Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Basket Case – The Trilogy / Director: Frank Henenlotter / Starring: Kevin VanHentenryck, Annie Ross, Beverly Bonner / Release Date: October 22nd

What’s in the basket? A question Duane Bradley is asked a lot when he arrives in New York and checks into the sleazy Hotel Broslin, a place filled with drunks, oddbods and prostitutes. We soon discover the answer; inside is his grotesquely deformed brother Belial. Separated at birth in a brutal operation, the Siamese twins have come looking for revenge on the doctors that left Belial for dead and now the basket-dweller is ready to wreak blood-soaked carnage. Where the original classic ends the sequels pick up and things start to get really deranged when the brothers meet their long lost aunt ‘Granny Ruth’ and her houseful of freaks.

Filmed in 1981 on a budget of $35,000, the first Basket Case became an immediate cult hit following sell out midnight movie screenings in New York, taking its director completely by surprise and leaving him more than a little exasperated. Conceived as a love letter to the grindhouse movie theatres of 42nd Street – Henenlotter’s ‘second home’ since the age of 15 – Henenlotter originally thought his debut feature would play a couple of weeks in Times Square and then sink without a trace. But in retrospect it’s not hard to see why the film became a hit on the midnight movie circuit. Similar in theme to previous midnight movie greats, Freaks (1932) and Eraserhead (1976), Basket Case is a celebration of freakishness and transgression in all its glory – perfect counterculture viewing for audiences of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Essentially the tale of a young man who is ultimately destroyed by his ‘dark half’, it’s tempting to read an element of autobiography in Basket Case. Duane Bradley, the wide–eyed slightly goofy innocent, carries his ‘dark-half’ in a basket through Times Square in much the same way that the teenaged Henenlotter carried his love of transgressive/exploitation movies. Duane and his brother are in hiding from the uncaring world that sought to separate them and consign the deformed Belial to the garbage. Their father’s fear and hatred of their abnormality is aided and abetted by the medical establishment on whom Duane and Belial seek bloody revenge. The ‘what’s in the basket?’ refrain subsequently carries on this theme of betrayal – those who open the basket to see what’s inside rarely do it out of simple curiosity, usually with the intention of stealing whatever’s inside. Duane and Belial are alone in the cruel New York underworld with only each other. The women they meet are kind – like the matronly aunt who brought them up after the death of their father – but bring with them the threat of coming between Duane and his Siamese twin (separation as motif is even carried through to the killing of the various villains – Belial literally tears them in two.)

But sexual jealousy rears its ugly head when Duane falls for receptionist Sharon and here Basket Case takes a turn into the dark and disturbing. For the most part the villains in the film are cartoonlike, but Belial’s dark sexual perversity gives the film a transgressive undercurrent that makes it more than just a bad taste romp and paves the way for his later Frankenhooker (1990) and Bad Biology (2008).

Basket Case 2 takes up from where the first film left off but is altogether a lighter movie (at least until the point where Henenlotter treats us to some hilariously disgusting mutant sex). Escaping from hospital, the brothers meet up with ‘Granny Ruth’ and are whisked off to live with her and her adopted freaks where Belial falls in love with the similarly deformed ‘Eve’. Indeed, Henenlotter references Tod Browning’s classic in several ways, including a subversion of normality/freakishness as the freaks become the heroes and the ‘normals’ the villains. Belial becomes the more sympathetic of the brothers in Basket Case 2, while it is Duane who becomes the more deranged! Things move towards their logical conclusion in Basket Case 3, when Belial becomes the proud father of twelve deformed progeny. But villainy is at hand in the form of some nasty cops who kidnap the offspring in a bid to capture Belial, provoking him and Duane to hatch a plan which involves more bloody vengeance. Will the saga end happily for the two brothers? That would be telling – but suffice it to say that, as with all of Henenlotter’s films, there will be times in Basket Case – The Trilogy when you will hardly believe your own eyes…

