The evil god Loki (Richard Grieco), is determined to rule the universe, and as part of his plan he destroys the god Odin (Kevin Nash) and his elder son Baldir (Jess Allen) after raising their fortress of Valhalla to the ground.

Before he dies Odin hides the legendary ‘Hammer of Invincibility’ and now Loki is hellbent on recovering it. However he did not count on Odin’s younger son Thor (Cody Deal), who with the help of the independent and strong willed demigoddess Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velasquez), has also vowed to find the hammer and avenge the death of his father and brother, whilst saving mankind just for good measure.

Right. Before we go any further, let’s establish a couple of points.  Firstly Almighty Thor is no big budget Hollywood production like Kenneth Brannagh’s recent epic Thor, and unfortunately there are places where this shortcoming is glaringly obvious!  Secondly when I tell you that one of the main characters is acted by a WWF star (apparently Kevin Nash is a big name, though as I know absolutely nothing about WWF other than that large men with long hair throw each other around, I will just have to believe the notes that accompanied my preview disc), you will realise that the performances here aren’t going to be winning gold come next year’s award season.

The land of the gods with its vast mountain ranges and fortified cities is also a bit amateur in a Xena: Warrior Princess type way.  The destruction of Valhalla by Loki and his giant Hell spawned dogs is suitably explosive, but the walls of the citadel appear slightly plastic and certainly don’t look like they’d hold off any marauding hoards.  The confrontation between Loki, Odin and Baldir is also pretty weak – for a battle between supposedly all powerful super beings it’s over a bit quick, and going by what we see here I don’t think the human race will be in too much danger from the mythical gods anytime soon (though this said threat is supposedly the whole crux of the film).

However the film’s most annoying aspect – and as it happens virtually every five minutes when there is any opportunity for some hand to hand combat or a battle, it does begin to grate – is its use of slow motion and a thumping, chant like soundtrack to create tension. It certainly does this for the viewer, though not I think in the way intended.

The film gets better when the gods pass through a magical portal into our world in order to find the magic hammer which has the power to either save or destroy the universe.  It is then that Loki raises his aforementioned pets from beneath the ground to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting populace of Los Angeles, and the real fun starts.  Anything which can help with the clearance and remodelling of inner-city America should, I think, be congratulated, and these creatures and their brief scenes during the film’s climax are amongst its best parts.

That Loki can wander around downtown in full leather body armour complete with spikes and flowing cloak without causing much more than a few raised eyebrows from the locals, just goes to show how weird urban America must be.  Thor also gives little more than an initial double take when he is first transported to earth, and his speed at learning how to use human weapons is highly disturbing.

Despite my gripes though, if you take Almighty Thor at face value, which I think is always the best way to approach superhero outings whether they’re on an epic scale or not, it is actually not bad for a straight to DVD release, and should certainly help to pass a damp Sunday afternoon.

Extras: ‘Blooper’s Reel’ and brief documentary on the making of the film.

Almighty Thor is released on DVD on 29th August

And so it was that cult Spanish zombie horror ‘Rec’ begat ‘Rec 2’ and a virtually shot-by-shot American remake called ‘Quarantine’ which has now, in turn, begat its own straight-to-DVD sequel ‘Quarantine 2 Terminal’ and so it came to pass than an interesting, atmospheric, claustrophobic first-person take on some very old horror clichés becomes, inevitably, a cheap and derivative seen-it-all-before film about people running screaming from drooling zombies. Oh well.

Where ‘Rec 2’ carried on pretty much from where the original left off by setting itself in the same sealed-off house in Barcelona, ‘Quarantine 2’ does its own thing and goes its own way by telling a totally different story taking place pretty much at the same time as the original (there are a few helpful visual references to the events of the first film). Here we appear to be plunging straight into disaster movie territory, as a bunch of stereotypes board a cramped-looking aircraft taking off from LA Airport. Alarmingly it looks as if we’re in for a retread of the cult classic ‘Flight of the Living Dead’ when one of the passengers starts foaming at the mouth and attacking the crew but within twenty or so minutes the stricken plane has made an emergency landing and the passengers and crew escape into the airport terminal… which they find is not only deserted but is also sealed shut with no apparent means of escape. Meanwhile a deadly virus is on the move and before long the ’living dead’ outnumber the unaffected who have to run around for their lives in a quarantined terminal surrounded by armed soldiers and men in bio-hazard suits.

