Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

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.

Review: The Running Dead / Cert: 18 / Director: Adam Deyoe / Screenplay: Adam Deyoe, Josh Klausner, Loren Semmens / Starring: Scott Peat, James C. Burns, Marissa Merrill, Corsica Wilson/ Release Date: Out Now

You really have to admire the breathless, barefaced audacity of a zombie movie which has the gall to name itself The Running Dead. In actual fact the film’s production title was Dead Season and the alternative title is crudely superimposed over the onscreen title credit. We can only assume, therefore, that the DVD distributors, desperate to find a way to make their effort stand out from the zombie crowd, decided on the last-minute name change to capitalise on a certain zombie apocalypse TV show in the hope that at least a few of its viewers are stupid enough to assume there’s some sort of connection and thus mindlessly fork out for a film which sounds a bit like a TV show they’re watching. But seriously???

In fact, The Running Dead (which, as a title, misses the whole point of the title of the TV show) is a slightly more accurate name than the otherwise bland Dead Season – at least the zombies here do end up running a bit and it becomes something of a plot point. But otherwise there’s nothing new to see here, just another bandwagon low-budget zombie flick starring no one anyone’s ever heard of (not even their families and friends) as the world ends entirely off-screen and a few ragtag survivors fight to fend off some increasingly perfunctory-looking zombies. The Running Dead is set a year after “the start of the outbreak” and Elvis (Peat) and Tweeter (Merrill), two of the last people alive in the USA, flee to what they hope is an island refuge. But their hopes for a quiet life are dashed when they discover another small group of survivors, led by the ferociously militaristic Kurt (Burns), who rules by fear, keeps his teenage daughter under lock and key and is quite prepared to resort to gruesome depths to keep his group alive and fed.

Considering its budget, The Running Dead isn’t as miserable and witless as many in its overfed genre. The script is, for a change, more concerned with its characters and how they’re learning to adapt to their changed circumstances, rather than just piling on the carnage (which is just as well, as some of the action sequences are a bit on the clumsy side). But when the zombies start to run and the bodies pile up, the movie inevitably descends into the usual chaos of bone-crunching violence and blood-letting. Marginally more interesting than might have been expected, The Running Dead does just about enough to keep up the viewer’s interest but is destined to remembered more for its cheeky UK title than anything it has to offer as a zombie movie.

Extras: Commentary / Behind the scenes / Deleted scenes / Trailer

Review: The Baytown Outlaws / Cert: 15 / Director: Barry Battles / Screenplay: Barry Battles, Griffin Hood / Starring: Clayne Crawford, Daniel Cudmore, Travis Fimmel, Eva Longoria, Billy Bob Thornton, Paul Wesley, Andre Braugher / Release Date: December 26th 2012

The Baytown Outlaws are three redneck brothers (Crawford, Cudmore, Fimmel) making a living as guns for hire.

One day, after killing someone at the wrong address, they are approached by a beautiful witness (Eva Longoria) who offers them $25,000 to get her godson back from her psycho ex (Billy Bob Thornton). Of course the job is not quite as simple as it seems and they end up fighting gangs of biker chicks and Native Americans while trying to outrun the law. In the meantime a CIA agent (Wesley) turns up in their home town questioning the sheriff (Braugher) on why there are so many violent crimes going unresolved.

The film is an enjoyable shoot-’em-up romp through the Deep South of America. It’s not meant to be taken too seriously and has a decent cast, a couple of whom ham it up but not to the point of over-acting. Despite the relatively modest budget of $4million, there are some good action sequences complemented by fast editing and a great soundtrack.

Despite this, the film does not last long in the memory and there are a couple of cliché’s, but it’s worth a watch nonetheless and will please fans who like Tarantino or The Boondock Saints.

Extras: Making of featurette / Theatrical trailer / Original trailer

Review: Groundhog Day / Cert: PG / Director: Harold Ramis / Screenplay: Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis / Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott / Release Date: Out Now

Bill Murray and Harold Ramis’ classic receives a timely Blu-ray re-release, packed with a whole host of exclusive special features. Best of all though – the full spectrum of Bill Murray’s most sarcastic facial expressions, all in lovely HD.

