BLEACH SERIES 16 PART 2

As the Soul Society was all but bereft in the first curve, it’s gratifying to catch up with the Soul Reaper’s shenanigans. And all’s well and merry on New Year’s Eve as the Soul Reapers fly kites. But even that turns into a hot bed of competition and one-upmanship. Rukia, on the other hand, has to deal with a more personal plight than the world hanging in the balance or umpteen hollows to contend with.

When the narrative does catch up with Ichigo again, he’s still in the thick of it, vigorously training and honing his fullbring ability opposite ruthless sensei, Kūgo Ginjō. Some of these scenes are particularly eye wincing – sometimes literally – and even by Bleach standards, the entire arc flings about the bloodshed with abandon.

Since losing his powers 17 months before and having to cope with life as a normal, Ichigo has been putting in the hard slog and sharpening his innate ability to tool himself as a hollow slayer again. His powers are put to the test by having to routinely fend off Shūkurō Tsukishima, who deals in memory and manipulation. As far as Bleach baddies go, he’s fairly bland. After the curtain falls on the obligatory twists, he’s a lot more fallible, but since this is, for all intents and purposes, the last huzzah, he’s a bit lacklustre.

Where the villain loses, is only Ichigo’s gain. The episodes take time to explore his mental state, and the growing effect of creeping paranoia and instability. The fatigue of his excursions on his mental wellbeing was never an overwhelming concern, but when the memories of his friends and family have been drastically altered, Ichigo reaches breaking point. If the entire 16-series run was a character study, then this final curve was the apotheosis.

There’s some spectacular combat in tow, the like of which we haven’t quite seen before in the clashes between Soul Reapers and the fullbringers. The last episode, aptly, is a convergence of style, sound and splendour that is the essence of Bleach distilled.

But in amongst the action and mental fatigue is a real sense of retrospect and generational divides. It’s an ending steeped in nostalgia and optimism, and one that quietly bids farewell to a show that ran for almost ten years. This isn’t necessary the end, but for now, this quietly unassuming swansong is all we’ve got.

Special Features: Opening and closing animations

BLEACH SERIES 16 PART 2 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: NORIYUKI ABE / SCREENPLAY: MASASHI SOGO / STARRING: FUMIKO ORIKASA, MASAKAZU MORITA, AKIO OHTSUKA, ATSUKO YUYA / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 28TH

 

STINGRAY THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

Stingray starts with Barry Gray’s pounding theme music accompanying a montage of action-packed sequences showing Marineville, the headquarters of WASP (World Aquanaut Security Patrol), descending underground and launching the super-submarine Stingray against the latest enemy. The excitement is built up to the announcement that “anything can happen in the next half hour”. Well, all sorts of weird aquatic adventures do occur, but we know that in the end us landlubbers will be saved from the terrors of the deep.

This 5-DVD boxset features all 39 half-hour episodes, which were broadcast by ITV in the UK from October 1964 to June 1965. Fortunately, it was also syndicated to the USA and Canada, so for their benefit it was filmed in full colour – us Brits had to watch it on our technologically-backward monochrome TV sets.

Nonetheless it was still very exciting, and for those who were deprived back then, you can now wallow in and enjoy its Supermarionation colour. This also makes it easier to spot the strings controlling the puppets, but what the heck, this is the universe of 2065 ruled by the puppet master Gerry Anderson. This is more than compensated by the wonderful special effects directed by Derek Meddings, who went on to work on James Bond feature films.

Troy Tempest is the hero/Captain of Stingray who is accompanied by navigator ‘Phones’ on his missions to battle underwater villains and aliens who are intent on destroying WASP. His main nemesis is King Titan, who lives in an underwater city and whose forces operate ‘Terror Fish’ submarines in their attacks.

The other main characters are Commander Samuel Shore, who issues orders from his hover chair, his daughter Lieutenant Atlanta Shore, and the mute, former slave girl of Titan, Marina. Modelled on Brigitte Bardot, Marina even has a song dedicated to her in the end credits and is in competition with Atlanta for the love of Troy. Perhaps, as in the Elvis Presley song, they ‘don’t have a wooden heart’ despite appearances.

