Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

It’s Thunderbirds, but not as we Gerry-atrics who saw the series back in the day remember it.

Thunderbirds Are Go – Vol. 1 is the first release, comprising of the initial 13-episode series recently shown by ITV and cunningly concealed in an 8:30 Saturday morning slot where nobody would’ve seen it. It’s hard to comprehend why the decision was taken to bury the series, because it’s really not that bad.

This disc kicks off with the Ring of Fire two-parter which introduces us to the familiar characters and eases us in to the changes that have been made. Essentially, there are still the five brothers, piloting the same Thunderbird machines, though with a modern makeover. Only Thunderbird 5 is virtually unrecognisable from its original form.

Lady Penelope is still on the back seat of FAB 1, with David Graham returning as the voice of Parker 49 years later. Tin-Tin is gone, or reimagined as Kyao, a covert ops agent who has virtually nothing useful to do, and Jeff Tracey is also gone, presumed killed in a crash caused by arch nemesis The Hood (though his famous countdown is heard just before a Thunderbird is launched).

No marionettes here; the characters are all CGI, though made to look a little like marionettes, against the lush physical backgrounds and environments provided by Weta. The model work here is exemplary and every episode looks absolutely astounding.

The plots, as in the original series, vary in focus as different team members all get their moments to shine, with some missions taking place underwater, others in space, on land, and even in an ancient tomb. There are echoes of fondly-remembered original episodes as our boys chase runaway monorails, prevent Thunderbird 3 from crashing in to the sun, and, once again, rescue the awesome jetliner Fireflash from certain doom.

Sadly, the episodes are truncated to 20 minutes, less than half the length of those we had when I was a child, but maybe that’s a sign of the times. As far as reimaginings go, this is a cut above the rest, and washes away the bitter aftertaste of the Thunderbirds movie of several years ago.

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO – VOL. 1 / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: DAVID SCOTT, THEO BAYNTON / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: THOMAS BRODIE-SANGSTER, RASMUS HARDIKER, DAVID MENKIN, KAYVAN NOVAK, DAVID GRAHAM, ANDRES WILLIAMS, ROSAMUND PIKE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Not since the tag team of Tarantino and Rodriguez has a filmmaker laid bare their inner most workings of hobbies and film heroes to this extent. First time feature director Ana Lily Amirpour has done just that with this American-Iranian melting pot, distilling her infectious personality in 100 minutes.

Like a string of photographs set in motion, lit for maximum shadows, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night taps into the ubiquity of the American indie spirit, with whiffs of Jim Jarmusch in the suburban shots and moody lighting. The striking location work of Bad City, a post-industrial ghost town where bodies rot in ditches, is extenuated in black and white. It’s a breeding ground of misfits and delinquents, and it’s telling that the actors are billed with archetypes: ‘The Pimp’, ‘The Junkie’, ‘The Girl’.

The Girl (Sheila Vand) is Nosferatu reimagined in her black hijab, striking an eerie beauty in shots channelling German expressionism, with her blood smeared mouth and dark make-up, half in and out of shadow, or rising from the bath like Orlok from his coffin. The Junkie (Marshall Manesh) is in the hallucinogenic throes of junk withdrawal, and a burden on his son, Arash (Arash Marandi). Arash is neither rebel and not quite delinquent, instead he’s a despondent portrait of American cool: bequiffed, leathered, and in jeans and a white tee. The kind of denim clad hip now only found in old movies, photo archives or fragrance adverts.

The cinematography frequently juxtaposes natural images with the grungy machines in states of decay. Every frame is knowingly and self-consciously shot, with the influence of Sergio Leone in the long shots, wide angles and close ups; the gothic and the art house straddle the spaghetti westerns Amirpour was weaned on. Taken just as disjointed vignettes, it’s a series of lingering shots like those where The Girl shadows The Junkie from across the street, or when she skateboards towards the camera, her hajib fluttering cape-like behind her.