Special Features: What’s in the Basket, An Interview with Graham Humphreys, Video Introduction by Frank Henenlotter, Audio Commentary by Frank Henenlotter, Edgar Ievans and Beverly Bonner, Outtakes, Hotel Broslin Video Short, Trailer/Radio Spots, Photo Gallery

Review: The Smurfs – Halloween Special / Cert: U / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Various / Release Date: October 1st

A collection of Halloween themed Smurfs episodes, because Smurfs aren’t terrifying enough already. In the Judgement on Gotham Batman/Judge Dredd crossover, there’s a scene in which Scarecrow gives Judge Death a blast of his fear gas. In this moment, Judge Death recoils at a vision of cuddly teddy bears and cute cartoon figures. Death’s reaction to this, I suspect, will echo that of the few adults unfortunate enough to watch The Smurfs: Halloween Special.

Most television episodes take the Halloween special as an excuse to do something uncharacteristically scary (or in the case of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, actually watchable) and the world of the Smurfs is no different. At first it seems like the most traumatic thing to happen to anyone is the loss of Snappy’s beloved bear, Huggy. Not so. Soon after, Gargamel arrives in Smurftown and begins trashing the place. Just as he threatens to eat (really) one of the young Smurfs, his teddy bear comes to life and chases the evil wizard away. The scene is frankly horrifying, and in a purely accidental way. As are the rest of the episodes. The Smurfs: Halloween Special is terrifying, and that’s before anything scary even starts happening.

I blame pornography. No, really. One of the most traumatic experiences of my life was being forced into watching a Smurfs porn parody in which two Smurfs, while doing rude things to one another, are interrupted by Gargamel, who then proceeds to… join in. This experience left me with an abiding wariness of Smurfs and evil wizards that this collection of episodes does nothing to dissipate. At least Gargamel keeps it in his pants though.

There are six nightmarish episodes in this collection, each with a scary theme. Most are as colourful and cheery (which is scary enough in itself) as every other Smurfs episode ever made, with names such as Poltersmurf (you see what they did there), Scary Smurfs and Things That go Smurf in the Night. Across these episodes, the Smurfs turn into monsters, torment one another with Poltersmurfs, meet a skeleton that sounds like Clint Eastwood and find themselves turned red, like in that comic book when The Hulk is turned red.

The Smurfs: Halloween Special is colourful but harmless (aside from the nightmares) fun. As with previous collections of cartoons, six episodes proves far too much saccharine. But Halloween is the season for overindulgence. If you’re not too old to watch Smurfs cartoons then you’re definitely not too old to eat the necessary amount of sugar and chocolate to make six of them bearable.

Review: Dexter – Season 6 / Director: Various / Teleplay: Various / Starring: Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Carpenter, Desmond Harrington, C.S. Lee / Lauren Velez, David Zayas, James Remar, Colin Hanks, Edward James Olmos / Release Date: Out Now

Dexter season 6 drew some of the harshest criticism levelled at the show so far. Sure it’s not as good as the five seasons that preceded it and they make some pretty questionable decisions regarding some of the characters, but Dexter firing on half burn is still better than most TV. The trouble is now we know that there is a two season endgame in sight, season 6 feels much like it’s treading water, and a mid-point between whatever is to come.

You probably know the set up by now even if you don’t watch the show, season 6 finds Dexter’s bond becoming even closer with his son, his sister Deb is promoted to Lieutenant and has to learn the politics and the culture pretty quickly. Deb’s relationship with Quinn breaks down causing him to go off the rails. Dexter meets an ex-convict by the name of Brother Sam (played by Mos Def) whom he bonds with, forcing him to question his religious belief and his journey just as a new serial killer by the name of ‘The Doomsday Killer’ starts murdering people, staging bizarre tableaux’s straight out of the Book of Revelation.

