Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Christmas in September is only the start of Morris’s madness, the demented dad being in possession of some seriously sinister predilections. That’d be of the cannibalistic variety, among other things. As the sozzled dad kisses his daughter firmly on the chops, the words “Merry Christmas, baby” have never felt quite so skeezy. What follows is like a quintessentially British cross between Misery and The Loved Ones (there’s even a little torture with a kettle full of hot water).

Its grand musical score takes its cues from The Descent (no, let’s be honest, it practically is The Descent) but Awaiting is much more low-down and melodramatic than that. It feels like a soap opera in scale and budget, its leading man not helping much in that regard. The presence of the ever-reliable Curran helps, though. Jake is so loathsome that there’s plenty of schadenfreude to be had in watching the angry ginger repeatedly beat the snot out of him. Diana Vickers is surprisingly good as innocent young Lauren too, although foot fetish types may be disappointed – she spends more time wearing shoes than one might expect.

If it’s tedious during the set-up, all that is forgotten during the film’s last half, when Curran is allowed to let loose and some surprisingly effective gore is unleashed upon the audience. It’s still melodramatic and soap opera in scale and budget, but here it works in the film’s favour. That only serves to make its shocks even more, well, shocking. It’s wonderfully kooky, a battle of wits between an idiot, Diana Vickers and a psychopath, with one truly ghastly bit of gore towards the end to really shake things up. And yeah, Vickers gets to sing over the end credits.

Awaiting is demented, brutal fun. Bolstered by some great performances and packing in some unexpectedly good shocks, it might just be the biggest horror surprise of the year. Maybe Christmas has come early after all.

AWAITING / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREEPLAY: MARK MURPHY / STARRING: TONY CURRAN, DIANA VICKERS, RUPERT HILL, PETER WOODWARD / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

 

Chisaki was the only one of her friends left on land after the fraught events that rounded off the previous curve. Now she’s living with Tsumugu and tending his sick grandpa as a fully-fledged nurse, adding new depth to her character; it’s a good job too because she was probably the most neglected of the previous thirteen episodes. Tsumugu himself has become a college student and flits between his home life and his studies, desperate to unravel what went wrong during the ritual.

Hikari is the first to rouse from hibernation, found naked out on the frozen sea, and fixed in his futile struggle to save Manaka. Even five years on, he’s a fish out of water, shocked to discover just how much things have changed, especially in the cities, channelling the battle of modernity verses the traditional that concerns so many Japanese narratives. After he comes to terms with things, settling down with his sister Akari and her family, he resumes his search for Manaka while the rest of his friends start to wake up.

Troublesome twosome Miuna and Sayu are now the same age as Hikari and co, adding new variations to the complex love triangles (and about every other geometric shape) channelling A Midsummers Night’s Dream in the who’s in love with who, that touches on farce but never oversteps the line. After Tsumugu is cursed in the same style that caused Manaka so much anxiety years before, the reunited friends’ cotton on that Lord Uroko must be on land. He’s the physical manifestation of one of the Lord Sea God’s sundry scales, and the religious nucleus of Shioshishio. Miuna and Sayu try to appeal to his immeasurable appetite and pervy inclination, by luring him out with food and porn.

If the first curve was about generation gaps and culture clash, then the second puts more emphasis on family and the complex relationships of its characters. It’s a musing series that’s as much about the pros and cons of love than its exploration of generational divides. The last few episodes do start to drag and repeat ideas and plot points, but the outcomes of each character and the beautiful concept of the sea makes for a poignant and satisfying end. And like the adage about old movies, any frame of A Lull in the Sea could hang proudly on a wall.

Special Features: Clean opening and closing credits / Trailers

A LULL IN THE SEA PART 2 / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: TOSHIYA SHINOHARA / SCREENPLAY: MARI OKADA / STARRING: NATSUKI HANAE, MAX MITTELMAN, KANA HANAZAWA, MICHELLE RUFF, AI KAYANO, BRIANNA KNICKERBOCKER / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

Difficult ‘second album’ time for Dominic “Paddy off Emmerdale” Brunt as he follows up his extraordinary directorial debut, 2012’s intimate-yet-terrifying ‘zombie’ drama Before Dawn, with a movie which, superficially, couldn’t be more different. Yet dig a little deeper – watch out for zombies! – and you’ll find that Before Dawn and Bait have much more in common than might be initially apparent. Both films feature two people battling against a formidable, implacable and impossibly-hostile adversary; Before Dawn’s zombies are replaced here with monsters which are much more shocking, much more threatening and, ultimately, much more real. Welcome to the murky, grimy, bloody underworld of ruthless debt collectors – and a story of what two desperate woman are driven to when they’re pushed too far.

