Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

REVIEW: THE SHADOW OF THE CAT / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: JOHN GILLING / SCREENPLAY: GEORGE BAXT / STARRING: CONRAD PHILLIPS, BARBARA SHELLEY, ANDRÉ MORELL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Opening with a recital of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, the mood and atmosphere of this overlooked and forgotten entry to the Hammer canon is set out clearly. Now, thanks to its first DVD release, fans can enjoy this deliciously macabre tale in all its monochrome glory.

Almost as soon as she has finished the poem (a Poe-m?), elderly Ella Venable (Catherine Lacey) is murdered – by her own husband, Walter (Morell) and aided by their trusted servants, Andrew (Crawford) and Clara (Freda Jackson). They don’t count on the old woman’s cat, Tabatha, seeing everything and taking it on herself to avenge Ella’s death. This leads to the trio manically chasing the pussy around the house and grounds in an attempt to kill it; “I’d like to brain it“, spits Walter at one point. They report Ella missing, but when Elizabeth (Shelley) arrives and finds out she has been cut from Ella’s will she becomes suspicious, particularly as they seem more preoccupied with catching and killing the cat.

While the thought of a malevolent kitty may be ludicrous to some, it’s no laughing matter for those with a genuine fear of the furry beasts (ailurophobes of the world unite!), particularly when they are filmed in the chilling fashion as they are here. Cue plenty of close-ups of staring feline eyes and dashing lithely across the sets. We also get a startling view of the cat’s POV, shot through a distorted lens, which emphasises the sinisterness of the stalking animal. It’s not really the cat who is the villain, however, as it is merely an avenger, although it perhaps works better as a horror staple to believe it is. There’ll be cat lovers who will no doubt cringe at the glee the antagonists display when they think they’ve caught the feline, but fret not, she does have the last purr, looking particularly smug in more than one scene.

The Shadow of the Cat is as much an ‘old dark house’ film as stalk-and-scratch, its plot being a family attempting to corrupt for an inheritance, along with a romantic subplot involving a dashing, if ineffectual, Phillips. It works well as a glorious piece of low-budget, but entertaining, cinema. Gilling’s direction is spot on, making full use of the Bray location despite the obvious financial restraints and it’s very much a Hammer film despite the studio’s name not being present (which is discussed at length in the extra features).

The DVD by Final Cut, who are doing a great job releasing some of the more obscure Hammer catalogue on Blu-ray, looks wonderful. Apparently the lack of a HD master prevents a Blu edition, but they do manage to include a couple of decent extras. A twenty-five minute documentary features interesting talking head comments from the likes of Marcus Hearn, Jonathan Rigby and Denis Meikle, and a short but entertaining audio recording of special effects assistant Ian Scoones is enlightening, particularly for those concerned about the cat’s treatment!

Extras: Shadow Play: Inside The Shadow of the Cat documentary / Trailer / Stills Gallery / Catastrophe – an audio recollection from Ian Scoones / English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing / Double sided sleeve (we recommend the alternate one with the original poster!)

 

REVIEW: KOYAANISQATSI, POWAQQATSI / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: GODFREY REGGIO / SCREENPLAY: GODFREY REGGIO, RON FRICKE, MICHAEL HOENIG, ALTON WALPOLE, KEN RICHARDS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Still as groundbreaking as the day they were released, this duo of documentary-style films continue to bewitch and beguile viewers, while also prompting debate and reflection on the human condition and the effect of technology.

Both films are a collection of stunningly filmed vignettes which highlight everyday life and natural beauty of the world, inspired by Hopi Indian philosophies and set to the music of Philip Glass. Koyaanisqatsi (Life out of Balance, 1982) contrasts images of cloud formations, waves, and sprawling landscapes with the hustle and bustle of modern life. Filmed, mainly by Ron Fricke, using several techniques including time-lapse and fast/slow-motion, it’s a breathtaking experience. The lack of sound effects, dialogue or narration adds a surreal quality to some of the images. Glass’ score is as mesmerising and hypnotic as the visuals, making it an exhilarating and striking experience. Powaqqatsi (Life in Transformation, 1988) explores the effect modern Western technology is having on the developing nations of the ‘Third World’. Without preaching or laying blame, it shows how progress can have a negative effect on old cultures as well as triumphant success.