What we have here is a competent and entirely unexceptional zombie movie. ’Quarantine 2’ abandons any of the supernatural affectations of the original – the virus is revealed to be the work of a bunch of fanatical Doomsday terrorists who have decided that “the Earth needs a plague” – and the ’zombies’ are as generic a bunch as we’ve ever seen in this sort of film. And of course they’re not strictly ‘zombies’ anyway, instead being the unfortunate victims of a virus and turned into blood-crazed monsters. But they still do the zombie bit , all red eyes, screeching and biting and running at their victims with inhuman speed. Director John G Pogue does his best with his limited budget, unknown cast and unexceptional script and there’s at least some sense of tension in the plight of the passengers and crew trapped in the vast, echoing terminal, with the ‘infected’ leaping out at them or else roaring away eerily in the distance. But he’s scuppered by dull flat dialogue and dreary characters and the suspicion that the zombie well has run pretty dry and all that’s left are some very familiar scares and very obvious ‘jump in your seat’ moments. In one scene, however, a cat eats some human vomit which is something you don’t see every day.

By straight-to-DVD standards ‘Quarantine 2 Terminal’ is entertaining enough but by abandoning the first-person narrative of the original and everything else which made ‘Rec’ so intriguing, there’s precious little to differentiate it from the dozens of other no-budget zombie cheapos which clutter up the supermarket shelves and, unless you’re a zombie obsessive, it really is emininently missable unless you’ve got absolutely nothing else better to do.

Extras: None

‘Quarantine 2 Terminal’ is available now on DVD

Taras Bulba (Bogdan Stupka), a war hardened Cossack warrior in 16th century Ukraine, sees it as his duty to Christ and the church to wage war against the land of Poland.  When his sons return home from studying, he is determined to train them as soldiers to fight alongside him in his battle against the heathens.  However one of them, Andriy (Igor Petrenko) is a gentle man, adverse to his father’s brutal way of life.  He also hides a secret (his love for the beautiful daughter of a Polish nobleman) which will set him on a bloody collision course with his embittered parent.

One of the best aspects of Iron & Blood – The Legend of Taras Bulba, based on the novel ‘Taras Bulba’ by Nikolai Gogol (though I suspect not the main one intended to attract its target market), is its beauty. Both in the countryside in which it has been shot, with its vast, unspoilt plains of which I expect there are still plenty across great swathes of eastern Europe, and which are captured majestically in the scene where Bulba takes his sons to Zaporizhia, where he hopes they will learn how to become true Cossack warriors. The grassy plains that stretch as far as the eye can see until they touch the horizon are breathtaking, the green fields and blue sky highlighting the earthy browns and reds of the men’s traditional Cossack clothing.  And in the opulence of the fortified home of the Polish nobleman and his daughter, which the Cossack hordes attempt to storm before laying siege to, when they are beaten back from the ramparts by the nobleman’s army.

However for the all its stunning visuals, the film does not shy away from the brutality and harsh reality of these people’s lives.  And not just with the battle scenes the strength of which is, after all, what the film is really sold on. One scene where a man who killed his comrade whilst drunk is shown no mercy by being buried alive beneath the coffin of his victim, is numbing, even more so as it comes without warning, like a sudden slap in the face upon the unsuspecting viewer. The spectacle is made all the more horrific by the fact that there is no delight shown by the men who carry out the punishment, as they seem just as upset for the murderer as for the man he murdered.

There are other equally disturbing, though perhaps more subtle, cruelties throughout the film. That of the early ‘Christian’ church and the atrocities of the wars and crimes perpetrated in its name. Or of the girl Andriy falls in love love with, as she mocks and laughs at his attempts to impress her when they first meet.  She also displays a tougher side, appearing to show little fear when walking amongst the soldiers on the ramparts of her father’s embattled fortress. As this film shows women in the medieval period had to be as tough as their menfolk if they were to survive, and though their husbands may have ruled the battlefield, it was often the women who held the domestic power.

