RIPPER UNTOLD

ripper untold

Written and directed by Steve Lawson, Ripper Untold is a fictional interpretation of the Jack the Ripper murders that took place in the Whitechapel district of East London in the late 19th century. To this day, the serial killer remains unidentified, fascinating true crime aficionados across the globe. With Ripper Untold, Lawson twists the narrative, delivering a shocking conclusion to the age-old question: who was Jack the Ripper?

Whitechapel, 1888. The body of a young woman, later identified as Polly Neilson, is found with her throat slashed; her lifeless corpse gaining the attention of Stubb (Chris Bell), a journalist for the local broadsheet. Following the discovery of her mutilated body, Inspector Rees (Phil Molloy) of Scotland Yard is brought in to investigate the murder, aided by the Whitechapel coroner, Locque (Jonathan Hansler).

Mary Jane Keates is the next victim to be found in Whitechapel; disembowelled, throat cut wide open, and a kidney removed post-death. Details of her injuries were quickly spread throughout Whitechapel in the tabloids including information that should have been known only to the inspector and medical examiner post-mortem. Then the letters started to turn up in Stubb’s possession. Written in scarlet red ink, the serial killer had given himself a name: Jack the Ripper! Through his own blackout drinking, Locque becomes paranoid. He knows the faces of these working girls. He has escaped his wife Elizabeth’s (Sylvia Robson) cold-eyed gaze many a night to lay on their warm bosoms. Could he be the cause of their deaths? How can he know for sure if he can’t remember?

Like many Ripperologists, the mystery of Jack the Ripper is something of a morbid curiosity of mine. I’ve read many books on the subject, and have overindulged in movies depicting the Whitechapel murderer. Most take liberties with the facts of the investigation, and Ripper Untold is no exception; although it never claims otherwise. Instead, Steve Lawson has crafted his own unique take on Ripper-lore, limited only by Ripper Untold‘s meagre budget.

Regardless, Lawson and his crew have done well to evoke the period setting of East London in 1888 through costume and set design; Jon O’Neill’s cinematography capturing the mood of the candle-lit interiors. Ripper Untold rarely deviates from four claustrophobic locations – scenes frequently playing out with shot/reverse shot – feeling more like a filmed whodunit stage play rather than your usual direct-to-video slasher.

Indeed, there is a total lack of on-screen killings, the director instead focusing on dialogue to keep the plot moving along nicely. Phil Molloy and Jonathan Hansler steal the show as Rees and Locque respectively; their deliberations keeping the audience interested throughout, until the satisfying, albeit highly implausible conclusion.

Gorehounds may find themselves disappointed, but the detailed description of the mutilations Jack the Ripper inflicted on the victims, spoken over brief shots of Stephanie Harrison’s grotesque special effects, will leave most feeling squeamish. Lawson’s interpretation of the Whitechapel murders is a respectable, no-fuss shoestring budget murder mystery done right.

Ripper Untold is out now on DVD and digital.

BAPHOMET

Baphomet

When a proud father is visited by a strange young man who offers to buy his land for a ridiculous amount of money, he is resolute that the home he built with his bare hands would not be for sale. Unfortunately, soon after this, his family is beset with tragedy after tragedy. It starts with the death of his daughter Rebecca’s boyfriend and progresses, but it’s only when a local white witch gets involved that they realise there’s something more sinister at play.

You can be forgiven if you’re expecting a full-on orgy of demonic sacrifice and shenanigans when watching the first few minutes of Baphomet. Legendary Italian actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice (best known under his anglicised name John Morghen in films such as Cannibal Ferox) is the head of the satanic cult we’re introduced to, and he’s desperate to get his hands on the farmland to open up a gateway to Hell. Now, Giovanni’s thick accent does make his lines a little hard to understand, but his presence is imposingly effective if a little underused. Writer/director Matthan Harris also plays the role of the dead boyfriend, who’s brought back from the grave by Charlotte Bjornbak’s witchy Marybeth. She’s given tips by a (literally) phoned-in Dani Filth, who is the right sort of stunt casting the film needs.

