Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

For the first sixty minutes of its ninety-ish minute running time, Cell – based on Stephen King’s 2006 novel and with King on co-scripting duties – is a perfectly serviceable, if not especially over-accomplished, apocalyptic thriller. The scenario intrigues – a rogue ‘Pulse’ transmitted through the mobile phone network turns users into rabid, foaming murderous psychopaths (we’re trying to avoid using the word ‘zombie’ because of all those preconceptions it now comes loaded with) – and a handful of survivors flee a burning Boston to find safety. John Cusack plays graphic novelist Clayton Riddell, desperate to be reunited with his estranged family and Samuel L Jackson is kindly train driver Tom McCourt who’s surprisingly handy with firearms. Together with Clay’s neighbour Alice (Fuhrman), they pick their way through a treacherous landscape, occasionally pursued by “phoners” who are exhibiting increasingly bizarre and unified behaviour which suggests some sort of ‘hive mind’ mentality.

So far so seen-all-this before – and there’s nothing much wrong with it apart from a marked lack of real spectacle (apart from the opening sequence set in Boston airport where ‘the Pulse’ kicks in, causing a nicely-shot orgy of bloody violence) and some odd pacing and slightly ‘off’ characterisation. The film’s budget clearly won’t stretch to showing much of the immediate after-effects of ‘the Pulse’; out on the city streets we see just a handful of roaming “phoners” and a few long-shots of smouldering buildings. There’s not much sense of scale here, it all seems a bit low-key and never really gets its motor running. Clay and co. venture out into the countryside and meet up with other survivors – but the ‘phoners’ are never far away. The film throws in a few interesting concepts about the nature of ‘the phoners’ and sequences where they stand stock-still, mouth gaping, the static-like screech of ‘the Pulse’ emanating from somewhere deep inside them, are striking and occasionally chilling.

But somewhere along the way, around that sixty-minute mark, the wheel comes off an already-wobbly wagon. Clay starts to see visions of a grotesque red-hooded figure created for his unfinished graphic novel and he begins to wonder if some manifestation of the entity is responsible for ‘the Pulse’. Eventually, determined to find his missing son (he discovers his wife already ‘turned’ when he returns to the family home) Clay sets out alone and wanders into a pretentious, murky and eventually utterly unsatisfying finale – apparently rewritten by King from the novel as he was displeased with its original ending – which fails to really get to grips with any of the story’s core questions and leaves us more than a little puzzled as to exactly what’s happened, much less why. By now, however, the film’s run right out of steam and whatever goodwill it earned in its explosive first few minutes (and in an eerie sequence at a school run by veteran Stacey Keach) has long since dissipated and we’re just left with a film with the potential to make some cogent and incisive commentary about the ubiquity of the mobile phone phenomenon but  throws it all away for the sake of a bit of esoteric mumbo-jumbo. Cell is just about worth a look (Cusack and Jackson are always worth spending time with) but it can’t help but disappoint; if we knew who to call, we’d probably ring and complain…

CELL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: TOD WILLIAMS / SCREENPLAY: STEPHEN KING, ADAM ALLECA / STARRING: JOHN CUSACK, SAMUEL L. JACKSON, ISABELLA FURMAN, OWEN TEAGUE, STACEY KEACH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Something of a mixed bag, The Horror Network Vol. 1 (to give it its full title; yes, there are presumably further instalments on the way) is little more than a collection of entirely unrelated short films, each with a twist in its tale.

First is 3:00am, in which a young woman living on her own in the middle of nowhere is terrorised by some violently incongruous and questionably diegetic sound effects. With no back-story and some incredibly attention deficient editing, it’s hard to care.

Edward is a vast improvement, and possibly the best segment of the film. Essentially a two-hander, all but the last minute or so comprise a conversation between a disturbed young man and his psychiatrist. The twist might be a touch muddled but the resolutions are foreshadowed enough in the dialogue to demonstrate some real attention to detail has gone into the script, and the performances by both actors are tremendous, if hampered by the ever-present inconsistent film quality.