Both films establish that one of the signatures of Dominic Brunt movies is a desire to set up extraordinary situations populated by believable, realistic people speaking and behaving the way real people do. Paul Roundell’s tight script deftly establishes the flighty Bex (Victoria Smurfitt) and the more restrained Dawn (Joanne Mitchell) in bold strokes and with snappy, naturalistic dialogue and character quirks which instantly endear them to the audience. Desperate to better themselves, the girls allow the oily, plausible Jeremy into their lives and it’s only when he offers to loan them the balance of the cash they need to set up their own little cafe that they realise he’s actually a loan shark with a neat line in astronomical interest rates for his customers. The girls try to back out of the deal but it’s too late; Jeremy imposes an ‘arrangement fee’ which is itself more than the amount he’s loaned them. The girls are soon up to their necks in debt and trouble – and Jeremy and his silent heavy Sy won’t take no for an answer as they impose their own enforcement rules on their hapless victims.

Bait can be a difficult film to watch. Sequences of pensioners being brutalised are disturbing and upsetting albeit necessary to establish just how appalling these creatures really are. When Jeremy is finally revealed in his true colours, the violence escalates to a degree and a scale which come pretty close to Grand Guignol as Dawn and Bex finally decide to fight back after being humiliated and brutalised and the results are extraordinary touching on the surreal.

Bait might not have quite the same impact as its predecessor (which might well be just because Before Dawn came right out of left field, unexpected and without fanfare) but it’s a haunting and memorable movie in its own right and it will stay with you long after it’s finished. The second half seems a little frenetic and episodic where we might have wanted to spend a bit more quality time with Bex, Dawn and Co. but once the situation is set up there’s no time to waste in small talk and as we reach the climax the tension is pretty near unbearable. Bait (retitled from the original The Taking) is a worthy, possibly more challenging piece than Before Dawn and it cements Dominic Brunt’s growing confidence as an ambitious film-maker with the ability to tell strong stories with power, grace and economy.

BAIT / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: DOMINIC BRUNT / SCREENPLAY: PAUL ROUNDELL / STARRING: VICTORIA SMURFITT, JOANNE MITCHELL, JONATHAN SLINGER, RULA LENSKA / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

 

Directed by Tyler Shields, Final Girl is about a girl named Veronica (Abigail Breslin) who has been trained by her mentor, William (Wes Bentley), to be a complete lethal weapon. Thirteen years later, at the age of eighteen, she is tasked by William to kill a group of sadistic senior boys who enjoy hunting and murdering women. Becoming the next victim, Veronica allows herself to be lured into the woods by the killers, but it’s here that the games begin and that the hunters become the hunted.

With Final Girl, the filmmakers are basically taking the Hit-Girl trope to the slasher genre, much like how Hanna used that concept approach to the action thriller genre. It’s an elegant change of pace for the genre, even if the film devolves into a predictable narrative you could easily see coming from a mile away. In a way, it lacks the surprise and shock-value of Adam Wingard’s 2013 horror-revitaliser You’re Next, which, like Final Girl, was made on a small budget yet produced excellent results.

The film starts out unexpectedly, dripping with atmosphere with Wes Bentley testing the young Veronica with mind puzzles just after her parents died before flashing forward to when Veronica became Abigail Breslin and is ready for her first assassination assignment. These opening minutes are the fresh and most exciting part of the film, and while the film occasionally reaches those levels later on, the rest feels like the traditional slasher trademarks being recycled and reused with the fresh dynamic thrown in here and there.

Final Girl has great ideas up its sleeve, but those ideas are never fully realised to their true potential, partially because the direction is completely lifeless and the pacing will prove to be too slow and tiring for even the most average viewer. That’s not to say it isn’t enjoyable while it’s there, as the film does offer it’s fair share of entertainment and thrills, particularly once the action heats up in the final act. Abigail Breslin gives a perfectly mercurial performance as the in-control mini-assassin, Wes Bentley is remarkably solid in the few minutes of screen time he receives, and Alexander Ludwig is suitably reptilian and chilly as the main killer, feeling almost like an extension of his baddie role in the first Hunger Games movie.

