Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Elementary – Season 1 / Cert: 15 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hall / Release Date: Out Now

When CBS first announced that it was doing a modernisation of Sherlock Holmes, there was a small ruckus caused by those dedicated to the BBC’s own version, Sherlock, concerned that similarities might damage the existing show. As it turns out, despite coming from common origins, the two shows couldn’t be any more different. Whereas the British effort has gone for a low volume of intricately plotted and incredibly tense mini-movies, Elementary is fast, accessible and the first season is made up of twenty-four, forty minute episodes.

That’s not to say that Elementary isn’t good; it’s an extremely slick production, featuring Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as Doctor Watson. In this modernisation, Holmes is presented as a savvy and brilliant recovering drug addict. Miller lends a constant nervous energy to the role, providing an edgy intensity that is both modern but also in line with the classic character. Watson’s military background has been excised for this show; instead Lucy Liu plays a disgraced surgeon who works as a professional ‘Sober Companion’. The initial set-up for the show is that Watson has been hired to keep an eye on Holmes and ensure that he doesn’t fall back into the arms of seven per cent solution.

The serial format allows Elementary to reveal aspects of both characters at a leisurely pace: we eventually learn why Holmes moved from his home of London to New York, how Watson came to be a sober companion and so on. The cases themselves are almost by the by; this is a character-driven drama with a side order of novel and interesting crime. Of particular note is the way that classic characters Moriarty and Irene Adler are handled in the show; the self-styled ‘M’ is indeed a terror on an equal footing with Holmes, whereas Adler is very much ‘The Woman’ , and both are brilliantly acted. All the key characters are excellently cast, and even the surprise appearance of Vinnie Jones works well.

The box set comes with the usual features; some behind the scenes chats with both Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu, a handful of insights from the producers and set designers and a small collection of promos and trailers. Though nice, they’re all designed to promote the show to the hilt and provide little real insight into the production of Elementary. Die-hard fans of the series (or the actors) will probably get a thrill out of them, however. If you need something to keep you going after all the new episodes of Sherlock are gone, or if you like you procedural crime drama loose and serialised, then this is well worth your time.

Extras: See above

Review: John Dies at the End / Cert: 15 / Director: Don Coscarelli / Screenplay: Don Coscarelli / Starring: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Doug Jones / Release Date: Out Now

John Dies at the End is one of those films where you really don’t know where to start when it comes to describing it. Working from David Wong’s novel, Don Coscarelli (the Phantasm series, Bubba Ho-Tep) looks to take his audience on a truly mind-bending trip.

At the centre of John is a new street drug called ‘soy sauce.’ Looking remarkably like the Venom symbiote from the Spider-Man world, soy sauce seemingly kills most people who take it. Luckily for Dave (Williamson) and the titular John (Mayes), they manage to survive dabbling with soy sauce, although the bizarre side-effects of the drug give them the ability to see into the future and to fight ancient paranormal evil.

The movie opens with a fantastically tongue-in-cheek prelude of sorts, involving Dave, an axe, and a decapitation. From here we’re transported to the present day, as Dave is interviewed in a Chinese restaurant by Paul Giamatti’s writer. We then learn, via the joys of flashbacks, Dave’s journey and the frankly bonkers happenings of his and John’s adventures.

Pulling inspiration from the likes of Bill & Ted, Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, Monty Python and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, John is a bizarre, fun and quirky movie that treats the audience to some truly strange visuals. Complete with great practical effects work, we get killer slugs, geeky references a-plenty, zombies, bestiality, a creature made purely out of meat products, propane-fuelled paintball guns, and the bizarre sight of one of the key characters taking advice from a hot dog.

For relative newcomers, Williamson and Mayes are great as the bummed-out losers who end up thrown into this crazed sereis of events. As ever with a Don Coscarelli movie, the film is a mishmash of happenings, often wandering far away from any form of true narrative. If you’re a fan of Coscarelli’s work, you’ll find yourself purring through John, whilst others may find the film just a little too odd and unique for their tastes.

John Dies at the End is one of those films that will be a delight for some and a complete head-fuck for others. It’s a film that pays out to those who invest their full attention in it, and it is just how you would imagine a Don Coscarelli adaptation of Wong’s novel to pan out. With enough pulled from the source material to appease long-time fans, there’s also the massively unique and undeniable stamp of Coscarelli firmly in place.

If you’re undecided on whether to give John Dies at the End your time – and it will require your full focus – then we’d advise you to jump in, leave you sense of logic at the door, sit back and enjoy the trip.

