Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

DVD Review: Tourist Trap / Cert: 15 / Director: David Schmoeller / Screenplay: David Schmoeller, J. Larry Carrol / Starring: Chuck Conners, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness / Release Date: Out Now

Since its release in 1979, this film has garnered a small but devoted cult following, with none other than Stephen King himself as number one fan, and it’s easy to see why. For starters, there’s the glorious unlikelihood of the casting, which sees granite-jawed Western legend Chuck Connors (The Big Country) and Bond girl Tanya Roberts gathered together under one rickety roof.

Then there’s the storyline. Admittedly, this might, at first glance, seem a little humdrum. When a group of kids on a road trip suffer a puzzling mechanical failure, kindly old Mr Slausen (Connors) is on hand to invite them back to his dusty roadside museum in a right neighbourly fashion. But before he can break out the Dr Pepper, their numbers are being thinned by a mysterious villain who wants to turn them into waxworks. Well, now that you mention it, Mr Slausen does happen to have a crazy brother – maybe he’s got something to do with it…

So far, so ordinary. But this is to reckon without the aforementioned villain, who has to rank as one of the most bizarre in what was a very good decade for cinematic monsters. Massive, masked, but also nattily suited and elaborately coiffed, with a sideline in cross-dressing, he’s like a camp, Liberace-ish version of Leatherface. Like Leatherface, he’s superhumanly strong, but he also has telekinetic powers which he uses to control (and have long, whimsical tea parties with) the waxworks he creates.

Although delivering a relatively restrained movie by the standards of co-producer Charles Band (no nudity, little explicit gore), director David Schmoeller makes the most of this weird baddie’s constantly jarring presence to create a sense of mounting insanity. The mannequins, some with glowing eyes, some with clacking jaws, are very creepy too. Kudos to the filmmakers, also, for casting Jocelyn Jones, a very good actress but not conventionally pretty, in a key role as one of the longer-lived of the hapless road trippers. Chuck Connors – always a very endearing character throughout his long career – gets plenty of screentime and gives a tour de force performance. As for Tanya Roberts, she trots around gracefully in a tube top and cut off jeans which look spray-painted on, and that’s about all there is to be said about her.

True, Tourist Trap is rather rough around the edges, and the plot has a bad habit of tying itself – or rather its young cast – in near inextricable knots. But it’s engaging, unexpected and memorable. This is risky, seat-of-the-pants filmmaking the way they used to do it back in the Seventies, and you’d be a dummy to miss it.

DVD Review: The Fields / Cert: 15 / Director: Tom Mattera, David Mazzoni / Screenplay: Harrison Smith / Starring: Tara Reid, Cloris Leachman, Tommy Lee Wollace, Brian Anthony Wilson / Release Date: 27th August

It’s 1973, and the Summer of Love is a distant memory. When Bonnie’s (Reid’s) ne’er-do-well husband points a shotgun to her head, she decides that it might be a good idea if she got their impressionable young son Steven (Ormond) out of the house. So she sends him to live with his grandparents Gladys (Leachman) and Hiney (Appleton) on their isolated farm. He’s warned not to go into the cornfield, but can’t resist and soon comes across disturbing evidence that there is something nasty lurking in its depths, something that comes out at night to spy on him.

Nor is this his only source of worry. Haunted by news reports of the Manson Family murders, Steven is petrified when some bad-mannered, thieving hippies set up camp in an abandoned amusement park nearby. And then there are Gladys’ hillbilly relations, a backward bunch who amuse themselves by getting drunk and slaughtering chickens in their basement. It’s unnerving to think that his father comes from the same dodgy gene pool.

This is downbeat stuff, to be sure, but presented, for the most part, with a beguilingly light touch. Cinematographer Daniel Watchulonis creates a creepy, unsettling atmosphere with eccentrically framed images of grey, lowering skies and spiky-looking heads of corn. The performances are tough and unsentimental, especially from Leachman and Appleton as Gladys and Hiney. The screenplay by Harrison Smith delivers a pair of refreshingly meaty, well-rounded roles for these senior citizen actors – she’s daunting and strict but kind-hearted, he’s urbane and jokey but tough and even sinister at times. Round-faced, button-eyed Joshua Ormond is very believable, too, as the sensitive, preoccupied central character. (Celebrity Big Brother alumnus Tara Reid is there strictly for poster appeal, and it’s probably just as well her part isn’t bigger, as there’s more corn in her performance than in Hiney and Gladys’ field.)