These 21st century adventures were imagined at a time when the UK was optimistic and creative. Mini cars ruled the roads, The Beatles blasted the sound waves, space exploration and atomic power were filling the headlines, and Stingray showed a wonderful future where technology was literally FAB. Though we must wonder why Stingray was based 10 miles from the sea or why Marineville wasn’t permanently based underground. No doubt because technology and gadgets look good and add plenty of drama.

The future as anticipated in Stingray is also a place where puppets (shock horror) drank alcohol, smoked and played cards, and as for the representation of women, we best not go there. Those were the days…

STINGRAY THE COMPLETE COLLECTION / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: DON MASON, ROBERT EASTON, RAY BARRETT, LOIS MAXWELL / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 28TH
 
 

WITNESSES

Six hours of inexplicably-French-yet-Nordic-noir? Sounds like a hoot. Bring it on.

Witnesses is a six-part crime drama set in Le Tréport, a French coastal town that strangely reminded us of an upmarket Weston-Super-Mare (if you can imagine such a thing). If that weren’t troubling enough, someone is digging up the recently deceased and arranging them in show homes like macabre tableaux vivants of perfect family life. What’s more, amongst these scenes of twisted normality, they’re leaving photographs of the recently retired police chief Paul Maisonneuve (Thierry Lhermitte). Someone is clearly a bit imbalanced so Maisonneuve is called out of retirement to investigate. Actually we reckon that’s the last thing they’d do and that they’d actually keep him well away from the case but perhaps the French do things differently. To be honest, they almost certainly don’t but this is a telly programme so let’s keep our willing suspension of disbelief or this is never going to work. Actually, you’ll need a fair bit of that before this marathon has run its course. Other than that we can’t tell you much about the plot without all sorts of spoiler peril. But we will say that there’s a wolf (he’s in the title sequence so that’s not a spoiler) and one of the characters sort-of-looks-like Little Red Riding Hood so we think there’s some allegory going on here but we’re buggered if we can work out what it is.

But we can say is that it’s very moody and very grey. In fact, the town of Le Tréport is really one of the stars of the show. There are a lot of aerial shots of the place and you get a real sense of the geography. By the end of the second episode you feel you know your way around well enough to do some shopping, play a round of golf or have a ride on the funicular. Yes, they have a funicular. As for the human stars, everyone is pretty good, and special mention has to go to newcomer Marie Dompnier in the anchor role of obsessive police lieutenant Sandra Winckler. She’s not privy to the secrets of the other characters and is essentially the eyes of the audience.

If atmosphere is the show’s strongpoint then storytelling is almost its weak point. We’ve got intertwined mysteries here and over six hours you have to be able to guide the audience a bit. While it all (sort of) makes sense, there are characters that pop up and appear four hours later when you’ve forgotten who they are and turn out to be vital. We’re very glad we watched the Blu-ray and not when it was broadcast over six weeks. The plot also relies a lot on coincidence (always the way in crime drama) and, as we say, none of it turns out to be particularly believable. But perhaps it’d be dull if it was. Because Witnesses is certainly not dull and, if you’re after a challenge and a bit of chilly atmosphere, you’re probably going to enjoy it.

For the record, we can reliably inform you that Weston-Super-Mare does not have funicular and sorry, but you can Google tableaux vivants yourself.

WITNESSES / DIRECTOR: HERVÉ HADMAR / SCREENPLAY: HERVÉ HADMAR, MARC HERPOUX / STARRING: THIERRY LHERMITTE, MARIE DOMPINIER, LAURENT LUCAS, MEHDI NEBBOU, JAN HAMMENECKER / RELEASED: OCTOBER 5TH

 

MUCK

Tempting as it might be to dismiss Muck, writer/director Steve Wolsh’s debut horror feature, as a load of old… well, you get the picture… we will endeavour to be as upbeat and constructive as possible in the face of… well, a load of old… movie manure.

