Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

It’s not often that you see a Belgian horror film doing the rounds, and so the release of Cub (previously known as Welp) was a welcome one, particularly as the film itself is one filled with so much promise.

The plot of Jonas Govaerts’ movie centres on a group of Boy Scouts who go out into the wild for a camping trip, only they end up with more than they bargained for. We find ourselves drawn to Sam (Maurice Luitjen), a young boy with a mysterious and troubled past who is maybe a little bit of a square peg in the round hole that is the group. As Akela (Titus De Voogdt) and Baloo (Stef Aerts), along with cook Jasmijn (Evelien Bosmans), do their best to keep the kids entertained and in line, it soon becomes apparent that one of the urban legends that’s being spouted to the boys may not be quite as fictional as once believed. For you see, out there, lurking in the woods, is an apparent savage and feral child dubbed Kai, who has his sights on slicing and dicing his way through the group.

Cub in and of itself is a good idea, striving to steer clear of some of the more familiar tropes of similar such films. The score is atmospheric, almost Carpenter-esque at times, and the tension surrounding the mystery of the unknown is admirable and often well crafted. Unfortunately though, what lets Cub down in part is some of its actual reveals. By this, we mean that the build-up and tease of the ‘monster in the woods’ is far more impressive than what we get when we actually see the supposed creature that’s tormenting our campers, particularly hindered by the faux animalistic noises let out at certain times.

It’s a shame that Cub ultimately ends up dropping the ball as it comes to a conclusion. There’s some nice establishing tricks used throughout the early part of the film, and there are even some genuinely dark and eerie moments, not to mention decent gore when it comes, dotted in amongst the 84-minute running time here, but the end result just feels a little lacking.

There’s no doubting that Govaerts has some talent, with some clever and delicate storytelling at the core of Cub, all helped by some strong performances from the principal cast (itself particularly impressive given the young age of the majority of them), but this just feels like a movie where the a few missteps were made as a slightly obvious twist unravels to the surprise of likely nobody. Still, whilst many will see where Cub is going, it’s a relatively enjoyable film nonetheless.

CUB / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JONAS GOVAERTS / SCREENPLAY: JONAS GOVAERTS, ROEL MONDELAERS / STARRING: MAURICE LUITJEN, EVELIEN BOSMANS, TITUS DE VOOGDT, STEF AERTS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

We’re going to start with a minor spoiler. There are rules to black & white monster-movies and one of the most unbreakable (rule #3b, to be precise) is that if the leading lady puts on a nightie within 15 minutes of the end, she will be carried off by the monster so she can be rescued from its monstrous/misunderstood (delete where applicable) clutches at the climax. But here in The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), Leigh Snowden (the only woman in the cast) dutifully dons her night attire at the 5-minutes-to-go mark, only to be completely ignored by the Creature when he turns up in mid-climatic-rampage. What? Are they deliberately subverting audience expectation? Or did they just leave it too late to bother? Just what are we to make of this third instalment in the Gill Man trilogy that started so memorable with Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)?

Millionaire Doctor Barton (Morrow) is in pursuit of the Creature up some lagoon or another as he reckons that the fact that the it’s at the evolutionary crossover-point between water-dwelling and living-on-land will be dead useful when mankind moves into space (okaaay…).  To this end, he has brought the Vagabondia III, a significantly Bigger Boat than The Rita in original Creature, and a team of scientists and guides to ensure the correct level of trunk-wearing manly-rivalry so peculiar to the series. He also brings his wife (Snowden) on swimsuit-duties and to provide a bit of sexual tension to the testosterone. They capture the Creature but accidentally set fire to him, like you do. But it turns out that his skin underneath is human-like (but still monsterish) and his gills don’t work anymore. He even has to wear clothes to protect his skin. He’s become one of us! Or has he?  Who are the real monsters? The Gill Man or the humans and their trunk-wearing rivalries? Golly. Perhaps they were subverting audience expectations after all…

