Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995)

By Rich Cross

This captivating and visually dazzling fantasy from acclaimed French directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro is enjoying a deserved re-release on disc. It’s a sumptuous-looking movie in which a truly disturbing premise (the abduction of young children for laboratory experimentation) is brought to life through stunning design and irresistibly clever storytelling. An extraordinary and twisted fairytale, it’s a film overdue for reappraisal.

Krank is a disturbed and dysfunctional inventor who discovers a means to arrest the ageing process by distilling the dreams of young boys and girls in his nightmarish steam-punk laboratory. Krank’s henchmen are sent out to seize more local youngsters for experimentation. But when they grab his adopted brother Denree, local fisherman and retired circus strongman One sets out to free his sibling from Krank’s lair, accompanied by orphan Miette. So begins a freakish and thoroughly unexpected chain of events, which unfold on screen through dizzying visuals and saturated colours.

Released four years after Jeunet’s and Caro’s sublime debut feature Delicatessen, a film with which this follow-up shares much of its tonal palette and surreal temperament, The City of Lost Children cemented the pair’s status as the most inventive genre filmmakers working in European cinema. As with Delicatessen, the narrative here is shared out amongst an ensemble of oddball characters, all of whom are given a chance to shine. This restored version is packaged with a mix of previously-released and new special features. A contemporary making-of featurette, and rare behind-the-scenes footage, is backed by an interview with costume designer Jean Paul Gaultier and an audio commentary by Jeunet. Fans will be delighted by the inclusion of a new and revealing interview with both directors.

The City of Lost Children is available now on 4k Ultra HD, standard Blu-ray and DVD

MORGIANA (1972)

by Martin Unsworth

Sisters Klára and Viktoria (both mesmerisingly played by Iva Janzurová) are mourning their late father’s death. Klára has inherited the majority of his wealth, so jealous, Viktoria hatches a plot that involves a slow-acting poison to kill her.

Viktoria’s spite isn’t restricted to Klára, as we see her causing one of their servants a permanent injury by throwing a rock in a fit of jealousy, and her petulant malice isolates her from her sibling. As she hears of her illness from afar, she attempts to recreate the poison’s effects by giving some of the potion to Klára’s beloved dog. This leads to some gloriously dark humour as we’re unsure who drank the tainted water: the dog, Viktoria’s cat Morgiana, or the servant’s young child?

Director Juraj Herz (The Cremator) fills the screen with sumptuous images. The opposing sisters are simply drawn; Klára in virginal white and Viktoria is sombre black. Several shots are from the viewpoint of the titular cat, with Herz making the most out of a wide-angle lens with beautifully flowing as the feline roams the room. The gorgeously baroque Gothic surroundings add a sense of majesty to the proceedings.

Second Run’s Blu-ray release presents the film looking fantastic, with a new transfer struck from the best available negative. There has been no new restoration, though, so reel change marks and film specks are still present (which we don’t mind and actually miss seeing these days). There’s a spirited commentary in the form of a previously available but nevertheless entertaining podcast from The Projection Booth (with Mike White, Kat Ellinger, and Ben Buckingham). This is an essential purchase for fans of Czech cinema and beautiful movies.

MARTIN (1977)

by Paul Mount

Even if he had only directed Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero would have secured a deserved place at the top table of any gathering of filmmakers pivotal in the development of the horror genre. But there’s more to Romero’s oeuvre than his infamous tale of hideous, flesh-hungry ghouls rising up against Mankind (and its numerous sequels). Romero himself often stated that 1977’s underrated and underappreciated Martin was his favourite of all his films. It’s not hard to see why. Romero’s take on vampire lore is gritty, a bit dirty and, ultimately, a reminder that sometimes monsters live in plain sight, aren’t necessarily all that different from us and, indeed, that any one of us could be a monster in the right (or wrong) circumstances.