The Quiet is an equally thoughtful tale of a young girl who is bullied into missing her lift home from school, and the terror that a string of unfortunate coincidences provokes. With some particularly impressive photography, the outcome might with hindsight be somewhat predictable, but the journey is nevertheless effectively conveyed.

Merry Little Christmas, in Spanish with subtitles, is a deliberately shocking portrait of the effects across a generation of a family’s dysfunctionality, and in spite of some coherent connections between the twin narratives and an inclination towards unforgettably grotesque imagery, ends up feeling like a purposefully provocative manipulation.

The Deviant One is a horribly, and even more offensive black and white pseudo silent movie polemic about religion and aberrancy, premeditatedly controversial and mercifully brief. A nasty note to end the anthology on.

With sound and picture that might charitably be described as variable, and acting to match, The Horror Network is patently relying on its shock factor to smuggle a couple of rather more cerebral stories onto the screen. And in that respect, it’s a success. But with psychological horrors rubbing shoulders with torture porn and only the occasional suggestion of anything remotely supernatural, this is not a collection that is going to appeal to anyone craving the more subtle pleasures that the second and third stories do manage to offer.

Indeed, across all five tales there’s an almost headache-inducing over-vividness in the photography and the soundtrack, easily enough to overwhelm the senses of all but the most indie horror hardened. The best you can say about this is that it’s likely an acquired taste, but it’s difficult to recommend its acquisition. Let’s hope the inevitable follow-ups are a little less lurid and a mite more considered.

Special Features: Trailer / Extended scene

THE HORROR NETWORK / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: BRIAN DORTON, JOSEPH GRAHAM, MANUEL MARÍN, LEE MATTHEWS, DOUGLAS CONNER, IGNACIO MARTÍN LERMA / SCREENPLAY: DOUGLAS CONNER, BRIAN DORTON, JOSEPH GRAHAM, MANUEL MARÍN, / STARRING: NICK FRANGIONE, ARTEM MISHIN, JAN CORNET, BRIAN DORTON, JAVIER BOTET, MACARENA GÓMEZ / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 24TH

Great timing Mr Lewis, as always. Just as Arrow Video completes work on this everything-and-the-fake-eyeball magnum opus box set of his work, the maestro of marketing goes and dies. Result: maximum publicity and interest. Of course, we’d much prefer the great man to still be around to expound the brilliance of this final manoeuvre in that inimitable drawl, but he’s genially present throughout these 17 discs in the form of commentaries, specially shot introductions and a wealth of archive materials lovingly curated for our disgusted delight.

Taken as a whole, Herschell Gordon Lewis’s adventures in the screen trade represent a remarkably committed middle finger to the Hollywood system. His trademark palate of one-note acting, resolutely un-looped dialogue (you’ll be thankful for the subtitles here), single-shot coverage and lugubrious astro jazz soundtracks may be seen as charming today but his mission statement was anything but; here are films designed to shock and disturb, to give you nightmares and, for all that, keep you coming back for more of the same. This set includes 14 of his works, in dual format, looking just about as good as can be given that the Smithsonian is unlikely to ever request that the original negatives of Lewis’s films be immortalised for posterity alongside those of Spielberg, Lean and Scorsese. In fact, some of these prints still have some gloriously scratchy sections, belying their authentic heritage as censor-baiting cinematic contraband.

Blood Feast (1963), the film that inspired a thousand splatter-fests since, remains a bizarrely bracing template, but it’s far from the best of the Lewis line. In all the ‘gore’ series that followed, be it the banjo-Brigadoon mayhem of Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), the ridiculous lunacy of The Gruesome Twosome (1967) or the fiendish stagecraft of The Wizard of Gore (1970), Lewis constantly outdid himself, pushing his voyeuristic format as far as his blood-hungry Southern state audiences demanded. You have to wait until 1972’s The Gore Gore Girls, a deliberate attempt to bookmark his decade of filmic degradation with a flourish before moving onto more lucrative pursuits, to find Lewis genuinely breaking his own mould. Starring Frank Kress as effete private investigator Abraham Gentry, heavily channelling UK export Jason King, and Amy Farrell as his Emma Peel-alike sidekick, it’s a refreshing shot in the arm that leaves you wanting more. Alas, this engaging mix of giallo, The Avengers and extreme eyeball violence was the end of the Lewis line. Shame, that.