Muck really isn’t particularly accomplished but it does have its good points (several of them if you count all the shameful and luridly-depicted persistent toplessness of most of its female cast). Wolsh is probably as sick as the rest of us of horror movies where teens blunder into trouble and then get bumped off one by one. He decides to cut away the flab of the traditional first act and his film opens with a terrified girl – in her underwear, naturally – screaming and wandering around thick undergrowth. She’s joined by several others; one of them is severely injured and two of their number are dead already. Something is out there in the darkness doing Bad Things so they take refuge in a nearby empty Cape Cod vacation house and one of them slopes off to look for help.

This intriguing premise quickly falls apart as logic, common sense and any concept of a coherent narrative are flung out of the nearest window. The kid who goes off to call for help (you won’t care what his name is either) ends up in a bar flirting with two girls, something attacks the surviving kids in the house and eventually someone’s brother turns up to help but gets attacked by the fleshy, white-skinned creatures from the swamp who are suddenly called ‘Crawlers’ for no apparent reason. The script, already on dodgy ground, becomes completely undisciplined; Wolsh seems to think it’s time to get ironic and post-modern and his characters suddenly start indulging in fatuous, vacuous sub-Tarantino banter entirely inappropriate to the perilous situation they’re in. They’re already a throwaway and unlikable bunch, but by the time those who are left are battling with the Creepers, you’ll surely have learned to detest them and want to see them out of their – and your – misery as soon as possible.

Muck is a fascinatingly terrible film mainly because, buried in the muddy mulch of its production (it’s shot on grainy digital video), there are the germs of something which could have been much more inventive and ingenious. But it flops as a horror film – it’s just not scary – and Wolsh’s rampant misogyny and casual racism will repulse most of the audience far more than the body-ripping antics of the pallid Crawlers. Fleeting appearances by genre legend Kane (Jason Vorhees) Hodder can’t compensate for the grim experience of this ugly, unpleasant film which is a mucky movie for all the wrong reasons.

MUCK / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: STEVE WOLSH / STARRING: LACHLAN BUCHANAN, PUJA MOHINDRA, JACLYN SWEDBERG, BRYCE DRAPER, KANE HODDER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

CLINGER

When wholesome aspiring athlete Fern (Jennifer Laporte) meets the outwardly geeky Robert (Vincent Martella) she initially thinks she has struck lucky in love. Could this unlikely Romeo be the perfect boyfriend? Well, for a few weeks perhaps, but then the increasingly strange Robert becomes a little too clingy, showering Fern with all manner of sickly sweet presents and searching for new and extreme ways to demonstrate his love. During one of these displays, which involves a contraption resembling a guillotine, he is decapitated but so strong are his feelings that he cannot “cross over”. Now haunting the beleaguered Fern, Robert decides his (ex-)girlfriend must die so that they can spend eternity together in death.

Charm can only get you so far, and while Michael Steves’ debut feature is awash with more than its fair share, it isn’t enough in itself to retain your interest. The premise at the centre of Clinger is an interesting one with love continuing on after death, and is similar in theme to the recent Horns or Life After Beth, but it never decides which genre to settle on. Moments of gore feel awkwardly worked in, almost like afterthoughts, and the humour never quite rises above the smirk-inducing. There are references aplenty to John Hughes-style teen flicks of the ‘80s, with more knowing nods than is necessary, but the tone is inconsistent and not many of the homages work. This uncertainty leads to a confused and unsatisfying final act that never seems comfortable with its choices and stumbles towards an overwrought conclusion clearly influenced by Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners, just without any of the horror or humour.

There’s a very real and nagging sense while watching Clinger that the filmmakers are trying too hard to make a cult film. It’s like they decided on a tonal slant towards quirky and whimsical horror-comedy to woo festival audiences and generate a word of mouth campaign that would develop and grow over time. While striving for that kind of recognition and following is credible, if misguided, it’s more important to get the film’s basics right and sadly Clinger misses the mark just too often.

There are funny moments and it would be churlish to suggest nothing works, but they are fleeting and laboured to a point of becoming tiresome and repetitive. Like the best friend who regularly and innocently utters the seediest of accidental innuendos, the joke wears pretty thin pretty quickly.