Newcomer John Amplas (in a role that should have been star-making but wasn’t) is the troubled, socially-awkward Martin Mathias. We see him slaughter and drink the blood of a female fellow passenger on a train en route to Braddock, Pennsylvania. So we’re not too surprised when he arrives at the home of his uncle Tateh Cuda (Lincoln Maaazel), that he immediately identifies him as ‘nosferatu’ and imposes strict conditions on him living under the same roof. But is Martin a vampire or a deeply troubled young man with some very strange and disturbing psychopathic tendencies, and can he find redemption and peace in a world he doesn’t really understand?

Filmed almost guerrilla-style on a tiny budget, Martin wears its independent spirit proudly on its sleeve, and it’s an oddly-detached, slightly surreal and almost documentary-style experience, its characters cold and careworn, living out their tired lives in a run-down, unappealing environment. Martin himself is at once an innocent-about-town and yet a cold-hearted killer, a character who evokes our sympathy as much as our revulsion. Martin looks as good as it can on this new Second Sight release that offers a new 4K restoration approved by the film’s Director of Photography. The film is also supported by some generous special features, the best of which is Taste the Blood of Martin. This new feature-length documentary takes a deep dive into the history of the film and its production and reunites the cast and crew at some barely-changed locations, an interview with the film’s composer, a short film, a string of commentaries and much more. A welcome opportunity to discover or rediscover a haunting, complex, forgotten minor horror classic.

CREEPING HORROR

by Paul Mount

Creeping Horror is Eureka Entertainment’s latest deep Blu-ray dive into the darkest corners of the Universal Pictures vault. This time, they’ve unearthed a quartet of real curios; inevitably, there are no studio big hitters here – no bloodsucking caped counts, bolt-in-neck manmade monsters or furry lycanthropes – and instead, we’re offered four titles that demonstrate that there really was more to Universal than the famous classics, and whilst two of the movies here are rightly pretty forgettable, the other two are decent little chillers that are well overdue a 21st-century exhumation.

The two-disc set kicks off with 1933’s Murders in the Zoo, in which Lionel Atwill’s maniacal hunter uses the animals he has caught in Africa and brought back to the US to dispose of his enemies and love rivals, notorious in its day for some graphic imagery – particularly an early scene where one victim has his mouth sewn up – Murders is enlivened by a comic turn by Charlie Ruggles as an inept, drunken journalist. Night Monster (1942) also features Atwill. It boasts little more than a recurring cameo from Bela Lugosi as a butler in a slightly turgid tale of a crippled scientist in a remote mansion experimenting with materialisation. Disc Two opens up with Horror Island, a rather witless 1941 comedy thriller which avoids the Trade Descriptions Act by at least being set on an island. The film is eminently disposable, notable really only for the fact that it was filmed, edited, and released in cinemas all in the space of a month! Take note, James Cameron. The set ends with a real winner, though, in 1946’s House of Horrors, a clever and surprisingly sophisticated script built around the physical presence of the imposing and tragic Rondo Hatton as ‘The Creeper’, a classic Universal ‘monster’-in-waiting, denied cinematic immortality thanks to Hatton’s early death shortly after filming its sequel The Brute Man.

Crude and simplistic by today’s horror standards, obviously, these films are nonetheless significant stepping stones in the history of the genre, and they’ve been lovingly restored and presented by Eureka in a sturdy slipcase supported by a limited edition collector’s booklet with each film enlivened by informative commentaries.

Creeping Horror is available now on Blu-Ray from Eureka Entertainment.

ASSASSIN CLUB

By Martin Unsworth

Morgan (Henry Golding) is a gun-for-hire hoping to quit the day job and settle down with his girlfriend Sophie (Daniela Melchoir). He’s reluctantly brought back when he’s told by Caldwell (Sam Neill) that he’s been tasked to dispatch seven other assassins. Unfortunately for Morgan, they have the same assignment.

On paper, Assassin Club has all the hallmarks of a John Wick-esque thrill ride. In reality, thanks to the meandering of Thomas Dunn’s script and the somewhat limp direction of Camille Delamarre (The Transporter Reloaded), we’re left with an overlong slog of a film with occasional flourishes. Sam Neill shines in his low-key performance but is wise enough to tap out mid-way. Unfortunately, Golding doesn’t have the screen presence to hold everything together (or perhaps he wisely realised he shouldn’t waste too much energy on the parts of the movie that don’t require guns or knives). Noomi Rapace (Prometheus) does her best in an intriguing dual role but, like everyone else, is let down by the material.

