Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Sleepwalker / Cert: 15 / Director: Saxon Logan / Screenplay: Saxon Logan / Starring: Bill Douglas, Joanna David, Heather Page / Release Date: Out Now

Cult director Saxon Logan’s short-form drama, a story of early 1980s British middle class frustration and repression laced with deliciously bloody fantasy violence, arrives on a slightly grainy BFI DVD/Blu-ray edition struck from the only known surviving print. Its brief running time – just under fifty minutes – meant that contemporary distributors (it was filmed on a shoestring budget in 1984) had no real idea what to do with it and as a result it was left on the shelf unloved and largely unseen.

Sleepwalker is a curious beast, difficult to categorize and even harder to rationalize. It starts off like some typical low-key 1980s British TV drama, a perverse version of Abigail’s Party relocated to the country, as Angela (David) and her spiky, ill-tempered businessman husband Richard (Grace) visit siblings Marion (Page) and Alex (Douglas) in their dilapidated country home. Storm damage has ruined Marion’s plans for supper and the foursome set out for a meal at a local inn where tempers become frayed and personalities and lifestyles clash. Back home Alex, who sleepwalks and has terrible nightmares about death and murder, becomes increasingly agitated and the attraction between Marion and the cocky Richard threatens to spiral out of control. During the night a maelstrom of violence is unleashed… but is the violence real or is it all some terrible nightmare from which there’s no waking up?

The film is very much a product of its time, its characters a reflection of Margaret Thatcher-era Britain, none more so than self-made man Richard (his surname is ‘Paradise’, indicative of the idyllic lifestyle he thinks that money can provide), sneering at the wild-eyed Alex and his rundown country home ‘Albion’, the oldest recorded name for Britain – suggesting the static, decaying society Alex and Marion represent. It’s a drama of manners, the high point being the extended restaurant sequence where Richard merrily spews his opinionated, capitalist bile to the mounting distress and fury of Alex as Marion and Angela try to maintain the civilised veneer of the sophisticated dinner party crowd. Back at the house the tension starts to build as Alex finally loses patience with Richard, and Marion and Richard flirt outrageously in front of Angela who just decides to go to bed and ignore it all. It’s a tense, tinderbox situation and as night falls Alex starts to dream again and before too long he’s sleepwalking…

Short, edgy and to the point, Sleepwalker is a sharp, barbed little movie, atmospherically shot by Logan from his own passionate script. It’s hardly a genre or horror movie in and of itself but the explosion of violence which brings events to a head is shocking, bloody and satisfyingly ambiguous. Frustratingly, Sleepwalker was Logan’s final director credit and whilst the film is, at best, a quirky oddity from a quirky talent, it’s a title the BFI are to be congratulated for exhuming and is worth investigating as an example of a genre-defying British movie which pulls no punches and makes no concessions to its audience’s sensibilities or expectations.

Extras: Three more short films – Logan’s 1977 ten-minute Stepping Out, Rodney Giesler’s 45-minute fantasy The Insomniac and Working Surface in which Bill Douglas plays a struggling writer / 75-minute Logan interview / Collector’s booklet

Review: The Last Exorcism Part II / Cert: 15 / Director: Ed Gass-Donnelly / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Ashley Bell, Julia Garner, Spencer Treat Clark / Release Date: September 30^th

The Last Exorcism was one of the better examples of the many horror films that rode the wave of found footage shockers in the wake of Paranormal Activity. The story had a small crew following a preacher and self-proclaimed exorcist as he visited a remote farmhouse belonging to Louis Sweetzer and his daughter Nell (Bell). It was Nell who would require the power of Christ to compel her as she convulsed and twisted her way towards a dramatic ending that saw her as the sole survivor. What happened next was anybody’s guess. Or at least it was.

In this second chapter, having found her way into the arms of social services, Nell is promptly housed at a home for troubled girls. What follows is a Carrie-style awakening as the formerly closeted Nell discovers life and love, all while the demon that possessed her tries to find a way back in. It’s hardly the apocalyptic scenario the ending of the first film alluded to.

