Review: Dr. Alien (Grindhoue 5) / Cert: 18 / Director: David DeCoteau / Screenplay: Kenneth J. Hall / Starring: Billy Jacoby, Judy Landers, Olivia Barash, Raymond O’Connor / Release Date: January 14th 2013

Ever wondered what it would be like if you were to graft a Jerry Lewis slapstick comedy onto a Frank Henenlotter creature feature? No, honestly, we hadn’t either, but that’s more or less what they’ve done in Dr. Alien (1989). Recruited to assist in an after-hours project by his new biology professor Ms. Zenobia (Landers, hiding a Mekon dome under the big hair), freshman Wesley (Jacoby) is injected with ‘alien vitamins’ which turn the terminally uncool nerd into an instant babe magnet. However, there’s an alarming side-effect in the shape of a ‘hideous flesh antenna’ which pops out of the top of his head at inopportune moments. Whoa, too sexy for this galaxy!

The film’s at its weakest early on, when it’s at its most Jerry Lewis-ish. Styling, stereotypes and reference points are all drawn from the ’50s in a way that seems bizarrely anachronistic for the late ’80s. (If in doubt, couldn’t they have nicked a few ideas from Ferris Buellers’s Day Off or something?) Then there’s the horribly dated hey-folks-this-is-a-comedy soundtrack, which accompanies every bumble and pratfall with a cacophony of boings, wah-wahs and horn-honkings. It also doesn’t help that the burly Jacoby makes for a rather lumpen leading man – he looks like he ate Matthew Broderick.

However, once the SF weirdness kicks in, the ’50s trappings are dialled down and the movie finds its own quirky identity. The fleshy antenna (which sends out stimulating vibrations to all the females in the vicinity) never fails to raise a smile, and if anything it improves Wesley’s appearance. Ms. Xenobia and her lab assistant Drax (O’Connor) serve as a pleasantly campy chorus to the main action and provide most of the comic highlights (including an especially good scene where he puts an ill-advised move on her at at local necking spot). On the downside, there’s a rather sappy teen romance arc (“I don’t want all the women. Leeanne is the only girl for me,” Wesley whines after pulling himself out from under another heap of females), but things culminate nicely with a aliens rampaging through the local New Wave nightclub. The picture is somewhat muted and grainy on this DVD, but in a way that adds to the grindhouse cred.

Despite its racy theme, Dr. Alien is quite restrained in terms of what it shows. The same can’t be said of the bonus film, an hour-long sexploitation doc from the ’70s about a bunch of Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett lookalikes auditioning for roles in a blue movie. “Oh, this is a real set?” exclaims one wide-eyed hopeful. Then she tests how solid it is by dropping her knickers on it.

Extras: Auditions (1978) Bonus Film / Full Moon Trailer Park / Stills Gallery / Original Trailer / Reversible sleeve incorporating original artwork

Review: Grabbers / Cert: 15 / Director: Jon Wright / Screenplay: Kevin Lehane / Starring: Richard Coyle, Russell Tovey, Ruth Bradley / Release Date: Out Now

This movie has been touted in some quarters as the Irish Tremors – which is bit of a disservice to Tremors really, because Grabbers is too silly and lightweight to warrant comparison to Ron Underwood’s minor creature feature classic. True, it’s fun and amusing for much of its running time, but it’s not exactly going to rock your world.

A meteor lands (get ready to clutch your sides)… somewhere off the coast of Ireland, and the largely drunken inhabitants of a sleepy fishing village start hauling in mysterious eggs in their nets. It’s not long before the eggs hatch small squid-like bloodsucking creatures. The confused population realises that the critters seem to be allergic to alcohol, so guess what they do? That’s right, they get slaughtered – but in a good way.

To begin with, the laughs flow thick and fast with barely a moment going by without some chucklesome line of dialogue or piece of slapstick. However, the comedy runs dry halfway through. The villagers’ antics begin to seem forced, and the brief but nicely done gore of the first half disappears entirely. Richard Coyle, Russell Tovey and Ruth Bradley do a good job in the three lead roles, and Coyle and Bradley get something approaching a character arc and make a cute couple. The rest of the cast is made up of reliable Irish thesps and they all make the best of fairly weak material.

Where the film does score is in its digital SFX, which are as slick and seamless as any you are likely to see in a British movie. In particular, the creature animation is superb, from the miniature squids through to the multi-tentacled big bad which lurks in a cave on the beach. If the filmmakers had managed to strike a better balance between gore and giggles, then Grabbers could have been a contender. As it is it’s an intriguing curiosity which is best enjoyed over a jar or three.

Extras: Audio commentary / Behind-the-scenes featurette / Interview with the director / Outtakes and photo gallery

Review: Manborg / Cert: 15 / Director: Steven Kostanski  / Screenplay: Jeremy Gillespie, Steven Kostanski / Starring: Matthew Kennedy, Adam Brooks, Meredith Sweeney, Conor Sweeney, Ludwig Lee / Release Date: January 7th

Missed the Eighties the first time round? Never mind, because they’re back, in the shape of Manborg, a loving evocation of the cult Troma and Full Moon movies of that hallowed period. Led by Count Draculon (Brooks), hordes of demon Nazis have risen from Hell. A soldier (Kennedy) perishes in the conflict, only to be fashioned into the ultimate cyborg warrior by unknown hands. Awakening sometime in the future to find the Hellions in charge and mankind crushed into submission, he’s captured and forced to fight in a deadly arena, along with a handful of other hardy human survivors. Poor guy, how Tromatic (see what we did there?).

The plot is back of a matchbox stuff, but director Steve Kostanski throws everything he’s got at it, which you might not think would be very much considering that the budget was allegedly a laughable $1000 (which can’t really be true, surely, you couldn’t lay a patio for that). That, though, is to reckon without the movie’s elevation of a cheapo, straight-to-VHS look into an aesthetic. The result is undeniably eye-catching, and you certainly won’t have seen anything quite like it.

We’re not just talking about a grainy finish, murky definition and blurry, over-saturated colours – although these are all present and correct. There are also other touchstones of the era, such as OTT prosthetics and stop-motion animation, all cobbled together against green screen backdrops with the aid of (presumably very inexpensive) CGI – and all cheerfully foregrounded in a surreal, comic book style which borrows from old arcade games as well as from ’80s sf flicks.

On the whole, it’s an approach which works miraculously well. Manborg himself is a bit craft projecty, but the Hellions are quite a sight, with their bald pates and stitched up mouths, and there are some surprisingly visceral set pieces, including a nice hoverbike chase. Among the genre-based laughs is a good joke regarding Manborg’s squeaky servos, and an on-running gag about Asian martial arts expert #1 Man (Lee), who speaks in an overdubbed baritone as though inhabiting his own chopsocky movie.

Admittedly, it’s not all comedy gold, and there are more than a couple of cringe-worthy moments in Manborg‘s one hour running time, but this is still a very lovable piece of homespun movie-making. You also get a wonderful bonus – Biocop, an hilarious mock-trailer about a grotesque, indestructible fountain of goo who is obliged to patrol the mean streets while really wanting nothing more than an end to his misery. “Have you got a death wish or something?” wonders his partner after Biocop tries sucking on a gun barrel. “Yes!!!” Biocop slobbers. Gut-bustingly funny.

Extras: None

Review: Hotel Transylvania / Cert: PG / Director: Genndy Tartakovsky / Screenplay: Peter Baynham, Robert Smigel / Starring: Adam Sandler, Andy Samber, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi / Release Date: February 4th 2013

No, we never thought we’d see the day either. Dracula, a doting single dad, changing nappies and strumming a ukulele. And going into the hotel business. Actually, that last bit we can believe – the Prince of Darkness always did dress like a maitre d’. What’s next, though – Jason Voorhees opening a summer camp?

Anyhow, welcome to Hotel Transylvania. The resort in question is a human-free haven where misunderstood supernaturals can cower in safety from the outside world (for a price, presumably, so cash-strapped denizens of the night should probably steer clear or apply for a job as a porter). It’s here that Drac (Sandler), traumatized by the death of his beloved wife and shunning mankind, has raised his daughter Mavis (Gomez). Despite his best efforts to dampen her curiosity, she longs to experience the world beyond the hotel walls, and things come to a head when Andy Samberg’s fresh-faced backpacker dude accidentally gatecrashes her monster mash of a 118th birthday party.

Afraid of causing a stampede among his people-allergic guests, Dracula disguises the backpacker, Jonathan, as his ‘Frankenhomie’, then has to struggle to keep him away from his instantly smitten daughter. Jonathan, meanwhile, takes it upon himself to up the tempo of what is a decidedly dull gathering. Part of the reason for this yawn-worthiness is the control freaky Count himself – “Mr Tight Coffin,” as one character puts. But it’s also due to the fact that these monsters are getting on a bit and it shows. As the jokes about their senile fuddy-duddiness pile up, they quickly start to seem less like dark outsiders than the cast of Cocoon, only with fangs and capes. Consequently, instead of the parable about intolerance it sets out to be, Hotel Transylvania turns into another one of those twinkly Hollywood how-cute-is-your-grandad comedies, with horror spoof and teen rom-com trimmings.

Tweens should cope with this well enough, but you could imagine younger kids growing a little restive. What will keep them in their seats, however, is the wonderful job done by the animators in cramming every frame with motion and colour: a dogfight with flying dinner tables, Kevin James’ Frankenstein (the big guy has rarely had more swagger), and the kind of background hustle and bustle that will furnish new delights even on a fourth or fifth viewing. All of this attention to detail bursts from the screen on Blu. You can almost feel the difference between Wayne the werewolf’s Brillo Pad bristles and the silky down which coats Dracula and Mavis when they’re in bat form. The worm cake looks deliciously moist, too. Adding to the longevity of the disc are some well executed and child friendly extras.

Extras: Commentary with Director Genndy Tartakovksy, Producer Michelle Murdocca and Visual Effects Supervisor Daniel Kramer / Goodnight Mr. Foot Mini-movie / Deleted scenes / “Monster Remix” Music Video with Becky G and will.i.am / Meet the staff and Guests: Voicing Hotel Transylvania / Making the Hotel / Progression reels

Review: Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (Grindhouse 3) / Cert: 18 / Director: Ken Dixon / Screenplay: Ken Dixon / Starring: Elizabeth Cayton, Cindy Beal, Don Scribner / Release Date: January 14th 2013

Look beyond the cleavage, and this isn’t a bad little movie. A deep space, textile-challenged redo of Richard Connell’s oft-adapted manhunt story The Most Dangerous Game – best version, Hounds of Zaroff (1932) – it sees escapees from a life of bikini-clad serfdom Daria (Cayton) and Tisa (Beal) crash landing on an alien planet, where they fall into the hands of playboy by day, hunter by night Zed (Scribner), who has a quiff, two robots and a jungle fortress with Trump Towers décor.

A broad spoof seems imminent, but in fact writer/director Ken Dixon plays the story relatively straight, his surprisingly joined-up script flagging Zed as an over-privileged sicko and the two girls as plucky (not just bimbos, honest) heroines. Performance-wise, the results are mixed – he elicits a pleasantly hammy and overripe turn from Scribner, but the inexperienced leading ladies have more snappy banter than they know what to do with. (According to IMDb, Cayton ‘studied her craft at the New York Academy of Theatrical Arts’, but who knows, maybe she majored in mime.)

In terms of production values, though, Dixon gets quite a bang for what were probably minimal bucks. The sets, with their Mayan temple vibe, are nicely thought out, and there’s some strong creature design. Zed’s metal henchmen are like dustbin versions of the rusty robots in that recent Doctor Who episode, bickering and laser-slicing through the necks of their master’s latest victims (he mounts the heads on a trophy wall). Lurking in the jungle are locked-‘n’-loaded, Predator-like monsters. When all of these elements come together, the collision of aliens, mechanoids and cuties trying to keep their clothes on gives Slave Girls the feeling of one of those deliciously lurid Paul Naschy creature features.

This new release on the Grindhouse Collection label is no doubt an improvement on previous transfers, but it’s still somewhat gloomy and soft-grained, making you long for the zing of a full-scale restoration job on Blu-ray – it would be worth it, as we’re talking about a movie of some charm, with an attractively retro pulp SF sensibility. Given what fun it is, it’s odd that Slave Girls seems to be the last of only two features that Ken Dixon helmed, the other being the fishy-sounding Erotic Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1975). Apart from that, his name (a pseudonym perhaps?) is attached to several compilation documentaries, of which one, Famous T&A, appears here as a bonus and offers an hour of footage from assorted did-they-really-make-that Eurocrap movies of various screen sirens getting their kit off. Nonsensical insult alert for a bit where a bloke calls Brigitte Bardot a ‘goddamn slut’ for refusing to sleep with him and Jane Birkin.