Over the last two seasons, we as an audience have become comfortable with the format of the show and more importantly the supporting characters who previously took focus away from Michael C. Hall and his compelling portrayal of Dexter. Season 6 makes a near fatal error with the support cast who we have since come to like. After being dumped Quinn is reduced to a borderline comic relief character whereas previously he was the only person who suspected Dexter wasn’t who he appeared to be. This arc has gone completely out of the window in favour of someone who constantly ends up getting thrown out of bars and rolling around scrapping with Batista. There is also the introduction of the ‘interns’ who are taken under Masuka’s wing and who he either ignores or sexually harasses. This eventually gives way to an intriguing sub plot which harkens back to the very first season but it is ignored or not given enough screen time and will leave you scratching your head and even more wishing the next season was here already. There are other missteps with characters like LaGuerta, who is fast becoming a parody and Chief Matthews which make the show seem more and more like a soap with lots of blood.

What is good about season 6 is Dexter’s spiritual journey of sorts and the ‘Big Bad’ for the season, The Doomsday Killer. The murder set pieces are really well staged and in one or two instances actually shocking which is something that has been missing from the show since season four. The bad guys, as played by Colin Hanks and Edward James Olmos, are well portrayed and even though there is a reveal that you can work out from episode one, there is still lots of great work here.

If you’ve been on board since the start then it’s worth the sometime slog of watching this to get to the ending which will change the show forever. For others just starting watching this, season 6 is something of a low point, you have been warned.

Extras: BD Live extras linking to interviews and free episodes of other shows.

Review: A Night in the Woods / Cert: 15 / Director: Richard Parry / Screenplay: Richard Parry / Starring: Scoot McNairy, Anna Skellern, Andrew Hawley / Release Date: September 10th

If you want to point fingers at who you can blame for the current flood of ‘found footage’ movies, then it’s probably Paranormal Activity and its endless imitators. Going further back though and The Blair Witch Project is probably the inspiration for that film, although it took a while for its influence to be fully felt. A Night in the Woods is a film heavily indebted to Blair Witch; in fact it’s almost a carbon copy of the film at times.

We start off meeting nice young couple Kerry (Skellern) and her American boyfriend Brody (McNairy) who are preparing for a camping trip. We establish fairly early on that Brody is pretty obsessive about filming everything, which takes care of the inevitable plot hole later in the film. Kerry and Brody pick up Kerry’s ‘cousin’ Leo (Hawley) who is a fairly suspicious character and the three of them set off for the Dartmoor countryside. En route they end up in a pub straight out of another classic film where they are warned about the legend of a Hangman who haunts the woods. They make their way into the wilderness and tensions mount, drugs and alcohol are consumed and nobody is quite who they appear to be. It’s possible that someone or something is watching them.

The problem with A Night in the Woods is that it’s a film that is afraid to stand on its own feet and be the British equivalent of the Blair Witch, it really wants to but either rips it off completely or doesn’t go far enough in any of the intriguing directions it presents. Luckily for director Richard Parry, he’s got some great actors for the three major cast members. McNairy is his down to earth likeable self from Monsters, Skellern is convincing as a victim/hysterical woman in trouble and Hawley is alternately likeable and creepy.

As the film goes on it presents you with several scenarios which could be supernatural in nature or could be wholly human in origin. None of these threads are ever concluded satisfactorily though. It’s pretty clear early on that Leo is some kind of sociopath and Brody is a borderline pervert, inexplicably the two of them desert Kerry mid-way through the film and you are left scratching your head rather than fearing for her. When the supposed supernatural elements make their presence felt it just doesn’t work because it’s so indebted to Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.

We’ve seen far worse than A Night in the Woods recently; it doesn’t quite reach the lows of Evil Things but also doesn’t equal the highs of V/H/S. It remains an average watch you won’t remember in the morning.