In a sense, there’s much to recommend Walks Among Us. There’s the usual underwater photography (which was a reasonably big deal in the ‘50s even if they weren’t 3D this time out) and the addition of sonar to the scientists’ arsenal gives rise to some brilliant proto-Dallas-in-the-ventilator-shafts moments. You even have to admire the whole who-are-the-monsters? angle. But there are problems. The new “more human” Gill Man rubber outfit just doesn’t have the iconic quality of the original and the addition of clothes in-no-way fools us that it’s because the budget didn’t run to a full body-suit. In fact, it reminds us of Tor Johnson for some reason.  But to be honest, it just isn’t as much fun as the others. Revenge of the Creature (1955) was saved by scenes like Gilly trashing a jazz gig at a waterside bar (one of our favourite moments in the genre) but there’s no particularly outstanding “moment” this time out. Jeff Morrow and Rex Reason (real name, we think), reprising their This Island Earth (1955) partnership,  are good value as ever but this still the weakest of the trilogy despite the lofty intentions of the story.

But despite our criticisms it is still fairly enjoyable. Probably down to the Bigger Boat and the swimwear.

Special Features: Trailer / Lobby card gallery / Poster gallery / Stills gallery

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US (1956) / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: JOHN SHERWOOD / SCREENPLAY: ARTHUR A. ROSS / STARRING: JEFF MORROW, REX REASON. LEIGH SNOWDEN, GREGG PALMER / RELEASED: AUGUST 24TH

Classic French-Italian artsy-horror in glorious Blu-ray? Don’t mind if we do, actually. This’ll be a doddle to review.

A woman dumps a body in a river and the police are surprised to discover her face has been removed. Then up pops Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) to identify the body as his daughter who was disfigured years earlier in a car accident caused by the doctor himself. Obviously suicide or some such, but how come there’s another man claiming it might be his missing daughter? Of course, the doctor’s daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), is still alive and the guilt-ridden Génessier has got his loyal secretary (Alida Valli) combing the streets for likely candidates for a bit of involuntary face-removal so that he can restore his daughter to her former glory. The body in the river was one of the unfortunate donors. Inevitably, what with tissue rejection and so on, these face transplants never go quite according to plan and it looks like Génessier’s quest is going to take a few more attempts. Now the police are investigating those missing girls and you just know this isn’t going to end well.

Eyes Without a Face is still a visual stunner and it’s easy to see what a ground-breaker it was at the time. Horror over here was in the Hammer-style and this is certainly no Hammer even if there is a hint of the gothic about it. It has to be said that the sight of Christiane floating around in her white mask is probably one of the creepiest things committed to celluloid, and the near-legendary face-removal scene is still fairly wince-inducing even if it has lost some of its power to shock over the last half a century. There’s a dream-like quality to it all that evokes the stuff of nightmares, which is why the film is rightly regarded as a classic.

So there you go, end of review: it’s perfect.

Ah, you’re still here? OK, fair enough. We’ll say it then. While you won’t read a bad word said about EWaF anywhere else, we’re brave enough to tell you that it plods like no-one’s business. Georges Franju might be one of the great visual directors but even he reckoned he wasn’t the greatest storyteller, and the direction here is a teensy-bit on the leaden side. Some might call it lyrical, but if you’re not in the mood then you’ll find the 84-minute running time seems a lot longer. The problem is that while there’s a lot going on, there doesn’t seem to be much driving it and it gets a tad repetitive. Christiane cries a lot and her father looks so continuously dour that the movie can’t sell you the idea that an apparently successful operation is going to end in anything but another disaster. Tension is replaced by glumness. Horror isn’t supposed to work like that and you can’t help thinking it isn’t quite the sum of its parts.

But having just dissed the undissable, that’s not to say we wouldn’t recommend what is, ultimately, a classic. Just make sure you’re in the right mood for a bit of unsettling visual poetry rather than something that’ll grab you by the throat with its compelling narrative.

Actually, that wasn’t a doddle at all…

Special Features: Commentary by Tim Lucas / Two documentaries / Interview with Edith Scob / Collector’s booklet

EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1950) / DIRECTOR: GEORGES FRANJU / SCREENPLAY: GEORGES FRANJU, JEAN REDON / STARRING: PIERRE BRASSEUR, EDITH SCOB, ALIDA VALLI, JULIETTE MAYNIEL / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

The real events that this film concerns itself with are several unsolved murders and attacks that took place in the small Arkansas town of Texarkana that became known as The Moonlight Murders. As the local force struggles to gain a foothold in the investigation and with any leads drying up, a revered Texas Ranger is called in to assist. With the names of those involved changed, and actual case details clearly scarce, writer Earl E. Smith and director Charles B. Pierce had plenty of scope for narrative indulgence; to build tension and develop the characters. Sadly, what they created is wearily formulaic, full of characters comparable in incompetence to Sheriff J.W. Pepper and worst of all, is just rather dull.

