Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Following on from the glorious collection of sleazy and shocking seventies trailers (reviewed here), we have another compilation, this time focusing on the nineties output.

As with the previous collection, we have a veritable smorgasbord of condensed entertainment contained within the four-hour running time. Divided into two parts: ‘The Crackdown’ and ‘Stalk n’ Slash’, the trailers take in some of the best-known movies of the decade, as well as a whole load of obscure titles that just leave you dying to track down.

In the first section, we have the likes of revenge thrillers such as Ms. 45, Death Wish II, and The Exterminator rub sprockets with certified classics like The Thing, The Terminator, and RoboCop. A bunch of Lucio Fulci gems – The Beyond by far being the best – highlight the leanings of the early eighties to Euro-horror and splatter flicks, while the likes of Ice Pirates, Zone Troopers, and Space Raiders (nothing to do with the tasty corn-based snack) provide plenty of giggles in their low-budget ineptness.

As would be expected by the title of the second part, the remainder of the teasers cover those eighties phenomena – the slasher film. The first three Friday the 13th movies take centre stage, but there’s still lots to discover, particularly with lesser-known (to anyone who didn’t live through the VHS-era) treats such as Curtains, The Nesting, and Death Spa. We could sit for hours (and we did!) watching the outrageous hyperbole of these fantastic promo clips while keeping in mind that just around the corner, cinema would soon become much more shocking and explicit. They don’t sell the movies to us like this anymore.

Other curios include some movies that are ripe for rediscovery, Miracle Mile, anyone? While most of these trailers are readily available on YouTube and the like, it’s good to see them spruced up in high definition and packaged together like this.

The release – from Australia’s Umbrella Entertainment – is well worth tracking down, and is region-free so there’s no problem viewing anywhere in the world.

DRIVE-IN DELIRIUM: HI DEF HYSTERIA – MAXIMUM 80S OVERDRIVE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: VARIOUS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

A mysterious package arrives at Starburst HQ, containing a lonely DVDR with no artwork or press release or any other identifying features to tell us what we might be looking at. Our only information is the felt tip pen scrawled across the disc itself – Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder In Hell – which we assume is telling us the title of the disc. With an introduction (and name) like that, how could we say no?

We’ve no idea if this is the way it’s going to be presented in shops – if indeed it will be available in shops, you might need to track some sort of back alley dealer to get hold of this one – but the lo-fi nature of the packaging we received follows on to the movie itself, looking like a third or fourth generation VHS tape that has been left in an attic since the ‘70s, which has then been converted to DVD in the quickest and cheapest way possible. There seems to be a bit of debate about when the film was actually made, with online estimates suggesting from as early as 2007 to as recently as 2014, but either way we’re looking at one of those retro-styled gimmicks rather than something that has been unearthed after decades in the wilderness. It really does feel like watching a forgotten video nasty though, and we’re massively appreciative of the effort that’s gone into making it look this way.

We join the movie during an attempted murder, where a woman is about to stab her husband after she found out he’s got another woman. The tables are turned when he kills her in self defence and buries her under the floorboards. Just as he’s about to start filling in the grave, she suddenly comes to life and warns him “you belong to me”, before he cracks her head over the head one final time. Credits roll, and we fast forward 30 years to meet a big hunky stud who is rudely interrupted by a phone call during his morning workout. His ex-girlfriend is researching an article about ghosts, and wants to talk to him about a vaguely-remembered photo of the creepy looking house where his dad used to live. She convinces him to take her to the house, accompanied by a stoic humourless psychic, where she hopes to focus on the house for her article.

To say much more would be totally spoileriffic, other than to say that of course we’re dealing with a haunted house and some unresolved family issues. The special effects are an inventive mixture of practical effects, stop motion, and animation, which look pretty low budget but certainly add to the unsettling style of the film. It’s pretty gory, with plenty of spurts and squishes spread liberally around the second half of the film, and there’s a fair amount of laughs to be had as well – both of the intentional and unintentional variety.

The film’s tag line is apparently “the Japanese Evil Dead”, which we’d be inclined to agree with. It isn’t as full-on as Raimi’s masterpiece, but we’d argue that Bloody Muscle deserves to gain a similar cult following among aficionados of the world’s weirdest. While we can’t comment on any potential extra features (as none were included in this early copy), enough craziness is crammed into this 62-minute running time that we’re pretty much ready to declare this is a front runner for 2017’s most enjoyably ridiculous movie of the year.

