Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Silent Night, Bloody Night – The Homecoming / Cert: 18 /Director: James Plumb / Screenplay: James Plumb, Andrew Jones / Starring: Alan Humphreys, Melanie Stevens, Victor Ptak, Gary Knowles, Rosemary Smith / Release Date: Out Now

This is a Starburst public service announcement. Should you be tempted by the alluring DVD cover of Silent Night, Bloody Night: The Homecoming – a masked, knife-wielding figure outside a gloomy, snow-covered old house – remember that once you’ve watched the film itself you will never get back the seventy-eight minutes of your life you wasted on it. Ever. End of public service announcement…

Brought to you by the stumbling amateurs who created last year’s appalling zombie horror (in every sense of the word) Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection, Silent Night, Bloody Night also riffs off a public domain horror title (1974’s barely-remembered Silent Night, Bloody Night) by remaking it without a word of acknowledgement or reference to the original. We’d like to think there’s an element of embarrassment involved; the original is hardly regarded as classic (despite the presence of genre favourite John Carradine), but this remake, far from being the “chilling, relentless horror ride” promised by an over-enthusiastic cover blurb, is actually shockingly shoddy, badly directed and populated by a cast who can surely only have been dragged off the streets of Swansea (the film was shot in and around South Wales) with the promise of a nice cup of tea and a biscuit for their trouble.

The plot – let’s be generous here – concerns a spooky old house once owned by the Butler family whose patriarch committed suicide in 1987. Twenty-five years later, the crumbling building is attracting the attention of various nocturnal visitors and even a potential purchaser; but unbeknownst to them all, a shadowy figure is in residence and he don’t like strangers round ‘ere. Much poorly filmed bloodletting ensues, but the only real horror is the realisation that someone was stupid enough to offer up their loose change to fund this shamefully ramshackle mess. The film’s digital photography makes it look horribly cheap and nasty; the image is dull, flat and lifeless and director Plumb proves yet again that he has little visual flair or particular aptitude for directing (and let’s not get started on the co-written script), so it’s hard not to wonder why he keeps on trying. The camera’s rarely pointing in the right direction when the violence takes place and the already sluggish pace grinds to a standstill with the onset of a voice-over tortuously detailing the backstory with about as much passion and enthusiasm as the bloke who reads out the football results.

A thoroughly wretched experience and a worthless movie, the best we can suggest for this Christmas-set turkey is that you might want to pick up a copy or two to hand out to people you really detest and watch the blood drain from their faces at the prospect of watching it.

Extras: Director/ Producer commentary

Review: Supernatural / Cert: 15 / Director: Various / Screenplay: Robert Muller / Starring: Denholm Elliott, Charles Kay, Ian Hendry, Jeremy Brett / Release Date: November 18th

No Sam and Dean, sorry. This is another Supernatural, an eight-part late night horror series dating from all the way back in 1977 and never repeated since. Now the BFI have hauled it out of the BBC vaults, stuck it on DVD and sent it out blinking into the light of day. So is it a terrifying sight to behold such as will chill your blood to the very core? Um, next question?

Not that it doesn’t try. The scripts – all but one by Robert Muller, a writer who had a background in heavyweight literary adaptations – go all out for a heavy Gothic vibe. There’s a hoary framing device of an institution called the Club of the Damned at which white-haired gents scare the willies out of each other with fireside tales, and the stories tip their hats to Mary Shelley, Sheridan Le Fanu and the like.

The undoubted highlight is Countess Ilona, a leisurely two-parter in which the titular countess invites a trio of past lovers – a philandering doctor, a greedy arms dealer and a diva-esque piano virtuoso – to her remote castle on the tenth anniversary of her husband’s death… but is he really dead? What lifts this piece is the presence of top thesps Charles Kay and Ian (“pissholes in the snow”) Hendry, who play off each other to fine effect, having fun with Muller’s plummy dialogue. Nearly as good is Night of the Marionettes, with the wonderful Gordon Jackson as a Shelley scholar who takes his family to an obscure alpine guest house only to discover there clues to the origins of the Frankenstein story. Meanwhile, in something of a class of its own is Mr Nightingale, a bizarre seriocomic doppelgänger tale about a repressed Englishman staying with a family in Hamburg and driven mad by the attentions of a pair of oversexed frauleins. It’s packed full of crazy innuendo of a sort that presumably went right over people’s heads back in the ’70s, it ends in a fiery conflagration, and it boasts a bravura performance from Jeremy Brett. One to file under WTF, but a lot of fun.