The rest of the world are surprisingly accepting of the dead boyfriend being around, and this all leads to an impressive climax that provides enough thrills to help you overlook the occasional lacklustre acting. The cinematography – by Pedro Avila and Andrew Scott Baird – gives this low budget effort another kick. Harris does a decent job of bringing everything together, keeping things entertaining and tight (the movie runs less than 75 minutes).

This US Blu-ray release of Baphomet boasts a few extra features that are worth delving into. While the deleted and extended scenes bring nothing to the story, the interview with Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth is fun and adds to the value of the disc.

Baphomet won’t win any awards for originality or skill, but for fans of indie movies, it’s a decent enough satanic shocker that delivers what it promises… eventually.

Baphomet is available on Blu-ray and DVD in the US and digital in the UK.

THE NEST

the nest

The Nest (originally labouring under the preposterous title The Bewailing) is an eerie, slow-burn horror film likely to appeal hugely to fans of classics such as Invasion of the Bodysnatchers or, indeed, anyone who appreciates a story about the loss of humanity and human identity, the invasion of the physical form and the surreptitious replacement of the self with the other. It’s got creepy insect-things in it too, which is a bit of a plus.

Beth (Sarah Navratil) is addicted to painkillers following the birth of her daughter Meg which nearly killed her.  She’s lost her job and her reputation and her marriage to Jack (Kevin Patrick Murphy) has hit the rocks. But there’s a chance for the family to start again when they’re forced to move into Beth’s deceased uncle’s house. At a local yard sale young Meg (Maple Suttles, daughter of the film’s director) becomes fixated on a tatty teddy bear and Beth buys it for her in the hope that it might help to ease the child’s crippling separation anxiety. But the bear hides a terrible secret; inside its belly lurks a crawling parasite creature that quickly infects Meg and changes her behaviour, making her even more clingy and yet also more remote and unfathomable. The creature slowly extends its influence over Beth’s family and eventually she is forced to question her own sanity when everyone around her starts to behave strangely and she has to fight her own addictive nature if she is to hang on to her own humanity.

The Nest is an intriguing and unnerving film and also a slightly frustrating one. As a creature feature it delivers the goods to an extent (although we don’t see a great deal of the parasite itself) and there are a number of scenes in which we hear the clicking sound of the creature inside its host and the odd sight of an insect leg sticking out of someone’s mouth. This body possession element is in itself a familiar and always-disquieting conceit but the film sometimes loses itself in its handling of Beth’s condition and the narrative doesn’t seem entirely sure whether it wants us to think that the whole situation has been conjured up and exacerbated by her addiction or is actually an insidious assault upon the human condition (despite an opening sequence that quite clearly sets out the film’s stall). Eventually though the film seems to decide what it wants to be as Beth, beleaguered on all sides, finally realises that something’s really not right with her family and the body horror moves into high gear in the final reel.

Despite an overlong running time and occasionally suffering from the restraints of its low budget, The Nest (which also features an appearance by E.T. star Dee Wallace) is a haunting and sometimes flesh-crawling experience enlivened by some pleasing practical visual effects and a sense of ambiguity in relation to the nature and purpose of the parasite creature itself. The film takes its time and there are certainly some pacing issues yet it’s never boring as the core idea grips from the opening scene and delivers those moments of disconcerting dread that come with the territory of films in which the individuality of humanity is subsumed by something utterly alien and entirely inhuman.

On DVD and digital from August 16th

WEREWOLVES WITHIN

Following the expensive flop Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft Films took its time (five years) before putting out another film based on one of their properties. Their approach to Werewolves Within—inspired by the game of the same name—was radically different: No big names attached, no expensive set pieces. Just a solid script and enough production values to deliver a quality product.

The strategy seems to have worked. Werewolves Within is a delight, with the added bonus of being topical without forcing the issue.

The setup is like a game of Cluedo, with one-trait characters to boot. Sheriff Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson, Veep) arrives at his new posting in a small town in Vermont in the middle of winter. It doesn’t take him long to notice a rift between the locals triggered by a pipeline: some are willing to sell their land for a pretty penny, some don’t. Wheeler also becomes friendly with the local postman (Milana Vayntrub) who seems to be the only person with common sense in town.