Extras: None

Review: Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation / Cert: 18 / Director: Jeff Broadstreet / Screenplay: Jeff Broadstreet / Starring: Andrew Divoff, Jeffrey Combs, Sarah Lieving / Release Date: Out Now

When George A Romero’s original 1968 seminal classic, Night of the Living Dead failed to have copyright correctly registered, meaning the film and its title slipped into the public domain, it opened the door for anyone to remake it or make a sequel to it. In 2006, Jeff Broadstreet released Night of the Living Dead 3D, a remake filmed in 3D. Now he has created another entry into the series, although it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where it fits in.

Gerald Tovar Jr (Divoff) runs the family mortuary after his father passes away, and continues a side job that his father began, taking in extra bodies for cash. However, unlike his father, Gerald isn’t cremating the bodies, but instead stores them in a locked room, unaware that he is exposing them to toxic medical waste that is reanimating them. When his estranged brother, Harold (Combs) turns up, needing money after his veterinary practice has closed down, Gerald finds his problems beginning to mount.

Cadavers are starting to walk around and begin to munch on the staff. Harold is threatening to contest the will, which left most of the inheritance to Gerald. Gerald is having to deal with firing a member of staff, who is so goth, she may as well already be dead – it’s not clarified if she really is into necrophilia or not, but it’s certainly mentioned. There’s also a Sarah Palin caricature on hand as well.

There is some nice political satire on show here as well as a few very tongue in cheek references to previous outbreaks in the years that previous movies were released. However, it takes the joke a little too far when Combs asks if the zombies are quick or slow and mentions that they are Romero zombies.

This has no reason to use the Night of the Living Dead moniker, other than to cash in on it. Disappointingly, the zombies don’t even manage to escape from the mortuary. The make-up effects for the zombies are decent enough, but as with most horror films, there’s just no need for the 3D on show here. It doesn’t make the film scarier or gorier – it’s just a trick to sell more copies.

What they should have done here is utilise Divoff and Combs a lot better and give us a fresh, modern outbreak at a mortuary. Instead, we get a stale re-tread that offers little new.

Special Features: Making of Featurette, Audio Commentary with Director Jeff Broadsheet, Blooper/Outtake Reel, Producing CG Visual Effects in 3D

Review: Doctor Who – Planet of Giants / Cert: U / Director: by Mervyn Pinfield / Screenplay: Louis Marks / Starring: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Carole Ann Ford / Release Date: Out Now

It’s 1964 and Doctor Who is back for a second run little more than six weeks after the end of its first series.

The second season was where the show, still produced by Verity Lambert but with new script editor Dennis Spooner ready to take over from David Whitaker, began to flex its creative muscles as Doctor Who started to explore its own boundaries, only to find that it didn’t really seem to have any. Under Spooner the show loosened up a bit – with audiences of around 10 million it could afford to take a few chances – and the second season was to offer up outrageous comedy (Spooner’s The Romans, which could have been run with a laughter track), hardcore historical (Whitaker’s steely and atmospheric The Crusade), absolute weirdness (Bill Strutton’s The Web Planet which is about as alien as the show has ever been) and rambunctious space opera (Terry Nation’s The Chase, heavily Spoonered for comic effect). The Daleks were becoming fixtures, of course, but the second season started off rather ignominiously with a little three-part throwaway originally written as ‘The Miniscules’ and intended to be the very first serial back in 1963; rewritten and reshaped – and eventually remolded from a four-part script – Planet of the Giants has, ironically, rather been overshadowed in the intervening years by some of the bigger boys which loomed over it. Now it’s here on DVD presented in its transmitted three-episode version with a special feature in which the scripted fourth episode is recreated and all the excised material reimagined courtesy of some inventive CGI, crafty editing and often uncanny voice mimicry recreating the late Jacqueline Hill (Barbara) and William Hartnell himself. It’s all very clever and probably very worthy but the style of it does tend to jar somewhat with the very staid production of the episodes as screened.