In a day and age when Groundhog Day always seems to be on television, re-watching the film can seem like a perpetual February 2nd. Most will have seen this classic movie by now. But, like most classics, it’s well worth frequent viewing. Murray and Ramis have made plenty of incredible and iconic movies in their time (most notably Ghostbusters, directed by Ivan Reitman) but for this reviewer’s money, Groundhog Day is their very best.

Murray plays Phil, a sarcastic and cynical weatherman who is sent to a small American town to film a report on their yearly Groundhog Day festival. It’s just another day in the life of an increasingly bored weatherman. Little does Phil know, however, he will be forced to re-live that day many more times. It quickly becomes too much, even for wisecracking Bill Murray. Wouldn’t you be depressed if you had to listen to Sonny & Cher do I Got You Babe over and over and over again?

It’s easy to forget just how black the comedy in Groundhog Day gets. Even beyond the repeated suicide of one of our most beloved comedy figures, there’s the heartbreak, the loneliness and the despair. As Phil attempts to forge a meaningful connection with Andie MacDowell’s Rita, it’s almost heart-breaking. Groundhog Day brings us the performance of Bill Murray’s career. Rarely can a movie sell a character’s redemption as much as it does his nastiness in the first place. The fun in A Christmas Carol (and even Scrooged) is seeing Scrooge act like a hilarious bastard towards everyone, rather than his redemption at the end. But Phil’s transformation from complete ass to loveable superhero (saving lives every day) feels completely natural and just a little adorable.

Groundhog Day is one of the most intelligent romantic comedies ever made. It’s brilliantly acted, very funny, sweet and very clever. It’s an existential romantic comedy in which the hero commits suicide several times and uses quite dubious methods to seduce his love interest. Yet it really is quite wonderful. Groundhog Day is one of those classics which is every bit as good as everyone says it is. Every movie collection deserves a copy. Those who haven’t seen it already should do so forthwith. Those who have could do far worse than picking up this definitive release.

Like February 2nd, Groundhog Day deserves revisiting again and again. It’ll make you a better person.

Extras: A Different Day: An Interview with Harold Ramis / The Study of Groundhogs: A Real Life Look at Marmots / newly discovered deleted scenes / The Weight of Time – a documentary on the making of Groundhog Day / audio commentary with director Harold Ramis.

It’s difficult not to get caught up in the absurd campiness of the Power Rangers franchise. Brightly coloured costumes, special signature moves, dialogue that would be at home in an early Stan Lee scripted Spider-Man comic, bad set pieces, awful special effects – yet undeniably good, clean fun.

Power Rangers, it will comes as no surprise, is aimed specifically at a children’s market. Adults are forbidden. We’re not expected to understand, much less care for the source material. So with this in mind, Starburst has recruited two special reviewers to cast their expert opinion on the matter. Scarlett and Maia, age (7) and (4) respectively. And of the series as a whole this is what they had to say.

Starburst: What were the best bits?

Scarlett and Maia: We liked it when they killed the baddie and made the boy’s life better.

So who’s the best Power Ranger?

The pink one is the best, because she can nearly do it all. She’s very good. And she can jump really high.

And who was the worst?

The light blue one, he didn’t really do much – or fight!

If you were scrolling down the children’s channels and came across Power Rangers would you watch it over something like Scooby-Doo?

No. Scooby is good because it’s scary and fun, and Power Rangers is good, but we don’t like the baddies in it. They’re too powerful.

Is Power Rangers aimed for boys, or girls, or both?

It’s a boy’s program, although some girls might like it.

And there you have it, from the mouths of the (almost) target audience.

At the start of each episode we are treated to a quick voice-over explaining the status quo before the spandex-clad action begins.

Centuries ago in Japan, Nighlok monsters invaded our world. Samurai warriors defeated them with power symbols passed down from parent to child. Today, the evil Nighlok have risen once again and plan to flood the Earth. Luckily, a new generation of heroes stand in their way. They are the Power Rangers, Samurai.

In the two-part origin story the usual group is assembled: red leader Jayden, Kevin the blue, yellow and pink who are completely interchangeable, and green Mike the rebel.

This is the Power Rangers eighteenth season and collects the first five episodes for your viewing pleasure. Saban Brands have bought back their franchise and given this new series an upbeat tone and a comedic value that they hilariously felt was lacking in the previous seasons. It’s also the first season to be shot in HD and originally aired on Nickelodeon.

Eighteen years is an incredible run for any series and its popularity shows no signs in slowing, Power Rangers continues to attract around 2 million viewers per episode.

Understandably then, Saban Brands fully expect to milk this cash cow and with that in mind have embraced the various online formats to sell their product. Samurai apps, facebook pages, social media and streaming content are all just a click away to overdose your child on should you want. All these extra, um, goodies can thankfully be ignored, you don’t need it for the series, though it would be hard to imagine a fan not wanting to buy the toy, or dress up as a samurai and surprise the cat from time to time wielding a plastic sword and shouting, ‘It’s morphin’ time, fur-ball!’

Still, this is a good example of, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. And it bears saying that watching brightly coloured characters pretending to kick the snot out of each other can be vastly entertaining, maybe not as much fun as watching brightly coloured robots beating the snot out of each other, but a close second.

The children love it. Our reviewers became actively engaged in the characters, cheering them on when they saved the day, or booing when the evil Nighloks came close to succeeding in their dastardly plans.

Therefore it must be considered a winner. Long may it, cough, reign.

DVD Review: Amicus House of Horrors / Cert: TBC / Director: Derek Pykett / Starring: Geoffrey Bayldon, Derek Pykett, Angela Pleasence, Peter Cushing / Release Date: Out Now

Subtitled A History of England’s Groundbreaking Studio of Terror, this two part documentary, clocking in at just over three hours, is a long overdue look at the talent behind such classic British horror films as Tales From The Crypt and Asylum.

Formed by two Americans, Milton Subotsky (who often wrote the screenplays) and Max J. Rosenberg (the money man), the company started life in 1962 as Vulcan Films with the atmospheric City of the Dead, and continued as Amicus up until the late ’70s. But it was their portmanteau films for which they are most fondly remembered, with their star names and deliciously macabre stories lifted from the American horror comics, or from the pens of Robert Bloch and R.Chetwynd-Hayes.

This wonderfully researched documentary covers each film chronologically and Pykett has managed to dig up (so to speak) some of the people who made the films. These are mostly lesser players in the Amicus story, as most of the big names are now no longer with us, although director Freddie Francis is seen interviewed by Pykett in archive footage. Amongst the luminaries happy to share their anecdotes are Stephen Weeks (director, I, Monster), Kevin Connor (director, From Beyond The Grave, At The Earth’s Core, The Land That Time Forgot), and actors such as Geoffrey Bayldon (Asylum) and Barbara Ewing (Torture Garden). Former UKTV stalwart Kenny Lynch waxes lyrical about his part in Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, and it’s an absolute joy to see Angela Pleasence, Donald’s daughter, talk about playing opposite her father in From Beyond The Grave, despite her admission that she has never seen it because she’s too afraid of horror films! While these may not be top-drawer names for the casual fan, it’s good to hear the lesser-known person’s take on the industry.

We also hear from people who worked in art design and make-up and even clapper loaders; their unguarded insight into the running of the studio, and the egos of the ‘stars’, is completely entertaining. The informal format of the interviews, and the limitations of the camera equipment at Pykett’s disposal sometimes means the background noise is a little off-putting (Bayldon is almost drowned out by passing aeroplanes and Ewing sounds like she was taking a break from working in a tea shop), but he must be commended for seeking these people out and letting them tell their stories.

The only footage from the films comes from public domain trailers, and as such is limited and of lesser quality, but by no means a negative part. Pykett’s rather dry narration is a little flaccid (perhaps one of the actors interviewed could have been coerced into doing it), but that’s a minor niggle in an otherwise great presentation. A worthy addition to any horror fan’s collection, it’s only available in the US for the moment, but can be imported from Oldies.com, where it is less than $10 at time of writing (and shipping isn’t ridiculous either).

Extras: Both discs contain some incredibly rare and frankly brilliant footage of Peter Cushing. On disc one is almost an hour of an interview filmed in 1983, and disc two features an episode of a religious programme, The Human Factor from 1990 in which Cushing speaks candidly about his dear wife Helen, whom he never got over losing in the early ’70s.

Review: Total Recall / Cert: 12 / Director: Len Wiseman / Screenplay: Kurt Wimmer, Mark Bomback / Starring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston / Release Date: December 26th

For the second big screen adaption of Philip K. Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, director Wiseman (Underworld) has decided to follow the events in the short story a bit closer than Paul Verhoeven did.

