Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: The Cabin in the Woods / Cert: 15/ Director: Drew Goddard / Screenplay: Joss Whedon, Drew Goddard / Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Kristen Connelly, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Amy Acker / Release Date: Out Now

The acid test for The Cabin in the Woods was probably always going to be how – or even if – it stands up to repeated viewing once you’re in on the joke and the film’s surprises are out in the open. But don’t worry, we won’t be blowing the gaffe here; despite its critical reception The Cabin in the Woods wasn’t huge at the Box Office but it’s likely to be a big draw on DVD and Blu-ray this Autumn so its secret remains safe with us for now.

The Cabin in the Woods is, pure and simple, a love letter to a very familiar horror genre – the clue’s in the title. It’s not, however, poking fun at the traditions of hundreds of movies where stupid American jocks go on a weekend break to some middle-of-nowhere Hellhole where there’s no phone signal. Joss Whedon and director Drew Goddard’s clever, knowing script just recognises all those clichés – they’re fans of the genre, after all, and they’re here to celebrate it not denigrate it – and happily plays on our familiarity with all these tropes before turning the entire thing on its head. In fact we’re probably in on the game from the very beginning because it’s quite clear from right in the middle of the title sequence that we’re in for something a bit different here.

And The Cabin in the Woods doesn’t disappoint. As soon as the checklist of college types – jock, stoner, nervy bloke, coy girl, foxy chick – set off for their weekend and are warned off by a gum-chewing local we appear to be on very familiar territory indeed. Installed in their spooky holiday home the group stumble upon the diary of a previous occupant of the cabin who suffered terrible family abuse and before long they’ve inadvertently resurrected a family of zombies buried out in the woods. So far so ‘seen all this before’ but of course it’s the consequent twists and revelations that send the film off into wildly different areas in a story that attempts to offer an explanation as to exactly why kids have behaved like this in horror movies since Hollywood immemorial whilst doffing its cap towards practically every other modern horror film ever made.

And that’s as far as we go. If you’ve seen The Cabin in the Woods you’ll know the wonderfully warped change of direction the film takes and we’re happy to report that this is, as we might have suspected from an auteur like Joss Whedon, a film that keeps on giving with every viewing. Horror buffs won’t be disappointed (although some hardcore fans might not get the joke and find it too flippant), creature fans will be delighted; this is a smart, clever, often hysterically funny movie which doesn’t miss a beat and reminds us that horror doesn’t have to be horrid and that it’s good to have some fun along with your fear. Brilliant.

Extras: Sparkling Goddard/Whedon commentary, decent ‘Making Of’, Whedon set tour, Wondercon stage Q&A and more.

DVD Review: Batman – The Dark Knight Returns / Director: Jay Oliva / Screenplay: Bob Goodman, Frank Miller / Starring: Peter Weller, Ariel Winter, David Selby, Wade Williams, Michael Emerson, Paget Brewster / UK Release Date: November 26th

Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns is considered by many to be the single greatest Batman story ever told. After a decade long absence, Bruce Wayne is forced to bring the Batman out of retirement to face the threat posed by a gang called “The Mutants” who have, to all intents and purposes, taken over Gotham.

If this sounds a little familiar to you, then you have obviously seen Christopher Nolan’s final chapter of his Batman trilogy, which does its best to emulate, and in places downright steal elements of this classic story. Where Nolan’s final movie was a bloated mess with pacing issues and plot holes you could drive a batmobile through, this faithful adaption of the classic graphic novel shows how it’s supposed to be done.

And yes, this is an absolutely faithful adaption of the graphic novel. All of the elements are present, including an aged Lana Lang’s televised arguments with Harvey Dent’s psychiatrist and the numerous news reports interspersed throughout the narrative that look at the effect the return of Batman is having on Gotham’s citizens. Even the timeframe is correct, with references to past historic events putting it slap bang in the middle of an alternate 1980s. In many ways, the feel of the narrative is reminiscent of Zack Snyder’s adaption of Watchmen, which came out around the same time as The Dark Knight Returns, especially the use of classic frames from the comic book brought to life within the film.