But Lewis was far more than just ‘The Godfather of Gore’ as the six non-splatter features here ably demonstrate. They’re a very mixed bag; the ‘roughie’ sexual predator warning of 1963’s shot-in-six-days Scum of the Earth and 1964’s hillbilly throwdown Moonshine Mountain might prove a bit of a slog even for connoisseurs. But by the time Lewis got around to his take on the biker gang flick with 1968’s She-Devils on Wheels, he was jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon as entertainingly as Roger Corman, if not as slickly. For our money, the best of these (relatively) non-gory sideshows is 1967’s Something Weird, which mixes a woozy late-60s cocktail of LSD, witchcraft, the occult and serial killings into a be-careful-what-you-wish-for parable for the modern man. It also sports the crown jewel of Lewis soundtracks. All spacy bleeps and jazzy parps, it’s an atonal masterpiece.

The extras here are pretty damn great. A hell of a lot of work has clearly gone into producing a giant gutbucket of new features and scholarly dissections from fans, filmmakers and former collaborators. With no stone left unturned, you’ll be lost in them for weeks. Also included is Frank Henenlotter’s feature-length Godfather of Gore documentary from 2010 although UK viewers may be just as pleased to re-acquaint themselves with Jonathan Ross’s excellent Incredibly Strange Film Show episode from 1988 that really kick-started interest in Lewis on this side of the pond. If you’re feeling bold and go for the super deluxe ‘Shock and Gore’ edition of this set you also get a barf bag, the Blood Feast score on vinyl and, almost inevitably, an “individually handmade super-gory eyeball”. Talk about lovingly tooled.

If exploitation is your bag, Herschell Gordon Lewis wrote the book on it (and a few other subjects, besides). This is a richly rewarding tribute and the ultimate celebration of a truly pioneering body of work. Bloody good show, old man.

Special Features: Brand New Introductions to the films by Lewis / Hours of extras including newly-produced Interviews and Featurettes, Commentaries and Short Films / Additional Bonus DVD: Herschell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore Documentary / Exclusive Books, Vinyl and Eyeball

THE HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS FEAST / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: VARIOUS / RELEASE DATE: 24TH OCTOBER

If you’ve never seen One Million Years B.C. (restored here in 4K) you’re probably at least familiar with Pierre Luigi’s iconic photograph of young star Raquel Welch in her ‘costume’.  Those of you who are sticklers for scientific and historical accuracy might not want to delve too much further than that, for this Hammer hit is almost the definition of ahistorical. The plot, such as it is, focuses on the plight of tribesman Tumak, played by John Richardson. After fighting with his dad over a juicy piece of meat (it’s never about the meat, though, is it kids?) Tumak is banished to the hot desert – actually Lanzarote and Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Here he will come into contact with giant lizards, spiders, dinosaurs (that a-history, folks) and the many dangers present when a young caveman finds himself out alone in the world.

It’s not all bad, as he’s noticed by Loana (Welch) of the advanced Shell tribe. After they save his life he is taken in by them. Eventually he’ll make his way back to his own people, leading to two tribes actually going to war. Well, kind of.  It’s not really about the plot though. Made in 1966 when Hammer were riding almost at their highest, some things make One Million Years B.C. stand apart from the handful of dinosaur/prehistoric movies Hammer would make later on.

Firstly, due to their distribution deal with 20th Century Fox they secured the services of the up-and-coming Welch in the lead. Seven Arts financing helped pay for the location shooting. It also helped pay for the special effects work of Ray Harryhausen, and this is the biggest thing that makes the film stand out. Director Don Chaffey had worked with Ray just a few years before on the classic Jason and the Argonauts. Their pairing would prove profitable again when working for Hammer, as this turned out to be a box-office success.

You could imagine viewing this through a modern filter might diminish its eccentric charms, but happily that’s not the case. The cast have a ball playing at being prehistoric, it’s tightly directed by Chaffey, who also understands how to present scale on a relatively low budget. It’s helped immeasurably by the sterling work of Harryhausen, and his special magic elevates the action sequences just as you would expect.