The ongoing divide among the population becomes background noise (or does it?) when the power grid crashes and a dead body is found under the local bed-and-breakfast. The marks in the body indicate something untoward. Inhuman. Canine. To add to the hapless group’s misery, an avalanche leaves the town disconnected from the rest of the world. Yet, much like in The Thing, the residents’ pettiness distracts them from the real danger.

The film is engaging throughout. Perhaps most notably, Werewolves Within is the rare horror-thriller that lands without a glitch. The dialogue crackles and it’s consistently not easy to predict, not a small feat. Richardson carries the movie with ease. Never mind you would be hard-pressed to recognise the rest of the cast (perhaps Glenn Fleshler from Joker or Harvey Guillén from What We Do in the Shadows), they’re all delightful even when revealing darker shades.

If nothing else, the film could have survived riskier twists and turns, but as a piece of disposable entertainment, it doesn’t get any better than this. It also provides a handy reminder: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Werewolves Within is available on DVD on July 19th.

ARCHIVE

Archive

Set in 2038 with its confined, icy Japanese backdrop and eerie soundtrack to encase it, Archive pitches an emotionally scarred, an exhausted scientist named George Almore (Theo James) as he tries to construct a robot with a human element, under harsh expectations from his strict boss. Known for his creative stamp on sci-fi hit Moon, this is the directorial debut from Gavin Rothery.

What George failed to tell his employer is the fact that he is trying to transfer the consciousness of his recently deceased wife, Jules Almore (Stacy Martin) from an Archive-designed coffin machine into his advanced robotic project. As his firm’s security tip-toe closer to this discovery, we live through a time-is-running-out predicament.

At the epicentre of the plot is the relationship flashbacks between George and Jules, which weave fragmented – and at times tragic – memories throughout. The prototype robots that George has built along the way also add vital depth. From the bulky J1 to a moody/questioning J2, and finally to his latest, most human-looking creation J3, this robot evolution is not only his family but the gravity behind the events of Archive.

The set pieces that have been assembled on top of an otherworldly location are jaw-dropping, and as you see some of the prototypes thrown into tricky filming terrain, you realise that a heavy amount of attention to atmosphere and prop design has been grasped. For fans of Ex_Machina and Moon (obviously), this will be a spot-on pick, and when Archive expires with a mind-blowing conversation, it’ll be evident that director Gavin Rothery is more than worth keeping close tabs on.

Archive is released on Blu-ray and DVD on July 12th.

THE RINGMASTER

ringmaster

The Danish aren’t known for horror movies. The Ringmaster recognises this, flashing a title card, which states how the Danes are recognised for being benevolent, giving the world the concept of hygge (Scandinavian for cosy). Director Søren Juul Petersen does his best to dispel this impression, with a low budget but highly effective affair that manages to build tension and disturb in equal measures.

Agnes (Anne Bergfeld) is studying psychology but works at her father’s petrol station part-time, she joins the unstable Belinda (Karin Michelsen) on a quiet night shift, as most people are watching Denmark in an unspecific sports final. We start to cut back and forth between the station, where a small group of unhinged characters visit (including Belinda’s deadbeat boyfriend) and a disturbing present, in which Agnes has been kidnapped and tortured by an unknown assailant. This technique builds the tension successfully, as we know that something is going to go seriously wrong, every false start putting us on edge even further.

Once the tension dissipates we finally see the crux of the matter, unseen customers using the dark web to watch Agnes and Belinda being tortured by the titular Ringmaster (who speaks in English, whereas the protagonist converse in Danish). The scenes are disturbing with some extreme violence and female nudity present, but nothing viewers of the Saw franchise haven’t seen before. Not everything works, there is a pointless introduction from a tenor channelling Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and the film unsuccessfully tries to link Roman Gladiators to the sick online spectacle we have witnessed. Peterson must be applauded for skilled work though, if there is an opposite to hygge, he creates it here.

The Ringmaster is available on digital and DVD in the UK and Blu-ray in the US.