Once things get moving, and Bruce dons the cape and cowl once more, the film cracks along at a hell of a pace. The action hardly lets up for a second, and watching the fights between Batman and the Mutant gang leader explode onto the screen will bring a little tear of geek joy to anyone familiar with the original comic book. The animation is first rate, matched by great voice performances from Peter Weller as an aging Bruce Wayne, and a pumping score that sounds a little like an ‘80s electronica remix of Han’s Zimmer’s work on The Dark Knight Rises.

This is the movie that batman fans have wanted to see for almost thirty years, and rest assured that DC have absolutely nailed it. There were no doubt some who would have liked to see the side content, such as the news reports, trimmed to bring the running time down, but DC have taken a brave decision in releasing a largely unaltered version of the story and it has paid off.

Review: Antiviral / Cert: TBC / Director: Brandon Cronenberg / Screenplay: Brandon Cronenberg / Starring: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gordon, Malcolm McDowell, Douglas Smith / UK Release Date: Out Now 

Brandon Cronenberg (son of David) has written and directed an intense and disturbing debut film looking at society’s increasing obsession with celebrity. Getting to the sick heart of this cultural disease, Cronenberg has created a white walled world that delivers a claustrophobic film experience with a mesmerising central performance from Caleb Landry Jones. Growing up the son of a famous filmmaker and being in the public eye has obviously influenced the subject matter. The elements of body horror will be up for comparison with his father’s films but some of the images are grotesquely unique.

Cronenberg excels at placing the audience in his dystopian future following the daily routine of Syd March (Landry Jones) as he sells the diseases of the rich and famous to members of the public, all for a sizeable sum of money. A black market that harvests the cells, a grubby gangster community, including a butcher who sells slabs of celebrity skin for human consumption, a beautiful blonde bombshell and some wise cracking colleagues make up the clinical and sickening world that Syd inhabits. There are many close-ups of needles and injections so if this sort of thing makes you feel queasy, be warned.

From the very first shot of the film Syd is sick, seen with a thermometer sticking out of his mouth standing beside a poster of Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon). She is the most sought after celebrity whose diseases are available exclusively at the Lucas Clinic where Syd is employed. Breaking the rules of the clinic Syd infects himself with Hannah’s newest disease only to find out it is lethal. He soon becomes the centre of unwanted attention and a human lab rat as those in power attempt to steal the virus and cash in. Hallucinations (a side effect of the illness) play out in a grossly enchanting fashion. As Syd literally stumbles (his deteriorating physical appearance conveyed brilliantly by Landry Jones) into a sinister world full of mysterious characters a captivating story plays out.

The idea that society is searching for fulfilment and some sort of spiritual nourishment from celebrity is fantastically imagined with squelchy human cell steaks and Syd’s vampiric like bloodlust. Snippets of news play throughout the film guiding us through mundane celebrity routine and speculation with some dark humour. It pokes fun at the media as they enable the addiction but with Syd infected himself it points to the fact that no one is blameless in the situation. The public gets what the public wants being the message.

Cronenberg’s bleak vision is cohered perfectly with composer E.C. Woodley’s haunting soundtrack. A debut that shows promise not only in the relevance of the subject matter but in the creative and menacing aesthetic.

Extras: None

DVD Review: Werewolf – The Beast Among Us / Cert: 18 / Director: Louis Morneau / Screenplay: Michael Tabb, Catherine Cyran, Louis Morneau / Starring: Stephen Bauer, Guy Wilson, Stephen Rea, Nia Peebles / Release Date: October 22nd

Ah, Universal. The studio has a rich heritage of lycanthrope cinematic offerings, giving us the original Claude Rains and Bela Lugosi starring The Wolf Man as well as one of the first successful horror comedies of all time, An American Werewolf In London. However, they’ve also given us the 2010 remake of The Wolfman, so their slate is not untarnished.

The studio’s latest film follows a small band of rag tag werewolf hunters who arrive at a town in turmoil as it suffers constant attacks from the beast. Setting their usual traps, they prepare for what they believe will be just another easy job, but they’re wrong. There’s a witch-hunt in the town to try and work out who is responsible, as well as outside interference from poachers eager to get their hands on the reward money.