One of the only complaints I would have with the film is its length, running at just over two hours. There are some undoubtedly impressive battle scenes with enough extras to shame even the most lavish Hollywood production, and the storming of the castle belonging to the Polish nobleman is good enough to hold your attention for its duration. However these scenes are interspersed with long stretches of rhetoric amongst the various characters, which may prove of little more than passing interest, unless you’re into early Russian history and folklore.

Despite these shortcomings, I would say its good points far outweigh the bad, and Iron & Blood – The Legend of Taras Bulba makes a welcome change from the often over sanitised depiction of medieval life seen in big budget, western cinema.

Iron & Blood is released on DVD on 22nd August

What is ‘The Strange World of Gurney Slade’? Is it a sitcom? Is it a drama? Is it a very clever post-modern discourse on celebrity culture and the ephemeral nature and ultimate pointlessness of fictional characters? Don’t ask me; I’ve just watched all six thirty-minute black-and-white episodes and I’m really not sure I’ve got a clue what was going on…

Over the years Network DVD have carefully mined the TV archives for the very best populist and obscure titles from immaculately-presented boxsets of classic ITC action adventures and pioneering Gerry Anderson supermarionation shows to half-forgotten children’s adventure serials from the 1970s, some of them not even complete in the archives but released anyway for the sake of posterity. By now you might well imagine there’s not much left in the archives save a few old Arthur Mullard sitcoms. But despite such expectations, Network have discovered and unearthed ‘The Strange World of Gurney Slade’, a virtually unclassifiable production which, incredibly, dates from 1960 (the prints released on the DVD are spotless due to the series being shot single-camera, on film) and stars 1950s singing sensation Anthony Newley (ask your Mum…or even, gulp, your Grandmum) in what was clearly intended by ITV to be an accessible, prime time vehicle capitalising on the actor/singer’s burgeoning popularity. What they got was a wilfully-surreal, head-scratchingly meandering series which so baffled and infuriated its straight-thinking audience that ITV were forced to move it from its prime time slot after four weeks and dump the last two episodes in a post-11pm slot (this, kids, was in a time when ITV didn’t let its dead dog shows decompose in the harsh light of prime time but respected its audience enough to admit when a show wasn’t working and wasn’t afraid to move flops out of the firing line).

Newley plays the titular Gurney Slade who, in episode one, walks off the set of a deadly dull kitchen sink drama (a show which seems to pre-date ‘Coronation Street’ by a couple of years) and just…wanders around the streets having bizarre conversations with himself, people he meets (or dreams of meeting) and even animals. Across six increasingly-bizarre episodes – three of which are filmed entirely on location with the final three acted out on minimalist sets – Slade ruminates on the nature of love and romance (in episode two he contemplates a wordless romance with a pre-‘Doctor Who’ Anneka Wills), the aimlessness of country life, the nature of humour (rather tellingly in the fifth episode when the series has already singularly failed to tickle the nation’s funny bone) and  in a final episode as obscure and barbed as the last episode of Patrick McGoohan’s ‘The Prisoner’ some seven years later, the true nature of celebrity and the disposability of fiction and fictional characters as the little ‘supporting cast’ the show has built up the previous five weeks are all wheeled out again (look out for 1960s comic Bernie Winters as a party-goer) before being trundled off to fulfil similar narrative functions in other apparently-fruitless dramas. At the end of an episode which has been all about behind-the-scenes manipulation Newley himself steps out of the shadows and Gurney Slade slowly turns into a garish, grinning wooden puppet…Newley’s ultimate condemnation of what celebrity and fame had turned him into?

If nothing else ‘The Strange World of Gurney Slade’ was – and in some ways still is – years ahead of its time, not so much breaking the fourth wall as utterly disregarding it. It’s a fascinating, if frustrating snapshot of the perception of one ‘celebrity’ of the concept of ‘fame’ in the early 1960s, decades ahead of today’s vacuous ‘Big Brother’/reality TV culture but more than this it’s a peculiar and somewhat warped look at the mundanities of life once all the artifice has been stripped away. Its lack of a coherent story or anyone readily identifiable as a ‘character’ may puzzle modern viewers; just imagine what it must have done to a black-and-white TV audience for whom the Second World War was a recent memory from just a decade and a half ago. Its quirky piano-riff theme tune and exagerrated incidental music suggest a warm and cosy family sitcom but ‘Gurney Slade’, having no recognisable ‘sit’ and precious little obvious ‘com’, defies any real categorization, even fifty years after its sole UK broadcast. It’s really quite unlike any TV show I’ve ever watched and while I can admire the gall of it, the pioneering spirit which created it and the bloody-mindedness of both Newley and his writers creating something so wildly off-centre, I’m really not sure whether watching it is an enjoyable experience or an utterly pointless one. Should you choose to visit ‘The Strange World of Gurney Slade’ it’s probably best that you’re left to decide for yourself…