If you are a fan of close-up shots of sinister, booted feet or of police cars screeching repetitively around country roads then Sundown may well be your kind of film. Any mystery is dispensed with early on due to the knowledge that the killer is never caught, and apart from some blunt wordplay which vaguely implies a suspect there is little thought given by the filmmakers to a part of the story you would think important. What remains is a disjointed number of set pieces as the police incompetently hunt their masked prey and succeed only in distancing the audience.

Pierce attempts to weave his stop/start narrative together with an off camera voiceover designed to give the film a real-life documentary style. While this exposition does assist the viewer with the timeline and who’s who, it adds nothing to the plot and gives the film an amateurish quality that may actually be intentional, but likely isn’t. Sundown does appear cheap throughout from the pop-up, cardboard-like sets to the random variations in lighting as night becomes day, then becomes night again in no time at all. Everything has the impression of either being rushed or not thought through, and as such the film never fully engages the viewer.

There is a certain nostalgia to The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but this isn’t enough in itself to warrant more than a passing interest. That it developed a cult status in the ‘80s is likely down to a lack of availability leading to people’s heightened, rose-tinted memories and a subsequent false demand rather than anything within the film itself. A production that is as confused and confusing as the mystery it tries to document.

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (1976) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: CHARLES B. PIERCE / SCREENPLAY: EARL E. SMITH / STARRING: BEN JOHNSON, ANDREW PRINE, DAWN WELLS, JIMMY CLEM / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

Fans of American “big bug” science-fiction films from the 1950s generally cite Them! (huge ants) and Tarantula (far-too-big spider) as classics of a movie subgenre which saw assorted everyday creepy-crawlies mutated to enormous proportions, usually by atomic bomb radiation. Few, however, will wave the flag for The Deadly Mantis, a 1957 effort in which a giant-sized praying mantis is awoken from millions of years of slumber following an earthquake in the Arctic and proceeds to swoop about causing chaos and carnage across North America. This isn’t just because praying mantises are ugly-looking buggers but not especially terrifying, but also because The Deadly Mantis isn’t really very good…

Directed with what can best be described as workmanlike efficiency by Nathan Juran (who in 1957 also helmed the classic 20 Million Miles To Earth and later the original 1962 Jack The Giant Killer as well as many episodes of Irwin Allen’s outlandish 1960s sci-fi TV adventures) The Deadly Mantis, unlike its titular airborne mantodea, never really manages to take flight. Even by the slightly clunky standards of many of these cheap 1950s monsterfests, The Deadly Mantis just seems to be going through the motions. The script (co-written by Martin Berkeley whose previous credits include 1955’s better-regarded Tarantula) is flat and largely unengaging and the characters, the usual motley collection of starchy scientists, random soldiers and stiffly-suited civilians are utterly unmemorable. Token female Margo Blaine (Pat Conway) is clumsily manoeuvred into the role of romantic foil (to Craig Stevens’ Colonel Joe Parkman) as an afterthought, as if someone realised that none of these characters were remotely interesting or relatable – but the scenes where Parkman practically forces his attentions on Margo just seem creepy, inappropriate and crowbarred into the narrative just to add a bit of humanity to bland and forgettable characters.

Sadly even the Deadly Mantis itself isn’t able to make up for the inadequacies of the human cast. In flight it looks like an illustration cut out of a magazine, and whilst there are one or two decent model shots we’re not exactly in Ray Harryhausen territory, and more often or not the thing just sits there waving its mandibles about and failing miserably to appear even remotely threatening. After a brief tussle with the Washington Monument and a spectacularly unthrilling dogfight with some USAF aircraft, the injured Mantis takes refuge in a tunnel in Manhattan where it’s routinely dispatched by the brave Colonel Parkman and a handful of crack troops armed with  a cluster of handy chemical bombs.

There’s always something rather charming about the naive simplicity of these 1950s ‘giant monster’ movies and there’s a reason why some of them are more fondly-remembered than others. The Deadly Mantis is clearly a cheap and derivative rush job which is rarely able to raise much more than a flicker of interest on the excitement meter. This is one Mantis which is more Deadly Dull than Deadly.