BLOODY MUSCLE BODYBUILDER IN HELL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: SHINICHI FUKAZAWA / SCREENPLAY: / STARRING: SHINICHI FUKAZAWA, ASAKO NOSAKA, MASAAKI KAI / RELEASE DATE: APRIL 24TH

In the late ‘50s, after losing out on success with a new version of the Frankenstein story to Hammer, future Amicus men Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky were still determined to have a horror hit to cash in on the money such films were making. Establishing a new production wing of their company to shoot in England and take advantages of tax benefits, the first attempt was originally called Witchcraft. By the time shooting on the film started it was retitled The City of the Dead. Although made in the UK, it’s set in New England and kicks off with a flashback to the late 17th century in the village of Whitewood. There, a woman has been found guilty of practising witchcraft and is to be burned at the stake. The villagers have their fears confirmed when she makes a pact with Satan to curse the place, promising to be his instrument of torture.

 

In the present day Nan is a young woman working on writing her term paper. Nan attends her professor’s class on legends of witchcraft and is fascinated by it. When the professor (played with an awkward American accent by Christopher Lee) suggests Nan heads out to Whitewood to research the history of the occult in the village she decides to do just that. Staying at the creepy Raven’s Inn, Nan meets the owner Mrs. Newless and discovers the town isn’t too friendly. From there on in things only get worse.

 

Although following both Hammer’s vividly colourful and gory The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula, this film is presented in crisp black and white. It fits the story told better, with the mist and fog shrouded Whitewood becoming a character itself. Nan’s journey puts her in contact with numerous people, including the doomsaying local Reverend, and it’s an agreeably entertaining one. This is full-on Satanists in black cloaks territory with a devilish conspiracy at the heart of it all. It’s ably directed by John Moxey who would later find success in America with all-time classic TV movies like The Night Stalker.

 

The City of The Dead is neither as cutting edge, dark or as gruesome as its Hammer contemporaries. However there are at least one or two sequences that still hold a chill. Overall, it’s an atmospheric, captivating tale of dark deeds and for anyone who enjoys films of this period, it stands up remarkably well. It’s also another excellent release from Arrow, with a very fine new restoration that makes the most of Desmond Dickinson’s cinematography. The extras are very good, including separate commentaries from English Gothic writer Jonathan Rigby, Lee and Moxey and some interesting, wide-ranging archival interviews. Highly recommended.

 

THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JOHN MOXEY / SCREENPLAY: GEORGE BAXT / STARRING: CHRISTOPHER LEE, VENETIAN STEVENSON, BETTA ST. JOHN, DENNIS LOTIS / RELEASE DATE: 24TH APRIL

Set in a parallel world where demons live alongside humans, Halfworlds is an interesting if slightly erratic variation on a popular theme. Taking its inspiration from Indonesian folklore, the grimy, Blade Runner-esque backstreets of Jakarta provide the setting, as a powerful group of humans struggle to keep supernatural creatures – known as Demit – in check. As a significant event known as ‘The Gift’ approaches, relations become increasingly strained and a young woman Sarah (Salvita Decorte) is drawn into the developing conflict.

 

The otherworldly theme, and the idea of “special” beings living amongst humans is hardly a new one, but Halfworlds’ beginnings present intrigue and originality despite that familiarity. An animated opening (something that becomes an enjoyable recurrence) exposits some necessary backstory while leaving enough out as to pique your interest. Mysterious, brooding and – let’s face it – cool looking characters emerge from shadows to feed upon or protect weak human prey, and everything sets up very nicely for the series. And that’s when things start to go a little awry.

 

Much of the problem comes from confusion in the characters. Too many early scenes create too many questions: who’s that? Why are they doing that to them? Who’s that they’re talking about? Wait, what now? – there are just too many inconsistencies in the plotting and pacing that make Halfworlds feel, well, half finished. Casting choices are also very much a lottery. Decorte is engaging as the human Sarah who may or may not hold some importance to the upcoming Gift, but around her many of the characters are too vague to be compelling, or just simply miscast. We need charisma from our heroes and demons, and too many are formulaic or just plain dull.

 

What saves Halfworlds, and ultimately promises much more, is the gritty aesthetic, and action scenes that settle visually and bloodily somewhere between Gareth Evans’ The Raid and Marvel’s recent Netflix fantasy-tinged Iron Fist. It is in these moments that co-writer and director Joko Anwar appears most comfortable; drawing the audience into wince-inducing encounters with a balletic style that contrasts sharply with the unwieldy nature of the central narrative.

 

If you accept that, initially at least, the main story in Halfworlds will only be comprehensible on a peripheral level, and simply allow yourself to be drawn into the mystery and physicality of this world, it is a thoroughly enjoyable series. As it develops, and with a second season on the way (already shown and finished in some territories), many of the issues can be ironed out, and Halfworlds may well establish itself as a premier fantasy / horror show.