Extras: TBC

Review: Super Shark / Cert: 15 / Director: Fred Olen Ray / Screenplay: Fred Olen Ray, Clyde McCoy, Antonio Olivas / Starring: John Schneider, Sarah Lieving, Tim Abell, Jimmie Walker / Release Date: January 13th

Fed up of those horrendous made-for-TV shark movies yet? If you’re on the cusp then Super Shark may just be the final nail in that particular coffin. This time out, we’ve got a giant shark that can walk on land and can fly. Safe to say, Synthetic Filmwerx decided to steer clear of the grounded-in-reality approach here.

After an offshore drilling accident seemingly releases this super-sized shark, we get to see the beast ravage its way through a stream of throwaway characters that you really don’t care about in the slightest. Even more odd, characters that are given 20 minutes or so of loose ‘character development’ are offed willy-nilly, meaning that you’re left with a bunch of characters that you’ve barely seen in the movie going up against the shark for a climactic beach-front battle.

We Starburst folks love us a good shark movie or even a good ‘bad shark movie’, but Super Shark fails to tick even the ‘so bad it’s entertaining’ box. As expected, the budget for Super Shark is minuscule, meaning special effects shots are cheap and nasty. Rather than keeping the SFX stuff at a minimum and steering clear of this weakness, Super Shark regularly throws horrible SFX shot after horrible SFX shot at the viewer. It also doesn’t help that the movie regurgitates the exact same shot at least eight or nine times during the film’s running time. And a note to the filmmakers: using the same shot but flipping it backwards does not make it an entirely new shot!

On top of this tide of turd, we get a final battle that looks like somebody has placed a child’s toys on a beach and then slapped a horrific, repetitive animation of a snarling, growling shark over the footage. And while we’re at it, why is it that every single shark in this type of movie has to channel their inner Aslan these days?

Super Shark isn’t helped one iota by the virtually non-existent ‘performances’ of its cast. Despite John Schneider (Smallville’s Jonathan Kent) doing his best to hold things together, the dross dished up by the rest of the cast makes you almost yearn for Tara Reid in Sharknado. Almost. Certain scenes are so bad that they’re reminiscent of an ’80s porn film. You’re literally waiting for somebody to walk in to ‘repair the fridge.’ And the beach? It’s so cold and windy, it may as well have been filmed in Aberystwyth.

Super Shark’s only plus points? A pimp-tastic opening theme tune that’s more superfly that ‘super shark,’ and some fantastically bad one liners – “Tan-lines are for quitters” and “Put another shark on the barbie” spring to mind.

Extras: Blooper Reel / Trailer / Music Video

Review: The Colony / Cert: 15 / Director: Jeff Renfroe / Screenplay: Jeff Renfroe, Svet Rouskov, Patrick Tarr, Pascal Trottier / Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton, Kevin Zegers / Release Date: January 20th

Grim times ahead for the human race in this agreeable, if derivative, Canadian sci-fi thriller set in the year 2045. Huge weather machines built to control the planet’s climate have gone to pot and the world is plunged into a new Ice Age, survivors of an ensuing flu-like plague are forced to live in underground bunkers to escape the bone-numbing cold. Colony 7 receives a distress message from the nearby Colony 5 and sends a three-man expedition across the devastated surface to investigate. But when they arrive at Colony 5 they find hope – the promise that the weather machines can be fixed and that there’s already a ‘hotspot’ out there – and despair in the form of rabid cannibals (let’s not call them zombies) who have overrun the colony and munched on the survivors. The Colony 7 group blow up the entrance to the Colony 5 bunker and head home… but the cannibals are in hot (or rather ice cold) pursuit.

If there’s really nothing new under the sun then there’s not much new on the ice in The Colony either, but despite its paucity of original ideas and its paper-thin characters, there’s a commendable sense of scale and ambition in this visually impressive Canadian effort. Some of its frozen landscape sequences are breathtaking – deserted, snow-swept cities, shattered bridges, half-buried installations – and there’s a real sense of ordeal and discomfort as Colony 7’s little expedition, led by Lawrence Fishburn’s Briggs, toil through the snow on their mission of mercy. Some genuine excitement too in their battles with the ravenous cannibals, although the sense of desperation and ruthlessness built up in the first act – Bill Paxton’s Mason callously shoots anyone he suspects may be carrying the lethal infection – fades away in the irresistible descent into shooting and fighting at the climax.