DOCTOR WHO THE COLLECTION – SEASON 24

who season 24

It’s generally agreed that Season 24 of ‘classic’ Doctor Who – the first to star the lively Sylvester McCoy as the seventh Doctor – is pretty much the nadir of the original series. Where just ten years earlier the show was in its Gothic prime, presenting chilling, complex tales like The Deadly Assassin and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, its 1987 incarnation entertained audiences with McCoy pratfalling and playing the spoons on guest star Kate O’Mara’s chest and later dicking around with companion Bonnie Langford in a rundown holiday camp on Barry Island. It was a slap in the face – if not a stab in the back – for long time fans who couldn’t quite get their heads around what had happened to their family favourite sci-fi adventure series.

Time is, though, if not necessarily a great healer in this case, capable of allowing us to put the series into a proper perspective thanks to the accumulated knowledge of the following years which has explained quite how this season came into being in the face of utter disinterest and disdain from the BBC who would really have quite preferred it if the entire series disappeared into a wormhole and never showed its face again. Doctor Who was on the backfoot in 1987, its confidence and popularity still reeling from Michael Grade’s attempt to kill it off forever in 1985 and, as we now know, it was living on borrowed time, the axe swinging above its head every step of the way for the next three years. Producer John Nathan-Turner, desperate to move on to other projects after six years steering the show through increasingly turbulent waters, handed much of the show’s narrative heavy-lifting to incoming script editor Andrew Cartmel who attempted to rebuild the show from the ground up once the dire and hurriedly-written season opener Time and the Rani – scripted for previous Doctor Colin Baker and giving McCoy little to do except play the clown because he wasn’t directed to do otherwise – was out of the way. And in fairness, with the benefit of hindsight, the following three stories have a lot of potential but much of it untapped due to the show’s broad, light entertainment tone and production styles that were looking increasingly old-fashioned.

This lavish new eight-disc Blu-ray set does its very best to rehabilitate this lacklustre run of fourteen episodes with varying degrees of success. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) plenty of cut-offs and unscreened material for this season lurked in the BBC Archive and much of it has been dusted down and presented for public approval or disapproval here. There are several ‘extended’ episodes, deleted material seamlessly reinstated and much of this works rather well and to the benefit of the stories. For example, the first episode of the aforementioned holiday camp romp Delta and the Bannerman now runs to just under thirty minutes and adds several scenes that give the episode a bit more room to breathe – there’s one interior TARDIS scene that was cut entirely from the transmitted version, for example – but few will welcome the arrival of extended episodes of Time and the Rani.  There are clearly attempts here to find a new path for Doctor Who as McCoy started to find his feet and Cartmel began to shape scripts rather more to his taste and design, a so-called ‘masterplan’ that worked best in the following season before falling apart in McCoy’s third and final year. But the tone is all wrong, everything is too breezy and comedic even when it’s trying to throw a dramatic punch or two and the whole season has an unwelcome stink of broad, slapstick children’s television about it that makes it an unpalatable experience for those who had revelled in Doctor Who’s glory days only a few years earlier.

In truth, Season 24 isn’t actually quite as dire as our memories might remind us – perhaps this is just because the rebooted show endured such indignities and genuinely shockingly bad episodes between 2010 and 2017 and we can now recognise that however shonky Season 24 is, it does at least look and feel like Doctor Who, trying to tell actual stories with proper dramatic beats, albeit targeting a younger demographic. Scrubbed up on Blu-ray and with new sound mixes season 24 has a certain throwaway charm – Delta and the Bannerman is actually quite good fun and ‘Dragonfire’, introducing new companion Ace (Sophie Aldred)  has its moments despite that inexplicable cliffhanger to episode one. The draw here, as usual, are the reams of specially commissioned supporting material, the best of which is easily Matthew Sweet’s fascinating conversation with Sylvester McCoy whose life story outside the world of Doctor Who is possibly far more intriguing and fascinating than anything on the show itself. The Doctor’s Table sees McCoy, Langford, Aldred and ‘Paradise Towers’ guest star Clive Merrison enjoying a meal and sharing memories at the Ivy in Richmond, Here’s To The Future is an eighty-odd minute documentary that tells the whole story of Doctor Who’s parlous state in 1987 and the set also includes a new 45-minute making-of for Bannermen and Behind the Sofa in which McCoy, Aldred and Langford and a quite grumpy Peter Davison and his on-screen early ’80s companions Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton watch and comment on the episodes. There are also literally hours of raw studio and location footage which will surely tax the patience of even the staunchest Who completist and, of course, all the bonus material already available on the previous DVD releases of the episodes.