 

HALFWORDS: SEASON 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JOKO ANWAR / SCREENPLAY: COLLIN CHANG, JOKO ANWAR / STARRING: SALVITA DECORTE, ARIFIN PUTRA, ARIO BAYU, BRONT PLARAE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (AUSTRALIA); UK ON SHUDDER

Released in 2010, With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story is a documentary (well, more like an extended DVD extra) chronicling the basic aspects of Stan Lee’s career from before, during and after his legendary contribution to the comic book industry. With the help of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Lee created some of the greatest comic book characters of all time, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Avengers, to name just a few. For a long time, there’s been a definitive documentary about “The Man” that was just waiting to be made, and even though this one isn’t truly it, it nevertheless paints a nice overview of Lee’s prolific lifestory.

 

For those expecting a deep and thorough exploration into Stan Lee’s life and career are probably going to be disappointed as what’s presented here is very superficial and basically just about glosses over a lot of the controversial (and interesting) aspects of his career and is a bit too admiring of him. For example, if you thought Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were the best of friends solely based on this film, then you don’t the true story, as that clearly wasn’t the case. There was always a controversial creative dispute between the two as Kirby felt he didn’t receive as much credit as Lee did, but they barely touch upon it here. There’s also barely any mention of Steve Ditko’s departure from Marvel and what compelled him to do so, leaving it a case that’s likely to be forever shrouded in mystery.

 

Also, the film is a bit of a jumbled mess since, while for the most part it’s arranged chronologically, it jumps around a lot and it’s almost as if the filmmakers involved didn’t quite get a grasp on how to tell the story. Yet even so, this does paint a solid, by-numbers portrait on the basics of Stan Lee’s career that would prove suitable to the novices out there. We hear all the stories about how he developed the ideas for characters like Spider-Man and the Hulk, as well as the stories about his working relationships with Kirby and Ditko. We hear from various celebrities that talk about how Lee’s work impacted them and the movie adaptations that have followed since then, showing how these iconic characters continue to thrive and endure to this day.

 

In the end, if you are looking for the definitive lifestory about Stan “The Man” Lee in documentary format, then this is something of a mixed bag, as it’s something of a disjointed affair that only glosses over Lee’s incredibly impressive career. Plus, while we do see an array of notable comic creators, historians, and directors and actors that have worked on Marvel films, that appreciate and praise Lee’s achievements, it does seem over-complimentary as if it was presented from within the Stan Lee empire. A solid effort, but nothing really special.

 

WITH GREAT POWER: THE STAN LEE STORY / CERT: PG / DIRECTORS: NIKKI FRAKES, TERRY DOUGAS, WILLIAM LAWRENCE HESS / SCREENPLAY: NIKKI FRAKES, WILLIAM LAWRENCE HESS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (US); UK RELEASE DATE TBA 

As The Red Queen Kills Seven Times opens, warring young sisters Kitty and Evelyn are told by their grandfather of the history behind one of the paintings in the castle they call home. Some years before the Red Queen and the Black Queen were similarly warring sisters who maintained a feud into adulthood until the Black Queen murdered the Red Queen. A year after this, the Red Queen returned from her grave to murder 7 people, the last one being her sister. The ominous suggestion being these two girls are headed down the same dark path unless something can be done. Skipping ahead to Kitty as an adult, her grandfather dies and his will must be read. Evelyn is said to be in America but the truth is, Kitty knows her sister is dead…because she killed her. Or did she? And who is the figure in bright red cloak who is murdering various people around Kitty? Perhaps once again the Red Queen has returned from her grave for revenge.

 

Released in 1972 at the height of popularity for the giallo film, writer and director Emilio P. Miraglia takes a second stab (arf!) at mixing the grisly thriller with a more gothic sensibility, after The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave. It continues the push and pull between modernity and the past by explicitly focussing on a character who comes to believe she is being cursed by her family’s history. It does so by stuffing so much into its opening sequences, including adding in more characters that seem to come out of nowhere, that it threatens to collapse on itself. Don’t worry if you think you’re not following it as all will become clear in the most convoluted way.

 

There’s many a giallo and many a gothic horror that had little concern for narrative coherency and The Red Queen is no different. Fortunately it’s also great fun and pulls everything together with some impressive style. There’s some excellent art direction, cinematography and directing and it all zips along at an entertaining pace. Bouchet does her best with her weak distressed damsel. For us the best character was Ugo Pagliai’s Martin, Kitty’s lover and a considerable douche, made the hero. But it’s not really about the characters so much as the style, imagination and some well-staged deaths that make it worthwhile. The Red Queen isn’t essential, and doesn’t achieve the lurid magnificence of the best giallo, but it’s definitely still rewarding for those that appreciate the style.