Extras: ‘Famous T&A’ (1982) Ken Dixon Bonus Film / Full Moon Trailer Park / Stills Gallery / Original Trailer / Reversible sleeve incorporating original artwork /

Review: Doctor Who – The Reign of Terror / Cert: PG / Directors: Henric Hirsch, John Gorrie / Screenplay: Dennis Spooner / Starring: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Carole Ann Ford / Release Date: January 28th 2013

True to its original Reithian remit to “educate and entertain”, 1964’s first-season closer The Reign of Terror sees the Doctor and his chums Susan, Ian and Barbara travelling back in time with neither a robot nor a futuristic lizard in sight. Dennis Spooner’s six-part script sends the travellers to 18th century France (courtesy of cramped BBC studios) and a rather ponderous, occasionally surprisingly mature, story of treachery, duplicity, spies, prison cells and guillotines.

It’s difficult now, in the CGI world of modern Doctor Who, to imagine how a 1964 audience took to a six-week epic like Reign of Terror. This is slow, wordy stuff. Spooner’s script often feels like a history lecture as we’re told about the background to the French Revolution and are introduced to notable personages like Robespierre and Napoleon. But it’s a clever and sophisticated script, too, and it makes no allowances for Dalek-impatient kids sitting at home. In Part 2, when Susan and Barbara arrive at the Conciergerie prison in Paris, Barbara is taken to one side by a sleazy gaoler who offers her special privileges if they can become “friends” – one can only surmise he’s not after beehive-hairdo tips.

Carole Ann Ford’s Susan is a bit whiny in this one, succumbing to some pointless stomach bug for much of the time, and William Russell’s Ian has the unenviable job of carrying the not-especially-interesting “secret message” subplot. So it’s very much William Hartnell’s story; the actor relishing the chance to dress up and show off, pompously get one over various flowery officials and, in one particularly amusing scene in Part 2, overpowering a brutal road works overseer on the way to Paris by hitting him over the head with a shovel. And fans say Matt Smith’s Doctor is callous!

This DVD presents the story’s two missing episodes (lost in the BBC’s ’70s videotape purge) as animated reconstructions, marrying existing audio to effective, if occasionally somewhat minimal, new visuals. The Reign of Terror, being largely static, is an ideal candidate for this approach; and whilst fan opinion is already divided over it, realistically it’s the only way we’re ever likely to see these two episodes in anything even remotely resembling the way they were originally broadcast.

Like a lot of early Doctor Who, The Reign of Terror can be a bit of a slog. But there’s a lot here to look out for. The sets are sumptuous and the whole production is ambitious way beyond its tiny budget. It boasts the series’ first ever location filming (Hartnell’s double walking through the countryside en route to Paris) and the scripts subtly suggest the genuine fear and horror of the French Revolution without the necessity for graphic scenes of torture and execution (although the scene where Robespierre, shot in the mouth off-screen, is dragged from his office holding his jaw and screaming in agony is surprisingly graphic). Fans of the show’s more typical monster fodder may get a bit restless, but those who can embrace Doctor Who’s time-travelling ethos and are comfortable with stately, character-based drama, will find much to admire in this attractive and atmospheric release from the show’s pioneering early years.

Extras: Audio Commentary / Making of documentary / Photo gallery / Trailer.

Review: Comedown / Cert: 15 / Director: Menhaj Huda / Screenplay: Steven Kendall / Starring: Geoff Bell, Adam Deacon, Jacob Anderson, Calum McNab, Duane Henry, Sophie Stuckey Jessica Barden / Release Date: March 11th

Typical. You wait years for a tower block-based thriller and then two come along in the space of a couple of months. But whereas James Moran’s suspenseful Tower Block fell at the final hurdle in a head-scratchingly disappointing denouement, Menaj Huda’s more visceral Comedown has to battle against a sluggish pace and a cast of gratingly unsympathetic characters whose deaths come as a relief because it means the audience has to endure one less irritating, shouty, self-obsessed teenager, the sort of kids this reviewer is more likely to cross the street to avoid, in all honesty.

Huda previously directed the more accomplished Kidulthood and he’s back on familiar territory here (in every sense of the word) in the story of Lloyd (Anderson), just out of prison and keen to stay out of trouble for the sake of his pregnant girlfriend Jemma (Stuckey). But Lloyd is tempted by some of his loud friends to rig up a pirate radio station aerial at the top of a grim and deserted tower block. Once it’s installed, it quickly becomes clear that the group are more intent on partying than broadcasting to London’s yoof, but the party turns into a nightmare when Jemma goes missing. She’s not the last, and before long the group are picked off one by one, falling prey to someone (or something!) prowling the dark, grubby corridors of the tower block. Actually, we won’t build your hopes up; it’s a someone, a lone psychopath stalking the tower block for his own gruesome ends.

Well, we’ve all been here before, of course and in some ways Comedown is almost comfortably familiar as it deftly deals with the clichés inherent in its scenario. Huda’s tight, slick direction teases maximum tension from the film’s dark, cramped setting and there are a few effective shock moments and grisly death sequences. But with the core characters being so one-dimensionally dislikeable, it’s hard to get really caught up in their predicament or escape the conclusion that they’ve brought all this on themselves by breaking into a building they’ve really no right to be in. But it’s a well-made, watchable film, another British genre movie criminally ignored by UK distributors who’d much rather fill up our multiplexes with six screens all showing the latest Twilight (Nooooo…!) rather than give struggling homegrown talent a bit of a helping hand. But Comedown will nevertheless find an appreciative, if undemanding, audience, on DVD and Blu-ray.

Extras: Behind the scenes / Extended interviews with selected cast and director.

Review: Piranha / Cert: 15 / Director: Joe Dante / Screenplay: John Sayles / Starring: Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Steele, Dick Miller / Release Date: January 28th 2013

Recent killer fish exploitation remake Piranha (2010) and its sequel Piranha 3DD (2012) are breast… sorry, best forgotten. Produced by the legendary Roger Corman, Joe Dante’s fiesty 1978 Piranha, spawned by the success of Spielberg’s Jaws in 1975, is your one-stop shop for a decent dose of piscine pandemonium. Tidied up for this new Blu-ray release – apart from a bit of grain, it’s a sharp transfer – Piranha is as cheekily wry and tongue-in-cheek as it was thirty-odd years ago, its make-do visual effects and its mixture of coy bloodshed and graphic gore still remarkably effective in this do-anything age of digital wizardry and gross-out body horror where no orifice is left unexcavated.

When two teenagers skinny-dipping in an abandoned military installation go missing, insurance investigator Maggie McKeon (Menzies) is dispatched to find out what’s become of them. She teams up with surly Paul Grogan (Dillman) and their investigations at the installation brings them into contact with raving scientist Robert Hoak (McCarthy) who tells them that the installation was the home for Operation: Razorteeth where a strain of cold water-resistant piranha were being bred for use as a weapon in the Vietnam. Weapons of mass consumption, if you will. Unfortunately the piranha are surviving and thriving and they attack a kid’s summer camp and are now moving as fast as their fins will carry them to a newly-opened water park. Chaos ensues. Grogan rushes back to a nearby closed-down smelting plant with the intention of killing the piranha with pollution before they can escape into the world’s oceans but the plant is underwater and the piranha are in hot pursuit.

Piranha is good, fast-paced fun, taking itself just seriously enough but with the wit and confidence to offer a sly wink or two at its audience now and again, not least in a post-credits sequence which directly references Jaws itself. The piranha – memorably characterised by their furiously burbling trilling – are ferocious predators; the attack on the school summer camp is full of nipping and biting and screaming but the gloves really come off when the theme park is attacked and the water runs red, and ghoulishly-mutilated, eviscerated bodies loom towards the camera. Snappily directed by Dante and with winning turns from the underrated Dillman and the lively Menzies, Piranha is a 1970s treat which has admirably stood the test of time and maintains its reputation as the cheaper, only slightly stupider cousin of the more majestic Jaws.

Extras: Audio Commentary with Joe Dante and producer John Davison / Behind the scenes / Making of featurette / Outtakes / Stills gallery / Radio and TV spots / English subtitles for hard of hearing

Review: The Possession – Uncut Edition / Cert: 15 / Director: Ole Bornedal / Screenplay: Juliet Snowden, Stiles White / Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Natasha Calis, Madison Davenport / Release Date: January 21st, 2013

You feel for Clyde, the father in The Possession. He’s already stuck with the ex-wife from hell and a snarky elder daughter, so it’s no wonder he grows perturbed when his sweet younger daughter Emily becomes the host for a demonic spirit. Gregory Peck had the spawn of Satan foisted on him, but at least he never had to deal with all that other crap.

Another kind of haunting is at work here too, as Danish director Ole Bornedal is only the latest filmmaker to be stalked by the long shadow of The Exorcist. You can see it in the casting. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Clyde, has the dark, beetle-browed look of Jason Miller (aka Father Karras), while young Natasha Calis (glowering in the obligatory white nightie) is a dead ringer for Linda Blair. The cosy/chilly autumnal visuals, too (served up by cinematographer Dan Lausten, who shot the wonderful Brotherhood of the Wolf) hark back to that never-to-be-forgotten masterpiece.

Still, The Possession has one cool new gimmick up its sleeve, in that what we’re dealing with here is an Orthodox Jewish exorcism, as opposed to the common-or-garden Catholic variety. Recollections of that joke about a Jewish bloodsucker in Roman Polanski’s The Fearless Vampire Slayers are quickly brushed aside, because the Dibbuk Box which Em finds at a yard sale (a dibbuk being a “dislocated spirit” in Yiddish folklore) turns out to be the undoubted star of the show. Dark and creepy, it opens all by itself, and out tumble big hairy moths (way traumatic, and think of the damage to the family’s woollens).

Tzadok (Matisyahu), the Hasidic Jew who gets roped into combating the evil, is a pleasant enough character, but he’s no Father Merrin. In fact, it’s little short of amazing how, 30 years on, The Exorcist still trumps its imitators for sheer spectacle. All the same, we get a moderately rousing showdown, plus a crowd-pleasing sequence where a nosy teacher is thrown around her classroom. Sedgwick spits so much venom as Clyde’s ex, you wonder if he could get a two-for-one deal and have her exorcized too. Otherwise, the performances are all thoroughly credible, with the two young girls excellent and Morgan confirming his rep as an actor on the rise.

Given that it shares script-writers (Juliet Snowden, Stiles White) and the marquee name of Sam Raimi (here the producer, there the director) with the upcoming remake of ’80s hit Poltergeist, it’s tempting to see The Possession as a trial run for that blockbusting project. But it’s a lot more than that – a classy old-school spooker that brings much-needed dignity to the slightly dodgy child possession subgenre.

Extras: “The Real History of the Dibbuk Box” featurette / Audio Commentary by writers Juliet Snowden and Stiles White / Audio Commentary with director Ole Bornedal

Review: The Girl From Rio / Cert: 18 / Director: Jess Franco / Screenplay: Harry Alan Towers, Franz Eichhorn, Bruno Leder / Starring: Shirley Eaton, George Sanders, Richard Wyler, Maria Rohm / Release Date: January 21st 2013

Spanish legend Jess Franco (Vampyros Lesbos) returns with yet another Harry Alan Towers production, this time featuring the Sax (Fu Manchu) Rohmer femme fatale, Sumuru (played with relish by Goldfinger glamour girl Eaton).

The film follows playboy Jeff Sutton (Wyler, Man From Interpol), whom the underworld seem to think is harbouring $10 million in stolen cash. This puts him at risk from two parties, Brit-in-exile mobster, Mr. Masius (an end-of-career role for Sanders) and Sumanda (this being the name Sumuru – the self-styled leader of the all-women army of Femina, a base hidden away in the Brazilian jungle – goes by in the script, while the end credits have her as Sumitra). Sumanda attempts to find the whereabouts of the money, while trying not to fall for the suave Sutton, who is in fact a mercenary, on a mission to rescue a heiress from the compound. It gets no less confusing as Masius wants in on the stolen money that doesn’t actually exist.

While it may not be James Bond, The Girl From Rio has a campy, kitschy charm, akin to In Like Flint, or Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. The Femina army would have appealed to the feminist movement had they not all been clad in short tunics and filmed so luridly, in true Franco fashion. Eaton has a whale of a time, in what would be her final role before retiring from acting, strutting around threatening Sutton in her monogrammed mini dress, and inexplicably changing hair colour from scene to scene. There’s plenty of fun to be had, be it from the tongue in cheek dialogue or the action-in-inverted-commas scenes which include a woman being tortured with a plastic electric fan.

There’s a certain lowered expectation you apply with these type of films, and while they could never be considered great, they are enjoyable in their own way. This release is actually the first time the 1969 film has had a UK home video release, and considering its age and budget, it looks fabulous, with plenty of garishly bright colours and flesh on display. It’s certainly worth a try if you enjoy the likes of Danger: Diabolik, Barbarella or ’60s camp spy films. Just don’t expect a masterpiece. This is Jess Franco after all.

Extras: 15 min interview with Jess Franco, Harry Alan Towers and Shirley Eaton