Season 24 is probably still the nadir of classic Who but at least this new set gives us the opportunity to make allowances for its shortcomings and allows us to actually appreciate those moments where it gets things right as it does the very best it can under the circumstances in which it was made.

BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER (1999)

cheerleader

Hindsight is a fine thing. In 2021, humanity is more socially and politically engaged than it ever has been – in the world of film criticism, this can be either a blessing or a curse. Sometimes, we can watch previously lauded films and realise they’re pretty dodgy (Revenge of the Nerds, for instance, or Last Tango in Paris). But sometimes, we can watch a film that was panned on its initial release, and realise it’s something of an unsung gem, aeons ahead of its time, and a cornerstone for an entire genre of filmmaking: Jamie Babbit’s But I’m a Cheerleader is a perfect example of the latter.

Originally released in 1999 and now available in a swanky new Blu-ray restoration, Babbit’s directorial debut follows Megan (Natasha Lyonne, Russian Doll), a high school cheerleader who’s sent to a conversion therapy camp when her friends and family think she might be gay. We know how intense that sounds, but don’t worry: Babbit isn’t interested in queer suffering. The film that follows is nothing short of a total hoot, smart as a whip and funny as all hell – and honestly, we’re baffled by how many people hated it back in 1999. Was it just because it’s really gay?

The fact that it’s so unashamedly gay is easily one of Cheerleader’s greatest strengths. At the tail end of the 20th century queer cinema hadn’t quite taken off yet, and as a result, this movie remains something of a pioneer of queer filmmaking. A cast reunion included on the Blu-ray explains this further, but actors Clea DuVall and Joel Michaely (both gay themselves) remain clearly indebted and grateful towards Babbit for daring to break the mould and make something so unashamedly queer. As Michaely points out, at this point in time it was rare for anything to show a healthy, happy queer relationship – so for a film to not only come out swinging in this manner but to be directed by a gay woman too, is incredibly important.

Whatever people’s reasons for disliking the movie back in 1999, it’s gone on to garner something of a cult following, and rightly so. Cheerleader is not only a sweet coming of age tale, it’s also a tender love story, a hilarious comedy, and a biting satire of conversion therapy. Once the laughs start coming (which they do almost immediately), they never stop, especially once Megan reaches the conversion camp. True Directions, as it’s dubbed, is an Argento-esque nightmare of colour – blues, pinks, and greens cover every surface and item of clothing, and it’s utterly disgusting in the best possible way.

In charge of ‘converting’ the kids back to being straight are Mary J. Brown (played to perfection by Cathy Moriarty) and trainer Mike (given some fantastic moments by Drag Race’s own RuPaul). As the villains of the piece, they could not be better: Moriarty is the perfect amount of threatening while still keeping in line with the film’s overall comedic tone, while RuPaul’s performance is so hilariously and obviously gay it hurts.

Its core cast is incredible, too: Natasha Lyonne is wonderful as Megan, imbuing her with the perfect amount of naiveté and optimism to perfectly counterbalance Clea DuVall’s unending cynicism as Graham. The pair are friends in real life, and their natural zing shines through effortlessly. It’s so easy to like both characters and root for them to get together, and it’s also somewhat rare to see a femme come to the rescue of a butch (as Babbit puts it), but extremely refreshing.

Babbit doesn’t put a foot wrong in her directorial choices. Her work with Brian Peterson on the film’s script is incredible, while her collaborations with composer Pat Irwin lend the film’s score the perfect balance between cynicism and optimism, all while being a little bit cheeky. Despite only being 27 at the time of filming, she directs with elegance and poise well beyond her years and brings a distinct know-how to the film that only a woman could pull off.