Despite some decent, if sporadic, set pieces, Assassin Club plods along from hit to hit. Long bouts of exposition that are directed with little flair or verve bring things to a snail’s pace, sadly.

Assassin Club is available to Buy On Digital in the US on May 16th and on DVD and Blu-ray June 6th.

THE SWORD AND THE CLAW

By Chris Jackson

Starring prolific Turkish actor Cüneyt Arkin (the writer of the 1982 cult classic known in the west as “Turkish Star Wars”), The Sword and the Claw tells the story of a young prince who is raised by lions after his father, the king, is murdered. Now a grown man, his unusual upbringing has given him the strength and prowess of a lion, and he uses his skills to jump, roll and swing around the countryside in his quest for revenge against the new king and his legions of soldiers.

Landing somewhere between Conan the Barbarian and Carry On Up the Jungle, The Sword and the Claw is a swashbuckling romp filled with high-octane sword fights, lo-fi bloodshed and overly dramatic deaths, accompanied by a really rather peculiar English dub that sounds like it was recorded by high-school drama students, which would surely be detrimental to most other films but here just adds to the overall weirdness. Often nonsensical and with much of the plot seemingly lost in translation, it’s certainly one of the more unhinged oddball movies to have come out of the recent 101 Films / American Genre Film Archive partnership so far.

A bonus full-length movie, the Korean Brawl Busters from 1978, brings some nifty low-budget kung fu action, snazzy sound effects and a fair few laughs to the extra features section, while a handful of particularly bonkers trailers from AGFA’s vaults give glimpses into the worlds of ’60s Italian sci-fi comic book superhero/spy Argoman, The Supergirl of Kung Fu, and “The Three Supermen” who embark upon some campy globetrotting adventures. Great fun all around if you’re the type of lunatic who enjoys this sort of thing!

THE AGFA HORROR TRAILER SHOW

By Chris Jackson

Little more than one strange and bewildering scene after another from beginning to end, this 80-minute compilation of weird and obscure vintage horror trailers features almost everything you could ever need for a delightfully demented night in, from cheap and tacky drive-in B-movie fare to slightly more ambitious “serious” horror to goofy 80s horror comedies and beyond. Bear witness to forgotten relics like Nightmare Weekend, where home technology becomes sentient and starts killing people, Witchcraft 70, which purports to be a collection of hidden-camera footage from actual occult activities, a night of terror with The Robot vs The Aztec Mummy, and Splatter University, “where the school colours are blood red and not only the classes are cut”…

It’s always fun to see how films were promoted in days gone by, with tongue-in-cheek taglines (“in this game, the best prize you can win… is your life”) and creepy voiceovers warning you about the (unlikely, in all honesty) effects that viewing such material might have on weaker souls. As an added bonus, horror fans will almost certainly come out of the other end of this selection with a list of films to add to the collection.

Also included are a brain-melting schizophrenic 6-minute supercut of relentless screaming and shouting that rarely stays on one scene for more than a few seconds, and the “AGFA Horror Trailer Show: Videorage”. Presented like an otherworldly public access show, this is a 70-minute collection of no-budget shot on (and released straight to) video trailers, with added commercials and oddities from AGFA’s vault. Good fun all round, and a particular treat for the more deranged horror fans out there.

LIVING WITH CHUCKY

Documentaries about film franchises are ten-a-penny, and this isn’t the first that’s been done about the Child’s Play series. However, there is a unique angle for this one since it’s directed by Kyra Elise Gardner, whose father Tony Gardner worked on the animatronic dolls for the murderous Chucky.

All the faces you’d expect are interviewed: Brad Dourif and his daughter Fiona, writer/director Don Mancini, and Alex Vincent, who played Andy Barclay, Chucky’s original ‘owner’. There are some general commentators, too, such as genre icon Lin Shaye and pop culture fan John Waters. Each has a unique outlook on the subject.