‘The Strange World of Gurney Slade’ is available from Network DVD on August 15th

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec is saved by a star-making performance from Louise Bourgoin. Director Luc Besson searched far and wide for the perfect Adèle and perseverance paid off big time. The role posed a triple challenge to be dramatic, funny and sexy. Bourgoin aces each category.

Besson also had to wait a long time to make the film due to creator Jacques Tardi insisting it should be made by somebody else entirely. Those plans collapsed in the end and Besson again asked Tardi. The French director, possibly the most famous internationally, takes elements from books one and four and meshes them together with his own screenplay. Those expecting an Indiana Jones style adventure might be disappointed but thankfully it’s no Tomb Raider either.

The major issue with Adèle Blanc-Sec stems from its plodding, albeit madcap, narrative. This is a very French production packed with very French humour. Some will take to it and some will not. Sometimes it’s plain not funny. Besson’s tale of mummies, pharaohs, resurrection spells and a pterodactyl let loose in Paris is absurd stuff but the comics’ tone just doesn’t translate well to the screen. Sometimes the over-the-top zaniness recalls Louis Malle’s Zazie dans le Metro.

The art design, sets and costumes are beautiful recreations of the belle époque. So, too, Besson’s decision to slightly elongate the faces and noses of male characters to capture Tardi’s unique style. Mathieu Almaric, in an extended cameo despite top billing, is unrecognisable. Gilles Lellouche, as Inspector Albert Caponi, fares much better as the forever-hungry detective attempting to sort out the mess wrought by the birth of a dinosaur.

Bourgoin is basically the reason to watch this film. She is fantastic. The prison, in particular, is great fun. Adèle must rescue a professor put behind bars after he is blamed for the dinosaur mess. She does have ulterior motives given she is trying to bring back her own sister who died during a bizarre hairpin/tennis accident. Told you it was wacky stuff. 

Adèle dresses in a series of crazy disguises which range from downright sexy to obese prison cook. This is easily the best scene in the whole film. It’s a shame the rest doesn’t capture this moment. 

The extra features focus largely on interviews with its star and director. There’s a making of documentary too. It’s electronic press kit stuff but quite in-depth and packed with lots of information. A commentary from Besson would have been nice, though.

Despite the narrative and tonal weaknesses one hopes for another adventure from Miss Blanc-Sec. There’s something (potentially) great about Miss Bourgoin and this character. Maybe a change of director would help.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec is out now on DVD/Blu-ray

Wolfe ‘Toddy’ MacFarlane (Henry Daniell), a renowned and highly respected doctor in early nineteenth century Edinburgh, takes medical student Donald Fettes (Russell Wade) under his wing when he recognises the young man’s potential.  The idealistic Fettes sees his role as a fledgling doctor as an opportunity to help and do good. So does MacFarlane.  However, to progress medically he needs bodies for his students to experiment on and, in that era, there was one popular (all be it illegal) method to get them – grave robbing.  Over the years MacFarlane has built an uneasy relationship with the dubious John Gray (Boris Karloff), a cabman who has an unsavoury sideline in procuring freshly buried bodies for those in the medical profession who are happy to ‘ask no questions’.  However, when the supply of bodies becomes more difficult to sustain, Gray goes to extreme measures to keep his profitable night job going.  Measures which have tragic consequences for all involved.

The film’s evocation of the early 1800’s where the poor and rich lived in alien worlds separated by high gates and thick walls, is as disturbing as any modern full on, subtle-less horror, and masterfully achieved with the appearance of the occasional street beggar and trundling carriage, rustling crinoline and doffed top hat.  As with most Hollywood films of the period, particularly horror and suspense, the feeling and atmosphere is highlighted by recognisable landmarks or over emphasised accents.  Big Ben always looms tall out of the London smog, and in the case of The Body Snatcher we know we are in Edinburgh when a young girl wrapped in a shawl welcomes the viewer with a ballad sung in a thick highland brogue, a man in full kilt passes through the gates of a turret fortified house or the incidental strains of a Scottish melody haunt the soundtrack.