As one would expect from such a solid cast, the acting was first rate and there are some pleasures to be found in this twist on the slasher genre. Yet, despite boasting great ideas, they never are never fully realised and the film ends up falling short as a result. Also, with its mediocre direction and unimpressive editing, some viewers will probably loose patience as a result, and Final Girl ends up being less impressive than the sum of its parts.

FINAL GIRL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: TYLER SHIELDS / SCREENPLAY: ADAM PRINCE / STARRING: ABIGAIL BRESLIN, WES BENTLEY, ALEXANDER LUDWIG, LOGAN HUFFMAN / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

 

Knights of Sidonia first arrived on western shores almost a year ago, dubbed a ‘Netflix Original Series’ localised with English subtitles and dubbed versions to much acclaim. Now it finally arrives on DVD and Blu-ray. Based on the acclaimed manga series by Tsutomu Nihei, the series was produced by Polygon Pictures and loosely follows the manga.

Knights of Sidonia follows the story of Nagate Tanikaze, who at the start of the series lives underground alone. Eventually he is forced to the surface and encounters Sidonia – an awe-inspiring spaceship city that holds one of the largest human colonies left in the universe. The Guana laid waste to Earth and beyond but have been dormant for over 100 years at the start of the series, but something tells you they are ready for a comeback. The monstrous and faceless enemy, the Guana play an integral role in Knights of Sidonia. They can’t be bargained or reasoned with and are just an instrument of destruction that Sidonia has to come to terms with. Sidonia is in a constant state of preparation for war.

While the set-up might not be original, the beautiful animation, setting and characters bring Knights of Sidonia to life. Every frame is incredible to look at and you’ll find yourself invested quickly in the struggle of Sidonia against the faceless and fearsome Guana. The Knights pilot Guardians (mechs) and they are pretty similar to what you’ve seen before in, say, Robotech or Gundam, but it’s the approach of Knights of Sidonia that makes it unique.

Knights of Sidonia has many layers; on the surface it appears to be a ‘rise through the pilot ranks’ mech drama, yet bubbling under the surface there is musings on war, peace, sex, reproduction, politics and even religion. These undercurrents are the things that invest you in Sidonia and its characters. Everyone from Nagate to Lala (she’s a bear, and it’s never really explained…) to the Immortal Council, who are shrouded in secrecy, play an integral part in the plot and world building.

Noriyuki Asakura, who also worked on Robotech delivers a stunning score that brims with emotion. The soundscape also matches the visuals really well, with the quiet moments offering sombreness and reflection while the massive mechs vs. Gauna battles pop and explode at just the right moments. Of course, no anime would be complete without an awesome title song, and Knights of Sidonia delivers. You should really go listen to it now, and it will make you want to watch the show.

Knights of Sidonia offers a complex, rich and dynamic take on a mecha genre. While it does have some clumsy storytelling at times, it can be forgiven because it offers emotional investment, amazing animation and a killer soundtrack. This is a must watch for any fan of sci-fi.

KNIGHTS OF SIDONIA / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: KOBUN SHIZUNO / SCREENPLAY: SADAYUKI MURAI / STARRING: RYOTA OHSAKA, AKI TOYOSAKI, ATSUKO TANAKA, AYA SUZAKI, AYANE SAKURA / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

 

The Hourglass Sanatorium (based on a collection of short stories by Bruno Schulz) from Polish pioneer Wojciech Has boasts a pretty interesting story behind its initial reception. As it happens, the Soviet Communist Polish government of the time weren’t too keen on the film’s subtle criticism of post-war Poland, not to mention the depiction of Jewish traditions and characters when the country was under an overt period of enforced anti-Semitism. In fact, the authorities were so unhappy that they attempted to prohibit the film’s entry into the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. Fortunately, art prevailed and the picture was covertly smuggled into the festival where it went on to rightly receive the Special Jury Prize. That could almost be a film in itself, couldn’t it? Any budding scriptwriters take note (but we want a cut of the profits).

The film itself opens with a young man named Joseph (Jan Nowicki) riding a ramshackle old train en route to visit his father (Tadeusz Kondrat). As the rickety train comes to a halt, Joseph is ushered by an unsettling, glassy-eyed conductor to make his way through a graveyard and up to the titular Sanatorium. Inside the grandiose-yet-dilapidated gothic institution, Joseph encounters the ominous Dr. Gotard (Gustaw Holoubek), who informs him that his father has died in the real world. However, within the Sanatorium, he remains alive. As the plot progresses, it is revealed that the Sanatorium is a peculiar temporal enigma where one can experience distorted memories and dreams, as Dr. Gotard explains, “Here we reactivate time with all its possibilities.”