Clinger then feels like the debut film it is. There were clearly some good ideas, if ones borrowed from too many other films, but those ideas haven’t been implemented well enough and sadly what remains is a film that feels much longer than the 80 minutes it is, but one you’ll be relieved isn’t.

CLINGER / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MICHAEL STEVES / SCREENPLAY: GABI CHENNISI, BUBBA FISH, MICHAEL STEVES / STARRING: JENNIFER LAPORTE, VINCENT MARTELLA, JULIA AKS, SHONNA MAJOR / RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 1ST
 

BLOOD MOON

Let’s deal with the lycanthropic-esque elephant in the room at the very beginning: the werewolf in Blood Moon is terrible. Not just unconvincing as a wolf, it is unconvincing as anything remotely resembling a creature. It has all the horrific conviction synonymous with a desperate search for a suitable outfit the night before Halloween, when all that was left in the shop was a moth-eaten, straggly haired costume that doesn’t fit right, smells distinctly overused and in which movement is impossible. With all that in mind, and ideally ignored, Blood Moon is good fun, never taking itself too seriously while playing on many familiar genre tropes.

With a random series of events conspiring to bring them together, a group of unlikely survivors find themselves holed up in an abandoned saloon and fighting off intermittent attacks by a werewolf. Reluctantly led by the mysterious Calhoun (Shaun Dooley) their numbers slowly dwindle until only a few remain.

The story, such as it is, is bookended by a telling of an ancient Native American myth surrounding shape shifters but apart from introducing a peripheral drunken character know as Black Deer (Eleanor Matsuura) it serves little purpose at all.

Little other knowledge of the plot is required, and to be honest we would discourage any thought at all, as Blood Moon is a film to be enjoyed with the least amount of cerebral interaction whatsoever. Lines of dialogue are ridiculously clichéd, characters veer in and out of stereotype with the changing of the camera angle and initially important plot points are either forgotten or intentionally ignored. And yet this is a film that if approached with the right frame of mind is hugely enjoyable. Dooley seems to be having a fantastic time as a brooding, gravel-voiced Van Helsing-like figure who you find yourself wanting to know much more about. There is also a comic-like feel to everything, as if nothing that you’re watching is really happening and there are never really going to be any consequences, and this detached viewpoint allows you to relax into what you are seeing. Full of observant symbolism this ain’t.

Stripped down, Blood Moon is a siege movie more about the characters within than the beastie without. Random acts and decisions by the characters aside it is a film that understands its genre roots, even if the filmmakers haven’t fully managed to imitate them. It is a film that will happily pass a couple of hours on a Friday night; top your drink up, grab another piece of pizza and relax… just ignore that werewolf.

BLOOD MOON / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JEREMY WOODING / SCREENPLAY: ALAN WIGHTMAN / STARRING: GEORGE BLAGDEN, TOM COTCHER, BARRINGTON DE LA ROCHE, SHAUN DOOLEY, ELEANOR MATSUURA / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 5TH

 

SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS

Long, long ago (1947,
in fact), a former academic by the name of Stephen Potter wrote a spoof
self-help book entitled The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship. It was subtitled The Art of Winning Games
Without Actually Cheating, so you get the drift on how the gag worked. It
was really about how to cheat and get away with it. It was ridiculously popular
and Potter wrote sequels throughout the ‘50s. In fact, the suffix “-manship”
became part of the English language and we still use it today. So like any
cultural phenomenon, somebody had to make a movie of it. But how do you turn a spoof
self-help book into a film? Well it took a while, but they got there in the
end.

Henry Palfrey (Ian
Carmichael) is a reasonably well-off middle-class type who just happens to be
hopeless at all he does. When he meets his true love April (Janette Scott), she
is inevitably taken away by everyone’s favourite cad, Terry-Thomas. Actually,
he’s Raymond Delauney but he might as well be called Terry-Thomas as it’s the
same part he always played (“Oh to be in
England now April is here” – classy stuff). So Palfrey enrolls in Dr.
Potter’s (Alastair Sim) “School of Lifemanship” (in Yeovil, of all
places) where he learns you are either “one-up
or one-down”. Clever, eh? Turn the author into a character and set a story
around the fictional school (the titular School
for Scoundrels): we have a film. Potter and his staff teach Palfrey all
there is to know about Lifemanship and our hapless hero is unleashed on his
enemies to turn the tables.