In the last reel, directors Tom Mattera and David Mazzoni up the pace, but the thriller element of the story never really adds up to much, and it’s a shame that they didn’t jettison it altogether in favour of a more naturalistic denouement. Although it’s being marketed as a horror film, The Fields is better regarded as a leisurely, slightly morbid mood piece and as a worm’s-eye-view evocation of an era. If you’re after thrills, chills and heart-pounding action, then look elsewhere, but if you like the sound of a leftfield coming of age story, modest in scope but quietly intense, then by all means give this very decent little movie a go.

DVD Review: Starship Troopers – Invasion / Cert: 15 / Director: Shinki Aramaki / Screenplay: Flint Dille / Starring: (Voices) Luci Christian, David Matranga, Justin Doran / Release Date: 27th August

When it comes to CGI movies, it is incredibly difficult to view one without feeling like you are watching a cut scene in between levels in the latest computer game. Before the reboot of Starship Troopers occurs, this latest entry into the existing canon sometimes falls into that very trap. However, there are redeeming moments of pure grandeur that wouldn’t look out of place in a real blockbuster, or even the original 1997 movie.

When an outpost by the name of Fort Casey is destroyed and the surviving grunts from a previous rescue team are picked up, the crew of the Alesia evacuate along with the addition of Captain Carmen Ibanez, whose ship, the John A Warden, has been commandeered by the Minister of Paranormal Warfare, Carl Jenkins, for a secret mission. On their way to some rest and relaxation, they are called by General Johnny Rico (who is now looking a bit Solid Snake) and asked to intervene as the Warden has gone dark, shutting down and going silent.

When they reach the ship, they find that the crew have been massacred and Jenkins has secured himself in a cell so that whatever is aboard cannot get to him. As soon as they boot the engines up, they realise that a Queen is in control and there are lots of bugs ready to kill the new arrivals. It suddenly becomes a fight for survival and against time as they discover that the Queen intends to take the ship to Earth and invade.

Considering Casper Van Dien acts as an executive producer, it is perhaps surprising that he hasn’t lent his voice to Rico’s character, and the original figures of Jenkins and Ibanez are also voiced by others, rather than Neil Patrick Harris or Denise Richards respectively. As stated above, there are some scenes and shots that look beautifully epic, but the only problem is they are few and far between. Shorn of Verhoeven’s humour and social commentary, what we are left with is a general bug-hunt, where the characters involved mostly hide behind faceless helmets. This leaves us with little to no development before they inevitably find themselves eviscerated by a swarm of bugs in any number of battles throughout the running time. There are moments of female nudity that seem a little out of place here, and although this is one time that CGI blood doesn’t look like a nasty effect added in post-production, considering the fact that the process is supposed to provide layers to otherwise flat animation, the whole production just comes across as a little bit one dimensional and will remind you of playing Gears of War.

It’s a fun way to spend nearly 90 minutes as another branch to the franchise – especially with the power suits, Marauder Mk II and some solid animation work – just don’t expect to be blown away like you were 15 years ago.

DVD Review: Detention / Cert: 15 / Director: Joseph Kahn / Screenplay: Joseph Kahn, Mark Palermo / Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Dane Cook, Spencer Lock, Brooke Haven, Shanley Caswell, Parker Bagley / Release Date: 27th August

I think it’s fair to say that music video director Joseph Kahn’s feature directing debut Torque was not a good film. Completely worthless in dramatic stakes and defying the laws of physics to a ridiculous degree, it’s hard to believe it even got released. His next film Detention, made almost completely with Kahn’s own money has many of the same stylistic tics and ADD style that ruined Torque, but amazingly it works. Having said that this is not a film for everyone, you will either go with its joyous riot of celebration or you won’t and you’ll pass out and puke.