While it’s a fantastic set, it does seem to be a somewhat missed opportunity to not include the final film in the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi (2002), as the US Criterion edition did. The picture quality, as one would expect from Blu-ray, is brilliant, although does vary occasionally due to the use of different formats during the production: some stock footage particularly looks grainy, but this is used very sparingly. As well as the films, there are two featurettes in which Reggio and Glass discuss the films, and the short Anima Mundi (1992) which focuses on the animal kingdom in the same style as the ‘Qatsi’ films. The package also includes a superb, informative booklet with new writing on the films and several stills; presented in a landscape format (as are the digibook cases) which exude quality.

Reggio has often said he purposely didn’t set any ‘meaning’ into the films; it’s up to the viewer to make their own interpretations. Regardless of what you take from it, the result is never less than spellbinding.

Extras: New, restored digital transfers of Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi, approved by director Godfrey Reggio, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks / Introduction by filmmaker and composer Gary Tarn (Black Sun, The Prophet) / Interviews with Reggio and composer Philip Glass on the making of Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi / Anima Mundi (1992): Reggio’s 28-minute montage of over seventy animal species, scored by Philip Glass / Original theatrical trailers for Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi / Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by Anton Bitel, Michael Brooke, Peter Cowie and Jean-Baptiste Gouyon

REVIEW: ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: RANDY MOORE / SCREENPLAY: RANDY MOORE / STARRING: ROY ABRAMSOHN, ELENA SCHUBER, KATELYNN RODRIGUEZ, JACK DALTON / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 30TH

There are certain films out there that, regardless of their quality, must be appreciated for even coming to be and Randy Moore’s psychedelic Disneyland horror Escape From Tomorrow is one of these. Legally risky and controversial, this is a movie that goes all out in concept and while the delivery is polarising, it’s unlikely that its writer/director Randy Moore wanted it any other way. The movie is filmed guerrilla-style at Disneyland (without their blessing) and sees father/husband Jim (Roy Abramsohn) being slowly intoxicated by the setting and the weird events going on there.

Shot in black and white and showered in Disney iconography, it is hard to say what is worse, the fact this odd film is so inexplicably intoxicating or that Disneyland makes such an apt setting for a horror film. Taking more from the Lynchian thought process than the general horror rulebook, this is an ambitious undertaking. Moore’s film features no real coherent narrative structure, instead allowing the viewer to make sense of this visual acid trip. The array of imagery can become overpowering, but all the same Escape From Tomorrow demands to be at least tried.

It could be a play on the Disney brand’s transportative power, it could be a play on a Disney fairytale or it could (most likely) be a film about death and our idea of paradise. Whatever the case, the film crazily jumps from scene to scene, eventually losing you in its mad, meandering mindset, but it is not without its moments of gravitas, thanks to wicked scoring by Abel Korzeniowski. How much you ultimately enjoy this film (if that is the right word) depends highly on personal taste and considering horror is already among the most subjective of genres, that is saying something.

Some will label this film unwatchable, and it is disappointing that it feels so jumpy and fragmented in terms of what it is trying to get across. That said, it’s a beautiful disaster, and it also boasts a very committed central performance by Abramsohn, who manages to strike tragic and comic chords as the lead character Jim.

Like a naked jog through a nunnery, Escape From Tomorrow is wrong on so many levels and yet bizarrely and inescapably gutsy. Disney is choosing to ignore the film, but a lawsuit could well have been on the cards. In the end, Escape From Tomorrow is a cult gem in the making that will be loathed by some and loved by others (and freak out the rest). Like a nightmare after a Disney movie marathon, it is illogical, unsettling, disturbing and yet, in many ways, quite unavoidably beautiful.

Extras: None

REVIEW: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY – THE MARKED ONES / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: CHRISTOPHER LANDON / SCREENPLAY: CHRISTOPHER LANDON / STARRING: JORGE DIAZ, ANDREW JACOBS, GABRIELLE WALSH, MOLLY EPHRAIM / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Like the Paranormal Activity franchise as a whole, the latest entry/sequel/spin-off, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, starts off as innovative and interesting before descending into painful repetition and unoriginality. For a franchise that started by making even watching the clock in the bottom corner of the screen (sped up overnight) look tense, it is a shame audiences will spend so much time staring at their watches during this fifth entry in the series.

The reason The Marked Ones stands out at first is that it has a pair of Latino characters who have great chemistry and come across as a likeable pair. Jesse and Hector live in a very ordinary apartment block and seem a thousand miles away from the boring and bickering middle class couples/families that have so far featured in the Paranormal Activity franchise. As usual, central character Hector has a new camera and is intent on filming his and Jesse’s every move, no matter how unbelievable this becomes.

It starts off well, with the pair investigating strange noises coming from the apartment below Jesse’s, and then there is a mysterious murder. Jesse and Hector are typical boys, reacting to the increasingly disturbing events in the manner you might expect young men to. They mess around with a GoPro-type camera (which could have been used to much greater potential) and decide to play Sherlock Holmes by dangling it into the below apartment.

Then things take a turn for the really weird as Jesse suddenly develops strange telekinetic powers, as though he has just escaped from found footage superhero flick Chronicle. The boys and their experiences with these new-found powers are far more interesting than the usual witches, symbols and going down in basements stuff that comes next. Despite the excellent half-glimpsed special effects that fans have become accustomed to, it all starts to flag as the comedic elements give way to formulaic scares, though the use of the old flashing light Simon memory retention game is a nice original touch.

The ending falls apart on a number of levels. It feels almost exactly the same as previous entries, particularly the last two, with only the far too brief promise of a witch vs shotgun face-off alleviating the sense that you have seen it all before. The old problem of having audiences expected to believe that the camera would not have been dropped a long time ago rears its familiar ugly head and then writer Christopher Landon tries to make it all clever by having the final scene come full circle and take us back to the beginning of the franchise.

It is a shame as the use of two likeable characters from a different background to the usual horror movie clichés showed real promise. Mark this one down as a frustratingly missed opportunity.

Extras: Deleted scenes

REVIEW: CHROME SHELLED REGIOS – PART 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: TODD HABERKORN, BRINA PALENCIA, MONICA RIAL, ERIC VALE, GREG AYRES, JERRY JEWELL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Based on a series of light novels and shōnen manga (both a Japanese equivalent of YA), Chrome Shelled Regios takes place in a post-apocalyptic, magic-infused world defended by a group of a dozen warriors known as the Heaven’s Blades.

In a set-up somewhat akin to the toxic jungle of Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind or the Cursed Earth of Judge Dredd, the world has become an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland and humanity now only survives in a number of regios, domed fortress cities that remain constantly mobile to avoid confrontation with contaminoids, destructive insect-like monstrosities. Many people study military arts to further their city’s standing and to develop skills in fighting and wielding kei, a biological energy they can utilise for combat, telepathy and psychokinetics.

Despite such a world-spanning premise, much of the action is limited to the characters of the university regios of Zuellni, and it’s because of this narrow scope that the series fails to truly engage. The focus is on new student Layfon, who arrives in the city with advanced combat skills and the obligatory Mysterious Past, and ordinary life goes on around him as we are drip-fed clues to his history.

The characters are rarely in any immediate danger, while the inter-city contests they participate in have little in the way of consequence for the loser, so instead the episodes more often than not deal with the lives and training of the students, with little of any true significance actually occurring. As with the teenage EVA pilots of Neon Genesis Evangelion, no amount of martial or military skill can overcome the fact that these characters are little more than kids, and with their limited life inexperience comes the associated insecurities and awkwardness when attempting to interact with and relate to one another, especially in Zuellni where students not only make up the bulk of the populace but also run the place. If the cast possessed distinct lives of their own, their interactions might have been more engaging, but when pointed efforts are made to link everyone to Layfon in some way, the story becomes laboured and drawn out. Wearily, in the case of most of the female characters the connection is due to an obsession with and/or attraction to him that more often than not defines the girl in question.

It feels as though what should have been the principal plot – following the Heaven’s Blades as they endlessly battle the ceaseless marauding of gargantuan invertebrates across the world and possibly investigate a newly unearthed method of dealing with them once and for all – has been largely excised, leaving us with the kind of stories that in other anime would merely be filler to flesh out supporting characters and bump up the episode count. This quasi-mythical alpha plot is instead relegated to a series of disassociated vignettes that, rather than being cryptic and mysterious as was intended, end up as effectively pointless asides that do little but offer tantalising glimpses at a narrative arc far more interesting than the one we’re currently following. You could argue that a younger target audience requires less complex plotting, but it’s still no excuse for lazy storytelling. Besides, Full Metal Alchemist was a shōnen manga and that was frickin’ awesome.

Overall, there isn’t really anything especially wrong with the series, more that its only distinctive quality is how utterly average it is. Hopefully the imminent second half will pick up the pace.

Extras: None

REVIEW: BANGKOK ASSASSINS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: YUTHLERT SIPPAPAK / SCREENPLAY: YUTHLERT SIPPAPAK / STARRING: ABID, KEFI ADWEN, ARAK AMORNSUPASIRI, PAIBOON ANANSUWAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Four kids are abducted by a gang of vicious thugs, who disfigure them and send them out onto the streets to busk for pennies from sympathetic passers-by. In scenes that are actually quite difficult to watch, one is blinded, another deafened, one has his tongue removed and another given permanent brain damage. However, just as we start to think we’re in for a dour and harrowing account of life in the city’s sordid underbelly, help is at hand in the form of an old Shaolin master, who in a spectacular display of supernatural martial arts ability spirits them away to his monastery and trains them up.

The teenage super-team that emerges many years later of course seek belated revenge on their lowlife persecutors, but in the process run afoul of an evil and immensely powerful crime lord and his minions, who eventually murder the old master. Even with their amazing abilities, could they now be in over their heads?

Not a bad old concept on paper, and fairly slickly produced at that, but sadly Bangkok Assassins ultimately fails to come up with the ass kickin’ goods. All manner of sins would have been happily overlooked, just as long as we got 100-odd minutes of bone-crunching martial arts action and cathartic revenge kicks. But for a film also known as Bangkok Kung Fu there’s just not enough of it on offer, with the young heroes’ supernatural powers allowing them to send their assailants flying without even touching them. While this would admittedly be pretty damn cool in real life, what we’re left with is a bad superhero movie. It doesn’t help that our teenage leads, while an attractive bunch, look too gangly and awkward to fight their way out of a paper bag, and never really bust any moves dope enough to convince us otherwise.

Add to this deficit of proper martial arts mayhem liberal doses of mawkish, clumsily handled teenage romance and what remains is a muddled narrative that never manages to work up a satisfyingly violent head of steam, leaving little for even the most ardent and forgiving devotee of Asian genre fare to enjoy.

Extras: Trailers

REVIEW: NINJA – SHADOW OF A TEAR / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ISAAC FLORENTINE / SCREENPLAY: DAVID N. WHITE / STARRING: SCOTT ADKINS, KANE KOSUGI, MIKA HIJII, VITHAYA PANSRINGARM / RELEASED: MAY 12TH

Following 2009’s Ninja, this sequel sees Scott Adkins return as Casey Bowman. The plot of Shadow of a Tear, which is quickly established in the film’s first 10 minutes, is that Casey returns home to find his pregnant wife Namiko (the returning Hijii) murdered. With only the barbed wire marks on Namiko’s neck serving as any sort of clue as to who carried out this atrocity, Casey seeks the assistance of long-time friend Nakabara (Kosugi) in his quest for revenge. And that is literally it in terms of plot for the most part, as the film quickly transitions into fight sequence after fight sequence after fight sequence.

The thing is, Shadow of a Tear is a great action movie, with Adkins showing off his skills in a multitude of innovative, supremely choreographed battles. As his character of Bowman descends on his journey, there’s literally not a soul that he doesn’t roundhouse kick in the face. The story arc of the movie is almost an afterthought, as Shadow of a Tear slices through the bad guys with as much speed and accuracy as we’ve seen in many a year.

But whilst it’s a belter of a martial arts-heavy action movie, one can’t help but think that it may get lost in the shuffle of direct-to-DVD movies that are out there, especially given its themes. Maybe as much of a hindrance as it is a help, Shadow of a Tear feels like a film that would be very much at home in the 1980s. As impressive as its fight scenes clearly are, the movie may have landed in the wrong decade. You can’t help but think if this was a film released in 1988 with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the lead then it would be quite the underground hit, much like Bloodsport or Kickboxer. In 2014, though, is there really a sizeable market for a movie like Shadow of a Tear? We firmly hope so.

Despite a plot devised purely as an excuse to see lots of fists and feet meet lots of faces, this is as good a martial arts film as we’ve seen since 2003’s Ong-bak. Many have championed the cause of Adkins as a modern day JCVD, and his mildly charismatic, clinically accurate turn as Casey Bowman does add further to these claims. Whether he can ever become a mainstream movie name in the way Norris, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Lundgren or Van Damme did in previous decades remains to be seen, but he’s certainly doing his best.

The maximum action makes the minimal plot of Ninja – Shadow of a Tear massively enjoyable for those of an action movie leaning, with a back-to-basics boatload of brutality loaded into the fists of Adkins, an actor who will hopefully get to head up similarly effective actioners in the future.

Extras: None

REVIEW: ICE SOLDIERS / CERT:15 / DIRECTOR: STURLA GUNNARSSON / SCREENPLAY: JONATHAN TAYLOR / STARRING: DOMINIC PURCELL, MICHAEL IRONSIDE, ADAM BEACH, GABRIEL HOGAN, CAMILLE SULLIVAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The almost unavoidable problem facing any SF/horror movie which is set in the Antarctic/Arctic is that it’s never going to be able to escape comparison with The Thing (or The Thing From Another World or even, troublingly, that pointless prequel/remake from a couple of years ago). But Ice Soldiers just shrugs its shoulders, says ‘yeah, so what?’ and goes its own sweet snowy way. Although it has scarcely a single original bone in its ninety-minute body, Ice Soldiers is big, brash fun, an unashamed breezy B-Movie with absolutely no delusions of grandeur and with a simple aim to entertain.

In the Canadian Arctic in 1962 a trio of genetically engineered Cold War-era Russian super soldiers are awoken from a long, frozen sleep and set about slaughtering the scientists in the expedition team which has roused them. Fifty years later and another team arrives in the snowy wastes; Dr Andrew Malraux (Prison Break’s square-jawed Dominic Purcell) wants to track down the legendary long-lost soldiers and Jane Frazer (Sullivan) is surveying the region for a dodgy oil company. Jane and Andrew flirt briefly but Andrew is about as responsive as a block of ice. “I was told you were nearly fifty,” says Jane to Andy at one point, an odd line of dialogue whose meaning becomes apparent right at the end of the movie…

Before long the refrozen soldiers (basically just great hulking blond Aryan hunks) are rediscovered and reawakened. They wipe out the entire team bar Andrew who sets off alone to track them down and destroy them before they can carry out a long-planned terrorist attack on New York. Ice Soldiers suddenly veers off in a new direction and develops a new dynamic as Andrew meets up with tough trapper T.C. Cardinal (Beach) and together the pair close in on the ruthless, indestructible soldiers…

Snappy, unpretentious and beautifully filmed – director Gunnarsson knows exactly how to exploit the cold majesty of his locations – Ice Soldiers is undemanding thriller filler boasting surprisingly decent production values, sprightly action sequences and an oddly clumsy leading man in Steven Seagal-lookalike Purcell. It’s a snowbound sci-fi snack guaranteed to evoke a flurry of interest even if the frequent talky bits might cause your attention to drift a bit, especially if you’re watching it during a meal, possibly avalanche .

Extras: None

REVIEW: BLACK WATER CREEK – LEGEND OF SASQUATCH / CERT:TBC / DIRECTOR: MARSHALL EVER / SCREENPLAY: MARSHALL EVER / STARRING: NELSON IZARRY, TELANA JACKSON, JONATHAN RUCKMAN, CHAD PETTIT / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Writing movie reviews for Starburst Magazine is, of course, an enormous privilege. It offers the opportunity to revisit forgotten gems, discover previously unseen or overlooked genre classics and, most excitingly, stumble upon new talents embarking on their first faltering steps in the wonderful world of movie-making. Sometimes, though, it’s about as much fun as pouring boiling hot water over the back of your hand or inserting knitting needles into orifices where knitting needles should never, ever be inserted.

Welcome to Black Water Creek – Legend of Sasquatch, a film so bad in every conceivable way it’s absolutely and utterly impossible to believe that anyone – anyone at all – involved in its misbegotten production could have believed they were involved in a creative endeavour with any artistic merit or point whatsoever. This is truly awful, dreadful, soul-destroying stuff, inept in so many ways that the very word inept is utterly inadequate to describe it. It’s so badly filmed and presented that it’s actually difficult to discern actually what the ‘story’ is but it appears to involve a cop whose partner is killed by something monstrous who eventually rouses himself from a drink’n’drugs lethargy to team up with his partner’s widow (also a cop) to track down a killer who has, occasionally, been slicing people’s faces off. Is it Sasquatch? Is it a random serial killer? Who gives a damn? It’s quite hard to tell, much less care, what the hell is going on.

Surely filmed on a cheap mobile phone (possibly one of those big brick jobs from the 1980s which didn’t even have cameras), this abhorrence is the work of director/writer Marshall Ever who surely can’t have seen any other film of any sort in his entire life so has presumably been unable to draw any inspiration from any other source. Beyond the laughable acting, appalling script and cacophonous musical soundtrack, Black Water Creek is a disaster of near-enough Biblical proportions from a technical perspective alone. The camera is rarely in focus, dialogue is frequently inaudible or drowned-out by unfiltered background noise, cross-fades and cuts are pitifully clumsy and inappropriate and the whole enterprise is either horribly over-exposed or filmed without the aid of any supporting light source whatsoever. Sasquatch himself lumbers about in the murk, a man in a gorilla suit with paper teeth which would have shamed a 1970s episode of The Tomorrow People and a final fight between our hero and a bad guy who’s kidnapped his partner’s wife is about as exciting as watching two toddlers fighting over a rusk.

Black River Creek is, you’ll have hopefully gathered, utter rubbish and an absolutely worthless waste of time. It’s currently awaiting a release date but it’s hard to imagine that any distributor worth their salt would want to sully their lists with such a woefully artless and painfully shocking effort. Our preview disc will, however, come in handy as a pizza slice and that alone has got to be worth one of any reviewer’s stars.

Extras: None

BLU-RAY REVIEW: THEATRE OF BLOOD (1973) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DOUGLAS HICKOX / SCREENPLAY: ANTHONY GREVILLE-BELL / STARRING: VINCENT PRICE, DIANA RIGG, IAN HENDRY, HARRY ANDREWS, JACK HAWKINS, MICHAEL HORDEN, ARTHUR LOWE, ROBERT MORLEY, MILO O’SHEA, ERIC SYKES, DIANA DORS, ROBERT COOTE, DENNIS PRICE, CORAL BROWNE, JOAN HICKSON, MADELINE SMITH / RELEASED: MAY 19TH

By 1973, the golden age of British horror was coming to an end. Hammer, of course, were still just about knocking them out, but with The Exorcist (1973) and its ilk on the way, horror-flicks were about to change. However, there was still one last moment of gothic brilliance to come in the unlikely form of a “comedy horror”. Always a problematic genre (seldom that funny but often just good natured enough to stop them from being scary) and remarkably similar to the Dr. Phibes movies of the previous years; it wasn’t even a Hammer, so how on Earth did Theatre of Blood end up being one of the best British horror movies of all time?

Vincent Price plays the supposedly dead Edward Lionheart, a Shakespearean actor of the “vigorous” school who was never popular with the critics. Turns out he took all that criticism to heart (especially after he was denied a prestigious award) so has taken it upon himself to elaborately bump off the Critics’Circle responsible by way of a series of brutal killings; the twist being that they’re all inspired by murders from his Shakespearean repertoire. Be honest, with an idea as good as that you’d have to work pretty hard to turn out a duff film. In fact, it was such a delicious premise that producer Sam Jaffe managed to attract some fairly, shall we say, robust stars. Take a look at the top of this review and look at that cast list. Just look at it. Yep, that is for real. That isn’t just a list of British movie institutions, that’s the actual cast of Theatre of Blood. Blimey.

Price is in the finest fettle of his career and tackles a series of set pieces that allow him to combine his horror-ham persona perfectly with some genuinely high quality Shakespearean performances as he sadistically dispatches those legends. But cleverly, he even manages to camp some of those up as if to prove the critics right. This is Price as the embodiment of old-school horror giving two fingers to the new wave and reminding us all that horror could still be fun. His “to be or not to be” speech has genuine pathos and it’s hard to believe it’s in the same movie as the most memorable pie-related murder in the history of cinema (seriously, you won’t forget that one). There are some predictable but fun one-liners but largely the comedy works because the horror is the comedy; even Michael J. Lewis’s melodramatic score adds to the humour.

Shot entirely on location, this Blu-ray transfer is also so good you might even be able to tell us which one of Price’s henchies is Stanley Bates. Yes, that is Bungle from Rainbow. We told you that cast was stellar.

Extras: Audio commentary with The League of Gentlemen, Jeremy Dyson, Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, A Priceless Potboiler: Victoria Price discusses Theatre of Blood, A Fearful Thespian: an interview with David Del Valle, Staged Reaction: an interview with star Madeleine Smith, A Harmony for Horror: an interview with composer Michael J. Lewis, Original Trailer, Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sam Smith, Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by film critic Cleaver Patterson and a reproduction of original press book material, illustrated with original archive stills.