Disaster looms when the doors of the TARDIS swing open mid-flight, much to the Doctor‘s flustered concern. But the Ship seems to land safely and the Space and Time Travellers wander outside and eventually realise they’ve been shrunk to microscopic size and are stranded in the garden of a small country farmhouse. Elsewhere infamy’s afoot as a Government Inspector arrives to close down experiments on revolutionary new insecticide DN6 because of its deadly and permanent side-effects. Ian and Barbara are separated from the Doctor and Susan and find themselves transported into the house inside a giant (apparently wooden) briefcase and as they try to get back into the garden the Doctor and his granddaughter are trying to find a way in to rescue them.

It’s not difficult to see why BBC One Head of Serials Donald Wilson decreed that the serial should be cut down from four episodes. At three episodes Planet of Giants is sluggish enough; the additional material presented here adds nothing new to the story and just drags out a pretty thin yarn to breaking point. What’s most impressive about the serial is its ambition; clever giant props and some primitive back projection are surprisingly-effective in creating the illusion of the Doctor and his chums reduced to “roughly the size of an inch” and their encounters with dead ants and worms and their clambering in and out of giants sinks and matchboxes is all good fun and genuinely quite convincing. But unfortunately there’s really just not enough plot to go around. The ‘giants’ of the title are a rather dreary bunch of 1950s stereotypes – a pompous official who gets shot through the heart, a bushy-eye-browed greedy businessman, a nervy scientist who just wants to do the right thing with the nifty new insecticide he’s created which can end world hunger. Their clumpy dialogue and boring motivation just slows down an already achingly-turgid story and the introduction of a matronly telephone switchboard operator and her George Dixon-lite bumbling policeman husband in the third episode serve to make Doctor Who seem suddenly creakily old-fashioned. For the show’s first return visit to 1960s Earth since the first episode a year earlier it all seems very parochial and just a little unimaginative.

But the main cast at least are having a good time. Hartnell huffs and puffs away through the episodes as he climbs up drainpipes and giant paving stones and Jacqueline Hill is superb as Barbara who inadvertently picks up a potentially-lethal dose of the DN6 insecticide and can’t bring herself to tell her companions. William Russell’s Ian is as steel-jawed and stoic as ever – if a bit slow on the uptake in the face of overwhelming giant evidence – and Carole Ann Ford’s golly-gosh turn as Susan is in danger of becoming as wearing on the audience as it clearly was on the actress who left the series at the end of the following serial.

But 1960s Doctor Who is always worth a look and Planet of Giants is close enough to the very beginnings of the series to still possess an almost-indefinable sense of pioneering television magic even in the face of an often rather pedestrian script. The Liliputian conceit of tiny people in a giant world is endlessly fascinating and it’s a bit of a missed opportunity that Doctor Who wasn’t able to do something a bit more interesting with an idea usually so full of dramatic potential.

Special Features: The combined episode three is also presented as two separate episodes and whilst uber-fan Ian Levene, who masterminded and directed the reconstruction, is to be commended for his sterling work in recreating a long-lost piece of Doctor Who history, it really does the story few favours and it’s very much a watch-once experience. Elsewhere there’s a brief piece on the making of the reconstruction (a ‘making of’ the actual serial being impractical with so few members of the original cast and crew still alive to tell the tall tale). Archive interviews with Carole Ann Ford and the late Verity Lambert, the usual extensive optional on-screen production subtitles, photo gallery and a rather dry commentary featuring an array of backroom talent round off a typically-thorough set of bonus material.

Review: The Pact / Cert: 15 / Director: Nicholas McCarthy / Screenplay: Nicholas McCarthy / Starring: Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien, Mark Steger, Agnes Brucker / Release Date: October 1st

A warning to the more squeamish of our readers: The Pact contains some truly horrifying imagery ever seen in a movie. Those of a weak disposition would be well advised to keep clear. No, not the blood and gore – I’m referring to its haunted house’s ghastly décor. The wallpaper alone is enough to give you nightmares for a week.