At its core, Detention is a teenage slasher movie with a killer named ‘Cinderhella’ based on a movie within the movie in the town of Grizzly Lake. The killer starts bumping off the teenagers and we focus in on Clapton Davis (Josh Hutcherson), the kid everyone likes, his cheerleader girlfriend Lone (Spencer Locke), political vegetarian Riley (Shanley Caswell) and Clapton’s uber geek best friend Mike (Aaron Perilo) as they try and figure out who is responsible. That’s the framework, what I haven’t told you about is the jock who is part fly, a body swap subplot between a mother and daughter, a time travelling bear and multiple UFO sightings. Somehow all of this is crammed into ninety minutes and it still makes sense.

Detention feels like the kind of film that would have been made if Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World had somehow been a 600 million worldwide box office hit. Pop culture references and homages from the last thirty years of youth culture are thrown at you in a whirlwind of gags and dialogue. Literally everything that was noteworthy in film and television from the ‘80’s until now is referenced somehow, from Kriss Kross and Beverly Hills 90210 to Donnie Darko, Scream and of course Instagram. The key thing here though is that this is never hateful towards teenagers, it’s like a wonderful celebration of being a teenager and all the problems and situations that surround the strangest, most fun time in our lives. The characters talk in a combination of smart talk from Dawson’s Creek and the referencing of the crew from Spaced. It’s just so much damn fun because it’s completely unexpected and you literally never know what Kahn is going to throw at you next.

Apart from a lunatic last twenty minutes, Detention never lapses into incoherence. There is a lot of plot and information thrown at you but it never becomes torturous or a struggle. Like most things, when the time travel element becomes a focus, the film falters slightly as the manic pace seems at odds with the sudden complexities of changing the past to affect the future.

Detention is almost impossible to describe but is an experience worth having. I can guarantee you have never seen anything quite like it.

Special Features: None

DVD Review: One Hundred Mornings / Cert: 15 /  Director: Conor Horgan / Screenplay: Conor Horgan / Starring: Alex Reid, Ciaran McMenamin, Rory Keenan, Kelly Campbell, Robert O’Mahoney / Release Date: Out Now

Filmed in 2009, this low-budget Irish apocalyptic drama is only now seeing the light of day on DVD and sure enough, like most European end-of-the-world fare, this is light years away from the feel good fantasy nature of America’s big brash offerings in the genre. One Hundred Mornings is relentlessly bleak and pessimistic; it’s cold, grey and muddy and its protagonists look as if they’re just waiting for the inevitable as they slide further and further away from the comforts of civilisation.

It’s a simple enough scenario. Some nameless catastrophe (and we never find out what it is) has brought Mankind to its knees. Two couples are rubbing along together in a small cabin in the picturesque Irish countryside, grubbing for food and living on supplies they’ve squirreled-away. They’re occasionally visited by a couple of increasingly-ineffectual officers from the Garda at the nearby village and their next door neighbour is outwardly friendly but fiercely protective of his own territory and his own rights. The quartet get along well enough but slowly the relationship starts to disintegrate as infidelities, insecurities and jealousies rise to the surface, vying for attention with the constant quest for food and comfort. Meanwhile the outside world is slowly closing in as desperate outsiders start to terrorise them and the Garda officers begin to overstep their dubious authority.

Lovers of fast-paced, lively action movies will want to step away from One Hundred Mornings immediately – there’s nothing for them here. This is an intense, brooding, minimalist character piece. There’s a festering resentment between the foursome and the script’s sparse, terse dialogue perfectly complements a film which is all about mood and atmosphere, the main characters ostensibly trapped in an apparently-idyllic environment which affords them the barest of protection against whatever horrors the outside world holds. Occasionally the group wanders into the nearby village which is itself falling apart; debris strewn across the street, abandoned cars, burning braziers – and hardly any other people to maintain the veneer of civilisation.