Extras are limited to two new interviews (one with the ever-enthusiastic Welch) and a stills gallery of Harryhausen’s prep work. However, if you’re a fan of Hammer or Harryhausen then this comes highly recommended. For those with a more casual interest in fantasy films still consider this worthwhile as it’s a huge amount of fun.

ONE MILLION YEARS B.C (1966) / CERT:PG / DIRECTOR: DON CHAFFEY / SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL CARRERAS / STARRING: RAQUEL WELCH, JOHN RICHARDSON, PERCY HERBERT, ROBERT BROWN, MARTINE BESWICK / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 24TH

 

Sometimes it’s too easy to just laugh and point at creaky old black-and-white science fiction films and hoot at their cheesy acting and naff special effects. No CGI? No chance! But many of those classics are the bedrock of the genre which thrives today in our multiplexes and some of them, bursting with naïve charm and homespun visuals, can still give today’s filmmakers a run for their money-no-object budgets in terms of telling a sleek, thrilling, imaginative story. But then there’s The Man from Planet X…

Shot at the tail end of 1950 in less than a week and largely on sets borrowed from Ingrid Bergman’s 1948 Joan of Arc, The Man from Planet X tells of an extra-terrestrial encounter on the Scottish moors as a mysterious alien – he’s from ‘out of space’, apparently – arrives, his home planet in hot pursuit and on a collision course with the Earth! Boffin Professor Elliot (Bond) and his American reporter chum John Lawrence (Clarke) locate the alien – he’s quite an eerie-looking flat-faced creation in a spacesuit – but can’t communicate with him. Sneery scientist Dr Mears (Schallert) discovers how to converse with the creature (it emits a stream of random electronic bleeps and whirrs) and tries to kill it after obtaining the formula for the unearthly metal from which its spaceship has been constructed. But the alien’s not dead and it scampers off back to its ship with some local villagers, hypnotised into helping it send a signal to its homeworld, possibly for the purposes of invasion.

The Man from Planet X is hokey stuff, for sure, but not without its singular charms. Terrible unconvincing backdrops expose the film’s tiny budget but a couple of atmospheric model shots and scenes set on the windy, misty moor, the spaceship stuck on the mud in the distance, are oddly effective. The alien itself is also quite forward-thinking; it doesn’t speak English, its motives are unclear and at times as it’s being dragged around and beaten up we can even feel some sympathy for its plight. But elsewhere the acting veers between achingly earnest and downright lousy and even toddlers will chortle at the ludicrous science and portents of ‘disturbances’ and ‘a dangerous atmospheric upheaval’ should the planet pass close to the Earth.

Yet despite its faults and its shortcomings, The Man from Planet X is hugely watchable, if occasionally a bit too primitive for modern sensibilities. It’s a fascinating cautious stepping stone into cinema’s exploitation of the lurid science fiction genre and there are a couple of neat concepts which are, albeit inadvertently, way ahead of their time and unusually reflective for a genre now better-regarded for its modern-day whizz-bangery. It doesn’t hold a candle to the more enduring genre movies of the later 1950s but it’s certainly not a waste of seventy minutes of your time if you’re interested in the early days of sci-fi cinema.

Extras: Trailer

THE MAN FROM PLANET X (1951) / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: EDGAR J. ULMER / SCREENPLAY:  AUDREY WISBERG, JACK POLLEXFEN / STARRING ROBERT CLARK, MARGARET FIELD, RAYMOND BOND, WILLIAM SCHALLERT / DATE OF RELEASE: OCTOBER 24th

 
 

Behind its generic title, the obvious antecedent of this brisk, muscular thriller is Taken, the film that transformed Liam Neeson into a mature action hero. This is not simply a re-tread of that film, however. In Never Let Go, Angela Dixon plays Lisa, a retired government agent mired in grief and guilt, but with a new baby – fathered in secret by a married politician Lisa had been assigned to protect – to take care of. Following her mother’s advice, Lisa decides to take a vacation to spend time with her daughter but also try and find within herself some peace regarding things that follow her from her past. Going to Morocco it isn’t long before her baby has been kidnapped, ostensibly by people-smugglers. As Lisa draws on her skills and contacts to find her baby it becomes clear there’s more to events than first transpired.