After a chemical war makes much of Earth uninhabitable, there are two distinct populations on the planet: the United Federation of Britain, which is basically Europe; and the Colony, which is pretty much Australasia. Workers from the Colony commute to the UFB via a direct route through the centre of the Earth called The Fall, that takes 17 minutes. Bored of his life, Douglas Quaid (Farrell) decides to pay a visit to Rekall and have a fake spy memory implanted, but it appears that he may already be one. A brief massacre of a small police force later, Doug is forced to run. Seeking solace with his wife, Lori (Beckinsale), he learns that his life is a lie and he has to escape the murderous clutches of his spouse before trying to work out what to do next.

The resistance, led by Matthias (Bill Nighy) and Chancellor Cohaagen (Cranston) are both after Quaid for what may be locked in his mind. Throwing in Melina (Biel) to assist Doug, what we have here is an extremely stylised chase movie that rockets from one grandiose set piece to another. Don’t try and compare it to the Schwarzenegger version of 1990 as it’s a completely different beast.

There is no Mars trip involved, Lori now has a much bigger role as the tracker of Doug, and his ability to fall back on any help is greatly diminished. As a sci-fi film, it is well polished and pure candy for the eyes, taking obvious inspiration from everything from Blade Runner and I, Robot to The Fifth Element.

There are enough moments to keep you watching, including a hover car chase and a zero-gravity shoot-out, but because Wiseman has chosen to take this project seriously, it all comes across as a little too clean – to the point of almost being sterile. Stripped of any humour, it appears to have no real heart although it now does marry better with its literary sequel Minority Report (which also starred Farrell).

One last comment for Wiseman – turn the dial back on the lens flare, you’re not J.J. Abrams!

Extras: Extended Director’s Cut / Commentary on Extended Director’s Cut / Theatrical Cut /Total Recall Insight Mode / Gag Reel / Science Fiction vs. Science Fact Featurette / Designing the Fall featurette / Blu-ray Exclusives: 7 Total Action featurettes / Stepping into Recall Pre-visualization sequences / God of War: Ascension” PlayStation 3 Playable Game Demo

Review: Christmas Evil / Cert: 18 / Director: Lewis Jackson / Screenplay: Lewis Jackson / Starring: Brandon Maggart, Jeffrey DeMunn, Dianne Hull / Release Date: Out now

Meet Harry Stadling (Maggart) who, after seeing his father fondle his mother whilst dressed as Santa, seems to become emotionally crippled. He’s grown up into a badly adjusted forty-something who loves Christmas so much that he wears Santa pyjamas to bed, even if there’s 55 days to go until December 25th. He’s got a nice and creepy collection of dolls, too, and he’s voyeuristic, watching the local kids through his binoculars to ascertain if they’ve been naughty or nice.

His dead-end job at the Jolly Dream toy factory is demeaning, and when he is tricked into working an extra night shift for a colleague (while also being ridiculed for his obsession with the quality of the toys he makes), Harry finally loses the plot. He ‘becomes’ Santa, gluing the white beard to his face; only he doesn’t just decide who is worthy of a present. Instead, his choices are far more dire, involving life or death for those he judges.

This is touted as a slasher movie, but there is very little killing going on and the gore is laughable. Instead, it’s more of an insight into the mental breakdown of a man who never grew up. The tone of the film is extremely dark. Remember when Phoebe Cates’ character in Gremlins tells the horrifying story of her father getting stuck up the chimney and dying whilst dressed as Father Christmas? Well, run that moment for 90 minutes and you’ve got the tone of this little curiosity.

The DVD is not a great transfer, in fact it’s incredibly grainy. However, for those who hate the over-the-top nature of the holiday season, this will be perfect. A real killjoy for the Christmas spirit and nicely disturbing too. After all, any film that ends with Santa Claus being hunted down by a baying mob with torches a la Frankenstein deserves a viewing surely, and that’s not even mentioning what is perhaps the most bizarre final shot in a horror film ever.

A Christmas horror film with presents (sorry, presence), that John Waters has proclaimed to be the “greatest Christmas movie ever made”.

Extras: New widescreen transfer in the original ratio of the Director’s Cut / Audio commentary with director Lewis Jackson / Audio commentary with Lewis Jackson and director John Waters / Original story-board sequences / Comment cards / Rare audition tapes / Collector’s booklet featuring writing on the film by critic and author Kim Newman, and with a new introduction by Lewis Jackson, illustrated with original stills