Special Features: Trailer / Galleries

THE DEADLY MANTIS / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: NATHAN H. JURAN / SCREENPLAY: WILLIAM ALLAND, MARTIN BERKELEY / STARRING: CRAIG STEVENS, WILLIAM HOPPER, ALIX TALTON, PAT CONWAY/ RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

Over the years, movies have tried to capture the online experience. The problem is that a bunch of people sitting in front of a computer screen rarely makes for interesting viewing. Which is a pity, as the entire premise of Unfriended revolves around someone browsing Skype, Facebook, Google and YouTube. The entire movie takes place on a single laptop screen; the lead characters talk to each other on Skype, all the flashbacks are framed as YouTube videos, and so on. It’s an interesting variant on found footage and one that’s likely to impress the casual viewer.

The plot may be a little bit too familiar to fans of ultra-low budget movies. A bunch of friends ganged up on the school bully and their over enthusiastic shenanigans ended in that person’s death. The movie is set exactly a year after all this has happened and opens with us seeing someone looking at the unfortunate incident on YouTube. As the story progresses, the rest of the cast Skype in, then a mysterious extra person joins in on the chat. One that claims to be a vengeful ghost.

Though the ‘online chat’ gimmick is nice, it quickly becomes obvious that this is a cost-saving device rather than anything to do with storytelling. If this was an alternate reality game or a web series then this would be charming, but because the movie isn’t natively digital the whole thing feels forced and false.

The acting is at the same level of quality that you would expect from the likes of Ouija or Paranormal Activity, and a lot of the energy of the piece comes from the cast screaming. You do get the feeling that if only someone stopped and had a cup of tea everything would turn out all right. Alas, much of the horror comes from jump scares and yelling. After a while this becomes a little predictable. Unfriended is a great idea poorly executed, but if you’re still hungry for found footage features then you should check it out.

UNFRIENDED / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: LEVAN GABRIADZE / SCREENPLAY: NELSON GRAVES / STARRING: HEATHER SOSSAMAN, SHELLEY HENNIG, WILL PELTZ, MATTHEW BOHRER, COURTNEY HALVERSON / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH (DIGITAL), SEPTEMBER 7TH (DVD, BLU-RAY)

 

The dichotomy of tradition, religion and warfare is at the heart of Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse, playing out in a Japan caught in the struggle of an alien invasion – the BETA. Despite the threat, there’s still the same attention to ritual, to history and to preserving everyday life. But it’s a militarised nation, conjuring the American occupation where the country’s culture was drastically transformed. The same is true of the alien presence. From the contextual opening, which plays like archive footage from a distanced future, we learn of the BETA invasion which started in the late sixties.

The opening two part episode introduces us to 1997, where schools have taken the place of recruitment, and students are groomed for combat. Their endgame is to pilot the Tactical Surface Fighter (TSF) where the user’s average lifespan is only 8 minutes. Yui Takamura and her friends act like any other youngsters, and there’s the usual high school revelries and stereotypes that gives us the false sense that we’ve seen this all before. When they swap their school uniforms for skin suits – skin tight and vacuum-fitted – the series gets to the nitty gritty. Once the students first face the sordid BETA hordes, we think that the power of friendship and belief will save them like in untold other series. In actuality, it’s a gruelling visual experience with Elfin Lied levels of gore and grimness, counterpointed only by an atypical style and plot. The score is full of Wagnerian depth in amongst the Jpop, which is as good a way as any to describe Muv-Luv.

The third episode is set years after the scorched earth that destroyed Kyoto to fend off the overwhelming BETA force. Imperial Japan is developing the next-gen TSFs to defend the front lines of the Far East. In response, the UN has backed a joint development programme between Japan and the US. The result is the Prominence project. Yui is now Development Chief, making up one part of the crack international team of pilots. Kudos for diversity (there’s nothing like a global catastrophe to bring us together) but stereotypes a diverse cast doesn’t make. The Swedish and Italian characters in particular seem inspired by ABBA and American cartoons respectively. And the English dub boasts some grating accents which make Mario seem politically correct.