 

This release is elevated by some great extras, including a new Kim Newman and Alan Jones commentary, plenty of archival interviews and features and some words from the estimable Stephen Thrower.

 

THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES (1972) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: EMILIO MIRAGLIA / SCREENPLAY: EMILIO MIRAGLIA, FABIO PITTORRU / STARRING: BARBARA BOUCHET, UGO PAGLIAI, SYBIL DANNING / RELEASE DATE: 17TH APRIL 

Nicholas McCarthy’s At the Devil’s Door is a nifty film which compliments his slowly growing portfolio of domestic supernatural horrors. He’s proved a dab-hand at making a lot with very little, focusing on intimate human experiences to pad out his nightmarish hauntings. After a few great horror shorts, McCarthy’s The Pact was developed into his feature film debut, a solid example of supernatural horror with a great command of the familial environment. McCarthy’s Easter segment of anthology film Holidays yet again returned to the monstrous horror of the childhood home.

At the Devil’s Door, like The Pact, is an unassuming, downtrodden Indy flick with little light in its heart, but a solid dollop of terror mixed in with the family drama/thriller touches. McCarthy’s story is bigger this time and the canvas stretches over many years, positioning characters mysteriously along a timeline and then easing out spooky revelations as the runtime ticks away. Whilst the story could prove stale for anyone particularly into supernatural horror films, the style is admittedly a huge part of At the Devil’s Door‘s success. McCarthy has an enormous bank of classic iconography to exploit, and generously sprinkles superb images throughout the picture. Not just that but McCarthy’s control of atmosphere is absolute and instant, from the start of the film, events are imbibed with mystery and confusion. He goes on to spin a fair yarn too.

Bridger Nielsen, cinematographer on Holidays and The Pact, returns to provide those recognisably cinematic interior spaces. Nielsen’s work on Rodney Ascher’s The Nightmare borrowed heavily from giallo and sci-fi for a lurid painting of a film, here Nielsen is more reserved, constructing dark moody stages in the style of Gregory Crewdson. It has a terrific effect on the film which seems to become moodier whenever the camera is left for too long in the haunted spaces of McCarthy’s strange houses. The eventual demonic realisations are subtle but effective, graphic but not gory. Even one dodgy digital creature effect pulls off with a brutal jump scare. As the film unfurls, it reveals the exact nature of it interests. Like The Pact, McCarthy loves telling a horror story across generations, allowing his camera and story to seamlessly drift across the years and months to reveal the despicable outcomes of a patient evil’s actions. It totally works.

McCarthy’s latest offers a ride similarly subdued and atmospheric to The Pact with a few more daring moves. It’s a New-Age Rosemary’s Baby. A retro-supernatural affair with a Postmodern flash-forward. If he’s going to keep making these domestic affairs it could get thin soon, but there’s nothing to say his chosen motif won’t yield plenty of creative opportunity in other sub-genres, especially if they look as good as this and continue to cast strong female leads.

AT THE DEVIL’S DOOR / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: NICHOLAS MCCARTHY / STARRING: CATALINA SANDINO MORENO, ASHLEY RICKARDS, NAYA RIVERA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 5/10

Starburst Rating:

Tomboy, starring Michelle Rodriguez, is an enticing, if problematic, thriller on the exploitation side of Trans film. In it, “macho” assassin Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez rocking a crap beard and a large prosthetic cock) is forcibly subjected to gender reassignment surgery after he kills a deranged plastic surgeon’s (Sigourney Weaver) brother.

Director Walter Hill’s CV is yay-long and crammed with pulpy hits: The Driver, Southern Comfort, The Warriors, Streets of Fire, and more recently Sylvester Stallone’s Bullet to the Head. Tomboy sounds like it could have come from that ‘80s sweet spot where Hill made his name. To enforce that, its got a score by the legendary pop purveyor Giorgio Moroder (Scarface, American Gigolo) and boasts Michelle Rodriguez’s first lead role since her debut in 2000’s Girlfight. Sure Rodriguez has starred in plenty other films, not to mention her roles in big-budget franchises like Resident Evil and Fast and Furious. There’s a lot of weight behind the reputations of many involved and maybe that’s why it falls so hard.