For the first half, the film looks at the franchise one film at a time and is fairly standard. It’s then that Kyra’s motivation comes into play. Since she was little, Chucky has been ‘part of the family’ as the effects models and designs have been around the house. It then becomes a more personal story, and much more interesting. Interviewing the cast and crew for the first time who she’d only known through the screen before appears to be a cathartic thing for her. The impact of making the films on their respective family lives is openly discussed, which is something that isn’t often approached.

This personal angle raises a standard retrospective into something more fascinating and relatable.

Living With Chucky is out now on Blu-ray and digital.

MAGNIFICENT WARRIORS (1987)

by Jacob Walker

Eureka has released the last of Michelle Yeoh’s D&B films before she married one of the company’s founders, Dickson Poon. Magnificent Warriors is the silliest of the bunch but again showcases phenomenal action, the majority of which Michelle performs herself – is there nothing this woman can’t do?

If any film needed a title card, it’s Magnificent Warriors, as it’s hard to know the exact location and time period. Therefore, it’s useful to have Frank Djeng’s commentary to keep us in line and add some context. If you are watching closely, you can discern that we are in Bhutan sometime during the second Sino-Japanese war. Secret agent and pilot Fok Ming-ming (Yeoh, channelling Indiana Jones and Steve Trevor) is tasked with helping fellow freedom fighter, Derek Yee, stop the Japanese from building a poisonous gas factory.

Despite commanding a high budget, we are stuck in a barren desert and one set for much of the runtime, with Richard Ng providing his own brand of tomfoolery as a drifter to pad out the runtime. Clearly, the money was spent on the bone-crunching action, with Michelle wielding a whip and rope dart with gusto, as stuntmen are continuously pulled through burning wood and slammed into buildings. As our heroes defend a city from the Japanese army, explosions and vehicle chases are the order of the day with some of the finest stunt work of this golden period.

The disc features an archival interview with Michelle (who describes how difficult the shoot was) and choreographer Tung Wai, as well as the Guy Laroche advert Michelle appeared in with Jackie Chan, gloriously ‘80s. As ever, you are left thinking that with a few tweaks, this film could have been amazing. In terms of the action on display, the old adage is as true as ever – they don’t make them like this anymore.

MAGNIFICENT WARRIORS is out now on Blu-ray.

THE KILLER

by Martin Unsworth

Hitman for hire Ui-gang (Jang Hyuk) hopes to give up the business but is given a tough assignment by his wife – he must babysit her friend’s teenage child while the pair go away for three weeks. What could possibly go wrong? Especially when young Yoon-ji (K-pop star Lee Seo-young) asks to stay at one of her friends. He’s delighted with this proposition since it’ll mean he’ll keep more of his privacy, except things go wrong when Kim Yun becomes the target of a cartel that wishes to traffic her to a wealthy and important client. Putting his skills to good use, he sets about ensuring she’s safe.

Boasting superbly choreographed fight scenes, The Killer is John Wick on steroids. Slickly filmed, it motors along at a breakneck pace and oozes cool like only Asian cinema can. As the titular character, Hyuk plays a likeable anti-hero. Calm and collected, he throws himself into the role (literally, as we see in the behind-the-scenes footage that plays over the end credits) and is a force to be reckoned with. His adversaries might be plentiful, but many are nothing more than cannon fodder. There are more than enough of them for Ui-gang to get through, some are tougher than others, and some are fleshed out more as the action progresses.

Packed with spectacular stunts and exciting action, Jae-Hoon Choi directs with zest and manages to give a practically emotionless leading man a sense of pathos at having to go back into his business. The story is based on a webcomic, and this is displayed in the over-the-top action and almost non-stop set pieces. There’s enough humour sprinkled throughout to avoid it becoming a grim experience, though. Highly recommended for fans of high-octane, bloody violence.

Trinity CineAsia presents THE KILLER on Digital March 27th and Blu-ray and DVD on April 17th