If you can get past a pretty ropey CGI werewolf – including transformation scenes – and ignore all the obvious homages to past Universal horrors such as American Werewolf and even Jaws, then you might find yourself almost enjoying the movie. The characters are quite likeable, with the lead hunter a mix of Van Helsing and Indiana Jones. There are some decent gore effects on show and the dead body prosthetics are impressive. There are enough wry gags used to cause your lips to smile, although not too much so it steers clear of parody by a wide berth.

The ending all seems to go a bit Underworld for a moment and is a little out of place with the rest of the pacing, but the performances on show are reliable, even by an underused Stephen Rea as the town doctor. Switch off your brain, turn off the lights and give this a chance – you might just surprise yourself.

Review: Isn’t Anyone Alive? / Cert: 15 / Director: Gakuryu Ishii / Screenplay: Shiro Maeda / Starring: Eri Aoki, Kota Fudauchi, Keisuke Hasebe / Release Date: October 22nd

“This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper,” wrote the poet T S Eliot. His lines would make a great tagline for this blacker-than-black comedy. The setting in an idyllic university campus, where laid-back students with fabulous hair while away their time discussing the minutiae of their lives and bickering about what party drinks to order. When one of them learns from her mobile phone of a crash on the subway (the driver mysteriously asleep or unconscious at the controls), the news barely troubles their leisured existence. But then, one by one, the students start coughing, having fits and dropping dead, and soon the beautifully landscaped campus is littered with corpses. Why is this happening? And what, if anything, should they do about it?

Based on an avant-garde play by Shiro Maeda, this isn’t your conventional disaster movie. The whole thing is mounted in a deadpan style which can be quite off-putting until you get used to it, and the story, such as it is, drifts along inconsequentially from one vignette to the next. We’re never quite sure what’s causing the disaster, but an airborne virus seems plausible, and there are widespread rumours of biotech experiments on sublevel three of the university hospital (although a sober young doctor claims to have been on the spot at the exact moment when that particular urban myth was made up). One thing becomes increasingly clear – it’s everywhere, and annihilation is unavoidable.

It’s a daunting prospect, and the characters’ responses are comically inadequate. Some try and fail to come up with meaningful last words (here’s a tip, they need to be snappy). Another’s main focus is on dying with his eyes shut because he’s repulsed by the thought of someone closing them for him. One solemn-looking character leaves a taped message which turns out to be an ear-splittingly inept musical number. No one wants to die first, but then again no one wants to be left alone at the end.

Director Gakuryu Ishii makes no obvious attempt to engage your sympathies, but despite that you soon find yourself rooting for this bunch of slackers as they busk their way to doom. The ensemble cast play off each other with wonderful comic timing, and if you relish the humour of awkwardness and embarrassment, then you’ll chortle your way happily through many of the scenes. Then, in its last moments, the movie shows you what has been going on outside the campus, and the sudden broadening of perspective has an almost shattering impact. Funny, touching and highly original, this has all the hallmarks of a future cult classic. Always assuming there is a future, that is.

Special Features: None

Review: BBC Ghost Stories – Volumes 3 and 4 / Cert: Vol 3 (12), Vol 4 (15) / Director: Lawrence Gordon Clarke, Derek Lister/ Screenplay: Robin Chapman, John Bowen, David Rudkin, Andrew Davies, Clive Exton / Starring: Simon Gipps-Kent, Michael Bryant, Edward Petherbridge, Denholm Elliot, Peter Bowles, John Stride / Release Date: Out Now

Two discs in which the BFI complete their releases of the BBC Ghost Stories, productions which ran on BBC2 in the UK between 1971 and 1978 and were, in their way, as anticipated by their television audience as any of the more populist Morecombe and Wise Christmas Specials of the time were by theirs.

Generally inspired by the short stories of MR James, the Ghost Stories were usually low-budget pieces, tightly written and beautifully-mounted and they were designed to chill and not terrify an audience. These stories, often slow and understated, deliver subtle scares but the fact that so many of them are remembered by the audience nearly thirty years later and still stand the test of time for curious newcomers is an absolute testament to the care and attention with which they were made.

