only) entry in the franchise to have two versions in a way that is akin to the way that each game in the franchise’s parent series has at least two versions. There is very little difference between the two versions. They provide something that’s a little different here and there but are certainly not different enough to genuinely separate movies.

The major element that distinguishes this movie from the others is that although it has an antagonist misusing an adorable Pokémon for his own ends, said antagonist has a good reason and is therefore misguided rather than simplistically evil.

Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice starts is different because it has its central Pokémon (Keldeo) be the one to go through the character arc; Ash and his friends don’t even show up until the plot of the film is established and well underway. Keldeo’s character arc is effective, and Kyurem makes for an imposing threat for the heroes to face. Out of all the films included in this collection, this one is the best.

Genesect and the Legend Awakened has not previously been available on DVD in the U.K. before (though it has long been available on at least one streaming service), so this could be the first chance that many viewers will get to see it. It (like Kyurem vs. The Sword of Justice) is one of the Pokémon movies that doesn’t have a human antagonist, with all the danger come from Pokémon foes (in this case, a group of Genesect). Mewtwo makes an appearance but either it is a different interpretation from the original or the backstory has been forgotten because the first movie is never mentioned and Mewtwo is voiced by a different actor than the one who played the character in the original movie.

As is typical for a Pokémon release, there are no special features here, so there is nothing to make it stand out for anyone who might already have access to these movies via other mediums.

Pokémon Movie 14-16 Collection: Black & White offers more of what had been long been established in the franchise by the time they were made, but most of them at least try to do something a little different with the material. As a whole, this collection is good but not great, and long-time fans of THE SERIES MIGHT HAVE FUN WITH IT.

POKÉMON MOVIE 14-16 COLLECTION: BLACK AND WHITE / CERT: PG / DIRECTORS: KUNIHIKO YUYAMA / SCREENWRITERS: HIDEKI SONODA / STARRING: SARAH NATOCHENNY, JASON GRIFFITH, EILEEN STEVENS, IKUE OOTANI, J. MICHAEL TATUM, VIC MIGNOGNA, MIRIAM PULTRO, KEN GATES/ RELEASE DATE: JULY 9TH

Part of the impact of the success of the original release of Star Wars was not just felt in the abundance of space adventures it inspired but also in a resurrection of the fantasy genre onscreen, where similar ‘chosen one defeats great evil’ tales abound. The Beastmaster, from 1982, was not massively popular at the time of release but television showings and home video gave it a second life. It was co-written and directed by Don Coscarelli as a follow-up to his classic horror Phantasm. Coscarelli had been as enamoured of fantasy stories and sword and sorcery flicks growing up as he had been with horror, and so it’s no real surprise that The Beastmaster is a film shot through with love for the genre.

Marc Singer plays Dar, a young man who will come to fulfil his destiny as hero in a fight against the evil, insane and power hungry high priest of the kingdom of Aruk, Maax (Rip Torn). Dar has unusual abilities, most prominently here that he can communicate with and command various animals. On his journey to his final encounter with Maax, Dar picks up a group of followers, both human and not, and there’s plenty of action along the way. The film itself is huge fun, done totally straight and on a low budget, but with humour and wit and, thanks to Coscarelli, a healthy horror influence. There’s no way of hiding the cheapness of some of the effects but there’s also a surfeit of imagination involved in many of the sequences and it’s all grandly entertaining, despite being arguably a little too long overall.

The 55-minute making-of documentary on this Australian Umbrella Entertainment Blu-ray release brings together a number of those involved in the film’s production to detail how it all came together. It’s a decent and enjoyable enough doc and alludes to some of the problems encountered (not least of which was Coscarelli being barred from the editing room of his own film), but despite all of this there’s a huge amount of affection from them all. There’s also a commentary from Coscarelli and co-writer/producer Paul Pepperman. As far as the picture, for the most part it’s a solid presentation. The Beastmaster takes place either in bright sunshine or pitch-black night, and both come out well here. It’s a scrappy film at times, and sometimes the low budget shows through (mostly in the unfortunate tiger painted black to be a ‘panther’) as occasional awkwardness but most of the time the high definition treatment is fine.

For fans of the film, this is easy to recommend without much in the way of reservation.

THE BEASTMASTER (1982) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DON COSCARELLI / SCREENPLAY: DON COSCARELLI, PAUL PEPPERMAN / STARRING: MARC SINGER, TANYA ROBERTS, RIP TORN, JOHN AMOS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (AUS)

There’s this thing called hauntology. The dictionary definition – if your dictionary carries it at all – is from Jacques Derrida, who coined the word to describe that point when a society no longer looks forward and retreats into its past, specifically past visions of the future. Hauntology has developed into a genre all of its own, all half-remembered childhood TV shows and evocative mood music, and while Arcadia – Scottish filmmaker Paul Wright’s deep trawl of the BFI archive – touches on that, it’s also an exploration of Derrida’s concept.

The film is divided into nine titled chapters, each using mostly black and white archive footage to illustrate a loose theme. The focus is the British countryside, and specifically, the people and cultures found there, and the traditions they’ve embedded. Thus, after a gentle introduction which could almost begin any straightforward look at the subject, things begin to get a little weird.

In chapters titled Amnesia, Into the Wild, and Folk, we glimpse May Day, barrows and henges, nudism, Morris dancing, Shrovetide rucks, Obby Osses and Jacks-in-the-Green, fire, and ritual. In Utopia, Wright’s selections – all backed by the vintage folk of Anne Briggs and specially-commissioned instrumental work by Portishead’s Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory – encompass the landscape and nature, kids running free in school holidays, hippies, Acid House, and all things summery.

The Turning, and Blood In The Soil see the film take a sinister turn, as autumn fades in, with scenes of harvest contrasted with deforestation, private property, quarries, and pollution, before the never-more-unwelcome tradition of hunting a tired and desperate animal across the land with baying hounds gets its turn (though, to be fair, Wright’s naked view exposes its ugliness without editorialising).

The light-hearted surreality of adult men riding llamas, cows, zebras, and ostriches acts as a transition to In A Dark Wood, which captures solitude and loneliness, death (including a couple of the death scenes from the legendary Apaches), and the contrast between the rich and the poor, who are shown alternately enjoying lavish country balls and marching for jobs (and chasing massive cheeses down steep hills).

The seasons turn again in the film’s last two chapters, as Winter Solstice brings the kind of deep snow you just don’t get any more, and threats to the countryside from industrialisation, mass transport, tourism, housing estates, gyratory systems, chintz, and factory farming, as an odd juxtaposition between glue sniffers and destructive floods carry us into Oblivion.

As winter ends, spring begins, and life renews itself. The truth is in the soil, is the film’s closing refrain, and this may inspire some kind of hope at the film’s end, with scenes of plants pushing through concrete, and the dead rising from their graves, a magic out of place with the preceding chapters.

This is not documentary in the traditional sense, although it documents tradition. Neither is it in any way a linear story. Rather it is pure evocation, looking back on a past that has disappeared or will soon disappear altogether. In the face of an uncertain future – itself brought about by some kind of weird nostalgia for a Britain of the past – this is a timely release. There are no lessons to be gleaned from this, except that we can’t go back. Derrida’s hauntology is not a desired state, and as much as tradition appeals, it’s often an ill-fit for the future.

ARCADIA / CERT 15 / DIRECTOR: PAUL WRIGHT / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 20TH