Writer and director Howard J. Ford is part of the Ford brothers team responsible for minor horror hit zombie flick The Dead and its sequel, here going it alone in a different genre. The premise is straight out of action-movie school 101, with a measured build up until Lisa inevitably must rely upon her unleashed skills to not only survive and evade capture by the authorities but get her daughter back.

Ford has a history as a commercials director and it shows, with the opening of the film especially so redolent of that advertisement style to the extent we expected a brand name or slogan to pop up.  It’s not too distracting, however, once the kidnap happens. Things kick into higher gear and it changes into something more kinetic and reminiscent of the Bourne films, another clear influence, and the two styles work better together. Never Let Go doesn’t reinvent the story wheel from its myriad of recent superior influences and this doesn’t help with the familiarity of much of what transpires keeping the film from feeling fresh.

The real heart of the movie is the little-known Dixon. Given a decent meal as an actor, she takes the challenge on. Lisa is a mix of fragility, vulnerability and strength and grit. Dixon inhabits her fully, making her quiet, sorrowful moments feel real but also convincing you that she has the ability and hardness required to do the job she did, and kick ass when determined to get her baby back.  It’s an obvious hook to call this Taken with a female lead, but Dixon makes it more than that, even despite a pointless and silly ‘maybe she’s a mad woman’ plot-line.  Overall it’s a fine, well-made but inessential thriller, though one with a commendable central performance, worth catching for that.

NEVER LET GO / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: HOWARD J. FORD / STARRING: ANGELA DIXON, NIGEL WHITMEY, LISA EICHHORN, VALIBOR TOPIC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

From Charles Band’s Full Moon production company, 1994’s Dark Angel: The Ascent opens with a literal descent into hell. There we meet Veronica, a young demon who is just not down with the whipping and screaming, the torturing and punishing of the dammed, and wants to instead visit the world of humans above. Veronica finds a secret route to the surface and, taking her lovable pooch Hellraiser with her, heads upwards.

 

Once there, Veronica disguises herself as a normal human. Veronica also soon decides after having experienced our corrupt and sinful world that it’s not fair for bad people to have to die before they can be punished and so she starts hunting them down and giving them what for, which includes feeding people parts to her dog. Veronica meets a young doctor called Max and begins a relationship. When Veronica decides to tell him the truth about who she really is, he must decide whether his lady being the actual spawn of hell is going to put him off.

Dark Angel: The Descent seems like a truly forgotten film – it doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia page, as sure a sign of cultural dismissal in these times as anything. You might suspect it’s with good reason that this is one of the extremely prolific Band’s lesser known works.  Full Moon has been putting out re-releases of catalogue titles from Band’s various companies and after viewing, it’s easy to understand why they chose this film. The strange Veronica is played with memorable charm and humour by Angela Featherstone. The story is treated with a fair amount of seriousness and although there are the requisite broad performances by the supporting cast, and frequent intentional flashes of humour, it’s done with an admirable straight face.

It’s a weird mix of horror, romance, and genuine oddity. Whether this is something you’ll enjoy depends. By far Band’s productions can be hit and miss. But if you’re a fan of Band’s better known and better-made productions like Trancers or Subspecies then you’ll know what to expect when they got it right: good concepts, done with commitment and style on low budgets. Dark Angel: The Ascent fits very much into this – it’s cheesy good fun, with gore, nudity, fun ideas and all wrapped up in a little over an hour and a quarter.

If you already like the Band-style this is certainly one of the decent ones and deserving of a second life. For those unfamiliar with that house style it might seem too silly or cheap, but, whilst certainly niche entertainment, take it in the movie-huckster spirit it was made in and you’ll most likely have a fun time.