The six tales across these two well-presented box sets are a mixture of four creepy Victorian tales and two contemporary stories (even though the very last tale, The Ice House is noticeable for its stilted, anachronistic dialogue) and it’s possible that modern tastes might find the Victorian stories a little on the sluggish side. Volume 3 kicks off with Lost Hearts, a tale of the quest for immortality and features a pair of quite hair-raising claw-fingered ghoul children. The Treasure of Abbot Thomas climaxes with some unsettling oozing black slime and the mewling, squeaking tree-spiders which infest the last few scenes of the witchcraft story The Ash Tree still have the potential to become the stuff of nightmares.

Volume 4 moves on from MR James and includes The Signalman, a classic BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’ most famous supernatural story (it certainly terrified Christopher Ecceston’s Doctor in Doctor Who!) and in the original story Stigma probably the most accessible of the stories for a 21^st century audience the removal of an ancient menhir from the garden of a house adjoining the famous Avebury stone circle unleashes an ancient and lethal evil upon the house’s owners. The curious Ice House is probably the least engrossing of the six stories presented across the two discs due to unsympathetic characterisation and an underwhelming and rather obvious denouement.

Perfect for those seeking subtler thrills than those offered by modern horror, the Ghost Stories DVDs are an ideal accompaniment to fast-approaching cold Winter evenings and while they won’t send you scuttling behind the sofa they’ll almost certainly give you those delicious little shivers of dread and apprehension which come from only the most finely-crafted supernatural stories.

Special features: Both DVDs includes generous booklets with essays from esteemed authors and academics (Ramsey Campbell, Dick Fiddy, Matthew Sweet amongst them) and director Lawrence Gordon Clark provides lengthy on-screen introductions to the five episodes across the two discs which he directed.

Review: Dark Shadows / Cert: 12 / Director: Tim Burton / Screenplay: Seth Grahame-Smith / Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfieffer, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter / Release Date: October 15th

As I’m sure everyone knows by now, Dark Shadows is adapted from an old daytime soap, but it could hardly fit more snugly into the Burton canon if the director had dreamt it up himself. After spending 200 years trapped in a coffin, reluctant vampire Barnabas Collins (Depp) is unearthed by some unwitting workmen in the year 1972, only to find the once powerful Collins dynasty in decline. Forming an alliance with the current head of the family, Elizabeth (Pfeiffer), he settles back into the now-crumbling Collinwood Manor and goes about restoring the Collins name to its former glory.

Standing in his way is Angelique (Green), the witch who murdered his true love Josette (Heathcote), turned him into one of the undead and imprisoned him underground, all because he spurned her affections. She now rules the roost in Collinsport, the Maine fishing town his family founded – although you would think that 200 years of putting up with the smell of fish would be an even worse punishment than being buried alive.

Now that she’s had a couple of centuries to cool down, she’s prepared to bury the hatchet and kindle their romance again. That’s not very likely to happen, though, thanks to the arrival of Victoria, who happens to be the spitting image of the long-dead Josette.

The mise-en-scene is full of Burton’s trademark Gothic gloom, with costumes, décor and the rugged Maine coastline all looking beautiful, and all cleverly counterpointed against various ’70s kitschery. Encountering plastic trolls and lava lamps, Depp performs a series of exquisitely calculated double-takes. Chucklesome moments abound as he reads Love Story, meets hippies and challenges the little person inside the TV set to come out.

What’s missing, though, is a bit of passion. The reunion-after-centuries with Victoria/Josette is bland and quickly gets shoved into the background. Flouncing and pouting as Angelique, Eva Green comes across like a Head Girl vamping it up in a game of charades – scrumptiously cute and totally lacking in menace.

And then there’s Barnabas himself, who becomes less likeable the more you think about him. Supposedly the embodiment of the can-do spirit, you can’t help reflecting that anyone who can spend 200 years inside a coffin without even beginning to scratch his way out is actually something of a slacker. There’s also the small point that he kills rather a lot of people – many more than the much-despised Angelique.