What follows is a psychotropic, oneiric trip through Joseph’s memories, his dreams and his subconscious in a series of interconnected yet often wholly unrelated passages that reunite Joseph with his mother, explore his Jewish upbringing and revel in his father’s passion for birds and aviary. One particularly eldritch scene sees Joseph run into a bunch of animate, historical mannequins, including Thomas Edison and Alfred Dreyfus, who re-enact the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. One acutely disconcerting aspect of this extract is trying to decipher which mannequins are actually portrayed by actors and which are merely props.

Paradoxical and stimulating may the narrative be, perhaps the true triumph of the film lies in the mise-en-scene and the cinematography by Witold Sobocinski. Beautifully restored by Mr Bongo for this Blu-ray release, the visual artistry is striking. Throughout the film the sky changes from peach, to blue, to grey and the lighting shifts from being ominous, shadowy and macabre at one point to hallucinatory and alluring the next, all in a seamless and graceful manner.

The Hourglass Sanatorium is a work with a startling amalgamation of conventions from Gothicism, to horror, to fantasy, but most importantly Has’ film is irrefutably a surrealist masterpiece and has in turn attracted admirers from to Buñuel to Gilliam. Wojciech Has may not be as well renowned as his Polish compatriot Polanski, but his work deserves the upmost recognition, and with The Hourglass Sanatorium he created a poetic, hypnagogic work that elegantly explores themes of time, mortality, family and memory.

THE HOURGLASS SANATORIUM (1973) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JERZY HAS / STARRING: JAN NOWICKI, TADEUSZ KONDRAT, GUSTAW HOLOUBEK, IRENA ORSKA / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

 

On the plus side, it’s beautifully shot and paced. The lighting and presentation is strong and each scene is well put together. Simple ideas (such as Julia’s clothing changing as she becomes more focused on revenge) are exaggerated and telegraphed throughout, as if the feature is desperate to tell you how clever it is. There are no plot twists here; everything is explained in advance (sometimes literally) and this is a surprisingly effective (if easy) form of storytelling. It’s just a pity that it’s so boring. Williams’s performance is very good and she injects genuine pathos and emotion into what is basically a Z-lister exploitation flick with no original content or ideas.

Julia is a good reminder that excellent actors and solid direction can only take a production so far, and if the central premise of your movie is unpleasant and poorly thought-out, no amount of skill will save it.

JULIA / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MATTHEW A. BROWN / SCREENPLAY: MATTHEW A. BROWN / STARRING: ASHLEY C. WILLIAMS, TAHYNA TOZZI, JACK NOSEWORTHY, JOEL DE LA FUENTE / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

The story is twofold, as a cop and a psychologist (Frank Grillo and Maria Bello) investigate the deaths of five unfortunate youths, killed while trying to communicate with ghosts – a matter depicted in lengthy flashback sequences. As the (apparent) lone survivor relates his story to the increasingly irate investigators, it becomes evident that there might just be more going on here than meets the eye. Cue a lot of screaming, running around in the dark under a night vision lens and a sequence of events that really, really gets on poor Frank Grillo’s nerves. He missed date night with Maria Bello for this?!

High on scares and atmosphere but low on gore, Demonic is a breed of horror film we’ve seen lots of in recent years. Conjuring up memories of recent sinister stories and insidious ideas, it looks and sounds like great horror on the outside but feels empty and lacking at heart, where it counts. It’s packed full of jump scares and strong imagery, but has no idea how to connect those to a story worth watching. As it is, it’s like something 101 Films might put out (usually with a bright green Photoshopped picture of a house), albeit with a higher budget and classier cast.

Really, Bello and Grillo are the only reason to stick with Demonic at all. The pair lend it an undeserved air of gravitas, elevating the otherwise clichéd story into watchability. Once the makeshift Ouija board in the floor is discovered and people start dying the film hits its stride, but there’s never anything as terrifying or well-constructed as the movies Wan has directed himself (the incomprehensible Dead Silence aside). That it ends baiting a sequel is, frankly, cheeky given its lack of ambition. Demonic? Not quite, but then, Derivative doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: WILL CANON / SCREENPLAY: WILL CANON, DOUG SIMON, MAX LA BELLA / STARRING: MARIA BELLO, FRANK GRILLO, CODY HORN, DUSTIN MILLIGAN / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 7TH

 

News reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) is waiting at an airport to interview a renowned scientist about a recent nuclear accident. When the unmarked military transport arrives, dozens of radiation-infected people emerge and immediately begin attacking anyone they find with the intention of drinking their blood. As the infected take over the city, escape looks impossible.