Quietly impressive and casually chilling, The Pact might be the biggest surprise of 2012. Tuning in expecting to see a re-run of last year’s Insidious, I was surprised to find something a little more interesting going on instead. In the wake of her mother’s death, Annie finds herself reluctantly revisiting both demons past and her childhood home in search of her missing sister. Bad memories aren’t the only thing haunting the old house – she finds herself flying through the air with the greatest of ease, dragged into scary cupboards and tormented by terrifying apparitions. And then, there’s something a little more tangible to contend with.

At first The Pact seems like a mildly diverting haunted house story, similar in tone to the likes of Insidious and The Unborn (complete with the latter’s obsessive glorification of its female lead’s botom). However, a strong central performance from Caity Lotz as Annie and some very nice twists towards the end set it apart from the rest. It’s nothing that horror fans won’t have seen before, but feels less gimmicky and dumbed-down than most. The Innkeepers may be the critics’ darling this year, but The Pact proves that big multiplex horror isn’t a complete loss. There are some good jump scares alongside the slower, creepier moments. It brings the gore too, during a particularly gruesome moment involving a coat-hanger and some hair.

Not everything works quite so well though, and the film does suffer from some excessively silly moments. I was endlessly amused by Casper van Dien being in the film, if only because his name is Casper and he’s in a film about ghosts. This is a shabbier looking Casper than he was in Starship Troopers, playing a cop while dressed like a rubbish fancy dress Indiana Jones and eating ice cream for some reason. Well, every movie detective has to have their weird little tics, I suppose. Casper’s ghosts, in this case, are not so friendly, and for every jump scare there’s one to make you laugh out loud. The best way to see The Pact is on a big screen in a dark room, preferably with a large audience: like so many horror movies of its ilk, it won’t play so well on DVD.

It’s pact – sorry, packed – to the rafters with chills, spills and a genuinely interesting story to boot. The Pact doesn’t re-invent the wheel, but it takes its audience on a bloody good ride trying.

Special Features: None

Review: The Aggression Scale / Cert: 18 / Director: Steven C. Miller / Screenplay: Ben Powell / Starring: Ray Wise, Dana Ashbrook, Derek Mears, Jacob Reynolds / Release Date: September 3rd

The trouble with release patterns these days is that quite often really good B (or C) movies bypass the cinema altogether and make their debut on the DVD format and get ignored because of the complete lack of a cinema release. In the current climate it’s hard to imagine a film like Near Dark or the early work of John Carpenter ever finding an audience and being relegated to premiering on DVD. This is the case with Steven C. Miller’s film The Aggression Scale which is a brilliant ride of a film that you simply must see.

Described as an ultra-violent Home Alone, it’s hard to argue with the description. The plot opens with hitman Lloyd (Dana Ashbrook) going around cleaning up after his boss Bellavance’s (Ray Wise) accounts after he ends up in prison. When Bellavance gets out he demands that all those who stole money from him are taken care of, so Lloyd and his crew get to the killing and zero in on their final targets, a family out in the countryside consisting of recently married Bill and Maggie and their kids Lauren (Fabianne Therese) and Owen (Ryan Hartwig). Lloyd and his crew are in for a shock however as Owen has just been released against doctor’s wishes from a mental hospital and has inventive and brutal ways of defending his family.

The first thing that hits you about this film is how confident it is, right from the first frame when Lloyd kills a man in front of a couple of children and the score kicks in, you are completely sold on what you are about to watch and completely put in the right frame of mind. The film is perhaps not as gory as hardcore horror hounds would like and is more of an action thriller but it thrills in all the right ways with some great pacing and action beats. Anybody looking for the gritty, realistic reboot of the Home Alone franchise now has the film they were looking for. The cartoon violence of those films has now gone in favour of a serious tone when you are never in any doubt that you are watching the actions of a very disturbed individual no matter how many tacks and nails the bad guys step on.