The episodes following the time skip are at odds with the opening, and besides the same mechas, it feels like an altogether different show. It follows the personality clash of Yui and arrogant American pilot Yuya Bridges and the unavoidable will-they-won’t-they scenarios. It’s an unpredictable hodgepodge of tone and style, with each episode a further dilution of its initial statement of intent. It’s not that it needs to be all grim and gore, but consistency at least would have kept enough of a through line to keep viewers interested. Given the multi-media, ten year plus franchise it’s no wonder that the anime is strained, pulling in so many opposing directions.

For all its floundering and garish jiggling fanservice, Muv-Luv does have a great sense of style. Combat is dynamic, swapping between guns and sword play. The character design is particularly nice, with some subtle stylistic touches. The mechas have a tangible aviation inspired design, which gives the grimmer parts a speculative quality. At its best, Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse is a clever show that riffs on a nuclear subtext. It’s overseen by Masaomi Ando in the war movie tradition, where style, timing and plotting reveal the reality of war. Come for the gore and stay for the mechas, just avoid everything else.

Special Features: Clean opening and closing animation / Trailers

MUV-LUV ALTERNATIVE: TOTAL ECLIPSE PART 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MASAOMI ANDO / SCREENPLAY: TAKAUKI INAGAKI / STARRING: KRYSTAL LAPORTE, COREY HARTZOG, MOLLY SEARCY, KATELYN BARR, MEG MCDONALD / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

Hitler and The Third Reich’s noted interest in the occult has provided inspiration for a myriad of filmmakers over the years, and so the trend continues with Mark Nuttall’s debut feature Soldiers of the Damned. Charged with accompanying old-flame-with-secrets Professor Anna Kappel (Miriam Cooke) to co-ordinates behind enemy lines, decorated soldier Major Fleischer (Gil Darnell) is understandably concerned. As his “elite” band of brothers is to be joined by two particularly unpleasant SS officers, and as the mission leads them deep within an apparently haunted forest, Fleischer will face enemies from within his team as well as whatever dangers lurk among the trees.

To his credit Nuttall doesn’t focus on zombies, although there is a little playing around with life after death. The Dead Snow films and numerous other less impressive releases have focussed entirely on reanimating soldiers, but Nuttall has taken a different approach, entering the realm of the supernatural rather than that of the undead. Ancient spirits and the existence of a pure Aryan race are foremost in the minds of the SS here, which does make a change from the usual zombies-in-uniforms genre staple. There is also the added tensions created by the blinkered, and satisfyingly unlikeable, SS officers mixing with regular German soldiers. While this sub-plot is not entirely successful, it being a little too obvious at times in its conflict, it gives the film more depth, offering a different dynamic to the usual good versus evil stand-off.

There is also a style to Soldiers of the Damned that gives the film an almost arthouse aesthetic. The woodlands in which the soldiers find themselves are bleached in appearance, giving them an uncomfortably sinister quality generating a haunted atmosphere that seems to linger in the background of every shot. Nuttall also doesn’t hold back on the gore when necessary, with effects that are both brutally realistic and flinch-inducingly raw. Blood flows freely but it never threatens to overshadow the film or turn it into a routine splatter movie.

There are issues sadly, and ones that do pull you out of the drama at times. The performances are often frustratingly clunky, with occasional lines of unconvincing dialogue being delivered with unavoidable awkwardness. Some of the characters are also a little stereotypical, almost like a group that auditioned for Inglorious Basterds but didn’t make final selection.

Soldiers of the Damned is generic in its plotting, but with some interesting spins on the familiar, and as a debut film it contains real potential. Nuttall has tackled the subject matter with an enthusiasm that is clearly evident, and if he can refine his obvious talent then it will be extremely interesting to see what the director produces next.

SOLDIERS OF THE DAMNED / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: MIKE NUTTALL / SCREENPLAY: NIGEL HORNE / STARRING: GIL DARNELL, MIRIAM COOKE, LUCAS HANSEN, TOM SAWYER / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 17TH

 

A Shatner-led documentary telling the tale of the tumultuous time spent trying to get Star Trek: The Next Generation off the ground. A cheery, gossipy little number made even more enjoyable by the ruddy-cheeked presence of Shatner himself, who gets plenty of face time out of the gig. This is no mere voiceover. Well, we all know the Shat won’t pass up any excuse to get himself in front of a camera. Even more so if Star Trek is involved.