Despite its lack of dynamic forward motion – the group chasing a stray sheep is really the closest we get to an action sequence – 100 Mornings is an absorbing, if inexhaustibly downbeat, piece of work and, like the very best apocalyptic fiction, it doesn’t offer much hope or optimism for a better future for those who are left standing at the end. In many ways this is a companion piece to last year’s underrated Perfect Sense and it’s about as far removed from the likes of 2012 andThe Day After Tomorrow as it’s possible to get and it’s all the better for it.

Special Features: None

DVD Review: Surf Nazis Must Die / Director: Peter George / Screenplay: John Ayre / Starring: Gail Neely, Robert Harden, Barry Brenner / Release Date: August 6th

Achtung! That’s the warning that any sane person should hear in their heads when they put Surf Nazis Must Die in the DVD player. It was once described by film critic Mark Kermode as “utter horse shit” (according to his book It’s Only A Movie) and frankly, he was being charitable. At least horse manure has value to some people.

DVD quality is perhaps the wrong term (although correct) to use to describe this release, as it looks so ‘80s that you could give this the best transfer and restoration treatment imaginable on the best format out there and it would still look incredibly dated. As it is, the transfer looks incredibly lazy and there’s nothing on this disc that you wouldn’t be able to put on a video (apart from perhaps the moment where Lloyd Kaufman states with full conviction in a special feature that Independence Day was partially inspired by this film). But then, Troma has never been known for high-quality productions.

The plot (yes, there is one) is that sometime in the near future after a catastrophic earthquake, gangs of unruly teens/neo-Nazis have declared war on surfers and the beach walkers of America! The atrocities of war that they commit include murder, use of the ‘N’ word and theft of an old lady’s watermelon. These neo-Nazis murder one of the main characters for getting in the way of a purse snatching, which leads to his heavy-set grandmother (called Mama, for some reason) taking revenge in the only way she knows how – with violence.

Surf Nazis is offensive (see the ‘N’ word) in places, badly acted, has poor special effects and worst of all, it is boring. Anybody who wants to buy it for the sole purpose of riffing on it with their mates is advised not to as it doesn’t even work for that purpose. Disposable characters kill other, more disposable characters and the viewer has no reason to care. The fact that the special effects are so terrible detracts from any gory thrills to be had.

The only reason it’s rated that highly is that it counts as a film and isn’t the worst one ever made (it’s not far off, though). It would be nice if this film was good so it could be called “so wrong, it’s Reich”. Alas, it was not to be. Watch this film again? Nein! Zuerst musst du mich erschießen!

Special Features: Introduction to the film by Lloyd Kaufman, two archive interviews with director Peter George and producer Robert Tinnell, six lost scenes and a three minute long trailer.

DVD Review: Doctor Who – The Greatest Show in the Galaxy / Director: Alan Wareing / Screenplay: Stephen Wyatt / Starring: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Christopher Guard / Release Date: Out Now

The final Seventh Doctor/McCoy DVD to be released finally limps its way on to our shelves with an absence of fanfare that is almost deafening.

In fan circles, the story is known for one specific character, Whizz Kid, who mumbles some infamous lines about ‘the show not being as good as it used to be’ and then going on to comment that the early unseen shows must have been better.

Yes, these are side swipes at fandom that came with the blessing of the show’s much criticised producer. Fandom seldom forgives and almost never forgets and it is rather sad that this one issue has come to dominate the way that this story is seen by many.

The story itself contains many of the themes that seem familiar. Ace facing up to a childhood phobia (did the Seventh Doctor simply want this poor girl to suffer?) The feel of Celestial Toy Maker and yet it is quite defiantly its own creature.

At the invite of intergalactic junk mail, the Doctor decides to take his companion to the Psychic Circus on the planet Segonax. There they find a group of scared performers who live in fear of the sinister and (unsurprisingly) creepy Chief Clown.

Being Doctor Who there is even more to fear about this particular circus, why is there such a small audience (a problem facing so many real circuses) and a set of malevolent creatures thrown in to boot.

There are some standout performances that drag this story above its general perception. The punk Werewolf played by Jessica Martin is a character worthy of modern Who while the ‘Bloke from EastEnders’ Market’ is both malevolent and chilling while being one of the more OTT performances in the shows history.