Despite these caveats, Dark Shadows still manages to be continually diverting, and it’s bolstered with some lovely supporting turns, most notably from Moretz as a feral teen Collins. It’s only when you compare it to something like Edward Scissorhands that you notice the shadow of what could have been.

Special Features: The Collinses – Every Family Has Its Demons

Review: House of the Long Shadows / Cert: 15 / Director: Peter Walker / Screenplay: Michael Armstrong / Starring: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, John Carradine, Desi Arnaz Jnr / Release Date: Out Now

House of the Long Shadows is one of those films you may not have heard about, seeing that it’s neither a Hammer, Amicus or American International production, but nonetheless, it’s a rich and unique slice of horror history, one that had never happened before and was destined never to happen again.

This 1983 Cannon Group film was the first and only time that horror titans Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and John Carradine would all appear in the same film. That fact alone makes this release by Final Cut Entertainment a worthwhile purchase. Add to this the fact that there’s an insightful retrospective documentary House of the Long Shadows Revisited included as an extra and this disc becomes irresistible.

Although not top billed, the real star of the show is Desi Arnaz Jnr, who would star in the short lived super hero series Automan in the same year. Arnaz’s character, novelist Kenneth Magee wagers $20,000 with his publisher that he can write a gothic novel in 24 hours. His publisher arranges for him to spend the time in seclusion in Baldpate Manor in the wilds of Wales and so the fun begins.

On arrival, he finds he’s not as secluded as he thought. Already in residence are an ancient housekeeper played by John Carradine and his elderly daughter Victoria (Keith).Very soon, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee arrive, and the plot thickens on the typically stormy night with a murderous tale of dark family secrets, and a family member kept prisoner for over forty years – now loose and seeking blood splattered retribution.

The film is broadly similar in tone and plot to The Old Dark House (Universal 1932) also curiously set in Wales and is based on a 1913 novel, Seven Keys to Baldpate, and its subsequent stage adaptation. If the film has a fault, it’s that certain scenes are overly theatrical and stagy, but then again, it’s a purposely stereotypical “old dark manor” film with hidden panels and locked rooms. Horror in the grand old style with its tongue firmly in its cheek.

Even if the twist ending isn’t exactly a surprise, there’s still a lot of fun to be had watching the elder statesmen of horror plying their trade one last time.

Special Features: None

Review: Grindhouse Collection 1 – Cannibal Women In The Avocado Jungle Of Death / Cert: 15 / Director: J.F. Lawton / Screenplay: J.F. Lawton / Starring: Shannon Tweed, Bill Maher, Karen M. Waldron, Adrienne Barbeau, Brett Stimley / Release Date: Out Now

This light-hearted romp from 1989 kicks off with a crisis – a national shortage of avocados, or so the US government claims. According to them, supply is dwindling as a result of the ever more aggressive behaviour of one particular tribe who live in the “Avocado Jungle” (located in an uncharted part of sunny California), The Piranha Women – cannibals who feast upon men, and who seem to be growing hungrier by the day.

The government wants to relocate these troublesome man-eaters to some luxury condos in Malibu, and stuck with the thankless task of putting this proposition to them is Dr. Margo Hunt (Tweed), a liberal feminist of impeccable credentials. On goes the safari suit and off she drives, accompanied by a ditzy, bikini-clad coed called Bunny (Waldron) who has taken to studying feminism as a change from her Home Economics classes.

Reaching the edge of the jungle, they recruit a guide, Margo’s old flame Jim (Maher), and with him leading the way they soon fall into the tribe’s clutches, with at least one of them awaiting death by cooking pot.

It’s all unashamedly joky and facetious, but also very likeable. The look of the film is rough and ready, with the jungle very scrubby in places and some of the Piranha Women rather heavy in the stern under their leather loinclothes (although perhaps that’s to be expected with such a high protein diet). Even the biggest fans of this film would have to admit that director J.F. Lawton is unlikely to go down in history as one of cinema’s great visual stylists. That said, he’s a very capable screenwriter (as he subsequently demonstrated by penning such perennial favourites as Pretty Woman and Under Siege), and there are some surprisingly sophisticated one-liners lurking among the slapstick. True, the constant ribbing at feminists now seems very dated, but it’s never mean-spirited, and anyway the girls give as good as they get.