Things we also know: that Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, genius as he may have been, was hardly the easiest person in the world to work with. Chaos on the Bridge deals with the specifics, delving into the nitty-gritty minutiae of the bickering which went on behind the scenes of The Next Generation. Even better, familiar faces such as Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes and Gates McFadden all show up to testify as to how difficult things were at the time. Favourite story to come out of Chaos on the Bridge: that before Roddenberry would even let Stewart read for the part of Captain Picard, he insisted he wear a wig – and that poor Stewart had to have the thing Fed-Ex’d over from England ‘specially. How did Picard wind up bald, then? “Hair doesn’t mean anything in the 25th Century.”

Other, more well-documented events covered include the hasty exit of Tasha Yar (Crosby revealing that the cast had to steal food from the set of Cheers, so penny-pinching was the production) and the replacement of Doctor Crusher with the less popular Doctor Pulaski (better actress, but no chemistry whatsoever with the crew). That everyone from the production team to the writers and cast seem to remember events slightly differently puts an interesting spin on things, even if there is a slightly bitchy tone to the documentary as a whole (from the production team, anyway – the likes of Stewart and Frakes are delightfully cheery and frank).

It’s no surprise, then, that the first two series of The Next Generation wound up (and I say this with love, as a fan) a patchy affair, to put it mildly. Thankfully, from these first faltering steps did emerge one of sci-fi television’s best series of all time and a worthy successor to Star Trek. And now, all these years after the fact, we’ve got a pretty good documentary out of it all too.

WILLIAM SHATNER PRESENTS: CHAOS ON THE BRIDGE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: WILLIAM SHATNER / STARRING: WILLIAM SHATNER, DENISE CROSBY, JOHN DE LANCIE, JONATHAN FRAKES, PATRICK STEWART / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

The topic of AI isn’t exactly new to science fiction (as a coffee break game, try to count how many times it’s appeared in recent films and TV). But Channel 4’s Humans has an intriguing approach to the subject – following various characters in a parallel 2015 in which household androids are commonplace – which works extremely well because, importantly, it feels not too distant from reality.

In a world in which we commonly hear about industries replacing workers with mechanised processes (Ocado recently announced plans to introduce robot engineers to its warehouses, for example), and in which household gadgets are becoming ever more complex, Humans plays on genuine fears of what further rapid developments could lead to.

We’re introduced to Humans’ London through the Hawkins family, who purchase “synth” Anita (Chan) to help out around the house. But mum Laura (Parkinson) grows distrustful of Anita’s relationship with the kids, and the family’s lives begin to spiral further out of control due to the gradual dawning that Anita is no ordinary synth but is able to consciously think and feel.

Meanwhile, fugitive Leo (Morgan) and a gang of synths are searching for Anita, having known her in a past life, and are themselves hunted by government scientist Hobb (Webb). And this all somehow links to Dr. George Millican (Hurt), a retired scientist who clings on to his malfunctioning synth against the wishes of a stern NHS-provided synth nurse.

It’s a lot to take in, and Humans does juggle a lot of characters, but on the whole, it does so effectively. The domestic drama gives us a relatable in-point to the world. Leo’s more thriller-esque story provides excitement, even if the action sequences are short and unflashy. And Dr. Millican’s story of old age and grief has some of the series’ most touching dialogue. All of these strands come together effectively to explore the series’ themes and ask very important questions about, for example, the way we treat those different to us and whether technology is dehumanising society.

If there’s one thing to criticise, it’s that certain strands of the domestic drama don’t work as well as others, particularly the withholding of information about Laura’s past – early on, we learn that she has a big secret, but the reveal is dragged out, and when it does come, feels largely irrelevant to the story Humans is trying to tell.

But despite occasional flagging, Humans manages to tap into current issues and extrapolate them into eerie, fascinating sci-fi, giving us compelling domestic drama and character-driven thrills. Its finale ties the story up satisfyingly while leaving threads hanging for the recently commissioned second series, which can’t come soon enough.

Special Features: BTS Featurettes 

HUMANS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: SAM VINCENT, JONATHAN BRACKLEY / STARRING: KATHERINE PARKINSON, COLIN MORGAN, GEMMA CHAN, WILLIAM HURT, DANNY WEBB / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 17TH