In a sense, this
was actually a bit of a lazy movie. Everyone involved is playing the parts
they’d become so familiar to the British public for playing. Carmichael is
innocent, Sim is sleazy and Terry-Thomas is Terry-Thomas. But actually that’s
why it works so well. It just seems like a celebration of British comics of the
era, all doing what they do best with genuine chemistry between them. In the
unlikely event you’re not familiar with Terry-Thomas, then this is the one to
see as it’s probably his best role: he really is a bounder. In addition to
that, you’ve got John Le Mesurier as a sniffy maître d’, Peter Jones (yes The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy himself) as a dodgy car salesman and a superb cameo from Hattie Jacques that we won’t ruin. Throw in a moral ending (although we would take issue with this – he only gets the girl by being a git even if he does see the error of his ways afterwards) and one of the best breaking-of-the-fourth-wall moments ever by Sim and you have a movie you’d have to be a bit miserable not to like .

Special Features: Interviews / Trailer

SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS
(1960) / DIRECTOR: ROBERT HAMER, CYRIL FRANKEL / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS /
STARRING: IAN CARMICHAEL, TERRY-THOMAS, JANETTE SCOTT, ALASTAIR SIM / RELEASED:
OCTOBER 5TH

 

Long,
long ago (1947,
in fact), a former academic by the name of Stephen Potter wrote a spoof
self-help book entitled The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship. It was subtitled The Art of Winning Games
Without Actually Cheating, so you get the drift on how the gag worked. It
was really about how to cheat and get away with it. It was ridiculously popular
and Potter wrote sequels throughout the ‘50s. In fact, the suffix “-manship”
became part of the English language and we still use it today. So like any
cultural phenomenon, somebody had to make a movie of it. But how do you turn a spoof
self-help book into a film? Well it took a while, but they got there in the
end.

Henry Palfrey (Ian
Carmichael) is a reasonably well-off middle-class type who just happens to be
hopeless at all he does. When he meets his true love April (Janette Scott), she
is inevitably taken away by everyone’s favourite cad, Terry-Thomas. Actually,
he’s Raymond Delauney but he might as well be called Terry-Thomas as it’s the
same part he always played (“Oh to be in
England now April is here” – classy stuff). So Palfrey enrolls in Dr.
Potter’s (Alastair Sim) “School of Lifemanship” (in Yeovil, of all
places) where he learns you are either “one-up
or one-down”. Clever, eh? Turn the author into a character and set a story
around the fictional school (the titular School
for Scoundrels): we have a film. Potter and his staff teach Palfrey all
there is to know about Lifemanship and our hapless hero is unleashed on his
enemies to turn the tables.

In a sense, this
was actually a bit of a lazy movie. Everyone involved is playing the parts
they’d become so familiar to the British public for playing. Carmichael is
innocent, Sim is sleazy and Terry-Thomas is Terry-Thomas. But actually that’s
why it works so well. It just seems like a celebration of British comics of the
era, all doing what they do best with genuine chemistry between them. In the
unlikely event you’re not familiar with Terry-Thomas, then this is the one to
see as it’s probably his best role: he really is a bounder. In addition to
that, you’ve got John Le Mesurier as a sniffy maître d’, Peter Jones (yes The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy himself) as a dodgy car salesman and a
superb cameo from Hattie Jacques that we won’t ruin. Throw in a moral ending (although we
would take issue with this – he only gets the girl by being a git even if he
does see the error of his ways afterwards) and one of the best
breaking-of-the-fourth-wall moments ever by Sim and you have a movie you’d have
to be a bit miserable not to like [You mean like people who just picked
apart the moral of the story? – Ed]. And if you’re that much of a misery-guts, you can at least be
fascinated by how the British class system functioned in the late ‘50s [You certainly know
how to have a good time – Ed].

Special Features: Interviews / Trailer

SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS
(1960) / DIRECTOR: ROBERT HAMER, CYRIL FRANKEL / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS /
STARRING: IAN CARMICHAEL, TERRY-THOMAS, JANETTE SCOTT, ALASTAIR SIM / RELEASED:
OCTOBER 5TH

THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE

We know that there
are many of you who only read STARBURST for our second-to-none coverage of
post-war British comedy [You what? –
Ed]. So with that in mind, we’re delighted to get our hands on the Blu-ray of The Happiest Days of Your Life.
It’s not an Ealing but it’s still one of the best and a fascinating glimpse
into middle-class Britain shortly after the bombs stopped falling.

It’s 1949 and the wonderfully named Wetherby Pond (Alastair Sim) is
headmaster of the not-so-great boys’ school, Nutbourne College. He and his
staff (including no less than Richard Wattis) gather for the new term, but Pond
wants them to buck up their ideas so that he can increase his chances of
getting a job at another school. But there’s been a cock-up at the Ministry
(there’s always a cock-up at the Ministry – bureaucratic blunders were a bit of
an obsession in 1949 Britain) and St Swithin’s School for Girls are being
merged with them on the same day. A girls’ school? Merged with a boys’ school? This
was comedy gold back then, especially if the headmistress of the girls’ school
happened to be Margaret Rutherford. Actually it still is comedy gold. This is a
funny film on many levels.

For a start you have British comedy demigods of Sim and Rutherford
locking horns and desperately trying to upstage each other. That’s probably
worth the admission price alone as it’s pretty much the only time they appeared
together, but there’s also the very witty script that still stands up today.
The plot is pretty tight and the gals’ parents visiting at the same time as
Pond’s potential employers carry out an inspection (obviously they can’t meet
and each group can only be aware of the boys or the girls) ensure a suitably
farcical climax. When the inspection team once more spot a girl (or, more accurately,
a class-load in Greek dance attire) and Pond has run out of plausible excuses,
he responds to their demands for an explanation with “I’m trying to think of
one”.

But there’s also the fascination of watching these frozen moments in
time. Sim and Rutherford’s battle of the sexes is very much something from
another age but no less amusing for that. But there are a few wince-inducing
moments as the games teacher Whizzo (Guy Middleton) disturbingly flirts with
the older girls and no-one bats an eyelid. The past was most definitely a
foreign country. This was a sort of St Trinian’s pre-cursor: as well as
Sim there’s even Joyce Grenfell doing a slightly more sexually-frustrated
version of her character from those later films. But while we could do a whole
article on the complex cultural history of St Trinian’s, you can’t help
but notice that these children from four years earlier are a darn sight better
behaved than the ones in the more anarchic follow-up. But for our money, the
reason you need this movie is because when asked by a canvasser if he can rely
on Pond’s vote in the coming election, Pond responds: “If there is a male
candidate – be he Conservative, socialist, communist, anarchist or, for that
matter, Liberal – he will have my vote.” Priceless.

Special
Features: Interviews with Any Merriman, Martin Rowson and Michael Brooke.

THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF
YOUR LIFE (1950) / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: FRANK LAUNDER / SCREENPLAY: JOHN
DIGHTOM, FRANK LAUNDER / STARRING: ALASTAIR SIM, MARGARET RUTHERFORD, GUY
MIDDLETON, JOYCE GRENFELL, RICHARD WATTIS / RELEASED: OCTOBER 5TH

 

We
know that there
are many of you who only read STARBURST for our second-to-none coverage of
post-war British comedy [You what? –
Ed]. So with that in mind, we’re delighted to get our hands on the Blu-ray of The Happiest Days of Your Life.
It’s not an Ealing but it’s still one of the best and a fascinating glimpse
into middle-class Britain shortly after the bombs stopped falling.

It’s 1949 and the wonderfully named Wetherby Pond (Alastair Sim) is
headmaster of the not-so-great boys’ school, Nutbourne College. He and his
staff (including no less than Richard Wattis) gather for the new term, but Pond
wants them to buck up their ideas so that he can increase his chances of
getting a job at another school. But there’s been a cock-up at the Ministry
(there’s always a cock-up at the Ministry – bureaucratic blunders were a bit of
an obsession in 1949 Britain) and St Swithin’s School for Girls are being
merged with them on the same day. A girls’ school? Merged with a boys’ school? This
was comedy gold back then, especially if the headmistress of the girls’ school
happened to be Margaret Rutherford. Actually it still is comedy gold. This is a
funny film on many levels.

For a start you have British comedy demigods of Sim and Rutherford
locking horns and desperately trying to upstage each other. That’s probably
worth the admission price alone as it’s pretty much the only time they appeared
together, but there’s also the very witty script that still stands up today.
The plot is pretty tight and the gals’ parents visiting at the same time as
Pond’s potential employers carry out an inspection (obviously they can’t meet
and each group can only be aware of the boys or the girls) ensure a suitably
farcical climax. When the inspection team once more spot a girl (or, more accurately,
a class-load in Greek dance attire) and Pond has run out of plausible excuses,
he responds to their demands for an explanation with “I’m trying to think of
one”.

But there’s also the fascination of watching these frozen moments in
time. Sim and Rutherford’s battle of the sexes is very much something from
another age but no less amusing for that. But there are a few wince-inducing
moments as the games teacher Whizzo (Guy Middleton) disturbingly flirts with
the older girls and no-one bats an eyelid. The past was most definitely a
foreign country. This was a sort of St Trinian’s pre-cursor: as well as
Sim there’s even Joyce Grenfell doing a slightly more sexually-frustrated
version of her character from those later films. But while we could do a whole
article on the complex cultural history of St Trinian’s, you can’t help
but notice that these children from four years earlier are a darn sight better
behaved than the ones in the more anarchic follow-up. But for our money, the
reason you need this movie is because when asked by a canvasser if he can rely
on Pond’s vote in the coming election, Pond responds: “If there is a male
candidate – be he Conservative, socialist, communist, anarchist or, for that
matter, Liberal – he will have my vote.” Priceless.

Special
Features: Interviews with Any Merriman, Martin Rowson and Michael Brooke.

THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF
YOUR LIFE (1950) / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: FRANK LAUNDER / SCREENPLAY: JOHN
DIGHTOM, FRANK LAUNDER / STARRING: ALASTAIR SIM, MARGARET RUTHERFORD, GUY
MIDDLETON, JOYCE GRENFELL, RICHARD WATTIS / RELEASED: OCTOBER 5TH

CONTRACTED

Contracted follows a young woman after a one-night stand who believes she may have caught a sexually transmitted infection, but what she really has turns out to be much worse. The film opens in a morgue, where we see the feet of a body lying on a table. The table is rapidly shaking, which given that it is a zombie film shouldn’t be a surprise, but it quickly becomes clear that the table isn’t shaking because the deceased is ‘reanimating’. Barely a minute into the film and we’re treated to bit of necrophilia, not shown but implied, and this isn’t the most disturbing part of the movie.

As far as zombie movies go, the prevalence of gore is assumed, but Contracted takes it that little bit further. As the narrative revolves around the pretense of a sexually transmitted infection in a young woman, you would be right to expect some menstrual bleeding scenes, of which there is plenty. But as the infection gets worse, so do the symptoms, including but not limited to: bleeding eyes, vomiting blood, tooth loss, hair loss, rotting skin, and rotting nails. The latter of these offers one of the most repellent scenes in which our protagonist slowly peels off one of her bloody, rotten fingernails.

If the make-up and gore was the only thing to go by, this would be a highly rated zombie film, but Dawn of the Dead it is not. The narrative is poor at best, and while it offers a slightly different spin to the classic zombie narrative, it follows too many clichés to be considered unique. It infuriatingly follows the horror movie trope of having a female protagonist who does the opposite of what she should be; as she gets sicker, instead of seeking emergency medical attention she tries to hide her illness; when she does eventually visit a sexual health clinic, she doesn’t allow or request the doctor to examine her vagina, despite the massive and traumatic amount of blood that has exited from there; additionally, she is more interested in saving her dying relationship than her dying body, refusing to cooperate when her friends and family try to help her.