Amirpour has loved and lived with the story, basing the feature on her graphic novel of the same name, and developed in the 2011 short she toured around the festival circuit. The storytelling is subtle, working on image, suggestion and the nuanced performances of its cast. In short, this is the definitive version of her vision. The meandering soundtrack is testament to her own eclectic music collection, boasting Iranian rock group Kiosk alongside English post-punk outfit White Lies. It’s all underpinned by unsettling Lynchian soundscapes fizzing in the background din.

AGWHAAN is a meditation on gender politics, rape culture and the danger the title entails, both domestically and globally. Its feminist subtext debates toxic masculinity and its reach, with The Girl an exacting and primal force on men who have wronged women. Not since Let the Right One In has a vampire film so effortlessly challenged and changed the zeitgeist. It’s no coincidence that both films exist well outside of the US and the Hollywood genre malaise. Its style and complexities may have won you over, but the behind the scenes documentary will make you fall for Amirpour as much as her debut feature.

Special Features: Behind the scenes documentary / Interviews / Trailer

A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ANA LILY AMIRPOUR / STARRING: SHEILA VAND, MARSHALL MANESH, ARASH MARANDI, DOMINIC REINS / RELEASE DATE: JULY 27TH

 

Fancy a genuinely funny black comedy that doesn’t hold back on the gore? Well 100 Bloody Acres will be right up your street.

Taking place near enough in the middle of nowhere, this Australian effort from Cameron and Colin Cairnes centres on Reg (Damon Herriman) and Lindsay Morgan’s (Angus Sampson) fertiliser company and a few ‘special ingredients’. With the brothers using local roadkill to give their product an extra oomph, things take a dizzying and dark turn when a group of festival goers are thrown into the figurative mix and it’s soon revealed that human blood and bones brings a whole new dimension to the fertiliser game.

In terms of the tone of the movie, it’s certainly a unique bag, with comparisons easily made to the likes of Shrooms, Soylent Green, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Wolf Creek and even Texas Chain Saw Massacre in various ways. You have the slightly simple and naïve Reg, whilst brother Lindsay snarls his way through the more sinister actions of the ‘business’, and then there’s the group of partiers who end up as the captive victims of the piece. Anna McGahan’s Sophia is the key to this side of things, with her local girl charm striking a chord with Reg, yet she’s also not the cleanest cut of characters as it turns out that she’s been cheating on boyfriend James (Oliver Ackland) with the also-present (and tripped out on acid) Wes (Jamie Kristian). As tensions rise for all parties, the film splatters and chuckles to a conclusion that will appeal to both horror hounds and those who like a good chortle now and again.

The horror/comedy mash-up is something that has been attempted many a time over the decades, particularly more so in recent years after the success of Shaun of the Dead. Fear not though, for 100 Bloody Acres manages to tick all the right boxes and avoid many of the hazards that have befell other such efforts. Whilst wonderfully capturing the bleak remoteness of its locale, the film also strikes the funny bone at all the right moments, finely balancing between the tropes and tones that the Cameron brothers are intertwining. Added to this, the performances are all fantastic for what is required, with particular standout turns for Damon Herriman and Angus Sampson as the Morgan brothers and for the stunning Anna McGahan as Sophia.

Complete with an impressive amount of hugely enjoyable extras, this release of 100 Bloody Acres is one which should adorn the collection of many, proving that making a perfectly-pitched black comedy is indeed doable and is also a whole lot of down and dirty fun.