DARK ANGEL: THE ASCENT / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: LINDA HASSANI / SCREENPLAY: MATTHEW BRIGHT / STARRING: CONSTANTIN DRAGANESCU, ANGELA FEATHERSTONE, CRISTINA STOICA, VALENTIN TEODESIU / RELEASE DATE: VOD OUT NOW

Wow… Beauty has truly become the beast here in Nicolas Winding Refn’s surreal, nightmarish, neon-soaked horror thrillride The Neon Demon. Refn is someone who, like John Carpenter, creates dark subversive films that rides the fine line of taste and decency, and this has resulted in some big successes (Drive, Bronson, and the Pusher films), as well as some failures (Valhalla Rising and Only God Forgives). But this just demonstrates just how much of an experimental filmmaker he is, creating genre pieces that are ballsy and edgy, and in the case of The Neon Demon, Refn has created a film that must go down in history as one of the most seriously fucked up movies ever made.

However, this film rewards you with one of the most visceral experiences you’ll ever encounter with a film. This is the kind of movie that has you reflecting on the seedy, shady world that’s buried and hidden beneath the shiny and glamorous surface of Hollywood. There’s a lot of iconic imagery and sequences filled with laughter, horror, tragedy, vanity and vile repugnant envy that will stay with you long after the movie has finished. In a highly stylised approach, Refn explores all the very real and highly narcissistic attitudes, as well as the horrible and greedy mentalities that constantly infests every single corner in the very real and sharp world of make believe. This is a world infested with vacuous people who use, abuse and take full advantage of others in order to achieve their own personal gain, no matter how petty or plastic.

Visually, it’s beautifully stunning (plaudits to cinematographer Natasha Braier) with the bold, bright and vibrant colours used intricately well, resulting in the best-looking movie of the year so far. The score by Cliff Martinez is electrifyingly orgasmic, being very techno and electronic, yet hugely complements the film’s warped atmosphere. Also electrifying is the superb performances all round with the mercurial and luminous Elle Fanning being excellent in the central role of Jesse, brilliantly blurring the lines between innocence and terrifying.

Both Abbey Lee and Bella Heathcote are dynamic as the attention-seeking duo, Keanu Reeves is brilliantly creepy, and Christina Hendricks is solid in a glorified cameo role. However, the real and raw beating heart of this unnerving film is Jena Malone, who phenomenally explores the darkest truths of humanity as she goes through some daring and disturbing ordeals. As Ruby, Malone brilliantly captures all aspects of loneliness, longing, depravity, anger, desire, confusion, and deep-rooted hurt, making her the real star of the show.

Granted, The Neon Demon won’t work with certain audiences; some will be bored, frustrated or offended by the experience, whilst some would see it as an example of style over substance. The latter is understandable, and like Lars von Trier, Refn is a director that creates excitement or exasperation, especially given the fact he has described himself as a pornographer by fetishizing certain aspects of the film. Nevertheless, this is a bold and riveting experience like no other, filled to the gills with surrealistic, metaphorical imagery, dynamite performances, and like Drive has the true makings of a cult classic.

THE NEON DEMON / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: NICOLAS WINDING REFN / SCREENPLAY: NICOLAS WINDING REFN, MARY LAWS, POLLY STENHAM / STARRING: ELLE FANNING, KARL GLUSMAN, JENA MALONE, BELLA HEATHCOTE / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 31ST

 

Starting out as a fairly standard, if intriguingly structured crime thriller, The Neighbour keeps its audience on the edge of their seats through clever plotting and some genuine surprises.

John (Stewart) and wife Rosie (Essoe) are entry level crooks working for the former’s uncle, a Southern cowboy in every sense who runs his small town like a big city kingpin. Desperate to escape their lives’ monotony the couple are trying to save enough cash to escape for good until a casual flirtation with a little routine voyeurism brings more trouble down than they could have imagined.

Experienced writer Marcus Dunstan seems to have finally discovered his directing chops with The Neighbour. The opening act is a brooding blend of mystery and misdirection, as all the main characters are introduced without any real insight being offered as to their individual motives. The middle act, when neighbour Troy (Engvall) begins to reveal his secrets becomes a claustrophobic thriller in the style of a home invasion horror. It is in the final act that Dunstan’s previous credits as the writer of several Saw films come to the fore, as extremes are hinted at, but remain in the whole cleverly unused, as The Neighbour picks up the pace to leave you just a little breathless.