Even the best of the stories, though, suffer from a lack of visual flair and an occasional long-windedness, and the worst pretty much sink under these defects. The show was shot on then-standard 1 inch video and, despite a clean DVD transfer, it still looks miserably drab and cardboardy, studio-bound production values don’t help. One to pique the interest of addicts of old-fashioned horror or cult BBC TV shows, but everyone else is probably better off sticking with Sam and Dean.

Extras: Collector’s booklet

Review: This Is the End / Cert: 15 / Director: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen / Screenplay: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jason Stone / Starring: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen / Release Date: Out Now

Crude, spoiled celebrities gather for an ostentatious, self-indulgent house party at actor James Franco’s home in Los Angeles. The world ends, and so the scene is set for a crude, ostentatious and self-indulgent action comedy that emerges, against all odds, as the funniest film of 2013.

Wait, what? In the same year that Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg brought us their World’s End, Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen’s apocalyptic Hollywood comedy came as the surprise victor, making the mildly disappointing World’s End seem even more, well, disappointing. Not everyone will agree – they’re a polarising gang of chaps, Rogen, Franco and Jonah Hill, and This Is the End arguably sees them at their worst. The likeable Jay Baruchel is the audience’s focal point, being the least loathsome of the rich folk gathered at Franco’s house. In a truly impressive opening act of carnage which sees the End of the World descend upon Hollywood, there’s a sense of scale and apocalyptica which even the likes of Roland Emmerich should be jealous of, in spite of the film’s comedic overtones. Unlike World’s End, it feels plausible and organic, even at its silliest.

Playing (versions of) themselves, Baruchel, Rogen, Franco, Hill, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride are obviously having a lot of fun, and it feels infectious. Playing up to their usual on-screen personae (there’s a great joke, early on, about Rogen always playing the same character and having an annoying laugh), it’s a lot of fun seeing the guys poking fun at themselves, even if it does feel more than a little self-indulgent at times. Kudos, too, to James Franco for transforming from his being the worst actor in Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy to becoming quite the screen presence. He’s loathsome here, in the very best way. While Craig Robinson and Danny McBride are the most fun to watch, the biggest laughs go to Michael Cera and Emma Watson.

The Blu-ray copy, aside from the film’s impressive HD visuals, gives you over ninety minutes of special features, including multiple making-of featurettes, deleted scenes, a gag reel and an original short film. Once you’re done watching those? Well, this really is the end (geddit).

Detractors of this particular brand of comedians are unlikely to be won over by This Is the End. It’s vulgar, excessive and sags a bit in the middle. Everyone else, however, should love the curious combination of Hollywood satire, nasty masturbatory jokes and apocalyptic humour. It may not be the be all and say all of modern comedy, but it is laugh-out-loud hilarious and a lot of fun too. Even if Seth Rogen does have an annoying laugh.

Extras: See above

Review: Schalcken the Painter / Cert: 15 / Director: Leslie Megahey / Screenplay: Leslie Megahey / Starring: Jeremy Clyde, Maurice Denham, Cheryl Kennedy, John Justin / Release Date: November 18th

As you may or may not have noticed, the BFI have been releasing much of the BBC’s spooky ’70s output on DVD over the last couple of years. The Beeb’s A Ghost Story for Christmas had originated from an Omnibus special in 1968 with a dramatisation of M. R. James’ Whistle and I’ll Come to You. When the series’ initial run concluded in 1978 it was replaced the following year with a return to the Omnibus format and the fondly-remembered Schalcken the Painter. This is one that aficionados have been wanting to get their hands on for years, so is it as good as they remember?

It’s based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1839 Gothic horror Strange Event in the Life of Schalcken the Painter. Godfried Schalcken was a 17th century Dutch artist and, inspired by his dark and atmospheric paintings, Le Fanu imagined a story in which Schalcken’s unrequited love was married off to a quite-probably-undead suitor with not-in-the-slightest-bit hilarious consequences. There’s much to like about the BBC’s interpretation: it’s suitably dark and it leaves a great deal to the imagination; the viewer needs to question and think. It also makes clever use of Schalcken’s art as inspiration for many of the shot compositions and employs many of his paintings (including one they made up) as storytelling devices. However, we’re going to take a punt that many of those waiting for this DVD might be a teensy bit disappointed; the production is not without problems that may have been forgotten over the years.