The Last Exorcism Part II (which is, in itself, a ludicrous title, you might as well call it ‘The Absolutely Last Exorcism, We Promise’) also becomes one of the few horror sequels to make the switch from ‘found footage’ to conventional filmmaking. It’s an uncomfortable transition that has had little success in the past (Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows still stands as the worst example) and sadly, it doesn’t work particularly well in this case either. As in Blair Witch 2, footage from the first movie is discovered (this time on YouTube), but it’s a brief, almost throwaway moment that adds little to the story. Also, like Book of Shadows, this suffers from two massive missing elements: the original filmmaker’s involvement and any genuine scares whatsoever.

It’s the latter that is the film’s biggest downfall. Time after time, the old ‘cat jumping out of a garbage can’ scenario is thrown at you to get a cheap scare. From dogs jumping up from behind fences to people popping their heads around walls, the same gag is used over and over, which only serves to highlight the lack of any real threat or tension. And while you get the feeling that the slow-burning plot is building to a conclusion, when it does, it’s by no means worth the wait. Then, the final shot (without giving anything away) breaks the fourth wall that director Ed Gass-Donnelly went to such pains to introduce.

What does work is Ashley Bell’s portrayal of Nell. One of the primary reasons the first film was so convincing was Bell’s ability to blend heart-wrenching innocence with pant-soiling evil. While this go-round is more Carrie-revisited, she still holds up her end with a touching and believable performance that quite frankly deserved a better sequel. Unfortunately for her, this disappointing chapter was so abysmal, that a third last exorcism is most unlikely. Thank God for that.

Extras: None

Review: All Superheroes Must Die / Cert: 15 / Director: Jason Trost / Screenplay: Jason Trost / Starring: Jason Trost, Lucas Till, James Remar, Sophie Merkley, Lee Valmassy / Release Date: October 7^th

All Superheroes Must Die is the tale of a group of four superheroes – Charge (Trost), Cutthroat (Till), Shadow (Merkley), and The Wall (Valmassy) – who are brought back together by an old foe and his evil plan to destroy their town. Don’t be expecting to see any familiar faces here, as the superheroes in question have come from the mind of creator Jason Trost. With no backstory initially given to any of the characters, the film picks up the action straight from the off as our group have to make their way through the town to carry out specific tasks given to them by the villainous Rickshaw (Remar), with the lives of civilians hanging in the balance. To make their task even more difficult, the superheroes aren’t quite so ‘super,’ having also been stripped of their powers. As the title suggests, there are most certainly consequences to our heroes’ actions, with bloodshed, death and explicit language all dished out in full force.

Made for a bargain $20,000, the film (formerly known as Vs) is a plucky underdog in the grand scheme of the superhero landscape. Despite the fact that we don’t get to see any of our heroes’ actual powers, each character has their own unique persona, attitude and outlook. The crazed games created by Rickshaw leave the team having to question their own morals, agendas and beliefs, as the sinister villain does his best to channel traits from the Joker, the Riddler and Saw’s Jigsaw. As the film progresses, we begin to learn about the history of the heroes and their time previously working together, and it’s an effective way of getting around having to sit through the whole origins issue that pretty much every superhero film has to tick off their to-do list.

All Superheroes Must Die is a rare beast, in that it gives us a distinctly adult superhero film. All of the cast swear like nuns with Tourettes, and there’s grainy, dirty, grim, low-budget bloodshed a plenty. Not having to be constrained by the usual rules of a superhero film, Trost’s movie looks to make up the rules as it goes in a way that optimizes its modest budget and resources.

Whilst the film may appear flawed and amateurish to those more used to the likes of Iron Man, Avengers Assemble and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Trost does a good job with the tools at his disposal. The action and acting are nothing great, and it often feels like the sort of fan-made short film you find online, but I can’t praise James Remar’s fantastically delivered bad guy enough. All Superheroes Must Die isn’t going to become your new best friend, but it may become the scruffy, dirty homeless guy that you say hello to now and again.

Extras: Intro from Jason Trost / Two Featurettes / Four episodes of ‘Blood Beasts’ / Trailer

Review: Doctor Who – Terror of the Zygons / Cert: PG / Director: Douglas Camfield / Screenplay: Robert Banks Stewart / Starring: Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Ian Marter, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene, John Woodnutt / Release Date: September 30th

1975’s Terror of the Zygons, the first four-part serial from Tom Baker’s second season is, for now, the final complete Doctor Who serial to make its way onto shiny silver disc. Whilst it’s not exactly a case of ‘saving the best till last’, the BBC have at least kept back until (nearly) the end of the DVD range a decent, well-remembered story and lavished it with a generous afternoon’s-worth of quality special features.

Baker had by now bedded nicely into the role, his first season moving him away from his predecessor Jon Pertwee’s role as scientific adviser for paramilitary soldier boys UNIT and recreating the Doctor as a traveller in Space and Time. Yet this serial tears the Doctor back to Earth and sits him rather uncomfortably into just the sort of story the Pertwee era had specialised in: Earth in danger from rubber aliens and the Doctor teaming up with UNIT to see them off. But it’s not the sort of story that suits Baker’s more quixotic personality – the actor himself was keen to dump the whole UNIT set-up and move on – and there’s a definite sense of ennui and ‘seen-it-all-before’ about proceedings and a sense that the series is straining to get away from contemporary Earth and tell more imaginative stories.

But as ‘greatest hits’ packages go, Terror of the Zygons isn’t a bad one and ultimately it’s a final curtain call for a format which served the show well for the previous five years. Summoned back to Earth by the Brigadier (Courtney), the Doctor, Sarah (Sladen) and Harry (Marter) find themselves in Scotland (a shame the resolutely Southern England locations rarely look remotely Scottish) where UNIT are investigating a spate of destructive attacks on oil rigs. Footage excised from the original cut of the travellers arriving in an invisible TARDIS has been reinstated (although the broadcast version is available for completists), graded and coloured to match the episode itself – seventy-odd seconds of previously-unseen Baker/Sladen/Marter footage which pretty much makes this an essential purchase. The Doctor quickly deduces that the attacks are the work of “a monster of frightening size and power” under the control of the Zygons, shape-shifting aliens hiding beneath the waters of Loch Ness in their crippled spaceship.

It’s a slight and occasionally random story, but there’s so much going on in Terror of the Zygons it’s easy to overlook its shortcomings and just revel in the atmospheric production and earnest performances. The Zygons themselves, knobbly bright foetus-like orange creations, remain one of Doctor Who’s most convincing aliens (the cliffhanger to episode one, with Sarah Jane threatened by a Zygon which looms out of the shadows at her is one of the show’s classics), so it’s baffling that it’s taken 38 years for them to make a return appearance. Fans will be hoping that Steven Moffat will be able to treat them with respect for their appearance in the forthcoming Day of the Doctor anniversary episode. Where the Zygons are a triumph, their pet Skarasen (Doctor Who’s first explanation for the Loch Ness Monster) isn’t quite so successful. Realised by crude stop motion animation in a sequence where the Doctor is chased across Tulloch Moor, its reappearance in the final episode as a glove puppet rearing out of the Thames is one of Doctor Who’s more embarrassing, head-slapping moments.

The story itself is full of holes and illogicalities; it’s never properly explained why the Skarasen is destroying the oil rigs and the World Peace Conference gambit in the final episode is a desperate and obvious bit of padding for a story which has suddenly run out of steam. But the chemistry between Baker and Sladen is becoming palpable, Sarah chasing the shape-shifted Zygon/Harry has a satisfactorily grisly outcome and there’s plenty of fun to be had with the inevitable Scottish clichés employed to convince the audience they’re in Scotland when they’re so clearly not. The serial’s cause is helped enormously by the late Douglas Camfield‘s slick no-nonsense direction. At the end of the story, the Doctor and Sarah set off in the TARDIS, leaving Harry and the Brigadier and his UNIT stalwarts behind, pretty much forever. Doctor Who was changing, heading into bold new directions which would take it to new heights of acclaim and popularity. Terror of the Zygons is frothy, lightweight stuff, but it’s a worthy and nostalgic last gasp for a series format and characters the audience had learned to love throughout the early 1970s.

Previously issued as a bare-bones disc in June’s Fourth Doctor Time Capsule (Starburst 392) this 2-disc set is packed with goodies, including a tribute to director Camfield and a slightly elegiac farewell to the UNIT family. Scotch Mist in Sussex looks at the making of the serial, there are archive interviews with Baker and Sladen, South Today sees Baker interviewed on location and The Fuel Fishers is a children’s documentary programme hosted by Sladen exploring the real-life work of oil-riggers. Commentaries, Easter eggs, photo gallery, production subtitles and a 5.1 soundtrack also feature.

Extras: See above

Review: The Pit and the Pendulum / Cert: 18 / Director: Stuart Gordon / Screenplay: Dennis Paoli / Starring: Lance Henriksen, Jeffrey Combs, Rona De Ricci, Jonathan Fuller, Mark Margolis / Release Date: Out Now

“What a day, what a day for an auto-de-fé!” to quote Leonard Bernstein. Based on the famous tale by Edgar Allan Poe, The Pit and the Pendulum is set in 15th century Toledo during the time of the Spanish Inquisition (based on an idea by mad monk Torquemada, here played by Lance Henriksen in a tufty latex bald-cap). In what has to count as one of the worst money-making schemes in history, humble baker Antonio (Fuller) comes up with the notion of selling bread to the crowds gathering for the public executions. But things go horribly wrong when his pretty young wife Maria (De Ricci) intercedes to stop a small boy from being flogged. She’s seized and brought before Torquemada, who falls in lust, then accuses her of having cast a spell over him and has her hauled off to be tried as a witch. And, just put to the seal on a real bummer of a day, all of Antonio’s loaves get trampled underfoot in the mayhem…

A modern film adaptation of the same premise would give you desaturated visuals and have the cast up to their knees in horse manure. This version, made in 1991, is brightly hued and everyone speaks with American accents, but it achieves its own kind of authenticity. The tone is set with a great opening scene wherein a dead nobleman is dragged from his tomb and posthumously found guilty of heresy. Torquemada rants at the withered cadaver, then sentences it to twenty lashes, a punishment that reduces it to a rubble of disarticulated bones. It’s a convincing depiction of the lunacy of a dreadful epoch.

The screenplay by Dennis Paoli bursts with highly imaginative touches. Sentenced to burn at the stake for witchcraft, an old woman gobbles gunpowder in hopes it will shorten her agony and create a nasty surprise for the onlookers. Torquemada’s chief thug Mendoza (Margolis) has stigmata on his hands where he was once crucified, and Torquemada plunges his fingers into the holes when he wants to make a point. Director Stuart Gordon drives the film along with unfussy skill, blending black comedy, melodrama, gory horror and rollicking adventure into a satisfying whole.

Starburst reviewed this movie, one of the jewels in Full Moon Features’ crown, last year when it was re-released on DVD. Now it’s finally made its way onto Blu-ray, and the upgrade confirms what a well-crafted piece of work it is. Hi-def brings out the fine grain and depth of field of the late Mac Ahlberg’s EC Comics-inspired cinematography, and the genuinely luminous quality of De Ricci’s performance as the much-abused Maria. The extras are the same as before with the addition of an interview with Gordon in which he tells amusing anecdotes about, among others, Oliver Reed (so drunk he couldn’t stand up all weekend, sober as a deacon first thing on Monday).

Extras: Interview with Stuart Gordon / Videozone / Original Trailer

Review: Thanatomorphose / Cert: 18 / Director: Eric Felardeau / Screenplay: Eric Felardeau / Starring: Kayden Rose, Davyd Tousignant, Emile Beaudry / Release Date: November 25th

Rotting never felt this good! So says the publicity for this jaw-dropping (literally) body horror feature debut from French-Canadian director Eric Felardeau. Reminiscent of New French Extremity films like Inside and In My Skin, Thanatomorphose takes its title from the French term for the visible signs of an organism’s decomposition caused by death. That pretty much sums up the plot: alienated young sculptress, Laura (Rose) moves into a Montreal apartment where she spends her time suffering in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend, Antoine (Tousignant), and feeling equally rejected by the artistic establishment who refuse her an arts grant. She is dying inside (literally). One morning she wakes up to find her body slowly and inexorably starting to decay.

Inspired by a mix of Cronenberg, Jorg Buttgereit and Kierkegaard, Felardeau has crafted a slow but extremely powerful and deeply disturbing vision of a woman’s inner hell that eventually rots her body as well as her soul and sends her plummeting into the abyss. What begins as a few bruises gradually deteriorates into a severe case of necrotising fasciitis, and Laura locks herself in her apartment in an attempt to control and finally come to terms with what is happening to her. All this is presented in bravura manner by special make up effects artist David Scherer, who, like Felardeau and DP Benoit Lemire, pulls off extraordinary things (literally) on a tiny budget.

Thanatomorphose is tight, claustrophobic and starkly realised. Taking place entirely within the confines of Laura’s apartment, it owes more than a little to Polanski’s Repulsion, and like that film wears its sexual politics admirably on its sleeve. “I thought you loved me! I’m just a cheap fuck!” the blackened, rotted Laura screams at Antoine as he deigns to come visit her during the advanced stages of her illness. But if Laura’s frenzied attacks on Antoine and other intruders veer into the more predictable territory of Repulsion’s murder sequences, Thanatomorphose remains true to its own thesis throughout: unlike the Catherine Deneuve character in Polanski’s film, Laura directs her disgust not so much at the men around her as at herself. “It is a film about the body as an object”, Felardeau has observed, “a commodity”. Laura’s plight is horrific, repulsive and ultimately tragic as her flesh increasingly betrays her and provides none of the comfort she desperately craves.

With its minimalist narrative, abstract video sequences and funereal score, Thanatomorphose may be a little too avant-garde for some tastes (essentially it’s an underground movie – in the best sense – with all the trappings that experimental ‘psychodrama’ entails), and hypochondriacs are well-advised to avoid this one. But if you’re into existential body horror you will be impressed. This may be the most cerebral low budget feature debut since Christopher Nolan’s Following.

Extras: Two short films by the director / Behind-the-scenes feature / Trailer

Review: Doctor Who – The Tenth Planet / Cert: PG / Director: Derek Martinus / Screenplay: Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis / Starring: William Hartnell, Anneke Wills, Michael Craze, Robert Stephens / Release Date: October 14^th

Released earlier this year in a vanilla edition in the celebratory Regenerations set (Starburst 391), William Hartnell’s swansong as the Doctor arrives on its own dedicated special edition which presents the existing three episodes with a well-animated fourth episode sitting in for the currently missing televised instalment (although the regeneration footage which exists appears in one of the special features).

We’ll cut to the chase on this one; the real USP of this release is the inclusion amongst the special features of an archive interview with Hartnell post-Doctor Who, discovered some time ago by researcher Richard Bignell and held back for DVD release. Filmed in 1966 after Hartnell had relinquished the role, with the actor in his dressing room preparing to take to the stage in a Puss in Boots pantomime production, it offers a fascinating look at Hartnell in what remains his only known surviving filmed interview footage. It reinforces the popular fan image of Hartnell as grumpy and irascible and whilst he’s ferociously protective of his career as a character actor, determined not to be typecast by his three-year stint on Doctor Who, hindsight offers the material a certain poignancy. We know that illness curtailed his aspirations beyond Doctor Who but he’s on fighting form here, belittling and demeaning the art of pantomime even as he’s greasing up to perform in one and brushing aside any thought of typecasting after three years of TARDIS travel. But there’s an air of desperation about him, as if he’s aware that his career’s coming to an end but won’t dare to admit it. Fascinating, priceless and yet really rather sad.

But The Tenth Planet itself has several claims to fame. It’s Hartnell’s farewell, of course, and it also introduces the Cybermen into Doctor Who mythology. But these clunky, wobbly-voiced, human-handed creatures are a far cry from the sleek, super-fast machine-monsters of their most recent TV appearance in Neil Gaiman’s limp Nightmare in Silver earlier this year. They’re also considerably better. Created in an attempt to give the show a less fantastical and more scientific background, the Cybermen were inspired by writer Kit Pedler’s disquiet about medical advances in cybernetics and body-part replacement. The story is set in and around the Mission Control centre of a subterranean tracking base near the South Pole in 1986 (which makes the story futuristic from a 1966 perspective but historical from ours). The Doctor, Ben (Craze) and Polly (Wills) arrive just as a ‘new’ planet is spotted drifting close to the Earth, a planet the Doctor quickly identifies as Earth’s long-lost sister planet Mondas. Mondas is dying and its inhabitants are humanoids who have replaced chunks of their bodies with cybernetic parts, in the process erasing all trace of emotion, which they’ve replaced with cold logic. With Mondas draining the Earth of its power, the Cybermen plan to take human beings back to Mondas for conversion into their own kind.

The Tenth Planet is actually quite a stagy, talky production. Most of the action takes place in the Snowcap control room and consists of the Cybermen, with their remarkable sing-song modulated voices, arguing with the base’s human technicians or else threatening doom and gloom for the human race. Hartnell himself is generally on better form than he had been for a while (although illness necessitated his absence from episode three) and there is an air of doomy finality about the story; the “contemporary” scientific setting itself suggests that Doctor Who is changing even as the Doctor himself starts to falter. Despite the regeneration sequence at the end of episode four, The Tenth Planet really belongs to the Cybermen. More sophisticated modern viewers might find them laughable but it’s the idea of the creatures, often lost in modern stories where they’re little more than faceless robots or canon fodder, which makes them so memorable. Here they’re deeply sinister, an eerie, awkward presence, a symbol of a race not really that much more advanced than humanity taking tentative steps along a new technological road. It’s not much fun being Tenth Planet Cybermen, speaking in a squeaky voice and carrying a gigantic searchlight-like lamp in front of their chests, but their ungainly appearance is symptomatic of their determination for their species to survive. As a design element the Cybermen were to become refined and modified as they returned in later years (frequently during Patrick Troughton’s era) but they’ve probably never really been more effective than here in depicting the horror of what they actually are.

Overall, then, The Tenth Planet ends the Hartnell era on a high, the show starting to take itself seriously again after the meandering quaintness of much of its third year. It’s the end of the first Doctor but this debut tussle with the Cybermen was to create another legacy for the show which would endure for the next fifty years. This bulging 2-disc set, packed with admittedly loosely associated mop-up featurettes and clips, is a satisfying and eclectic testament to the legacy of both Hartnell’s Doctor and his final adversaries.

Extras: Moderated commentary with Anneke Wills and supporting cast / Hartnell interview / “Making of” documentary / Archive Anneke Wills interview / Blue Peter clip, Boys! Boys! Boys! Feature / Companion Piece feature / Episode 4 reconstruction from the 2000 VHS release/ Photo gallery

Review: Twixt / Cert: 15 / Director: Francis Ford Coppola / Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola / Starring: Val Kilmer, Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning / Release Date: October 28th

Francis Ford Coppola has created some of the finest cinema in history with films like Apocalypse Now and The Godfather Parts 1 and 2. In recent years, after Jack, he has tried to regain some credibility by making low-key independent dramas such as Youth Without Youth and Tetro. His latest film, Twixt, was originally intended to be an experimental piece where he would be behind the scenes when the film played, messing with the edit and changing scenes depending on the mood of the audience. This ultimately proved too ambitious and the delays in production meant that Coppola had to lock an edit, which in retrospect should have been abandoned altogether.

Twixt finds low-rent bereaved horror novelist Hall Baltimore (Kilmer) ending up in a strange small town which features a clock with seven faces all telling different times. Through dreams and the attentions of a wannabe novelist sheriff, Hall starts uncovering the mystery of a murdered girl who he encounters in ghostly fashion. This all has a connection to his own tragic past as well as a potential new story idea.

Right off the bat you should know that Twixt is awful. Even if you did have Coppola in attendance messing around behind the scenes, it’s difficult to see how this could improve what is ultimately a shambles. Val Kilmer is solid but has nothing to work with. He just stands around in the poorly framed and poorly shot scenes as things happen around him with no coherence, no thought and a genuine contempt for audiences who love horror. Coppola invokes Edgar Allan Poe and Hammer horror, but clearly has no real affection for any of it; it just serves as a backdrop to a film that feels like a student effort that should have gone straight to YouTube.

To be fair to the film, there are one or two laughs and Bruce Dern as the Sheriff is good value, even though at his age he seems to have trouble walking and his talents would be better served elsewhere. There is also a nice use of colour in some of the dream sequences. None of this is enough though in a film which feels like watching your granddad dance to dubstep at a party in an effort to be ‘down with the kids’.

Twixt is a film best forgotten by all those involved and is a major blotch on an otherwise solid career. It doesn’t even have any value as a camp or ‘so bad it’s good’ movie. Hard to believe that Coppola once directed Bram Stoker’s Dracula and somehow twenty years later turned this out. Avoid.

Extras: TBC

Review: The Iceman / Cert: 15 / Director: Ariel Vroman / Screenplay: Ariel Vroman, Morgan Land / Starring: Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta, Chris Evans, David Schwimmer, James Franco / Release Date: September 30th

Michael Shannon is fast becoming one of the great actors of the day. Though Starburst readers may know him as Man of Steel’s General Zod, he takes the lead in Ariel Vroman’s crime thriller The Iceman. As the film opens, Shannon’s character is on a date with his future wife (Ryder); he’s a little awkward but seems kind-hearted. We then see him in a bar playing pool. Another gent takes the opportunity to insult his girlfriend. This rude fella leaves the bar and starts up his car, when Shannon suddenly reappears – and emotionlessly cuts his throat. This is the true story of Richard Kuklinski, killer of over 100, hitman.

The story goes on to trace Kuklinski’s career, from his beginnings in the 1950s through his sideburn-infested ’70s heyday and up to his ’80s downfall, all shot with an overwhelmingly brown colour palette. It knows the gangster genre well; there are hits, betrayals, and even a mafia boss played by Ray Liotta. Also worth looking out for are Captain America himself Chris Evans, as a fellow hitman who moonlights as an ice cream man, and a great cameo from James Franco (who pulled out of the larger role later given to Evans).

While a lot of this is your typical gangster fare, there’s another side to Kuklinski – when not out murdering, he’s a family man. He takes his kids skating, goes for dinner with family friends, and reads an embarrassingly trite poem at his daughter’s birthday. He’s enormously protective of his family and becomes enraged when anyone thinks of threatening them. But when the boss terminates his employment, Kuklinski has no poor saps to take his anger out on and so becomes unstable, often losing his temper around his family and putting them in danger. It’s this dual life, and how the two lives seep into each other when everything starts to fall apart, that’s fascinating about the character.

What would be nice to see is more about what built this man – there’s a brief flashback to being beaten as a child, and one scene in which he visits his convict brother. These scenes promise more, but are sadly never expanded upon, and it feels like more could be done here to really get into the heart of the character.

Nevertheless, Michael Shannon is terrific – this is the perfect role for him. With an imposing physicality and an intense, brooding quality, Shannon inhabits the role of Kuklinski masterfully. He channels an intense anger, making the hitman someone who’d be scary to be around, yet he also makes us feel that he truly cares for his family.

The script may not be perfect, but The Iceman is made remarkable thanks to Shannon’s utterly gripping powerhouse performance. It’s well worth seeking out when The Iceman cometh to DVD on 30th September.

Extras: BTS Featurette / Interviews with Ariel Vroman, Producer Ehud Bleiberg, Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, and Chris Evans

Review: Doctor Who – The Monster Collection / Cert: PG / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Roger Delgado, John Simm / Release Date: September 30th

In the early years of its 21st century resurrection, Doctor Who rarely put a foot wrong. Under showrunner Russell T. Davies the series combined intelligent, emotional scripts with state-of-the-art special effects and production values gifted to some of the country’s most respected actors to produce a show which reinvented the idea of Saturday night family drama. The award-winning, ratings-busting show has become a phenomenon all over again. But oddly enough, what it’s not always done – especially under Davies’ replacement Steven Moffat – is treat the Doctor’s most iconic adversaries with the respect they really deserve. The odd dodgy storyline aside, the Daleks and the Cybermen are powerful enough creations to withstand even the shonkiest ill-advised costume redesign but others haven’t been quite so lucky. Moffat’s take on the ferociously-warlike Sontarans and noble subterranean Silurians has robbed both of their dignity, reducing them to tiresome one-note quip machines. Even Davies’ version of The Master, a powerhouse performance from John Simm, can’t hope to match the suavely sinister 1970s incarnation of the Doctor’s very own Moriarty figure, as played by the late Roger Delgado.

The Monster Collection, a set of single and two-disc DVD releases celebrating the Doctor’s most persistent enemies, pairs up a ‘classic series’ serial (generally an introductory story) with episodes from the revived series. The idea might be to demonstrate how Doctor Who has moved on from its early days as well as how enduring his deadliest adversaries have become by introducing a possibly reluctant ‘new series’ audience to the dark and mysterious world of ‘old’ Doctor Who. Unfortunately the set only serves to highlight the fact that the bad old guys haven’t had the best of times since 2005 because, almost without exception and from purely a story point of view, the ‘old series’ stories here beat the newbies hands down. The pacing is faster, the special effects are whizzier, the acting (probably) better but the new series episodes here just don’t present modern Doctor Who in the best light and, in many ways, lay bare the flaws of the current series’ format when presented side-by-side with stone cold classics from a long-gone TV age.

The Dalek collection sets the scene with its combination, across two discs, of the show’s second-ever serial, Terry Nation’s The Daleks ,with the 2012 Steven Moffat romp Asylum of the Daleks. It’s no contest. Regardless of its place in Who (and TV) history, Nation’s seven-episode William Hartnell serial is an old-fashioned adventure story, goodies versus baddies on an interplanetary scale. This is, after all, the story which turned Doctor Who from a Saturday night curio into a fully-fledged ratings monster; the introduction of the Daleks made the show a national talking point. The pace may drag a bit across its seven episodes but The Daleks is still a smart and intelligent serial. Now compare and contrast with Asylum of the Daleks, in which the Daleks themselves are largely deep in the background of a story more concerned with witty dialogue, dreary character relationship beats (courtesy of the not much-missed Amy and Rory) and a plot which has the temerity to rewrite Doctor Who history by erasing fifty years of enmity between the Doctor and the Daleks who, it now appears, have never heard of him. Despite a few good ideas and the usual impressive FX work, Asylum of the Daleks really can’t hold a candle to a serial made nearly half a century ago on a total budget of around £15,000.

Sadly it’s the same story across the entire Monsters Collection range. Patrick Troughton on top form in the creepy and claustrophic Tomb of the Cybermen from 1967 or David Tennant (good as he is) in the 2006 two-part misfire Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel? What do you think? The Sontarans make their debut in 1974 Jon Pertwee serial The Time Warrior (equally notable as the first appearance by Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith), which is paired here with 2008’s Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky two-parter. This is more of a close call as the Tennant/Catherine Tate combination is irresistible and it’s good to see the Sontarans en masse at last, but Pertwee probably gets it on points as the first Sontaran costume/mask design has never been bettered. More Pertwee in 1970’s immaculate, stately Doctor Who and the Silurians; watch and weep as the same creatures are clumsily reinvented as mask-wearing humanoids in the woeful 2010 two-parter The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood, starring Matt Smith. The Davros collection sees the Daleks’ creator introduced in 1975 Tom Baker six-parter Genesis of the Daleks and returning in the hugely entertaining 2008 series finale The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End. The latter is a massive apocalyptic epic, Davies-era Who at its most popular/populist, but Genesis of the Daleks is, quite simply, the better story, often regarded as the best in the show’s long history. Finally we have the Master collection where we meet Delgado’s twisted Time Lord for the first time in the recoloured 1971 Pertwee serial Terror of the Autons and the two-part End of Time story from 2009/10. But this is really David Tennant’s story, the popular actor’s extended swansong, and whilst Simm’s Master is now utterly unhinged and mesmerising to watch, the story is random and threadbare, symptomatic of Russell T. Davies finally running out of creative energy.

The Monster Collection is a nifty and clever way of commemorating fifty years of Doctor Who’s best baddies (and these cheaply-priced discs are likely to be handy stocking fillers as well as a relatively risk free way of investigating creaky ‘old’ Who) but it does the new series few favours even as it reminds us just how good the original Doctor Who series could be when it was firing on all cylinders. Hardened fans will find little of interest here (unless they’re after budget-priced editions of favourite episodes) but there’s a good chance the old series could pick up a few new admirers as the Monsters Collection serves to help launch the show’s anniversary celebrations in November.

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