There is a certain amount of familiarity to Dunstan’s film, and many scenes that will remind an experienced horror fan of several others from Hostel to Rear Window. But in truth, that doesn’t really matter here. It isn’t always what you include but how you do it, and Dunstan has created more than enough malevolent portent and unsettling uncertainty to keep you guessing despite the standard horror tropes. The pacing is key to this, as once the film gets into its stride, it rarely lets up. There are few opportunities to catch your breath as John and Rosie stumble from one situation to the next, as more and more neighbouring nastiness is discovered.

With a heritage in the same vein as You’re Next or Intruders, The Neighbour fits smoothly into the formulaic siege-like horror draw. The difference here is in the stylish direction that creates a constant air of suspense, overly violent interludes that are as brutal as they are surprising, and performances that never miss a beat even when the tension threatens to overpower the story.

If you only see one more thriller-set-in-a-house-and-then-bad-things-happen film this year, make it The Neighbour. As an example of what can be done with this popular sub-genre, it is about as good as it gets.

THE NEIGHBOUR / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: MARCUS DUNSTAN / SCREENPLAY: MARCUS DUNSTAN, PATRICK MELTON / STARRING: JOSH STEWART, ALEX ESSOE, BILL ENGVALL, LUKE EDWARDS, MELISSA BOLONA / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 31ST

 

The finale of Sheldon Renan and Leonard Schrader’s 1982 murder-compendium-cum-documentary centres on a peace vigil held for the recently killed John Lennon. As Imagine plays across the crowd we are offered glimpses of distraught fans, young and old, who made the pilgrimage to Central Park to honour their hero. As the melancholic music continues narrator Chuck Riley, never less than monotone and morosely emotionless throughout, delivers a most poignant punchline: “At this peaceful vigil, two people were killed.” And in that moment you get the only real comment that exists within The Killing of America.

In a world in which Michael Moore lives and thrives, the re-issue of a documentary focusing on the decline of American society and the rise of gun ownership and its use feels somewhat redundant. Moore has covered this and other topics in detail and provoked considerably more political debate from it. We’ve also had numerous films and documentaries on some of the subjects of Renan and Schrader’s feature, whether it be the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, the murders by Ted Bundy or the crimes of the Manson Family so much of the content feels somewhat sterilised.

To really understand The Killing of America, it is necessary to try and understand the time when it was made. There is an undertone of surprise to some of the narration, as if the fact any of this could be happening in America, this America, is preposterous. There is also a sense of mystification regarding the featured murderers: some of these young men and women who suddenly seemed to become killers were all pleasant and presentable just five minutes ago; what could possibly have possessed them?

That the film offers no conclusion, only reels of grainy evidence leaves The Killing of America feeling a little empty when you finally reach the end. There is the suspicion much of the footage was included just because it could be, with previously unseen police film often just for effect or emphasis. As such, The Killing of America becomes as much an example of what could be shown to be happening, than what actually was happening. It is fitting, then, that the most interesting sections of the film surround interviews with Sirhan Sirhan, who shot Robert Kennedy, and mass murderer Ed Kemper. The latter wonders to camera if he was perhaps a little crazy, immediately after talking of beheading his victims and sleeping with several heads. Both come across as literate and weirdly engaging, and perhaps this would have been a more interesting topic for the filmmakers to have concentrated on.

As a time capsule from the early 80s, and with some interesting footage mixed in with some included purely for shock value, The Killing of America carries some historical value. It would make an interesting double bill with Moore’s Bowling for Columbine; just make sure you’re in a happy place.

THE KILLING OF AMERICA (1981) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTORS: SHELDON RENAN, LEONARD SCHRADER / SCREENPLAY: CHIEKO SCHRADER, LEONARD SCHRADER / STARRING: CHUCK RILEY, ED DORRIS, THOMAS NOGUCHI, ED KEMPER / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 31ST