Schalcken clearly needs to be a slow-burner to build to that effective climax; this is not a story that could be rushed. But while those Christmas ghost stories the BBC were so fond of varied in length, they always came in well short of an hour. What seems to have happened here is that director/writer Leslie Megahey got carried away with the whole Omnibus BBC art-flagship vibe and delivered a ponderous, pretentious and painfully slow 75 minutes that just doesn’t have enough content to fill the running time. Tightly directed, it is not. There are long scenes in which little happens and longer ones that are simply superfluous. All of which is a shame but doesn’t necessarily cause Schalcken to be a dud; it’s just not quite the magnificent piece of television many remember it as.

The disc also features a wordless Poe-inspired short, The Pit, made for the princely sum of £876(!) in 1962. It’s suitably nightmarish and not one to watch before bedtime, but perhaps the gem on the DVD is Digby Rumsey’s even shorter The Pledge, an effective telling of Lord Dunsany’s The Highwayman in which a corpse rots on the gallows while the deceased’s former friends conspire to save his soul. Gruesome, creepy and surprisingly satisfying.

Extras: The Pit / The Pledge / Look Into the Dark – The Making of Schalcken the Painter / Sketches for the Pit

Review: Heretic / Cert: 18 / Director: Peter Handford / Screenplay: Peter Handford / Starring: Andrew Squires, Michael J. Tait, James Zakeri / Release Date: January 6th, 2014

Troubled Catholic priest (is there any other kind, in this post-Exorcist world?) Father James Pallister (Squires) suffers a crisis of faith when the girl he had promised to protect commits suicide. Following her death, the good Father returns to his old parish to confront his demons – both literal and not – only to find them confronting him, head on. Trapped in the very mansion where the girl ended her life, James is convinced that ghosts are out to get him. Also, the horny teenage girl who just won’t take no for an answer. Poor James. Well, they do say that Catholic guilt can be killer.

Typified by atmospherics and (relatively) subtle spookery rather than blood ‘n’ guts or Sinister-style scares, Peter Handford’s Heretic is an old-fashioned British horror, reminiscent of classier Hammer fare or a particularly well-made television movie. That sounds like rather faint praise, but it’s a refreshing change of pace from the identikit found footage, slash/rape-ridden dross most studios (this film’s distributors, 101 Films, included) seem to be churning out nowadays. It’s a bit Emmerdale at times – but that’s fine – we love a bit of Emmerdale. Dark, haunting and inventive, it would be heresy to give this one a miss on the basis of its low budget alone.

That slower pace and low budget will bother some, and while it does occasionally sail a little too close to cliché for comfort (so much so as to be called out on it by one of its characters), if you stick with it, there’s an interesting story and some appropriately haunting visuals to be found. It could do with turning the lights on a bit more often, and some of the acting is a tad on the duff side, but Heretic is a low-budget British horror treat.

Extras: None

Review: LEGO Batman – The Movie – DC Superheroes Unite / Cert: 12 / Director: John Burton / Screenplay: John Burton, David A. Goodman / Starring: Clancy Brown, Troy Baker, Christopher Corey Smith / Release Date: Out Now

The other, less famous Batman/Superman movie. The other, less famous LEGO movie. A late tie-in to the LEGO Batman 2 videogame, DC Superheroes Unite gathers a veritable Justice League of DC heroes to battle the combined might of Lex Luthor and the Joker.

It matters naught that the characters are made of LEGO – the re-appearance of Danny Elfman’s Batman tune sends shivers down this Batfan’s spine every time, as does the rousing orchestra of John William’s Superman theme. With its Gothic architecture, moody cityscapes and prominent use of the Elfman theme tune, DC Superheroes Unite is as much a love letter to Tim Burton as it is the Batman.

The plot is complete fluff, but then, it doesn’t need much more than that. An eye on winning the Presidential election, Luthor enlists the help of the Joker to exploit the heroes’ greatest weaknesses: namely, kryptonite, and a gun which disassembles Batman’s wonderful toys. The Dark Knight tries his hardest to handle matters on his own, but it quickly becomes evident that he may need to call on a few friends to save the day this time. Which, funnily enough, is also the plot of Arkham Origins. With a supporting role for Superman and cameos from Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the rest of the Justice League (well… most of them; personal favourites Green Arrow and Aquaman are sadly absent here), DC Superheroes Unite has plenty of Easter Eggs to keep comic fans amused. Needless to say, it skews itself towards the younger audience (and, as Bat Mite argued in The Brave and the Bold, there’s nothing wrong with that) but it does so with enough wit and action that parents, older siblings and grown-up animation fans can enjoy it too. It’s a depressing statement on the Boy Wonder’s usual output that this is this writer’s favourite cinematic outing for Robin so far. Poor Chris O’ Donnell, effortlessly out-acted by a pile of bricks (Lego bricks – not a reference to Val Kilmer).

If you’ve played LEGO Batman 2, you may find all of this to be awfully familiar – much of the film is comprised of cut-scenes from the game, after all – and the visual style isn’t always entirely appealing. Still, it has enough heart and humour that those cracks are easily smoothed over. Goyer, Snyder and Batfleck take note: this is how you do a Batman/Superman movie right.

Review: The Twilight Zone – The Complete Collection (R1) / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: William Shatner, John Carradine, Agnes Moorehead, Bob Cummings / Release Date: November 19th (US Only)

This is a magnificent remastered DVD set chronicling all 156 episodes of Rod Serling’s incredible science fiction and fantasy series. Airing from 1959 to 1964, Serling’s groundbreaking anthology was inspired by comic books, pulp magazines, novels, radio shows and the movies of his youth, and as well as his own scripts it included the work of talented writers such as Richard Mattheson, Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson and Charles Beaumont.

With so many episodes to choose from, where to begin? How about with Beautmont’s classic The Howling Man, a creepy and atmospheric episode in which a lost hiker discovers a mysterious man imprisoned in a hidden, mountain monastery? Then there’s A Nick of Time, in which newlyweds played by William Shatner and Patrice Breslin allow themselves to be drawn into a web of superstition (or is it fate?) through a fortune-telling machine with a wobbling devil’s head. In King Nine Will Not Return tormented World War II pilot, Bob Cummings, finds himself the sole survivor of his B-25 in the African dessert. Is he actually there or is he hallucinating? Meanwhile, The Invaders sees Agnes Morehead delivering a tour-de-force performance without dialogue as she fends off what appear to be tiny aliens from another world. And in The Odyssey of Flight 33, a commercial airliner piloted by John Anderson encounters a freak jet stream that sends the airliner and its passengers back into time. Will they get back to the present before their fuel runs out?

This beautiful DVD set offers a stunning black-and-white transfer and rich sound, a great showcase for a TV show that was made over fifty years ago and that still stands the test of time today.

Extras: Previews of next week’s show hosted by Mr Serling after each episode

Review: Megaforce / Cert: PG / Director: Hal Needham / Screenplay: James Whittaker, Abert S.Ruddy, Hal Needham, Andre Morgan / Starring: Barry Bostwick, Michael Beck, Edward Mulhare, Persis Khambatta, Henry Silva, George Furth / Release Date: November 25th

A relic from the early ’80s video age, Megaforce hits DVD in the UK for the first time, and proves to be as camp as every Christmas one could think of.

In a plot, which could be as relevant today as when it was made, the elite mercenary team of Megaforce, led by Ace Hunter (Rocky Horror‘s Bostwick), are sent into the middle of a battle between The Republic of Sardun and Gamibia. Head baddie General Guerera (Silva) is no stranger to Hunter, and with military leaders (represented by Knight Rider’s Mulhare and Khambatta – best known as slap-headed Ilia in Star Trek: The Motion Picture) breathing down their necks to get the job done, Hunter’s team must use all the hi-tech machinery at their disposal.

Megaforce boasts everything one would want from an 80s action movie: synthesizer soundtrack, explosions, stunts, stereotypical ethnic characters, really bad jokes and even worse blue-screen superimposing, and, despite a slight lull in the middle, pretty much delivers on every level – providing you set your standards really low. It’s one of those films you laugh at rather than with. Directed by former stuntman Needham (later director of films such as Hooper and Smokey and the Bandit), it naturally is full of great action scenes, the souped-up motorbikes Megaforce ride put on arena-worthy displays at a moment’s notice and, no matter how badly edited they may be, the set pieces are as spectacular as any Bond film of the time. The tanks shoot frikking lasers, what more do you want? Oh, how about action men like Bostwick, with bouffant hair, cute bandana and implausible beard, in (almost) skin-tight Lycra jumpsuits? There are so many standout (in a so-bad-it’s-good way) scenes; a stylishly shot moment filmed entirely in silhouette, or an assault, which takes place with a countdown in the corner of the screen, for the film not to be fun. Grab a big bag of popcorn, some beers, and a few like-minded mates and enjoy how films used to be made.

Extras: None

Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 / Cert: 18 / Director: Tobe Hooper / Screenplay: L.M. Kit Carson / Starring: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Bill Moseley / Release Date: November 11th

Congrats, you’ve made one of the most shocking and notorious horror films of all time. Now what are you going to do for a sequel? You have to feel for Tobe Hooper, getting stuck with a question like that, even if you don’t wholeheartedly endorse his answer: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986), which takes something that seemed all too believable in its flyblown realism and inflates it into a sustained exercise in blackly comedic Grand Guignol.

This second instalment pits big-hatted Texas Ranger Lefty Enright (Hopper), uncle of one of the original dead kids, against the Sawyer clan, now with the addition of crazy, metal-pated ‘Nam vet Chop-Top (Moseley). Caught in the middle is leggy disc jockey Stretch (Williams), who winds up trapped in the cannibals’ lair, playing Esmeralda to Leatherface’s Quasimodo.

It’s a film that comes nowhere near to matching the palpable menace of its predecessor, and nor does it try. Instead it takes a sly satisfaction in subverting its iconic villains and turning them into a gabbling dysfunctional family. All the same, it has some truly startling set-pieces, including a brilliant opening sequence in which Leatherface gives a fratboy in a Mercedes a haircut, and an extended showdown which sees Lefty going into battle armed with twin chainsaws in holsters. Some of the dialogue winks too hard at the audience – Chop-Top and Cook are so over-garrulous, you’ll probably end up wishing they would eat their own tongues – but you can always tune it out and gape at the awesome set designs.

The HD transfer is somewhat soft and grainy, but the more lurid scenes punch through very well – the moment where Stretch first meets Chop-Top, for instance, and the bit where she finds herself unwillingly sitting down at the Sawyer’s dinner table. The close-up of Grandpa’s latex makeup also looks fantastic. Besides, any disappointment in this area is made up for by an as-much-as-you-can-eat buffet of extras. These look at the genesis of the script (screenwriter Kit Carson explains why he thought it was a good idea to make Chainsaw 2 as a comedy); the need to do rewrites after $1 million was cut from the budget; the construction and dressing of the main set in an old printing works (they scoured central Texas for bones); and much more. Plus critic Stephen Thrower offers a thoughtful dissection of the movie’s themes and motifs. On the bonus DVD, you get a 20-minute interview with Hooper and two of his early films – The Heisters, a rather silly 10-minute short, and Eggshells, a feature-length experimental, free-form, hippyish documentary-type thing. Both are for completists only, but it’s nice to have them.

Extras: It Runs in the Family / Audio commentaries / Director interview / 2 featurettes / 2 early films by the director / Galleries / Trailers

  

Review: Aura – Koga Maryuin’s Last War / Cert: 15 / Director: Seiji Kishi / Screenplay: Romeo Tanaka, Jun Kumagai / Starring: Nobunaga Shimazaki, Kana Hanazawa / Release Date: TBC

When returning to school at night, Ichirou encounters a strange girl named Ryouko who claims to be a magic-wielding investigator from a parallel universe; here to locate something called the Dragon Terminals. Her refusal to break character even when at school results in her being ostracised, a situation Ichirou is determined to resolve by getting her to admit her delusion.

A synopsis of Aura could lead you to believe that the plot’s ultimate revelation would be that, after initial skepticism, everything Ryouko is saying would turn out to be true. While such a plot might be expected in anime, it’s really not that kind of film. Based around the hierarchical nature of Japanese high schools, Aura takes a look at the possible consequences of taking escapism too far. While diving into your own fantasy world to escape the mundane reality is something we’ve all done, when doing it to the detriment of real life it can quickly get out of hand, especially in propriety-fixated and rigidly stratified Japanese society.

While there’s never much doubt that Ryouko isn’t who she consistently claims to be, the swift, often spur of the moment manner in which she thinks around the holes poked in the logic of her fantasy is ingenious and occasionally remarked upon as such. Nevertheless, Ichirou indulges Ryouko’s fantasy and tries to work through it in order to bring her back to reality.

The film doesn’t have much characterisation to speak of, other than the mystery of Ichirou’s past and his aversion to fantasy roleplaying. Acting as a bridge between the popular kids and the geeks, he tries to get his peers to behave in a way considered “normal”, not because he genuinely believes there’s anything weird about it – like the cool kids do – but because he’s already been where they are and knows what awaits at the other side.

It’s never made clear if the resistance of the other schoolchildren to Ryouko’s performance is what drives her dangerously deeper into it, or if she was already heading in that direction anyway, but her doing so and in the process forcing Ichirou to accept which side of the otaku line he truly stands on is its turning point. The film doesn’t condemn such behaviour, and considering its target audience it would be a bit hypocritical if it did, but is about the extremes young people go to in order to live how they wish they could, which is something we all – no matter what age – can relate to.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating: