Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: The Bionic Woman – the Complete Collection / Cert: PG / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Lindsay Wagner, Lee Majors, Richard Anderson / Release Date: Out Now

Jaime Sommers, the world’s first bionic woman, returns to our TV screens courtesy of one of the world’s biggest box sets – 18 discs comprising all three seasons and a bundle of extras that will have completists salivating like Maximillian, the Bionic Dog. For those of you who weren’t around in the ’70s, Jaime is the childhood sweetheart of Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin. When he buys a place in his sleepy hometown of Ojai, California, their romance is rekindled, and after a skydiving accident puts her in the hospital, Steve calls in his pals from the Office of Scientific Intelligence to rebuild her. We’re talking extensive body-work – both legs, one arm and a bionic ear (good for cracking safes, eavesdropping and wearing very dangly earrings).

Unfortunately, complications ensue (rejection of her bionic implants, death, resuscitation through cryogenic therapy, amnesia, and did we mention death? – all covered in four gloriously melodramatic Six Million Dollar Man episodes on disc 1), and in order for her not to suffer a relapse, she and Steve have to part.

With all that behind her, Season One sees Jaime making a new life for herself in Ojai, teaching 7th graders and embarking on a diverse series of adventures between lessons. Taking his cue from the small-town setting, writer-producer Kenneth Johnson (on this evidence, the J.J. Abrams of his time) keeps everything on a human level. Themes of female empowerment are gently explored, while sexist stereotypes get roundly mocked (in one Miss Congeniality-style episode, Jaime is forced, much to her disgust, to enter a beauty pageant, while in another she’s bemused when she’s sent undercover as a nurse as she hasn’t the first clue how to tie a bandage).

Season Two switches things up and goes for fun and camp. This is the era that brought us the infamous fembots (tasked with stealing a weather control device from OSI) and saw Jaime fight Sasquatch in an effort to locate an alien wonder drug for a radiation-poisoned Steve Austin. All a bit silly, yes, but sharp scripts save the day, and there’s a particularly delightful episode wherein Jaime infiltrates a team of lady wrestlers. Season Three offers more of the same – fembot showgirls, Max the dog (who, as the world’s first bionic creature, has had it a bit rough) – before bowing out with a darker episode in which Jaime tries to resign from OSI.

Jaime and Steve would do that Buffy-Angel thing of popping up in each other’s series, and these crossover storylines are all here, as are three later, very dignified reunion movies. Throughout, the picture restoration is bright and vivid. A classy box set for a classy show.

Extras: All 4 Six Million Dollar Man episodes explaining the origin of the Bionic Woman / Bionic Beginnings Featurette / Gag Reel / Bionic Galleries / Bonus Six Million Dollar Man episode “The Return of Big Foot” Pt. 1 / “Doomsday is Tomorrow” Pts. 1 & 2 audio commentary by creator/writer/director Kenneth Johnson / Audio commentaries on “Road to Nashville” and “Bio-Feedback” episodes by Lindsay Wagner / Bionic Blast Featurette / Audio commentary for “The Bionic Dog Pt. 1” from writer James D. Parriott / Audio commentary for “On the Run” from writer Steven E. De Souza / Q&A with Lindsay Wagner / All 3 reunion movies, “The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman” (1987), “Bionic Showdown” (1989), “Bionic Ever After” (1994) / Full-colour booklets and stills

Review: Piranhaconda / Cert: 15 / Director: Jim Wynorski / Screenplay: Mike MacLean / Starring: Michael Madsen, Rachel Hunter, Shandi Finnessey, Rib Hillis / Release Date: January 7th 2013

It’s not asking the world, is it? You’re watching a movie called Piranhaconda, so it’s not unreasonable to expect a cross between a piranha and an anaconda, right? But no, what we get is something that, as Rachel Hunter points out, is “like an unholy union between a piranha and an anaconda”. Like? So it isn’t actually a hybrid then? Just a big snake with particularly sharp gnashers? Well that’s bitterly disappointing. Nice of them to hire Rachel Hunter to point this out (she doesn’t seem to serve any other purpose), but you can’t help feeling a little deceived.

Moving swiftly on, Piranhaconda is pretty much what we’ve come to expect from the Syfy/Roger Corman school of filmmaking. These TV movies generally have a budget of a mere million dollars but you’ll still struggle to see where they could have possibly spent it. Needless to say, the CGI piranhawotsit is rubbish as it chomps its way through the unexplored Hawaiian wilderness. Unexplored? Well, there’s an odd thing. We thought Hawaii was fairly developed but apparently not. It’s full of deserted jungle and ruined industrial complexes which are lairs to its notorious gangs of heavily armed kidnappers. Who knew? By the way, it’s a kidnapped film crew who provide the plot; otherwise we’d just have a series random babes being eaten in inexplicable puffs of red mist. Not that we still don’t get plenty of those, mind you. Some are given the briefest of backstories for being in the jungle (botany, swimming); some are not. Our favourite was the one who just gets out of a boat, walks up a tarmacked path in the middle of the nowhere (how’d that get there?) and then gets eaten. She never appeared before; she never gets mentioned again. About a minute of screen time. Brilliant.

But for all this, Piranhathingy is actually rather superior to most tosh of this sort. These things live or die by how far they can get their tongue into their cheek, and both the script and the cast do a pretty good job of sending the genre up. This is the same team that gave us the seminal Sharktopus (2010) and they seem to have mastered how to pitch all this self-effacing silliness at the right level. The Cheetah Whores’ surfed-up theme tune (they did a similar one for Sharktopus) immediately brings a smile to the face, and there are gags about B-movies and a brilliant performance from Shandi Finnessey (another Sharktopus veteran) as Kimmy, the bikini-clad star of the ludicrous horror shocker the fictional film crew are making. Finnessey’s comic timing is perfect and in some parallel universe she is probably Jennifer Aniston; maybe one day she will be. In fact it’s only the big guns of Michael Madsen and Rachel Hunter who let the side down by just looking a bit bored. C’mon guys, have some fun, because the Oscars certainly won’t be beckoning.

Wait… did we really just call Sharktopus seminal?

Extras: None

Review: Gangsters, Guns and Zombies / Cert: 18 / Director: Matt Mitchell / Screenplay: Taliesyn Mitchell, Matt Mitchell / Starring: Vincent Jerome, Huggy Leaver, Fabrizio Santino, Cassandra Orhan / Release Date: January 7th 2013

Oh no! It’s yet another low budget British zombie film. This one, however is actually a little better than the lame title may suggest.

A gang of armed robbers have used the early days of the zombie apocalypse as cover for a big bank job, and are making their way to their safe house. With one of them dying from a gunshot wound, and the others squabbling amongst themselves, the marauding undead are merely a minor nuisance, until they run out of petrol and have to seek alternative arrangements.

The first thing that strikes you about Gangsters, Guns and Zombies is how much it wants to be Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; it even has a member of the original cast (Leaver). Throw in elements of Reservoir Dogs and 28 Days Later and you might begin to get an idea of the heights this film is striving for. Where it ends up, however, is another matter entirely. While it isn’t a complete disaster – several scenes work well, and there’s a definite sense of humour – pacing problems cause the final act of the film to sag somewhat, and the romantic subplot is superfluous. There’s not much to be scared of here either, as it’s played mostly for laughs, with very little gore, although coulrophobics (Google it!) should keep a wary eye out for one scene that might disturb them. On the plus side, there’s a standout performance from Jennie Lathan as the Grandma who gives as good as she gets (especially in the potty mouth stakes), and in fairness, writer/director Mitchell has made the most of his limited resources, delivering a movie that will be fun for the less discerning viewer.

Extras: A 30 min featurette: The Making of Gangsters, Guns and Zombies: Fake Blood, Sweat and Tears which really doesn’t amount to much more than the cast and crew saying how much fun they had making the film.

Review: Tarantino XX: 8-Film Collection / Cert: 18 / Director: Quentin Tarantino / Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino / Starring: Various / Release Date: Out Now

Ten out of ten, obviously. Of the eight movies in this stupendously desirable box set, there’s not a single film that rates less than an eight out of ten. Quentin Tarantino’s very worst film is better than a lot of directors’ best. Hey, say what you like about Death Proof, but it’s the best scripted foot fetish movie ever made.

In chronological order, the films consist of Reservoir Dogs, True Romance (written by Tarantino, directed by the late great Tony Scott), Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill 1 & 2, Death Proof and Inglourious Basterds. Mister Tarantino, that is quite the oeuvre. That said, if we’re going to include films written but not directed by Tarantino, I would very much have liked to see Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Till Dawn in there too. But then, that’s just me being greedy. It should be noted also, that the individual movies are repackaged previous releases, complete with the extras therein. But oh, what packaging. It’s the Blu-ray equivalent of a coffee table book.

Beyond those individual movies – each one indispensable in its own way – there’s a serious amount of extras and special features to wade through. The Critics Corner is a series of round table discussions, one for each of the films. As tends to happen when you put a group of verbose film nerds in a room together, the talk occasionally feels a little dry and exclusive. Downright rude, when you get to their talk of Death Proof, in which they accuse audiences of being too stupid and ignorant to ‘get’ the film. It gets rather snooty as they bemoan how nobody but them seems to appreciate older films. Kids today, eh. That said, the more enthusiastic the critics get, the more enjoyable their chatter is. It’s very nice to see Inglourious Basterds get the appreciation it richly deserves. The second disc of extras contains a career retrospective, a Jackie Brown Q&A and a collection of trailers for Django Unchained. A celebration of cinema’s loudest, most effusive voice, there’s enough extras across these discs to keep film fans busy for quite some time.

Celebrating twenty years of one of cinema’s most original voices, Tarantino XX is a must-have for any fledgling film collection. Fans will no doubt already own many of the films already, but those new to collecting – or looking to upgrade – would be well advised to pick up this beauty. Here’s to another XX years of the mighty Quentin Tarantino.

Review: When The Lights Went Out / Cert: 15 / Director: Pat Holden / Screenplay: Pat Holden / Starring: Steven Waddington, Kate Ashfield, Tasha Connor, Gary Lewis / Release Date: January 7th 2013

Set in the early ’70s, at the height of the power cuts, this British ghost story is based on a real-life haunting that took place in Pontefract.

Moving into their dream home, the Maynard family, Len (Waddington), Jenny (Ashfield) and daughter Sally (Connor), soon have more to worry about than the colour of the kitchen walls (“Avocado? Don’t you mean green?”) when a malevolent spirit seems to want them out. At first Len tries to profit from the happenings, charging nosey locals a pound to tour the house, and it seems Sally has a bond with the entity. But when things begin to get more violent, they call in paranormal investigator Hilary Barnes (former Emmerdale star Tony Pitts) and even blackmail local priest Father Clifton (Lewis) into performing an exorcism – anything rather than move out and go back to the bottom of that council house waiting list.

Writer/director Holden apparently has connections to the original story (his aunt was friends with the real-life family) and does a marvellous job of recreating the look and feel of the 1970s, right down to the grim social club which is the mainstay of Pontefract nightlife. You can just sense him breathing a sigh of nostalgia at the Noel Edmonds-fronted episode of Top of the Pops seen on TV at one point.

Newcomers Tasha Connor and Hannah Clifford (as Lucy, Sally’s only school friend) are brilliant, and outshine the majority of the adult cast. Which is not to say the latter are bad: Waddington and Ashfield are credible as a typical ’70s couple, and the ever-reliable Jo Hartley (Inbred) is great as Lucy’s over-protective mother. It’s a shame, then, that the film wastes no time in getting to the hauntings when it could have built up more atmosphere and characterisation. The scares are handled really well early on, especially in a scene in which Jenny is decorating, and in the simple use of classic kid’s toys – a Slinky creeping down the stairs and Buckeroo shedding its load. But as the film progresses the use of CGI gets in the way. By the end it is going all out for easy scares rather than taking a more subtle approach. The climactic exorcism scene comes across more comical than scary, but it’s entertaining enough and should go down well with Paranormal Activity fans.

Extras: None

Review: The Corridor / Cert: 18 / Director: Evan Kelly / Screenplay: Josh MacDonald / Starring: Stephen Chambers, James Gilbert, David Patrick Flemming / Release Date: February 25th 2013

A favourite on the festival circuit for the last year or so, this Canadian horror film has hints of sci-fi and takes the hoary cabin in the woods scenario to a very different place.

A group of life-long friends head to a remote cabin in the snow-covered woods of Nova Scotia. Here they meet up with their erstwhile buddy Tyler (Chambers), newly released from an asylum after losing it big time when his mother killed herself in front of him. That he has a history of lashing out violently at his pals doesn’t help the atmosphere at what is already a very chilly rendezvous. It seems like only a matter of time before he has a relapse; meanwhile, they are all quietly getting on each others nerves.

When Tyler is spreading his mother’s ashes, he encounters something strange in the woods. The others naturally assume he’s off his meds, until they, too, experience the mysterious force that seems to feed on their presence. Euphoria and wonder soon turns to mistrust and paranoia, however, as they fight among themselves and become increasingly hostile to Tyler, whose blockers seem to make him immune to the power exuded from the anomaly.

This strange ensemble piece could have easily fallen victim to its low budget, but to the credit of all involved, it manages to be both enigmatic and entertaining. Instead of being a lazy psycho thriller (the mental illness part is handled rather well) it blends elements of horror, existentialism and spiritualism and doesn’t feel the need to provide all the answers on simple sign posts. It’s thus one of those rare films that rewards watching without too much prior knowledge, and certainly has a couple of decent developments. The other side of the coin is that it is also a film that will infuriate those who prefer everything to be spelt out for them. Go into it with an open mind, though, and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Extras: None

Review: The Dark Knight Rises / Cert: 12 / Director: Christopher Nolan / Screenplay: Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan / Starring: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard / Release Date: December 3rd

Just in time for Christmas, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy arrives on DVD and Blu-ray. And now that we’ve all had a chance to calm down, it’s pretty clear that it’s no masterpiece. But to be fair, what were the chances? After all, this was a movie that had a helluva lot on its plate. In order to satisfy the weight of public expectation, it had to be big, really big, and it also had to deliver shedloads of closure and worthy themes so as to pacify those critics who were anticipating the Gotterdammerung in spandex. But then again, it would be nice, from a bottom line, box office point of view, if it could hint at new beginnings, paving the way for a possible further Batman cycle and Catwoman spin-off.

No wonder, then, that it’s a blockbuster with a bit of an identity crisis, one that seems to pull in half a dozen different directions at once. At the heart of the problem is a rather windy and turbid script by the Nolan brothers. Some scenes and plot strands are skimmed over in an almost lackadaisical manner – confronted by beat cop John Blake (Gordon-Levitt), Bruce Wayne coughs to his secret identity far too easily, and who, exactly, is this Miranda Tate woman who keeps popping up? (“She’s smart. And quite lovely.” Oh, okay, that’ll do for a backstory.) The middle act is stuffed with endless Occupy Wall Street-inspired political rant (presumably there to make the film seem current and edgy) and cod Eastern wisdom (“the leap to freedom is not about strength”), while the third degenerates into a series of videogame-style ticking-clock missions (“You’ve got to get the bomb here in ten minutes!”) before reaching a conclusion which is eerily reminiscent of The Iron Giant (now there was a great movie).

As played by Tom Hardy, Bane is certainly formidable (he’s so hard he lives in the sewers with his shirt off), but he’s not as horrifying as he’s supposed to be. This is due in large part to the studio’s determination to go for a 12 certificate, as a result of which the camera flinches away squeamishly whenever he twists someone’s head 360 degrees. Also, though, like many a villain, he tends to get lost in his own bombast. With Bruce Wayne in his clutches, he threatens him with torture: “Not of your body! Of your soul!” Bruce shudders dutifully, but it’s a bit of a let-off.

On the bright side, there are some crowd-pleasing action sequences and plenty of great tech, including fleets of Tumblers and the Bat, a gorgeous new aircraft that whisks along as quietly as a bicycle. And who could forget the heartwarming sight of Selina Kyle straddling the Batpod? In addition, the film’s wittier than it’s been given credit for, with a sprinkling of memorable zinger lines. (“Sure it was him?” Blake asks a fellow cop who’d hoped to arrest Batman, after the Bat goes sailing over their heads.) Christian Bale, meanwhile, has what is arguably his best outing as Bruce Wayne, taking him from a limping hermit with George Harrison whiskers who can’t cope without the cape to a man rediscovering his taste for life in a performance that is varied, approachable and dignified.

The sheer epic sprawl also impresses, never mind the occasional absurdities. (Gotham’s police force, trapped underground for days, emerging into the daylight with no more wear and tear than an occasional smudge and some designer stubble. And don’t get us started on that prison pit – guys, just chip out a few more handholds and you’ll be out of there like a rat up a drainpipe.) Rough round the edges it may be, but this film feels big and important, there’s no denying it. And as for closure – it delivers enough of that to fill a Batcave.

Extras: The Journey of Bruce Wayne / UltraViolet – Instantly stream and download films to compatible devices

Review: Brave / Cert: PG / Director: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell / Screenplay: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman, Steve Purcell, Irene Mecchi / Starring: Kelly Macdonald, Billy Connolly, Emma Thompson / Release Date: Out Now

Brave may very well be the most puzzling movie of 2012. Not in the sense that it’s got some kind of fiendish labyrinth of a plot, but more for the fact that this – THIS! – was Pixar’s film for the year. One that happens to be neither amazingly good nor downright terrible, just bland and under-written and rather dissatisfying.