Special Features: Cast and crew interviews / Nine featurettes / Goof reel

100 BLOODY ACRES / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CAMERON CAIRNES, COLIN CAIRNES / STARRING: DAMON HERRIMAN, ANGUS SAMPSON, ANNA MCGAHAN, OLIVER ACKLAND, JAMIE KRISTIAN / RELEASE DATE: JULY 15TH

The Ford Brothers’ 2011 zombie movie The Dead was a breath of fresh air to a genre which, post-Shaun of the Dead/Walking Dead/Everything But The Kitchen Sink of the Dead was becoming as stale and fetid as the lifeless shufflers who populated the rancid opportunist low-budget bandwagon-jumpers which, inevitably, followed in the wake of the rather more inventive and respectable movies which had preceded them. We described The Dead, a zombie outbreak yarn set in a stark, parched African landscape as “a bit of a gem… haunting and memorable”. This belated sequel – it originally  saw the light of day in 2013 and only now limps out on DVD in the UK – attempts to pull off the same trick by relocating its action to India but, as the laws of diminishing returns nearly always dictate, it can’t hope to recreate the freshness and vivid vitality of the original. That said, while it’s brisk and enjoyable in its own right, there’s nothing really special going on here, just a movie going through the motions and hoping for the best.

As the title suggests, we’re in the subcontinent where a zombie infestation quickly breaks out following the arrival of an infected Somalian at the docks in Mumbai. As the outbreak spreads and incidents of civil unrest increase, American turbine engineer Nicholas Burton (Millson) decides to head back to Mumbai to find his pregnant Indian girlfriend Ishani (Mishra), whose own mother has been bitten and whose father, who disapproves of her relationship with the American, keeps his daughter virtually under house arrest. But as Mumbai collapses into chaos and fear, Burton races across the dangerous, hostile landscape – cheeky orphan Javed (Goyal) at his side – to be reunited with the terrified Ishani.

The Dead 2: India bounces along as a decent zombie/action thriller and it hits all the expected beats – perilous escapes, commendable gore, well-mounted action set pieces, moral dilemmas – but it misses the stillness and downright strangeness of The Dead. By and large it fails to make the most of the cultural differences of its locale – much of it is set in Mumbai, but it might as well be downtown Los Angeles for all the difference the location makes – and there are none of the eerie, disquieting moments of creeping horror and dread which characterised the first movie. The story sags a little in the middle – it seems to be taking forever for Burton and the kid to reach Mumbai – but there are a few sit-up-and-take-notice moments. Burton’s escape on a paraglider from a phalanx of zombies is inspired and the moment where he tries to help a young Mum and her child trapped in a crashed car and realises he can’t as a pack of zombies shuffle closer, is chilling stuff and the ending doesn’t exactly scream ‘and they all lived happily ever after.’ But most of the time we’re in familiar territory and the film never comes close to recapturing the sense of style and originality of The Dead. Underrated British actor Millson (The Sarah Jane Adventures, Banished) is a dashing hero figure (and his American accent ain’t at all bad) but the supporting cast of inexperienced Indian actors often don’t acquit themselves quite as well.

Whilst The Dead 2: India is undoubtedly far better than the majority of the straight-to-DVD zombie trash which still shambles onto the shelves, and the Ford Brothers continue to display an impressive directorial deftness, maybe it’s time they turned their attentions elsewhere and let The Dead stay dead.

Special features: Trailer

THE DEAD 2: INDIA / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: HOWARD J. FORD, JONATHAN FORD / STARRING: JOSEPH MILLSON, MEENU MISHRA, ANAND KRISHNA GOYAL / RELEASE DATE: JULY 13TH
 

Incredibly – some might say unbelievably – Contamination (alternate titles include Contamination: Alien on Earth and Toxic Spawn) once featured on the so-called ‘video nasty’ list in the UK following the implementation of the Video Recordings Act 1984. How times have, mercifully, changed. Decades later Contamination certainly is nasty… but perhaps not quite in the way history once recognised it.

Breezily directed by Luigi Cozzi, Contamination is often said to be ‘influenced by’ (and we’re being generous here) 1979’s Alien – and whilst Contamination absolutely exists because producer Charles Mancini had seen Ridley Scott’s classic and wanted something similar – in truth its origins lie way back in Invasion of the Body Snatchers and, to some degree, Britain’s own Quatermass II. But because ripping off one genre is never enough, Contamination throws a bit of James Bond-lite action and adventure into its tale of deadly germinating alien seeds pods which make their way to New York in an apparently abandoned ship and which have a habit of bursting and causing the bodies of those splattered with snotty green gunk to explode in a shower of gruesome bright red entrails. It was this then-graphic body horror which gave Contamination its reputation (and its UK ban) back in 1980 and whilst it’s gooey and icky in its own rather sweet way, it looks remarkably tame and almost amusing in an era when TV shows like The Walking Dead offal… whoops, offer far, far more graphic stuff on a weekly basis.