The recording of this story was so beset with incident that it is a small wonder that it was ever finished. The discovery of asbestos meant that it was largely shot in a car park.

DVD EXTRAS.

The Disc comes with a commentary from Sophie Aldred, Jessica Martin and Christopher Guard, writer Stephen Wyatt, script editor Andrew Cartmel and composer Mark Ayres. McCoy was sadly unavailable due to wizarding duties on the other side of the world.

The obligatory ‘making of’ has been christened The Show Must Go On. There are a handful of deleted and extended scenes, including unused model effects shots originally intended for the story but never seen due to its harsh lighting – which is odd as it’s one of the most realistic I’ve ever seen.

As often happens with 2/entertain there is often the odd gem discovered and in The Psychic Circus we have a music video set to a song written by Christopher Guard and featuring vocals by Christopher Guard, Jessica Martin and TP McKenna, it was produced by Mark Ayres and there had been plans to release it as a seven inch single.

The Disc also contains Remembrance Demo Two scenes from Remembrance of the Daleks re-scored by Mark Ayres and another instalment of Tomorrow’s Times.

Included is also the Doctor Who sketch from Victoria Wood – as seen on TV. The usual goodies in the form of Radio Times listings, glorious programme subtitles, a photo gallery and a lovely coming soon trailer for Planet of Giants.

Review: The Dead Want Women / Director: Charles Band / Screenplay: Kent Roudebush / Starring: Jessica Morris, Ariana Madix, Eric Roberts, Robert Zachar / Release Date: Out Now

Director and producer Charles Band has a secure place in horror history thanks to his involvement in a string of cult classics in the Eighties and Nineties, but what’s he up to these days? Well, he’s still making memorable films, to judge by this new offering. It’s far from perfect, and not the kind of thing you would hope for from an old master of the genre, but it’s very much what you would expect from an old devil like Band…

It’s 1927. At her rambling home in Hollywood, silent movie star Rose Pettigrew (O’Sullivan) is throwing a party to celebrate the opening of her new film. She also has a private party of a saucier kind going on in a secret cavern underneath her swimming pool. In attendance are three fellow actors, overweight comic Tubby Fitzgerald (Scott,) cape-clad horror star Erik Burke (Zachar) and cowboy Sonny Barnes (Roberts). Unfortunately, her night is thoroughly spoilt when her agent breaks the news that the silent era is over, and her career with it. How does she react? Let’s just say, she doesn’t take it at all well, and by the way who thought it would be a good idea to bring guns and knives to an orgy?

Cut to the present day. Rose’s white elephant of a house has been in escrow for 90 years and is covered in creepers, but ambitious realtors Reese (Morris) and Danni (Madix) believe they have landed a buyer. They set about tidying up the dusty abode, only to find themselves terrorized by Rose’s actor buddies, come back from the dead and eager for nubile flesh to assist them in their dark, satanic rites.

The script doesn’t bother to spell out exactly why all this is going on (presumably Rose and co have entered into a pact with the devil at some stage on the rocky road to fame and fortune) and it’s a wise decision, as it leaves the director free to concentrate on more important matters, such as cadavers in tuxedos chasing around after screaming blondes. The result is a movie which, after some preliminary dawdling, builds up a fair head of steam. It’s also not a film you’ll forget in a hurry. The use of stock characters from the 1920s and Tom Devlin’s lurid, comic-booky special effects make-up combine to give it the feel of a particularly rampant issue of Tales from the Crypt. Zachar steals the show in his plummy, Bela Lugosi-ish role, and porn star Jeanie Marie Sullivan brings an impish presence to a strange part as a ghostly flapper who’s mislaid all her clothes back in 1927. Not Band at his best, but gory fun.

DVD Review: Axed / Director: Ryan Lee Driscoll / Screenplay: Ryan Lee Driscoll / Starring: Jonathan Hansler, Andrea Gordon, Nicola Posener, Christopher Rithin / Release Date: July 30th

If there is a good thing about the current economic climate, it’s that people’s anger and frustration often leads to the creation of some great art. Axed was a film rife with possibilities, after all it concerns a buttoned down city worker going mental after he is laid off. Sadly though after the first twenty or so minutes in descends into amateur tedium.