‘Tis in bonny auld Scotland that we pick up the threads of what could be any animated movie from the last fifty years. The daughter of a boorish father and overbearing mother, Princess Merida (Macdonald) is due to be wedded to a suitor from another kingdom. However, she’s a tomboy who loves nothing more than chasing blue fairies and practising archery, much to the annoyance of her family. Not at all keen on the idea of being married off, she falls out with her mother (Thompson) and meets a witch who grants her the ability to change the Queen’s stance on marriage. This, of course, doesn’t go according to plan: her mother is turned into a bear, and bears just happen to be the arch-nemesis of her father, King Fergus. Hoots mon, if only they could put aside their differences and learn to love each other! Well, now that you mention it …

The above synopsis is pretty much all there is to Brave. There is some great slapstick with Merida’s oafish one-legged father (Connolly), and the mother/bear clumsily roaming around the kingdom and trashing the place is worth a chuckle. Really, though, it’s too damn predictable. The plot is off the shelf, there’s no middle act, and the peak of the film’s fantasy elements is the stuff about people turning into bears (the witch disappears after one scene and no other supernatural beings get a look-in). There was potential here for a rollicking adventure, but truthfully you’re better off watching something like Stardust or even Your Highness.

Where Brave does score is in the animation. Nothing groundbreaking, but the animators seem to have finally cracked how to do realistic hair and fur. Were it not for the broad, exaggerated nature of some of the characters, it would feel photo-real. Worst of all, though, this film is borderline offensive to the Scottish; kilts, fighting, incomprehensible language and ginger hair are everywhere and really we would have expected more from Pixar.

After Cars 2 and now this, Pixar are actually now being bested by DreamWorks. Let’s hope this is just a slump and their next few films mark a return to form.

Extras: La Luna / The Legend of Mordu / Brave Old World / Merida & Elinor / Bears / Brawl in the Hall / Wonder Moss / Magic / Clan Pixar / Once Upon a Scene / Extended Scenes / Audio Commentary

Review: Cyborg Soldier / Cert: 15 / Director: John Stead / Screenplay: John Flock, Christopher Warre Smets, John Stead / Starring: Bruce Greenwood, Tiffani Thiessen, Rich Franklin, Wendy Anderson, Aaron Abrams/ Release Date: Out Now

Cyborg Soldier was made in 2007, but there’s a distinct whiff of the 1980s about this cheap Canadian knock-off of The Terminator and Universal Soldier, whose sole selling point seems to be the fact that it marked the screen début of UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin. That’s right, the Rich Franklin, whom many of you may know from his starring roles as… er… in… um… and… oh. Well, he was a UFC Champion and that’s good enough for us.

Franklin (think Arnie without the precision-honed acting chops) plays I.S.A.A.C. (that’s Intuitive Synthetic Autonomous Assault Commando), a genetically-augmented killing machine (who, oddly enough, isn’t even remotely cybernetic so we’re not quite sure where they dug the title up from). I.S.A.A.C. escapes from the research facility where he’s been developed, whereupon top scientist Simon Hart (the always-reliable Greenwood, who got his Star Trek movie gig shortly after this one, which must have been something of a relief) mobilises his ruthless black-clad security thugs to try and find him and bring him back. I.S.A.A.C., meanwhile, has met up with Deputy Sheriff Lindsay Reardon (Thiessen) who, perceptively realising the hunk is more than human when he starts picking bullets out of his skin, quickly forms a bond with him and decides to find out who he really is/was and how he’s become this emotionless, apparently indestructible killer.

Cyborg Soldier is pretty risible stuff, really, without one original idea across its eighty-odd minute duration, and yet its very familiarity makes it easy, comfortable and oddly inoffensive viewing. It wears its low budget on its sleeve; Hart’s research facility is suspiciously under-manned and the action sequences are studded across the film to make it look more exciting and action-packed than it really is. The snowy Canadian locations (although the snow does tend to disappear from scene to scene) offer an appealing visual bleakness, and script and performances are better than we might expect from such an innocuous and ultimately pointless little film. Cyborg Soldier is a bit like comfort food, offering nothing new and challenging but serving up a quick, empty fix of reheated ingredients which might provide a few moments of satisfaction but will only leave you hungry for something a bit more substantial soon afterwards.

Extras: None

Review:  Zombie Flesh Eaters / Cert: 18 / Director: Lucio Fulci / Screenplay: Elisa Briganti, Dardano Sarchetti / Starring: Ian McCulloch, Tisa Farrow, Richard Johnson, Al Cliver / Release Date: December 3rd 

There’s a danger with Zombie Flesh Eaters that the film’s troubled history and its near-mythical status as one of the legendary obscene UK ‘video nasties’ of the 1980s can detract from proper appreciation of the film itself. Directed by Italian ‘Godfather of Gore’ Lucio Fulci at the tail end of the 1970s under the title Zombi 2 (and sold as a direct sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which had laboured under the Mediterranean title Zombi), Zombie Flesh Eaters is actually a very different film from Romero’s ground-breaking efforts. Gore and viscera aside, Zombie Flesh Eaters takes us right back to the origins of the zombie legend and Fulci’s undead are proper zombies, resurrected by voodoo ritual and characterised as repulsive, shambling, decayed, long-dead cadavers which force their way out of the earth with their rotting flesh and empty eye-sockets squirming with worms and maggots. None of Romero’s ‘the recently-deceased are returning to life’ stuff for Fulci; these zombies are grotesque monsters and history (and the censor’s scissors) record how they do some very gruesome things in the course of the movie’s pacey ninety-minute running time.

We kick off in New York where an apparently-abandoned yacht is drifting lazily along the Hudson. River Police board the vessel and disturb a decomposing corpse, which springs to life and quickly tears out the throat of one of the officers. Ann Bolt (Farrow), daughter of the boat’s missing owner, is questioned by the Police; and when she meets up with reporter Peter West (McCulloch), the pair discover a note from Ann’s father explaining that he’s on a remote Caribbean island and suffering from a strange disease. Peter and Ann set off to investigate and enlist the help of Bryan Curt (Cliver) and Susan Barrett (Gay) to find both the mysterious island and Ann’s father. When they locate the island they discover that the dead are rising to attack and feast on the living and that Dr Menard (Johnson) is researching a cure for this ‘sickness’. But with Peter and the others on the island it seems that the undead are rising in greater numbers than ever before…

Historically, Fulci was no great shakes in weaving a coherent story into his films and Zombie Flesh Eaters isn’t really much of an exception. There are huge leaps of logic in character behaviour – zombie victims just stand and wait to be bitten or else decide that a quick ration of passion is the order of the day in the middle of a zombie attack. But the ambitious location filming gives the film a real sense of scale and the omnipresent voodoo trappings provide a welcome and eerie supernatural backdrop now missing from today’s conveyor belt zombie apocalypse flicks. But it’s the gore and violence that Zombie Flesh Eaters is best remembered for, and it’s all here in glorious, hi-def Blu-ray glory, with a special mention for the notorious eye-impaling sequence which Fulci lingers on with relish and which is still gross enough to make a grown man look away for a moment or so (we’re told). But Zombie Flesh Eaters has other delights, not least cinema’s first underwater-zombie-versus-shark face-off (we sense a Syfy original movie in the making) – which is a wonderfully barking idea, but the presence of zombies casually strolling about the sea bed is never referenced again. Zombie carnage over, our survivors head back to New York but pick up a random radio broadcast warning that the city is being overrun by a plague of zombies and the movie’s memorable last image sees a crowd of the undead shuffling across Brooklyn Bridge (to the apparent disinterest of all the motorists in shot going about their business quite normally just below).

Zombie Flesh Eaters is clearly a classic of its type. No one’s really pretending it’s a brilliantly made movie – the script is a thing of indifference and the acting just gets the job done – and its legend has probably done it no real favours. But it remains a startling and bold film, years ahead of its time, and its legion of fans will be thrilled to finally get hold of the film in this sumptuous 2-disc package (also available on DVD and a fancy ‘Steelbook’ limited edition), which does it justice at last and brings it as close to the mainstream as it’s ever likely to get.

Extras: Two commentaries; film introduction by Ian McCulloch; ‘From Romero to Rome’, an engrossing sixty-minute documentary exploring the history of Italian zombie cinema,; ‘Aliens, Cannibals and Zombies’ is thirty-minute McCulloch interview; special effects documentary; script to screen comparison; trailers and TV spots; Q&A with the film’s music composer, production booklet. Way beyond generous.