But Contamination presents a ragbag of daft delights beyond its gloopy gore. Random filming in New York, Florida and Columbia gives the movie the desired impression of a low-rent 007 adventure, much of the dubbing is eye-openingly clumsy and the casting is all over the place. Louise Marleau looks desperately uncomfortable and out of her depth as Colonel Stella Holmes, leading the investigation into the origins of the pods and the clearly-Italian Marino Masé (the clue’s in the name) is the least-convincing wise-cracking NYPD cop in cinematic history. Britain’s Ian McCulloch, who enjoyed a year-long flirtation with Italian exploitation horror movies in the wake of the huge success on Italian television of his 1970s BBC TV series Survivors brings his characteristic grumpy charm to his role as (quickly recovered) alcoholic astronaut Ian Hubbard. Yet this mismatched trio are agreeable company as the film blunders along crashing into cliché after cliché and leaving no pod unturned in its cheerful determination to mix and match as many genres as possible in the hope that it’ll do something interesting (and competent) with any one of them.

Achingly tame by modern standards, Contamination does have its moments, however. The sequence where Stella is trapped in her hotel bathroom with a pulsating pod as Ian and Tony dick around in the corridor wondering whether to invite her to dinner is effective because of its languid pace and escalating tension and the pods themselves (clearly inflated balloons covered in dripping gunk) are memorably eerie thanks to their mournful, plaintive throbbing heartbeat. But the film’s climax is frankly ludicrous as McCulloch, machine gun blazing, drifts into full-on budget Bond mode, infiltrating the Columbian coffee plantation/pod containment centre run by his former astronaut colleague who is under the control of a ‘hideous’ alien creature, a massive life-size and virtually immobile animatronic creation which is at once both repulsive and ridiculous.

Once again Arrow have done wonders in scrubbing up a cult classic (available in a dual Blu-ray/DVD package) – there’s some grain evident on the print, as there should be, but otherwise it’s pretty sharp, if a bit muted on the colour palette front – and it’s loaded with bonus material which will tell you just about everything you could ever want to know about the making of a rather dated, naïve and clunky horror film which only really earned its reputation from a handful of splatter sequences. Painfully silly but still irresistibly, embarrassingly entertaining.

Special features: Commentary, Archive documentary with Luigi Cozzi, 2014 Q&A with Cozzi and McCulloch, Sound of the Cyclops, director interview, featurette on ‘cash-in’ Italian genre movies, trailer, reversible sleeve, collector’s booklet.

 
 

Since 2013, Manga Entertainment UK has been releasing fully uncut One Piece collections with a quality English dub to boot. While this writer prefers the original Japanese, the cast Funimation assembled is a great take on the beloved characters that thankfully overshadows the 4Kids Club dub that aired on Toonami in a heavily cut and compromised state. Gathered here are episodes 230 – 252, known as the Water 7 arc, though the concluding episodes are stowed away on the eleventh collection. The episodes might have originally aired a decade ago, they still look remarkably fresh, due mostly to the distinctive animation that captured the spirit of Eiichiro Oda’s manga; equal parts economic and stylish, from the long limbed, tiny-waisted women to the wide-mouthed, unblinking Monkey D. Luffy.

After they narrowly escape Foxy the Silver Fox in the Davy Back Fight following the Dazzling Skypiea Saga, the Straw Hat Pirates head for Water 7 in search of a shipwright to join their disparate crew. The floating city, a Venetian-like metropolis with its magnolia coloured buildings and canal streets, is the seventh island the Straw Hats encounter on the Grand Line and the world’s number one shipyard. After trading in their booty, the crew soon find themselves the delighted proprietors of 300 million berries, cue slapstick Charlie Chaplin-like sequences, loosing, finding and losing their quarry again. But the money puts one of the series’ best story arcs into motion, famed for its twists and narrative shifts. While crewmember Robin disappears, the rest of the Straw Hats make enemies of the Franky Family, an eccentric gaggle of ship dismantlers; the shipbuilding Galley-La Company, after being framed for the one crime they didn’t actually commit, and the clandestine government organisation CP9. To top it all off, their faithful ship, The Going Merry, is deemed irreparable after its many adventures, while a storm surge closes in.

Episodes 248 – 250 are told largely in flashback and are every bit the equal, if not better, as the present setting, chronicling the tempestuous history of the island and teasing out a in-depth and emotional familial story. But the collection isn’t without its fair share of tremendous action sequences, charged with energy and motion. A particular highlight is Luffy verses Usopp, as exhilarating as it is heart-wrenching.

Facing down 700 episodes is daunting, but this collection provides a great entry point for newcomers, introducing its myriad characters and their motivations, as well as a lull in the narrative where the action is dialled down. If it is your first time viewing, you’ll soon fall for the ever enduring, if perpetually unhinged, Luffy; the cute naivety of Chopper and cool master swordsman Zoro, with the rest of the crew quickly following. Collection 10 is essential viewing for newbies and seasoned fans alike, being the debut of bequiffed cyborg Franky. With the crew scattered at the end of this collection, you’ll definitely want to get a hold of the next.

Special Features: Episode commentaries / Behind the scenes / Clean opening / Closing animation

ONE PIECE COLLECTION 10 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: KONOSUKE UDA / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: AKEMI OKAMURA, HIROAKI HIRATA, IKUE OHTANI, KAPPEI YAMAGUCHI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

For a film with the words ‘shark’ and ‘killer’ in its title, Shark Killer is surprisingly low-key on the gore. What Shark Killer lacks in any real sense of danger it makes up for with an overall sense of pedestrian charm, but when you’ve got a film bearing such a name as this, surely charming is the last thing it should be, right?

Chris Platt-lookalike Derek Theler embodies this plain sense of jolliness Shark Killer has as Ace Hunter, whose aquatic animal butchering talents are called upon by his criminal brother Jake. Turns out a particularly nasty shark has gobbled up one of the most precious diamonds in existence. Taking Jake’s lawyer-cum-leftover-Bond-girl Jasmine, Ace embarks on the rather dull mission of hunting down this ruffian of a shark, but Jake mightn’t be the only dodgy character the diamond can’t help attract…

It’s hard to pinpoint anything that’s bad with Shark Killer necessarily, because almost everything is too cheerful. We’re treated to some handsome stars playing around in exotic locations, but there’s the double problem of the film not being nearly as exciting as its film suggests and the film itself being rather dull, regardless of the audience knowing the title at all.

To rub some salty sea water into the wound, we’re also treated to an eye-patch-wearing villain complete with dastardly motives and a hidden lair with which to carry out his fiendish plans – but we barely see enough of this chap to warrant hooky viewing that’s brimming with entertainment. But Shark Killer still manages to swim home with a degree of fun without drowning in its own plainness. Theler and Erica Cerra have some endearingly sweet chemistry in their performances, but much like the majority of the film, there’s nothing unique enough about their characters to give that chemistry a bit of a kick.

When Shark Killer does try to live up to its name, with the odd shark attack and a climax that sees Arnold Vosloo’s lazy performance as the eye-patch baddie Nix go all kamikaze on Ace and Jasmine, those moments almost feel curiously out of place, essentially cementing the fact that Shark Killer is smothered in its own lack of action.

This film feels as if it began life as a brutally entertaining concept that would have been a hell of a romp in the entertainment department, but somewhere along the line, everything became watered down to a mere drip of flat action/adventure film-making. Despite Shark Killer’s pleasant meandering through every trick in the action/adventure film rule book, it ultimately fails to have much bite to it.

SHARK KILLER / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: SHELDON WILSON / SCREENPLAY: RICHARD BEATTIE, SHELDON WILSON / STARRING: DEREK THELER, ERICA CERRA, PAUL DU TOIT, ARNOLD VOSLOO / RELEASE DATE: JULY 20TH

 

It isn’t easy watching Winx Club: Mystery of the Abyss with no prior knowledge of the Winx Club universe. Especially for someone in their 20s. A quick internet search reveals that it is a wildly successful Italian animated TV show set in ‘the mystical dimension of Magix’. Yet being clear straight from the off, even after watching the 70-minute feature film, that is not immediately apparent. If you aren’t already up to date with the seven seasons of TV and two feature films that came before this, you’re in for a tough time.

But it’s not just an issue of being the wrong demographic. Winx Club: Mystery of the Abyss launches the viewer into an existing universe filled with existing characters and long, winding existing backstories that ensures it’s only for the most die-hard fans.

The eponymous Winx are fairies. Maybe. Or pop stars? Either way, they’re a group of teenage girls who attend a wizard/fairy/magic/witch school not unlike Hogwarts. When a group of evil fairies known as the Trix try to activate the Emperor’s Throne, they accidentally free the evil nymph and Sirenix fairy Politea. They kidnap a Prince(?) known as Sky to free Tritannus from Oblivion then gain a magic pearl from the Coral Wreath to help them use the power of the Emperor’s Throne. The Winx must then head into the depths of the Infinite Ocean to stop them and save Sky. They do this by using magic spells and transforming into fairies, while also being a pop group and coping with the daily struggle of things like school (ew) and boys (yuck).

See? Considerable homework is required before embarking on this journey.

Winx Club seems to take its inspiration from a huge number of familiar franchises, and it doesn’t take an eagle eye to spot the influence of Harry Potter, X-Men, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, PowerPuff Girls, Pokemon and a whole library of stuff like that. It certainly does not break any new ground or revolutionise the genre – or multitude of genres to which it belongs – and it’ll leave you asking more questions than it answers, such as “Who’s she?” “Who’s he?” “How can they breathe and talk underwater?” “Is that school in the clouds? Or in space?” “Where did those magic portals come from?” “Did these voice actors even go to drama school?” But the success of the TV series suggests they must be doing something right.

The story is terrible. The voices are terrible. The animation is iffy at best. Seven-year-olds would probably love it. Even though it pales in comparison with its influencers (give me an episode of Sailor Moon any day), the colours are garish, the girls have just the right amount of sass and it sends all the right messages about girl power, teamwork, gender equality, and will no doubt make kids around the world act out the fairy transformation scene for weeks to come.

So if you’re looking for something to entertain the youngsters for a couple of hours, Winx Club: Mystery of the Abyss will probably do. But there is plenty of better stuff out there.

WINX CLUB: MYSTERY OF THE ABYSS / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: IGINIO STRAFFI / SCREENPLAY: GIOVANNI MASI, IGINIO STRAFFI / STARRING: LETIZIA CIAMPA, PERLA LIBERATORI, ILLARIA LATINI, GEMMA DONATI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Following a botched robbery attempt that resulted in her fellow assailant being dispatched by the rebounding head of a sledgehammer, Kylie (O’Reilly) is placed under house arrest. To make matters worse, her prison will be the one place she has spent years trying to avoid: at home with her mum. Despite actively refusing to make the best of it, Kylie soon discovers the old house contains one or two mysteries that might actually be worth her time; and time is something she has in abundance.

As a debut feature from writer and director Gerard Johnstone, Housebound is extremely accomplished. He superbly balances what could be a delicate subject matter alluding to child abuse with humour that is both darkly dry of wit and exuberantly slapstick. That Johnstone blends this with characters that are infectious, yet on the whole unlikeable, demonstrates composed filmmaking that belies his experience.

O’Reilly is superb as the sulky, frustratingly awkward Kylie who spends much of the early part of the film moping around with a “the-world-hates-me” chip on her shoulder. The moments she shares with her chatterbox mother Miriam (Te Wiata), who believes the house to be haunted, are a wonderful mix of witty observation and reluctant affection. Private security guard Amos (Waru), who sidelines in amateur ghosthunting and sinister social worker Dennis (Rhodes) all contribute to what is an impressively assembled ensemble.

What raises Housebound above the multitude of haunted house shockers and tiresome comedy horrors that seem to populate the genre is the convoluted plotting that Johnstone retains under control for the film’s duration. Each time you think you have a handle on where the story is taking you, another unexpected twist throws you right back to the start. The dexterity with which Johnstone handles his screenplay is nothing short of brilliant and it is no surprise Hollywood is already planning a remake. If anything, though, the low-budget nature of the film adds to the whole aesthetic, bringing a necessary claustrophobia to proceedings that reflects Kylie’s incarceration. There are no unnecessary flourishes or repetitive genre clichés so familiar in horror films; just a great story with great performances.

Housebound is therefore a cinematic rarity; a film full of respectful nods and references that will delight genre fans and one that also succeeds in bridging the gap to the mainstream. Johnstone is a director who clearly knows what he’s doing and his debut is one to watch before Hollywood get their overactive polishing paws on it.

INFO: HOUSEBOUND / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: GERARD JOHNSTONE / STARRING: MORGANA O’REILLY, RIM ATE WIATA, GLEN-PAUL WARU, ROSS HARPER / RELEASE DATE: JULY 20TH
 

Following a botched robbery attempt that resulted in her fellow assailant being dispatched by the rebounding head of a sledgehammer, Kylie (O’Reilly) is placed under house arrest. To make matters worse, her prison will be the one place she has spent years trying to avoid: at home with her mum. Despite actively refusing to make the best of it, Kylie soon discovers the old house contains one or two mysteries that might actually be worth her time; and time is something she has in abundance.

As a debut feature from writer and director Gerard Johnstone, Housebound is extremely accomplished. He superbly balances what could be a delicate subject matter alluding to child abuse with humour that is both darkly dry of wit and exuberantly slapstick. That Johnstone blends this with characters that are infectious, yet on the whole unlikeable, demonstrates composed filmmaking that belies his experience.

O’Reilly is superb as the sulky, frustratingly awkward Kylie who spends much of the early part of the film moping around with a “the-world-hates-me” chip on her shoulder. The moments she shares with her chatterbox mother Miriam (Te Wiata), who believes the house to be haunted, are a wonderful mix of witty observation and reluctant affection. Private security guard Amos (Waru), who sidelines in amateur ghosthunting and sinister social worker Dennis (Rhodes) all contribute to what is an impressively assembled ensemble.

What raises Housebound above the multitude of haunted house shockers and tiresome comedy horrors that seem to populate the genre is the convoluted plotting that Johnstone retains under control for the film’s duration. Each time you think you have a handle on where the story is taking you, another unexpected twist throws you right back to the start. The dexterity with which Johnstone handles his screenplay is nothing short of brilliant and it is no surprise Hollywood is already planning a remake. If anything, though, the low-budget nature of the film adds to the whole aesthetic, bringing a necessary claustrophobia to proceedings that reflects Kylie’s incarceration. There are no unnecessary flourishes or repetitive genre clichés so familiar in horror films; just a great story with great performances.

Housebound is therefore a cinematic rarity; a film full of respectful nods and references that will delight genre fans and one that also succeeds in bridging the gap to the mainstream. Johnstone is a director who clearly knows what he’s doing and his debut is one to watch before Hollywood get their overactive polishing paws on it.

INFO: HOUSEBOUND / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: GERARD JOHNSTONE / STARRING: MORGANA O’REILLY, RIM ATE WIATA, GLEN-PAUL WARU, ROSS HARPER / RELEASE DATE: JULY 20TH