Sapphic films directed by men in the past have often been pretty dodgy because men can’t understand lesbianism like lesbians can. In films like Blue is the Warmest Colour, a male director gets carried away with a sex scene and it ends up feeling leering, as if he’s sat next to us, elbowing us and going, “Phwoar, two women getting off together, isn’t that hot?” It’s uncomfortable to watch, and But I’m a Cheerleader is yet another example of why films about lesbians should only be directed by lesbians.

While there are no sex scenes in the film (obviously, as all the main characters are teenagers), there are incredibly tender and loving moments between Megan and Graham, and it’s in these moments we see why Babbit was the perfect fit for this film. The pair’s romance feels real and earned, and the first kiss they share isn’t leering or pervy – it’s ethereal. It’s a moment of triumph, self-realisation, and love, and it’s enough to bring tears to the eyes. It’s a beautiful moment in a beautiful film, and its importance cannot be overstated.

While it’s a shame that But I’m a Cheerleader didn’t get the love it deserved back in 1999, it’s wonderful that it’s now getting all the praise in the world. This is a truly special film whose importance cannot be done justice to in words. It’s a cornerstone of the queer cinematic canon, and it’s delightful to see how much all the cast and crew still love it – Cathy Moriarty maintains it’s one of the best films she’s ever been a part of, and she was in Raging Bull! Jamie Babbit’s directorial debut is nothing short of inspired, and if you’re yet to see it, we honestly can’t recommend it enough.

THE PLACE OF NO WORDS

“Where do we go when we die?” – an innocent yet complicated question. How does one explain that to a three year old? That and more is explored in the heartfelt, tragic and fantastical story of Mark Webber’s The Place Of No Words.

Akin to the likes of A Monster Calls or Where The Wild Things Are, the story centers around coming to terms with impending loss and the grief surrounding that, but there are several things that set Webber’s film apart from its peers.

Firstly, it stars Webber himself alongside his real life wife Teresa Palmer and their superstar scene stealing son Bodhi, and the three use their real names for their onscreen characters. This creates a raw, grounding and realistic chemistry between them which works extremely well. Moreover, the narrative is primarily told through the perspective of Bodhi and how he and his mind are coming to terms with his father’s illness.

As the two of them set off on one final adventure together, we see a fantastical world filled with Vikings, Fairies and creatures called Grumbles as Bodhi holds onto that special bond as we, as the audience, occasionally flick back to reality as Teresa deals with Mark’s deteriorating condition.

A fractured narrative technique rarely works but with the centre point of the child’s mind being the driving force, the film benefits from this structure. However the only downside is at times towards the final act, the pacing hits a bit of a stumbling block.

With a powerful, family driven story with unrivalled chemistry and some gorgeous cinematography, The Place Of No Words is a special, heartfelt and gut-punching emotional rollercoaster of a family’s bond in the face of tragedy seen through the incomparable imagination of a child embracing the realities of life.

The Place Of No Words is out on DVD and VOD now.

BAD HAIR

bad hair

Dear White People’s Justin Simien presents a satirical horror movie that is as prescient today as in its 1989 setting. Anna Bludso is a wannabe VJ for the black cable music channel The Culture, who unknowingly makes a deal with the devil to succeed in her chosen career. The secret to that success is good hair, and there’s only one salon in Los Angeles that can provide it, especially to a girl whose hair has been troublesome her whole life.

Elle Lorraine is great as Anna, who carries her vulnerabilities with her as she tries to climb the corporate ladder, and she engenders genuine sympathy for Anna’s put-upon nature that has you rooting for her to get a win. Standing in her way is new channel head Zora, played to perfection by Vanessa Williams, who all but reprises the role that relaunched her career in Ugly Betty, and Williams’ performance is just the right side of camp to ensure that the film works as a moral horror story and a fun comedy.

With appearances from Usher, Kelly Rowland, and James van der Beek, Bad Hair isn’t short on star power, and it makes the most of its cast in a swipe at the corporatisation of black culture, and the pressure for black women to fit into narrow societal norms of beauty. Quite simply, this is a fun film with a message, and some suitably-ropey special effects that should have been made in 1989 but thankfully has finally been made today.

Bad Hair is released on digital platforms on July 5th and DVD/Blu-ray  July 12th.