Shannon Tweed looks statuesque in crisp, tight khaki and keeps a straight face, and that’s all you could really ask of her. Maher gets a bit too much screen time, but the most showy part goes to Waldron (who was on a roll at this stage of her career, having just come off Return of the Killer Tomatoes!). Not the best cult movie ever, but still a source of guilty pleasure. And that title’s a work of art in itself.

Extras: Trailers / Reversible sleeve / Original aspect ratio

Review: Avengers Assemble / Cert: 12 / Director: Joss Whedon / Screenplay: Joss Whedon / Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffallo, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg / Release Date: Out Now

Avengers Assemble, the year’s biggest and best superhero movie (excluding Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, of course, right??) arrives on Blu-ray & DVD and whilst fans are likely to grumble about the paucity of the bonus content available (especially in the UK) the bottom line remains that this is a thrilling, explosive, amusing punch-the-air piece of modern escapist filmmaking.

Marvel Studios’ brilliant slow burn strategy of establishing each of the Avengers via a series of largely triumphant standalone movies pays dividends here. With the groundwork done the audience is allowed the luxury of being able to sit back and watch as writer/director Joss Whedon deftly pulls all the various established character strands together, tosses in a familiar villain and an army of ferocious aliens, lights the blue touch paper and watches his stunning two-hour plus fireworks display light up the sky. Whedon, an unashamed superhero geek, is absolutely the right choice to steer a ship as huge and unwieldy as The Avengers (sod the Assemble lark); he instinctively knows and understands all these characters – even minor players like Johansson’s Black Widow and Renner’s Hawkeye – and he knows how to make them all work alongside one another, playing to the strengths of each and every one of them and giving them all a chance to shine and they all get their moment in the sun.

It’s a ferociously mechanised movie – much of it takes place in huge underground complexes or else aboard S.H.I.E.L.D.’s breathtaking aircraft carrier HQ and the rest of the human race doesn’t get much of a look in except for the running and the screaming in the apocalyptic final half-hour. That said, you really won’t care because Whedon’s playful, lovingly-crafted script has so much fun with Downey’s twinkling Tony Stark/Iron Man, Evans’ slightly uptight Steve Rodgers/Captain America and Hemsworth’s pleasantly portentous Thor as well as a spot-on characterisation (at last!) of the Hulk with new boy Ruffallo making it third time lucky for the Jolly Green Giant on the big screen. Samuel L. Jackson’s eye-patched supremo Nick Fury oversees his loose cannon heroes like a slightly-exasperated father and whilst Johansson channels Whedon’s earlier ass-kicking heroines as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner gets a bit short-changed in a role which sees him under the control of the malevolent Loki (Hiddleston returning from Thor and giving as good as he gets, never overshadowed by the good guys) for most of the movie.

Avengers is a movie packed with moments to cherish – the wonderful circling shot of the Avengers, fully assembled, on the devastated battlefield streets of New York; Loki’s attack on the S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ; that death and come on, who knew The Hulk would get the movie’s biggest laughs? With quibbles being few and far between – the alien Chitauri are little more than convenient faceless aliens drafted in to set up a big battle scene – Avengers is ultimately a love-letter to the whole superhero genre and everything fans of the comic book could ever have hoped for and surely a whole lot more. How long again until the next one, Joss?

Extras: UK fans are right to feel short-changed. Joss Whedon’s commentary hasn’t made the trip across the Atlantic so DVD purchasers are left with just a paltry six-minute puff ‘behind the scenes’ piece. Blu-ray purchasers get a better deal with interesting deleted/extended scenes (some of which develop story strands ultimately excised from the final cut), gag reel and watch-once ‘Marvel One-Shot’ short Item 47. There’s a two-disc Blu-ray set available from Sainsbury’s which includes a ninety-minute documentary which chronicles the history of the previous films leading to The Avengers. We suspect the in-depth stuff we really want to see is being lined up for some ‘Ultimate Edition’ somewhere further down the line…