The key issue at the heart of the film is that it’s been gestating on a back-bench since 1978, when co-writer Denis Hamill first jotted down ideas for a gender-vengeance film. Hill has been sporadically working since the millennium, mostly offering producing credits to the Alien franchise or directing the odd episode of serial Westerns. Hill clearly saw Haywire and John Wick, felt indebted to Abel Ferrara and the exploitative ‘80s, but didn’t have the budget, script, or interest to see what that would look like. It almost doesn’t matter how misguided its Trans dialogue may be when the film sucks this badly.

Sigourney’s scenes, straitjacketed and sneering, should be a sizzle with Tony Shalhoub on the other side of the table, but no. The most interesting characters get endless streams of expository monologues. Which is unfortunate because it increases the amount of times Weaver has to awkwardly pace a room in order to complete said monologue. Morodor’s soundtrack is cool, but one particular track sports lyrics so on-the-nose there’s nought to do but laugh.

It’s an inconsistent film to say the least, diving into moody film noir voice over and black and white kit-up sequences, right after lurid, cringey, or pointless dialogue. Weaver’s villainous “genius” quotes from only the most popular of literary references (surely a know-it-all would go obscure)and evades transphobia by flimsily claiming she proved genitals and gender are not connected. Hill treats Weaver like Hannibal, rather undeservedly, and has characters calling Kitchen a legend even though he’s just turned up on the scene. And that’s the tip of the iceberg, Tomboy is riddled with plot holes too large for excuses, and staggering overestimations which make it look deluded.

The boisterous action, that pizzazz which could so easily have saved much of the film, is nowhere to be seen. The few shootout sequences are stale in the face of a post-John Wick Hollywood: most consist of Rodriguez easily popping some totally pointless goons in dull walkthroughs. There’s no real catharsis because the film has been edited into a twisting mess, its story snaps as the strained spine of its narrative, which attempts non-linear but achieves non-sensical.

Its admittedly a budget project but doesn’t help itself in any way. Boring, lazy, dumb, Tomboy is a painful disappointment for action fans and Walter Hill fans alike.

TOMBOY / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: WALTER HILL / SCREENPLAY: WALTER HILL, DENIS HAMILL / STARRING: MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, TONY SHALHOUB / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 6/10

Starburst Rating:

No suspension of disbelief required for this; there isn’t a single moment you’re not aware of what you’re watching, or anticipating what comes next. It’s impossible to regard its characters as remotely plausible, and Martin and Reiner make a virtue of this by drawing the lines that join the dots as outlandishly as possible – the “cleaning woman” resolution to the final problem being a prime example. Indeed, from the moment Martin rearranges Rachel Ward’s breasts you know the balance they’re drawing is going to be between the cleverness of their conceit and some inane comedy, and Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid doesn’t disappoint. To enjoy it requires an acquired sense of humour, and to appreciate its daring might necessitate ignoring its juvenility.

The plot, such as it is, involves the soft-boiled but hard-bitten private detective Rigby Reardon piecing together the puzzle left by the death of his brunette bombshell client Juliet’s father, celebrated scientist/cheesemaker John Hay Forrest. The conceit is that Martin gets to play in scenes with the stars of the golden age of the detective picture, by incorporating him into clips from the movies of the 1940s. Thus there are guest appearances from the likes of Lana Turner, Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman – and a recurring role for Humphrey Bogart – in scenes from such films as The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

It’s a tremendous idea, albeit one that doesn’t necessarily lead to accomplished results. Singling out scenes into which Martin could be placed leads to many of them appearing as complete non-sequiturs in the overall plot. That this was attempted 35 years ago, before the kind of assistance computers would eventually have provided in integrating Martin into scenes made another forty years before that, means that in all but one of the instances, Rigby is seen only in newly-shot, over-the-shoulder reverse angles (the one exception featuring Cary Grant from Suspicion), giving Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid a disconnected quality even before the eccentric storyline kicks in. Much of the fun of watching it comes simply from gaping at Martin’s odd replies to, or contrived set-ups for, the borrowed dialogue.

This highly anticipated Blu-ray release also sets out the qualitative differences in high definition. Produced in an age before digital restoration, it’s impossible to believe that Martin is really interacting with the often visually slightly fuzzy characters he meets – but it’s to the film’s credit that you really don’t care. For all the absurdity and childishness on display, it’s elements like the sympathetic new score from contemporary composer Miklos Rozsa that mark out Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid as a loving homage as much as a surreal parody. By turns joyous and infuriating.

Special Features: Trailer

DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID (1982) / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: CARL REINER / SCREENPLAY: CARL REINER, GEORGE GIPE, STEVE MARTIN / STARRING: STEVE MARTIN, RACHEL WARD / RELEASE DATE: 10TH APRIL