While the special effects and make-up stand-out in this film, the narrative lets it down. A zombie film that doesn’t actually feature a zombie until the closing moments, it had the potential to offer a unique take on a zombie epidemic. However, the stilted scripting and clichéd plot ensured it remained below par. The initial party scene where Samantha meets Mr. Necrophilia offers little to the narrative except to demonstrate how she contracts the virus. The conversation between the characters, intended to introduce them to us, is unnatural and forced, making it cringeworthy to watch. While the scripting gets more bearable the longer the film goes on, it takes half of the film to pass before it gets interesting because that’s when the gore begins.

CONTRACTED / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ERIC ENGLAND / STARRING: NAJARRA TOWNSEND, CAROLINE WILLIAMS, ALICE MACDONALD, KATIE STEGEMAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

EATEN ALIVE

Eaten Alive, also known in the UK as Death Trap, was Tobe Hooper’s first effort after the iconic and game-changing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). To put it frankly, Eaten Alive is an archetypal exploitation film, and it slots in with the prominent wave of exploitative gore films in the 1970s.  Pretty much all the death in the film seems gratuitous and it comes as no surprise that the film was banned as part of the ‘video nasties’ fiasco.

The film’s opening screams ‘B-MOVIE!’ loudly in your face as we see genre icon Robert Englund, attempting to get a little too frisky with a young prostitute named Clara (Collins). She escapes his prying hands and flees to the dilapidated local ‘Starlight Hotel’ that is owned and operated by an unsettling man named Judd (Brand). Now, ‘The Starlight Hotel’ isn’t your run-of-the-mill establishment. For starters, Judd keeps a pet alligator (or is it a crocodile? It’s referred to as both in the film) outside. To add to this peculiar pet-choice, Judd himself is suggested to be suffering from post-traumatic stress and is evidently missing a few proverbial screws. In short, this results in him being less than courteous to his patrons. This aspect of the narrative, combined with Brand’s performance as the visibly unstable Judd, is one of the saving graces of the plot, because if you grasp at straws enough, it could be suggested that there is a subtle cultural context to justify the madness.

The plot is pretty much what you’d expect from a horror film that involves a disturbed hotel worker who keeps an alligator for a pet… Lots of people get killed and/or eaten. If we were reviewing the hotel on trip advisor, we’d probably only give it two stars and that’s because it’d be kind of cool to have a gator swimming around outside. Minus the maiming of course.

In the new, albeit brief introduction to this Blu-ray release, Tobe Hooper says “hope you like the colours”. It sort of speaks volumes that this is one of the only things he has to say about the picture. To be fair to Tobe though, it is actually visually interesting. The film was shot entirely on a sound stage (the same used in 1950 for Sunset Boulevard) and has a constrictive, claustrophobic feel that compliments the Deep South Louisiana narrative setting. The most alluring aspect of the mise-en-scène is the expressionistic crimson lighting that is cast upon the hotel. In the special features interview, Tobe states he wanted to evoke the feeling of a ‘surrealistic, twilight world’ and in this he succeeds. A hotel run by a psychotic owner, with a flesh-eating gator outside, cast in an ominous red light, is pretty bloody surreal. Ultimately though, it isn’t quite enough.

If you know Tobe Hooper for his genre classics The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist (1982), then unfortunately you might be a little disheartened by his second feature. Eaten Alive is kind of like opening an awaited Christmas present that actually turns out to be socks. You can appreciate that at some point you might wear them, but did you really want them?

Extras: Interviews (new and archive) / The Butcher of Elmendorf (Feature Documentary) / Theatrical Trailers / TV & Radio Spots /Alternate Credits / Galleries /Audio Commentary

EATEN ALIVE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: TOBE HOOPER / SCREENPLAY: KIM HENKEL / STARRING: NEVILLE BRAND, MEL FERRER, CAROLYN JONES, ROBERTA COLLINS, MARILYN BURNS, ROBERT ENGLUND / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 21ST