Miller doesn’t linger on the violence but doesn’t hold back either, limbs are snapped and heads are blown into chunks but Miller knows when to demonstrate something for impact and when to cut away. In other hands, this would have been an exercise in lurid shock value but Miller and Ben Powell’s smart, efficient script does everything it needs to and is a twist-filled and entertaining ride with brilliant central performances from Ryan Hartwig and Dana Ashbrook.

The one complaint I have about this film is that it’s too short, I could have done with another fifteen or so minutes to flesh out either of the two central characters, although sometimes some mystery is a good thing. I would love to see this become some kind of franchise, it’s by far the best in the recent glut of home invasion themed thrillers and deserves your attention.

Special Features: None

Review: Orlando / Cert: PG / Director: Sally Potter / Screenplay: Sally Potter / Starring: Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, Quentin Crisp / Release Date: Out Now

On its release in 1992, this curious tale of an aristocrat staying forever young over the course of four centuries wowed audiences and garnered critical plaudits. Now, 20 years on, it makes its appearance on Blu-ray. Fingers crossed it’s not showing its age. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

Not to worry, it seems just as fresh, spry and quirky now as it did back then. Based on a Virginia Woolf novel, it recounts the bizarrely extended life of one Orlando (Swinton). A handsome boy who catches the eye of the elderly Queen Elizabeth in the year 1600, he’s bequeathed a title and estate by her on condition that he refrains from getting any older. Over the decades, he dabbles in poetry, breaks hearts and has his broken in turn, all without sprouting a single grey hair. After a century or so, he goes off for a stint as ambassador in Central Asia, and returns a changed woman. Because, as if immortality wasn’t enough to have on your plate, this is also a tale of gender bending. Poor Orlando quickly discovers that being a woman is a tough gig. Those tight whalebone corsets are a pain, and then there’s the question of what the loss of his penis will do to his claim to his estates.

It’s all very sumptuous, but in a pleasantly homespun way typical of the best British art cinema of the period. Sandy Powell and Dien van Straalen, whose exquisitely detailed and imaginative costumes add so much to the proceedings, worked for Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway respectively, and there are clear links to both directors. You get beautiful, formalized set-pieces reminiscent of Greenaway’s work (an early stand-out being some scenes on a frozen Thames), and Sally Potter borrows Jarman’s habit of casting cult figures in minor roles. Singer Jimmy Somerville pops up as an angel, author Heathcote William cameos as a seedy poet and gay icon Quentin Crisp plays Elizabeth. Naturally, given the fleetingness of celebrity, these guest appearances have much less impact now than they once did, but they certainly don’t spoil the film, and Crisp has the role of frail, old queen down to a T. Besides, the only actor who really matters is Swinton, and her performance is something to behold – very funny in the early scenes when she’s a gauche, gangling lad, and full of buttoned-up passion after her transformation into a woman.

As a spectacle and a star vehicle, Orlando is a triumph. But as a drama, there’s not a whole lot of meat on its bones, and its insights into gender aren’t very searching. When Orlando’s a man, he has free will but no clue what to do with it. When he becomes a she, he (or she, sorry, we’re getting confused) gains insight but loses the power to make decisions for himself. Answer: do away with gender, it’s a Bad Thing. Except that Orlando feels, if anything, like a celebration of gender, in that it really hots up in the Victorian period, when women become women; red of lip, heaving of bosom, and men become men; reckless, passionate and looking like Billy Zane.

Yet, drastic though they might seem, such shortcomings scarcely dent the movie’s appeal. It defies criticism as a rare example of pure cinema, where the spectacle is its own justification, and as an exercise in whimsical pageantry, not unlike the Olympic Games opening ceremony. And let’s not forget that iconic moment where Orlando goes hurtling into a maze in one century and comes stumbling out in another. That bit’s timeless.

Special Features: None