The office drone in question is Kurt Wendell who has a bit of a breakdown in the car park when he leaves and then the next day wakes up as per normal and informs his family that they are all taking a day off. He drives his wife Steph, slutty daughter Megan and timid son Jay out to a cottage in the middle of nowhere so that they can spend the day as a family. What Kurt’s family don’t know is that Kurt has his boss tied up in the loft whom he suspects of having an affair with his wife and that Kurt doesn’t intend that any of them will leave alive.

We’ve seen worse but Axed is awful, almost nothing about it works. The list of faults is endless but let’s start with the script. Having a pretty good set up is one thing but the remaining one hour and a half does nothing with the premise, character development is at a zero. We learn that Kurt is a bit strict, his son he suspects is gay and his daughter is just a normal flaunty teenager coming into her sexuality. They both hate him and his wife is just miserable. At no point is there any kind of revelation about the family’s relationship or the simmering tensions that are clearly there.

Worse than the writing are the performances. Hansler as the father is one of the most over the top and misjudged performances we’ve seen in a while. Subtlety was probably called for but Hansler thinks he’s Alan Rickman playing a scenery-chewing villain and it’s ridiculous. Rithin and Gordon as the wife and daughter are equally awful, only being called upon to react with horror and getting even that wrong. Only Posener as the daughter strikes anything of a realistic note as a typical rebellious daughter.

Director Ryan Lee Driscoll shows no clue on how to properly frame a shot or shoot a set piece. Each time action is supposed to occur (mostly a murder) the actors all hold back seeming to be worried because there are no stunt doubles or insurance and the effect is hilarious not horrifying.

There may have been the germ of a good idea here at some point but this is just awful.

DVD Review: Blood Car / Cert: 18 / Director: Alex Orr / Screenplay: Alex Orr / Starring: Mike Brune, Anna Chlumsky, Katie Rowlett, Matt Hutchinson / Release Date: Out Now

Archie Andrews (Mike Brune) is a sweet mannered, vegan teacher who in his spare time is working on a car motor that can run on wheatgrass. Fuel prices have skyrocketed, and no one can afford to drive so when Andrews discovers his invention runs on human blood he goes on a killing spree to keep his motor running in more ways than one. Extremely funny gore, silly sex scenes and a leading man who embraces his role with energy and a knack for comic timing make this an enjoyable feast of a film.

The ideas are relevant and writer/director, Alex Orr delivers smart and funny dialogue highlighting contempt for modern government with lines such as “Killing people for fuel is not racist, it’s patriotic. It’s all about making a sacrifice to fuel our cars.” Influences of Roger Corman’s Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors are clear but it also has a sleazy early John Waters feel to it. It aims to deliver its message about America’s love affair with the automobile in an absurdly funny way. Orr also references the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that aims to reduce global warming, but pokes fun at the capitalist society that will never be able to realistically reach set goals.

Archie Andrews and his beastly invention bear similarities to Robert Oppenheimer working on the idea that “when you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success. “ The world is going to hell and though Archie at first attempts to find a vegetarian solution to the problems he ends up feeding his monster with the innocent. The Manhattan Project is referenced on Archie’s classroom blackboard, carrying on the idea that we should learn from our past mistakes.

The wonderful Anna Chlumsky (My Girl and Veep) has fun with the role of Lorraine, the good hearted geek representing the optimistic, naïve public; listening and digesting the lies fed to her. In the background there are the Government agents who sit causally by watching Archie’s every move, as he slaughters human beings, only pouncing on him when they decide they can use his invention for their own gain. Archie’s victims are not without political allegory as he stuffs an army veteran into the trunk of his car screaming the words “You’ll be a hero, follow orders!”

Orr uses music extremely well blending Vivaldi, Chopin and Mozart with modern music such as Cassavetes, Night of the Knife and 80s style montage music which really adds to the surreal, silly humour.

This is small budget, scurrilous satire that although originally released in 2007 still holds up to the current climate of rising fuel prices and greenhouse gases.

Special Features: None