Nightmare City is not as well-known as similarly-themed films of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but it is one of the most important. When offered the project originally, Lenzi was unhappy with the premise and began an overhaul of the script, adding the radiation storyline and giving his monsters an energy and aggression that he felt was lacking in many zombie movies. He also felt no desire to try and emulate Romero. What he created was a template for a new type of baddie, one more familiar today from Zack Snyder’s 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake or Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. The latter is the closest comparison thematically, being clearly influenced by many of Lenzi’s ideas and similarly generating its terror through the inclusion of infected humans as a fast, bloodthirsty animal that cannot be suppressed.

The set pieces in Nightmare City are most notable for this movement. In having his creatures rush around rather than simply lumber, the attacks become almost balletic; the carnage a violent and bloody dance as the victims are devoured. One particular sequence in a film studio contains all the familiar elements of the genre enhanced through Lenzi’s touch; scantily clad female dancers have the clothes ripped from their bodies as the infected feast rabidly while the synth-pop soundtrack plays out, giving the whole piece a macabre beauty.

This restoration by Arrow Films is as good as any they have done and the complexities of the process are explained in a featurette that accompanies the release. Alongside this is a raft of interesting extras including an interview with Lenzi himself, with the venerable director talking effusively about the production process, and one with the always entertaining Eli Roth, who dispenses his enthusiastic opinion on why Nightmare City should be regarded as a classic.

Whether that moniker is deserved is difficult to say, as Nightmare City may always remain a lesser-known film from the period. It will never carry the same pathos as Romero’s original zombie trilogy or even Lenzi’s own Man from Deep River, mainly due to its greater sense of fun, but its importance in the genre is unavoidable due to the long lasting influence it exudes.

Just don’t call it a zombie film.

Special Features: Two versions of the film / Audio commentary / Interviews with Umberto Lenzi, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, and Eli Roth / Nightmare City and The Limits of Restoration featurette / Alternative opening titles / Trailer / Collector’s booklet

 

Medium Cool is the story of television news cameraman John Cassellis (Robert Forster), who lives his personal life with the same icy detachment he affords a subject through his viewfinder. In fact, in the film’s brilliant introduction, we see Cassellis and soundman Gus (Peter Bonerz) pull up behind a car wreck and film the possibly-dead victim sprawled across the road before – when Cassellis has all the shots he needs – agreeing they should call an ambulance. That alone tells us all we need to know. Cassellis is a man who takes his date to the roller-derby so they can watch the players beat each other up. He is a man who loves to shoot film, who is immune to violence. But it is only when he is harangued by a group of black militants about the media’s inherent racism, is angered to discover that his footage has been routinely turned over to the FBI, and meets a lonely young woman (Verna Bloom) struggling to bring up her teenage son, that he begins to allow himself to feel again.

All of this plays out against a backdrop of the United States in racial and political turmoil. ”America is Wonderful”, an ad declares with no sense of its own irony. The National Guard rehearse riot drills as the age of flower-power innocence boils over into a rage of racial disharmony and Vietnam War-fuelled discontent. When, in the film’s last act, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago deteriorates into carnage and we watch Verna Bloom, a wide-eyed innocent in her bright yellow sun dress clambering over the makeshift barricades, staring in shocked disbelief at the battered and bloodied protesters (who are all real, the riots were actually happening as these scenes were being filmed), we are left in no doubt as to the power, uniqueness and cultural importance of writer/director Haskell Wexler’s remarkable film. Part dramatic tour-de-force, part cinema verité, Wexler not only skewers the inherent cynicism of television news just as successfully as Network would do (in a far different way) eight years later, he also documents America at a time when ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’ was anything but.

Medium Cool is a cinematic body-blow, a film of only-slightly flawed genius that everyone needs to see, and Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Blu-ray presentation won’t disappoint. The print is flawless and the extras are as plentiful and educational as we’ve come to expect from an MoC package. A day after watching it, we still can’t get Medium Cool out of our head. We simply can’t recommend it highly enough.

Special Features: Audio commentary / Three featurettes / Trailer / 28-page booklet

MEDIUM COOL / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: HASKELL WEXLER / STARRING: ROBERT FORSTER, VERNA BLOOM, PETER BONERZ, MARIANNA HILL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW