Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Naruto Shippuden The Movie 3 – The Will of Fire / Cert: 12 / Director: Masahiko Murata / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Chie Nakamura, Junko Tacheuchi / Release Date: August 12th

While The Will of Fire is part of a continuing series, it works very well as a standalone film. The story in this is pretty easy to follow, with the world being under threat from a ninja with a grudge. This ninja wants nothing more than to absorb the power of five powerful beings in order to become immortal. The only thing standing in the way of these nefarious plans is Naruto and his band of heroes.

The film immerses the viewer from the first minute with its beautiful art, fluid animation and exciting music. The look of this is very similar to Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, with its clean visuals and attention to detail, but make no mistake – this is no Studio Ghibli. The writing serves the story and the characters well, keeping the viewer engaged. There are no long monologues: the film just gets on with it. The action and fights are plentiful, well choreographed and, more importantly, dramatic, with a real sense of threat. The Will of Fire proves to be a feast of entertainment with the standard of voice acting from Funimation as high as ever. This film is highly recommended to old and new fans of anime; you will not be disappointed.

Review: The Moth Diaries / Cert: 15 / Director: Mary Harron / Screenplay: Mary Harron / Starring: Sarah Bolger, Lily Cole, Sarah Gadon, Anne Day-Jones, Scott Speedman / Release Date: September 16th

The Moth Diaries is most certainly a film open to interpretation. Based on the Rachel Klein novel of the same name, the story focuses on Rebecca (Bolger), a girl who goes back to boarding school after losing her father to suicide. Upon her return, she invests all of her time and thoughts into her friends, particularly Lucy (Gadon). New on the scene is Ernessa (Cole), a mysterious, brooding figure who gets rather close with Lucy, causing Rebecca to suspect that there’s more to Ernessa than meets the eye. Part psychological horror, part classic vampire tale, and with a whole lot of homoeroticism thrown in for good measure, The Moth Diaries is a unique, stylish tale. There are nods to old classic vampire tales, whilst visually the film is in the mould of Stoker.

Still, whilst the film looks stunning – the tone, colouring and texturing are all fantastically put together – there are some problems with the story. Seemingly scared to commit to a particular route, The Moth Diaries loiters and toils in cinematic purgatory for a good portion of the middle act. The film establishes its story well, and the end is what it is, but it’s the middle that stagnates and drags. As a result, by the time the ending does come, some viewers may have lost the will to care.

As for the film’s key characters, they are a mixed bag. The main group of friends are made up of several throwaway characters at best, with only Rebecca, Lucy and Ernessa given any real depth. Due to this, the performances, bar Bolger, Gadon and Cole, are all nondescript and just there to fill screen time. Even Scott Speedman, a personal favourite, is neither here nor there. His character suffers the same fate as the film itself, as it seems to be a victim of poorly timed cuts and jittery scene placement.

The star of the show here is clearly Lily Cole. Her doll-like features add perfectly to the mysterious Ernessa, and she puts in a great, sleek, slick turn here. As mentioned, Bolger and Gadon are also good, but they only really stand out due to being the only characters to get adequate time to shine.

The Moth Diaries turns out to be style over substance, as Harron seems to fill the film with needless, drawn-out scenes. That said, it’s by no means a disaster, and given its array of boobs, blood and bat-shit craziness, fans of slick, lesbian-overtoned, possibly vampiric/possibly mentally aberrant tales will find a lot to take from this. That’s quite the subgenre, though.

Extras: None

Review: Simon Killer / Cert: 18 / Director: Antonio Campos / Screenplay: Antonio Campos, Brady Corbet/ Starring: Brady Corbet, Lila Salet, Mati Diop/ Release Date: August 26th 

People named Simon, rest easy. No one wants to kill you. While that would be an original concept for a horror film, the idea of a serial killer who only victimises people called Simon is quite limited. Especially in France, where Simon Killer is set.

No, Simon (Corbet) himself is the killer in question, a heartbroken young man who travels to Paris in order to clear his clouded head and heart. There he meets and hires Victoria (Diop), a local prostitute. So plays out Simon Killer, a very classy European genre movie noticeably lacking in much killing, be it via Simon or otherwise. Lots of sweaty European sex though, if that’s what floats your boat. Anyway, as Simon and Victoria get closer and closer, their business transactions begin to take on a completely different tack. It’s not long before the money goes out of the window and Simon is in a relationship with a prostitute. She, meanwhile, is in a relationship with an increasingly dangerous, unhinged man. Nobody’s perfect.

Artfully shot, occasionally subtitled and utterly humourless, Simon Killer won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. By the time Simon looks like he might make good on the promise of the title, he’ll already have lost a lot of people. It’s reminiscent of such pieces as Possession and Irreversible, crossed with a Tom Ripley story. It’s only a Ryan Gosling away from being a Nicolas Winding Refn film. It looks fantastic, whether it’s depicting the neon-lit streets of Paris, a crowded nightclub or the intimacy of Simon’s bedroom. Simon isn’t a terribly charismatic or likeable sociopath (bad form, shouting at people for speaking French in France) but the interesting look and mood of the film makes it worth sticking with. It should play very well to the art house crowd, who can enjoy its sensuous, steamy sex scenes (not in a sleazy way), artier camera tricks and moody atmospherics.

Far from simple, Simon isn’t quite killer, but nor is it a complete loss either.

Extras: Behind the scenes footage / Interviews / Trailer / Booklet

Review: Outpost 11 / Cert: 18 / Director: Anthony Woodley / Screenplay: Anthony Woodley / Starring: Billy Clarke, Luke Healy, Bernard Hill / Release Date: September 30th

When did they make ten Outpost sequels? They didn’t, of course, although Outpost III: Rise of the Spetsnaz is also out on DVD in October. No, Outpost 11 is its own thing, an alternate history in which the world is still run by steam power. Three soldiers, manning an isolated station in the Arctic Circle, find themselves in big trouble when the omnipresent warning light they are beholden to suddenly goes off. It’s like Lost in the middle of the Arctic Circle.

That there’s a lot of snow will also lead everyone to describe it as being a lot like The Thing. It is, but that’s only insomuch as it snows all the time, people die and there’s an outside influence trying its hardest to get in. Imagine all this with British accents (and one Irish), and you pretty much have the sum of Outpost 11‘s parts. While 101 Films are putting out some good stuff at the moment, this isn’t among their better releases. Cheap, badly acted, and low on tension and scares, it’s worth sticking with only for Billy Clarke, playing angry soldier Graham. He’s perhaps the worst of the actors, but there’s a magnetic quality about his Irish accent, odd looks and receding hairline. He has a strange charisma, which is at least more than any of the others have. The hitman drama The Devil’s Business is a better showcase of his dubious talents, but he is Outpost 11‘s biggest redeeming factor.

Interesting titbit, fact fans: Clarke also appeared in The Thing: 27,000 Hours, a short fan film in which a group of soldiers try to determine which among them is harbouring a ‘thing’. It’s facts like that, Billy Clarke, which will lead people to accuse you of making a Thing rip-off. Outpost 11 is no rip-off, The Thing or otherwise. It tries to do its own, uh, thing, but fails rather miserably. While the concept is interesting enough to sustain viewers for a while, it’s too slow and dull to be worth recommending. When the biggest thing your film has going for it is an enjoyably crummy actor, you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere down the line.

Extras: None

Review: The Aquabats! Super Show! – Season 1 / Cert: PG / Director: Jason DeVilliers, Matt Chapman / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Christian Jacobs, Richard Falomir, James Briggs, Ian Fowles, Chad Larson / Release Date: 22nd July

MC Bat Commander, Crash McLarson, Ricky Fitness, Eagletones Falconhawk, and Jimmy The Robot; together they are the Aquabats, crime fighters and part-time rock band. It is their mission to fight crime and protect the innocent in this DVD collection of their first season.

We follow the Aquabats on several of their crazy adventures. In Manant, several attacks on burger joints across the city lead the gang to a villain who’s making lies in the past of Crash McLarson. Meanwhile, in Mysterious Egg, the discovery of the aforementioned item by the Aquabats leads to trouble… of giant, mutant proportions! Also worth a note is Cowboy Android, in which the Aquabats find themselves in a typical Western town with a not-so-typical android Sherriff.

The Aquabats! Super Show! feels as if it rolls together elements of The Mighty Boosh with the Adam West Batman series and just a hint of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for good measure and the result is very entertaining. The programme owes a lot to the 60s Batman series with its absurd plots, its amusingly, over the top villains, and its comic melodrama; children will find it perilous whereas their parents will find it utterly hilarious, which is all part of its charm. Another nice feature is the parodies of adverts aimed at children, while the cartoon interludes give Aquabats that feel of the Saturday morning telly of yesteryear, which is very appealing.

However, its fundamental flaw is that it is nothing we haven’t seen before; you can watch around three to four episodes before it becomes boring (it took this reviewer the best of a week to get through the box set). Meanwhile, even for someone who does have a passion for slapstick, Aquabats does get that bit too silly at times (though I do appreciate that it is largely aimed at children).

Aquabats! Super Show! takes you back to the television of your youth; big stories and big villains, with its tongue firmly in its cheek (and its only when you’re an adult do you realise the irony). It doesn’t reinvent children’s television but it is certainly entertaining.

Review: Link/Cert: 15/Directed by Richard Franklin/Screenplay by Everett De Roche/Starring Elisabeth Shue, Terence Stamp, Steven Pinner, David O’Hara, Kevin Lloyd, some monkeys/Date of release: 26th August 2013

Now, here’s a pleasant surprise. This long-forgotten 1986 monkey mayhem movie, described by director Richard Franklin as “a sort of Jaws with chimps” (he later dismissed it as “an unsatisfying experience”) actually turns out to be an extremely competent and well-crafted horror thriller which echoes the likes of Konga and even the classic King Kong. Less ludicrous than the former and, obviously, considerably less iconic and ground-breaking than the latter, Link is clearly long overdue the rediscovery and re-evaluation this budget-price DVD release should afford it.

In only her second film role, Elisabeth Shue plays London School of Science student Jane Chase, who offers to spend her summer break in the remote Scottish home of her tutor Dr Steven Philip (Stamp), assisting him with his intelligence experiments with young chimpanzees. One of Philip’s apes is a ferocious and super-intelligent chimp (in reality a disguised orangutan) called Link. When Phillip conspires to have him put down, due to his violent and unpredictable nature, Link goes bananas. Then, Philip goes missing, Jane finds herself alone in the house with tame chimp Imp, and Link decides to fully assert his superiority against those who have subjugated him.

It’s hard to imagine what behind-the-scenes unpleasantness must have soured Franklin against his movie, because what’s on screen is tense, atmospheric stuff. Franklin slowly ratchets up our sense of unease as we begin to suspect that Link is seriously smarter than the average chimp. Before long, would-be captors and rescuers are being ruthlessly seen off by the sinister simian and Jane is fighting for her life against an antagonistic anthropoid which will stop at nothing to wipe her out.

Link is a terrific romp of a movie, skilfully and cleverly directed by Franklin, and very recognisably a product of its time – Shue’s mullet hair and Jerry Goldsmith’s jauntily inappropriate, thudding, synth-driven score virtually carbon-date the movie into the 1980s. Nevertheless, it offers a crisp and refreshing take on the Man vs. Nature story which is as compulsive and irresistible today as it was back when Jaws led the way for Link and the dozens of other killer animal movies which followed in its wake. Hugely watchable, great fun, and genuinely exciting, Link really shouldn’t be missing from your  chimp chiller collection.

Special features: Trailers, stills gallery.

Review: Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors/Cert: PG/Directed by Derek Martinus/Screenplay by Brian Hayles/Starring Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Deborah Watling, Peter Barkworth, Bernard Bresslaw, Peter Sallis/Release Date: 26th August 2013

The BBC’s systematic plugging of the current gaps in the Doctor Who archive continues with the series’ best animation project to date, as the two missing episodes from this 1967 six-part serial – episodes two and three – are brought back to life so sympathetically that, for the first time, they genuinely feel like part of the original production. While previous animations have jarred the viewer out of the story by opting for anachronistic tics and flourishes over sticking to the tone of the surviving episodes, the two animated episodes here benefit from some astonishing cast likenesses and a straight-forward, unfussy recreation of the missing footage which just lets the story get on with it.

The titular Warriors made their long-awaited comeback to the series earlier this year in Mark Gatiss’ Cold War, but in truth the lumbering Martian reptilians (and if the word ‘lumbering’ didn’t exist we’d have to invent it to describe their very particular mode of perambulation) have really never been better than in this debut story. The Ice Warriors is bristling with clever ideas even if many of them aren’t its own; exhumed from creeping glacial ice, resurrected Ice Warrior Varga can’t help but recall The Thing From Another World (in all its incarnations), but the siting of the story’s core location, the Britannia Base battling to hold back the encroaching ice field during a new Ice Age far in the future, within the walls of an Edwardian country house, is typical off-the-wall quirky Doctor Who. In the DVD’s ‘making of’ feature, designer Jeremy Davies recalls wondering how on Earth the serial’s ambitious scripts could be realised on a 1960s BBC budget with its demands for ice fields, ice caves, spaceship interiors, and the human enclave itself. Davies is pleased with how well the episodes hold up and so he should be; filming at Ealing sound-stages gives the icescape sequences a real sense of depth and scale, while the impressive Brittania Base interior is a sterling example of the show’s mid-to-late 1960s preference for centring much of its action on one huge fully-functioning set.

We’re used to modern Doctor Who episodes full of top-drawer guest performers, but, despite its popularity in the 1960s, the show didn’t always attract the most respected names to its cast. The Ice Warriors is packed with enduring TV favourites from the 1960s and 1970s and, in Peter Sallis as suspiciously-bearded outcast scientist Penley, one who thrives into the twenty-first century, largely courtesy of his voice work in Wallace and Gromit. We also have Peter Barkworth, hamming it up wonderfully as insecure, occasionally-hysterical Base boss Clent, and, hidden beneath Varga’s cumbersome armour, Carry On favourite Bernard Bresslaw, inexplicably cast as the sibilant alien leader (the Warriors‘ unusual hissing speech patterns were Bresslaw‘s own idea offered up during rehearsals). Troughton, as ever, is a quirky joy, ably supported by Deborah Watling’s Victoria, front and centre for once, and Frazer Hines as the redoubtable Jamie, out of action for much of the story thanks to an early encounter with an Ice Warrior’s sonic weaponry.

At six episodes, The Ice Warriors is a bit on the long side for the story it has to tell – effectively, the awakened Ice Warriors plan to activate the engines of their crippled spaceship in an attempt to leave Earth, with potentially-disastrous consequences if the blast detonates the Base’s nuclear reactor – and, inevitably, there’s a lot of running around and capture-escape-recapture shenanigans. But, in the Ice Warriors, there’s the suspicion that we’re seeing a new ‘classic’ Doctor Who monster in the making and Brian Hayles’ script rarely pauses for breath, even giving some of its supporting cast decent material to work with.

With its subtle, effective animation and the usual selection of comprehensive bonus material, The Ice Warriors is a wonderful example of 1960s Doctor Who, an era which, for the moment, is frustratingly unrepresented in the BBC Archives. It’s good to see that all the stops are being pulled out as the Doctor Who DVD range creeps nearer completion; The Ice Warriors, crisply digitally remastered, is another release fans will find irresistible.

Special features: Multiple commentaries, ‘Cold Fusion’ making of, ‘Beneath the Ice’ animation feature, VHS links, Blue Peter competition footage, Frazer Hines interview, production notes, gallery, trailer, listings.

Review: Reel Evil / Cert: 18 / Director: Danny Draven / Screenplay: Shane Bitterling / Starring: Jessica Morris, Kaiwi Lyman, Jeff Adler, Sandra Hinojosa / Release Date: Out Now

It’s a bit of a shock seeing  Full Moon Features, an indie production company that for so many years has been a bastion of comic booky, dayglo-hued ’80s-style horror, having a stab at the found footage subgenre, especially at a time when the wheels have all but come off that particular bandwagon. But that’s exactly what they’ve gone and done with Reel Evil. Ballsy move; let’s just hope Full Moon don’t lose their trousers over it.

As for the premise, well, we’ve been there and shaky-cammed that before. A trio of struggling documentary makers are hired to film a behind-the-scenes feature about a horror movie being shot in a notorious insane asylum. They turn up with their equipment at the vast, derelict building, but they soon forget about their day job and go off exploring. Naturally, this proves to be a mistake, as they draw the attention of various leering, hospital-garbed spectres haunting the place.

Among the ensuing shenanigans, there’s undeniably a touch of the wandering-down-endless-corridors-jumping-at-shadows which has become a cliché of the subgenre, but, on the whole, Shane Bittering’s script provides more structure and variety than we’ve come to expect from your standard found footage fare. The bitchiness and pettiness of the film shoot supplies some light relief, and there’s plenty of decent banter between the central trio before things get serious. The performances are well-judged, too, with Hinojosa’s turn as the diva-esque star of the film-within-the-film pitched slightly broader than everyone else’s, and Robbie Savage-lookalike Lyman catching the eye as the laconic soundman who soon starts losing his bottle.

Director Danny Draven builds the chills smoothly and deploys some unexpectedly classy CGI, but the film’s ace in the hole is its use of the real-life Linda Vista Community Hospital – a massive abandoned complex that is reputedly the most haunted structure in Los Angeles – as its primary location. The DVD comes with a nice set of extras in which the cast and crew all seem to have their tales to tell about how creepy it was shooting there. Reel Evil doesn’t break any new ground, but if found footage is your thing, then this is a good addition to the genre.

Extras: Behind the Scenes of Reel Evil / Darkest Hours – The Reel Evil Set Visit Episode / Darkest America – An Inside Look at Linda Vista Hospital / Blooper Reel / Music Video / Promos / Deleted scenes

Review: Zombies vs Strippers / Cert: 18 / Director: Alex Nicolaou / Screenplay: Alex Nicolaou, Nick Francomano, Kent Roudebush / Starring: Circus-Szalewski, Eve Mauro, Victoria Levine, Adriana Sephora / Release Date: Out Now

We know what you’re thinking – wait, didn’t they make this movie already? Meaning 2008’s Zombie Strippers!, no doubt, or perhaps you have in mind 2012’s other strippery creature flick, Strippers vs Werewolves. This one’s completely different, though. Oh okay, it’s not, but we’re going to tell you about it anyway.

To be fair, Zombies vs Strippers does manage its own kind of pleasantly down-at-heel vibe. The setting, The Tough Titty, is a seedy tiki-themed strip joint one lap dance away from bankruptcy. Its owner, a sweaty spiv called Spider (played by the delightfully named Circus-Szalewski) knows he ought to sell up but he’s been hanging on out of a sense of duty to the girls and in the faint hope that maybe business will pick up one day. And, as luck would have it, that day would seem to have come, as various people start wandering in to take refuge from the streets. Trouble is, they’re all mumbling about a riot going on outside. Time to turn on the TV and learn all about that impending zombie apocalypse.

There’s no real reason to compare this film to Zombie Strippers! because actually, when you think about it, they’re totally unalike: 0ne’s about strippers attacked by zombies, the others about strippers who are zombies. See? Complete opposites! If you do compare them, though, Zombie Strippers! has the edge, in that it has the curiosity value of porn star Jenna Jameson trying to act and the reassuring presence of Robert Englund in a sleazy supporting role (oh, where will he pop up next?). Still, director and co-writer Alex (son of Ted) Nicolaou moves things along confidently enough, downplaying the pole-twirling and boob-shaking and using the story as a showcase for some enjoyably facetious dialogue. There’s a decent running gag about the pretentious club DJ, who loves vinyl records, however scratchy, and detests MP3s (“Okay, if you want to go the way of the Beast!”), and Spider has a memorable riposte for a trio of Bible-quoting bikers who come bursting in: “I don’t know about the bosom of the Lord, but we’re all safe here in the Titty.” With only a 75-minute running time, it’s more like an extended sketch than a proper movie, but it’s less exploitative than one might fear and, seriously, who doesn’t love a tiki theme?

Extras: Making of / Stills gallery / Original trailer

Review: Hammer of the Gods / Cert: 18 / Director: Farren Blackburn / Screenplay: Matthew Read / Starring: Charlie Bewley, Clive Standen, Elliot Cowan, James Cosmo, Ivan Kaye / Release Date: September 2nd

British movies have fallen into a bit of a rut in recent years; the small budget features coming out of the UK seem to be either lo-fi, shaky-cam-style horror movies or intensely dull real crime dramas set in London. Hammer of the Gods is a fantasy that bucks this trend, but at the same time sticks to the formula of low budget grittiness.

The movie follows the Viking prince Steinar (played by the Twilight saga’s Charlie Bewley) and his band of thugs as they run around the country looking for his brother, who intends to betray them all. Really, this is an excuse for a series of very violent setpieces that follow on from each other. The plot is not terribly coherent; this is a movie that’s more about big, sweaty, muscular men smacking seven bells out of each other and swearing a lot.

Anyone with a historical sensibility will not enjoy the film; it is pure fantasy that only uses the 9th century as a backdrop for the action. There are enough references to Saxons and Vikings to irk any scholarly pedant, but this really isn’t the point of the feature; this is a visceral murder-fest that will appeal to those who like their low-fantasy drama very gory. There is a lot of unexploited potential here; both Charlie Bewley and Elliot Cowan stand out as particularly brutal protagonists, but aren’t really used to their full effect. At times it almost breaks into a sort of caper movie; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Axes if you will, but instead of delivering wit and drama, it simply steps up the body count. If you like your history dumb, your men covered in dirt, and lots and lots of gratuitous violence, then this should appeal. Otherwise, it’s not for you.

Extras: None