Ambitious, action-packed and chillingly well-realised – you’ll want to ramp up the central heating, kids – The Colony isn’t perfect, but it’s perfectly entertaining and, more importantly, it’s proof that you really don’t need an inflated Hollywood budget to create a halfway decent lo-fi sci-fi spectacle.

Extras: TBC

Review: Mumfie’s White Christmas / Cert: U / Director: John Laurence Collins / Screenplay: Britt Allcroft, John Kane / Starring: Patrick Breen, Emily Dinidger, Steve Ross, Peter Yawitz, Rory Dodd / Release Date: Out Now

Let me start by confessing, when I sat down to watch Mumfie’s White Christmas, my head was preparing a sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek review knocking this elephant-shaped festive fun. Rather confusingly for my brain, I found myself actually enjoying the show. I’m not sure whether it’s because ‘it’s the most beautiful time of the year,’ I’m a sucker for all things Christmas and snowy (see: Batman Returns, The Empire Strikes Back, 30 Days of Night), or I just love the charm of a well-animated feature.

Mumfie’s White Christmas centres around Britt Allcroft’s Mumfie character; a happy-go-lucky elephant. Along with his friends Scarecrow and Pinky the flying elephant, Mumfie is on a mission to find Santa and make sure that we all get a white, snowy Christmas. On his quest, he comes across friends like Whale, the mysteriously magical Black Cat, and new faces in the form of a singing bird and a dejected reindeer.

With Allcroft having also been the brains behind classics such as Thomas the Tank Engine and Shining Time Station, this Mumfie Christmas special has the charm and quirks that you’d be expecting. With the main feature clocking in at just over 21 minutes, the festive frolics are easily accessible and make the perfect accompaniment to last-minute wrapping of presents. Offering beautiful animation, surprisingly (and annoyingly) catchy songs, and a cuteness factor that could bring a smile to even the most hardened of Starburst readers, Mumfie’s White Christmas is great as a traditional, well-designed treat to keep the kids entertained or equally so as a guilty pleasure for the big kids out there.

Still, the far too logical adult in me does have certain issues with this short film and its characters. I mean, how can a small, seemingly pre-teen elephant afford to own such a nice little cottage? I guess maybe he rents? Has it been handed down to him after his parents’ deaths? Then that poses the question of where he gets his income from, and just how does the fellow make ends meet when he seemingly never works? And just what is the ‘happy ending’ that we hear Mumfie constantly harking about in song form?

But bah humbug to that far too serious and logic-seeking adult. It’s Christmas; a time to be entertained, a time to take off those heavy-eyed, grown-up glasses. Mumfie’s White Christmas will melt even the hardest of hearts. As somebody that once spent Christmas Day watching the soul-destroying Eden Lake, I can say that Mumfie’s White Christmas is a festive treat for all.

Extras: Three bonus Mumfie episodes

Review: Elysium / Cert: 15 / Director: Neill Blomkamp / Screenplay: Neill Blomkamp/ Starring: Matt Damon, Sharlto Copley, Jodie Foster, / Release Date: December 26th

140 years from now, the Earth is an overpopulated mess filled with forgotten masses struggling for survival on a daily basis. But it’s not all bad. Hundreds of miles above them spins Elysium, a gargantuan space station filled with lavish gardens and mansions, populated by the rich who live unrestricted and free from disease thanks to technology which can instantly cure any ailment. To those on board, the Earth is nothing but a delightful vista on which to gaze while sipping their champagne, but for those below them, looking up, Elysium is a reminder of how the ‘haves’ turned their backs on the ‘have nots’. Championing the latter is Max (Damon), a prison parolee who is determined to do something better with his life. Unfortunately for him, this very tenacity causes him to fall prey to a work accident, rendering him fatally irradiated with just days to live. Knowing that Elysium is the only way he can save his own life, he reluctantly embarks on a mission to do just that, while helping a few people along the way.

Essentially, director Neill Blomkamp has taken the template set out in District 9 (highlighting class/race differences via science fiction) and expounded upon it, adding more money and bigger stars. The only thing missing, is the true watermark of Blomkamp’s work: his oft-lauded ‘hyper reality’. While District 9 stunned audiences with its indie-style realistic portrayal of alien refugees (layered into a documentary-style format), Elysium is essentially a studio movie.

Admittedly, Blomkamp’s influence saturates the film, from the robots (which are reminiscent of his first short, Tetra Vaal) to the insane weapon tech and political undercurrents. But while fragments of what made the world notice his first feature film are evident, they are lost among the more mundane Hollywood showmanship and come across as little more than self-imitation.

This is by no means a bad film. Matt Damon turns in a strong performance and it’s nice to see him play outside of his usual casting type (and the ‘Hulk Suit’ exoskeleton makes for an enduring image). Sharlto Copley is also very watchable (again, playing against type) as the sadistic mercenary Kruger and does his best with what is essentially a two-dimensional role. Also, Blomkamp has layered a plot that would have felt at home as an ’80s B-movie with plenty of subtext to elevate it above the bigger budget sci-fi films of late. But in spite of all of this, stood up against his previous work, it just can’t help but fall flat. Oh, and Jodie Foster is abysmal.

As you might expect from a director who is as immersive as Blomkamp, the extra features are rammed with material. Tonnes of pre-production visuals are included within Visions of 2154, showing the evolution of some of the key elements of the film. The Journey to Elysium provides a three-part featurette which covers all the bases from the film’s inception through pre-production and the final shoot. The Technology of 2154 goes into even more detail while Collaboration: Crafting the Performances in Elysium does pretty much what you’d expect it to do. All of which give tremendous insight into not just the film making process itself but the mind behind it all. Support of Story: The Visual Effects of Elysium and Engineering Utopia: Creating a Society in the Sky provide even more background if you feel like you haven’t already learned everything. A brief extended scene ‘Kruger Wakes Up’ is also included. A stunning selection of extra features for a just above average movie. 

Extras: See above

Review: You’re Next / Cert: 18 / Director: Adam Wingard / Screenplay: Simon Barrett / Starring: Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, A.J. Bowen / Release Date: January 13th

There’s a palpable feeling of freshness about this ultraviolent slasher/home invasion flick from rising stars Wingard and Barrett. You’re Next certainly isn’t going to change anyone’s life – or the horror genre, for that matter – but it’s as solid as they come, packing a fair old wallop. Hard to believe that it sat on the shelf for two years, being made before either V/H/S or The ABCs of Death.

After a “so far, so Friday the 13th” opening sequence, where a couple are dispatched by a masked assailant directly after making the beast with two backs, we bear witness to a reunion of the Davison family, celebrating the occasion of bourgeois mum and dad’s wedding anniversary at the huge, isolated mansion they call a holiday home. As the immediately obvious built-up tensions between them come to a head over dinner, normality is instantly and irrevocably shattered when a crossbow bolt comes crashing through a window pane into one of their number’s forehead. What follows is a relentless fight for survival, as the family and their various partners try to put aside their differences against a common foe. Or foes, as it soon becomes (very) painfully apparent.

Granted, this might not read like the most startlingly original of scenarios, but where You’re Next wins out is in the execution. The performances are uniformly excellent, coming from proper actors rather than the usual assortment of assembly line ‘teenagers’, their overlapping, mostly credible dialogue drawing one in so much in the early stages that it’s almost a disappointment when the action kicks in. Joe Swanberg, a leading light of the ‘mumblecore’ movement, is a particular stand out as the pricelessly douchey Drake, at one point arguing with his sister’s underground filmmaker boyfriend (Wingard and Barrett’s future V/H/S collab, Ti West) that the adverts are the best thing on TV. Long-time genre fans are appeased by the presence of Barbara (Re-Animator) Crampton as the family’s nervous wreck of a matriarch.

What starts out as a terrifying scenario gradually nudges the viewer into fits of nervous laughter, although without degenerating into outright farce. As with all the great splatter-fests of yore, the viewer is bashed around the head just enough to become slightly desensitised to the lashings of violence on display, but not so much that it becomes tedious or completely inane. And without wanting to spoil it too much, it’s also extremely refreshing that young Erin (Vinson) emerges as twice as much of a bad-ass as any of the killers could ever hope to be. No ‘women as victims’ fest is this.

Although consisting of a home invasion scenario, to equate You’re Next with the likes of Last House on the Left or House at the Edge of the Park (as some commentators have) is pure idiocy. There are no protracted, painful to watch scenes of torture, rape, or humiliation, and the carnage on display can certainly be described as being of the ‘equal opportunities’ variety, if nothing else.

The film isn’t perfect. It still suffers from the sort of narrative bugbears that blight many a film in the genre, such as people wandering off on their own, turning off lights and even going off to take a little nap. Although much of the dialogue is unusually credible, it’s hard to forgive a scene wherein one character successfully lies to two others that another ‘just needed a lie down’, when the last person to do that ended up with a machete buried in their head. But, when all’s said and done, when everything else is handled with such panache it’s not difficult to forgive such transgressions.

On the strength of this and their other work, the future’s looking pretty damned rosy for these incredibly talented filmmakers.

Extras: Making of You’re Next featurette / Audio commentary with Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett / Audio commentary with Wingard, Barrett, Sharni Vinson and Barbara Crampton

Review: Viking – The Darkest Day / Cert: 15 / Director: Chris Crow / Screenplay: Chris Crow, Graham Davidson / Starring: Gareth John Bale, Ian Dicks, Richard Elfyn / Release Date: Out Now

There’s a growing trend for low-budget movies set during the Middle Ages, and you can see why: that period of history is filled with violence and tension and looks a bit like a fantasy setting if you squint a bit. The problem is, that with no budget to speak of, many historical fantasy movies are neither one thing or another, lacking the resources to go the whole hog on special effects, but also being rather limited when it comes to everything else.

The premise behind Viking: The Darkest Day is one that should be familiar to anyone from the UK who paid attention during history class. The plot is that of young monk who is entrusted with delivering the Holy Gospel of Lindisfarne to a monastery. On the way, he meets a Christian warrior who is as skilled with delivering lectures on the nature of faith and violence as he is with a sword. They wander through the countryside, occasionally being attacked by Viking bandits. An attempt is made at making the villains of the movie memorable, but alas they are so interchangeable and bland that it’s by and large a wasted effort.

And that’s pretty much it; this movie is a long walk through the woods, interspersed with violence. Dialogue-heavy, but acting-light, the story told feels like one that would work better on the page than it does on the screen. There are some highlights; Marc Pickering is very good as an innocent caught up in circumstances beyond his control and does his best to add gravitas to what seems to be a pretty awful script. Director Chris Crow tries hard to add cinematic magic to the action sequences, but they’re too few and too gritty to make this movie anything more than a snoozefest.

There is sadly little here for both history buffs and fantasy fans, and though a valiant effort is made at making this into something better than a low-budget distraction, it falls very far below the mark, and is likely to please no one except insomniacs.

Extras: None

Review: Battle of the Damned / Cert: 18 / Director: Christopher Hatton / Screenplay: Christopher Hatton / Starring: Dolph Lundgren, Melanie Zanetti, David Field / Release Date: December 26th

Biotechnology companies seeking to avoid regulation have found a haven in Southeast Asia. A breach in security of a top-secret research facility unleashes a deadly pathogen into an urban populace. A city is quarantined as the infection quickly spreads, transforming people into rabid carriers, hungry for human flesh…

Max (played stoically by Lundgren, who fits the role like a well-oiled glove) is a take-no-prisoners action hero who throughout The Battle of the Damned goes hand-to-hand and toe-to-toe with the zombie hordes. After the unpleasant deaths of his team mates, Max soon locates Jude. But she has fallen in with a group of survivors, lead by Duke (Field) and calling themselves the Damned (not to be confused with the band of the same name). Duke is torn between doing what is right for the group and his own sense of self-preservation. He is soon at odds with Max over… well, pretty much everything.

As the tensions in the group rise and the zombie menace – in time-honoured fashion – remains never-ending, a platoon of robots show up. Apparently, after a malfunction in their commands, the robots have wandered the city looking for something to do. To the Damned they are a ticket out of the quarantine zone, and what follows is a long and bloody trek across the city that soon becomes a guessing game of who lives and dies.

Battle of the Damned has a low-budget, shaky-cam feel to it and suffers at times from poor directing and questionable acting. But none of that really matters if taken in the spirit in which the film is intended, i.e., as bloody good fun. Watching Dolph handing it to zombies in a no-nonsense, won’t- change-my-expression-for-all-the-tea-in-china kind of way, makes for compelling viewing. He even comes up with the occasional outstanding one-liner that could match Bruce Willis any day of the week.

Forget The Walking Dead, Battle of the Damned takes the genre back to its grass roots of horror.

Extras: None

Review: Tenebrae / Cert: 18 / Director: Dario Argento / Screenplay: Dario Argento / Starring: Anthony Franciosa, John Saxon, Daria Nicolodi, Giuliano Gemma / Release Date: December 16th

Although this electrifying Italian horror/giallo classic only made its UK Blu-ray début this past April, here we have Arrow Video already releasing it again, as a much improved, remastered print with an added extra. Rather irritating, one supposes, for those who have purchased it once this year already, but more on that in a moment.

For those unfamiliar with the plot, it sees American thriller author Peter Neal (Franciosa) jetting off to Rome, where his latest opus – yes, Tenebrae – has topped the best seller list for weeks. Already, it appears, stalked by his estranged wife (Veronica Lario, estranged wife of Silvio Berlusconi), he there meets up with his agent (Saxon) and faithful ‘Girl Friday’ (Nicolodi), and is soon made aware of a series of brutal, shocking murders perpetrated by a killer citing passages from Neal’s novel – and, in the first instance that we see, stuffing his victim’s mouth full of pages from it. This brings the author directly onto the radar of personable police detective Giermani (spaghetti western icon Gemma, tragically killed in a car crash just a couple of months ago), and the pair get their heads together to solve the mystery. As the corpses mount up, it gradually becomes clear that nothing is quite the way it might at first have seemed…

The giallo cycle initiated by Argento’s 1970 directorial début The Bird With the Crystal Plumage may have been played out by this time, in a market now glutted with American Halloween/Friday the 13th clones, but Tenebrae marked the master’s triumphant return after the supernatural diversions of Suspiria and Inferno, albeit now with a more recognisably early ’80s ‘splatter’ sensibility. It’s also a more personal film than had been seen from him before, with an interviewer (Mirella D’Angelo) turning on Neal to denounce his work as misogynistic, and the author receiving threatening whispery phone calls, apparently based on a stalking experience that Argento had recently endured in reality. Exchanges with camp TV interviewer John Steiner debate the perceived effects of screen violence on society, which certain sections of the press have ever tried to lay at the door of the director and other genre filmmakers like Carpenter and Hooper.

Argento has always spuriously claimed that Tenebrae is set in a near future milieu, where the population has been greatly diminished. Although never alluded to in the script, compare the homogeneous, angular mod architecture with the crumbling Roman grandeur of the likes of Deep Red, and the bright and clear cinematography of Luciano Tovoli (Suspiria) with the deep shadows of Inferno. There’s also the predominately electronic score from Simonetti, Pignatelli and Morante (in other words three-quarters of the classic Goblin line-up, unable to use that name as Pignatelli was recording the piss-awful Volo LP under it with some other guys at the time).

The film is full of masterful stylistic flourishes, courtesy of Argento’s roving camera and expert use of space. Most noted, of course, is the amazing, now legendary, one-take crane shot that takes the viewer out of a window, over and around an apartment, and back in through another window, all to the strains of the pulsing disco/rock fusion title track. This two-and-a-half minute sequence took three days to film. Also unforgettable are the killer reveal, and that often imitated but never bettered ‘he’s behind you’ shot.

As with most of Argento’s work, some scenes do stretch the viewer’s suspension of disbelief to breaking point, such as that where young Maria (Lara Wendell), a girl connected to the main characters, just happens to be chased by a vicious guard dog right to the door of the killer, who just happens that night to have accidentally left his key in it. Naturally, said dog conveniently disappears when its set-piece-abetting work is done.

Aside from this, the logic of Tenebrae hangs together surprisingly well for an Argento movie, compared to the head-scratchy likes of Inferno. Along with his early ‘Animal Trilogy’ and the supernatural excursions cited above, it ranks as one of his masterpieces, and, many argue (Kim Newman for one), that it is his ‘last truly great film’. Aside from the odd moment of brilliance, things undoubtedly started to go downhill from there on in.

So, back to the thorny issue of a new edition already coming to supersede the last one. The April release was criticised by many fans for having a grainier picture than one might reasonably expect from a HD master, and some distortion of the soundtrack, most irritatingly on the bravura crane shot sequence mentioned above. While these complaints may seem a trifle churlish to those of us who can recall seeing it on second or third generation VHS dupes during its tenure as an official ‘Video Nasty’, or even enduring a seemingly interminable period of not being able to see it at all, it’s not all that unreasonable to expect better in an age when one doesn’t have to dig too deeply to find the grungy likes of Cannibal Ferox in crystal clear 1080p quality.

With this new release, a Zavvi.com exclusive limited to 4,000 units, these problems have been ironed out, which is understandably fairly frustrating to those who forked out for the last release thinking they were adding the definitive article to their libraries, many of whom having probably bought the film already two or three times previously. It still isn’t 100% grain-free but is beautifully sharp, its colours rich and vibrant, and the soundtrack couldn’t be clearer or more crisp. It’s a huge improvement and certainly good enough, now standing as the definitive English language edition. Well, until the next one, at any rate.

Extras: Audio commentary by Alan Jones and Kim Newman / Audio commentary by Thomas Rostock / Interviews with Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi and Claudio Simonetti / Maitland McDonagh on Tenebrae / Goblin concert footage / Trailer