But authenticity of scenery and backdrops was always secondary with many of these films.  Though they certainly looked the part, the streets of the fairytale towns along which Frankenstein’s monster or the wolf-man lurked, could as easily have been in rural France, the remote German mountains or a quaint English locale.  More often than not the real atmosphere came from the film makers’ use of shadow, lighting and minimal sets even when, as in the case of The Body Snatcher, a period parlour or sitting room would have been better known for their overindulgence in twee trappings.

However, along with this minimalism, it was for the already mentioned psychological horror that Lewton’s film’s are best remembered today.  The predicaments in which the characters find themselves, as with the young Fettes whose initial good intentions are slowly eroded as he becomes more deeply involved with the heinous crimes of the unscrupulous MacFarlane and his murderous associate Gray, have always been what lifted Lewton’s productions above the level of B movie potboilers.

Karloff proves here, perhaps more than in any of his other films, that he required no make-up or outlandish costumes to give his characters a truly monstrous and evil air.  The sneer of Gray’s mouth when he makes simple statements like, “You’re entirely mistaken. You’d better give me my money and make the proper entry”, uttered when he is quizzed by Fettes about how he procured the latest body for dissection, is enough to make even the most stolid viewer’s skin crawl.

The film also serves to highlight the difference between Karloff and Bela Lugosi (who as Dr MacFarlane’s manservant Joseph, has a distinctly curtailed, walk on role).  In films where he did not have to play second fiddle to the undisputed king of Hollywood horror, Lugosi was more than capable of turning in suitably disturbing performances.  However as in the case of 1934’s occult classic The Black Cat, and here in The Body Snatcher, he never quite manages to emerge from the shadow of Karloff (figuratively and literally as here their main scene together takes place in the flickering light cast by Gray’s humble kitchen fire).

For those of you who have never experienced the malign beauty of Lewton’s seminal shockers, there could be no better guide to introduce you than Karloff’s Scottish grave robber.  If, like me, Lewton’s films are a reminder of your first forays into the the chilling heyday of Hollywood Horror, then The Body Snatcher will bring back happy memories of many sleepless nights.

The Bodysnatcher is currently on DVD re-release

Your Highness is one of the more baffling failures from 2011. All the elements seemed to be in place. You had James Franco and Natalie Portman hot from critical acclaim and Oscar glory for 127 hours and Black Swan. You have Danny McBride in his first big leading role aside from HBO’s Eastbound and Down. Finally you have director David Gordon Green previously best known for arty meaningful work who scored a hit with Pineapple Express in 2008. Then for some reason audiences stayed away in their masses. It could be that most of your modern filmgoing demographic isn’t familiar with the films that Your Highness riffs on. Or it could be that ultimately the film doesn’t quite work as it should.

Your Highness begins in a mythical kingdom with Thadeous (Danny McBride) the oafish son of a king constantly in the shadow of his younger brother Fabious (James Franco) who goes on quests and wins the hearts of his people. Thadeous is content to sit around the kingdom, smoke weed and womanise with his trusted aide Courtney (Rasmus Hardiker). When Fabious returns from his latest quest with his virginal new love Belladonna (Zooey Deschanel) whom he has rescued, Thadeous is made to feel inferior still when they announce their marriage. During the ceremony evil sorcerer Leezar (Justin Theroux) shows up and kidnaps Belladonna as he wishes to use her in a ritual to impregnate her and bring about the birth of a dragon. Thadeous is given a choice by his father, either go on the quest with Fabious to rescue Belladonna and prove himself worthy or find somewhere else to live. They set out on their quest with Fabious’s band of warriors but are soon betrayed and are forced to rely on each other as well as mysterious warrior woman Isabel (Natalie Portman).

The main problem withYour Highness is one of tone. The fantasy elements are taken as seriously as the comedy elements leading to great sequences – such as the one in which our heroes are trapped in an arena and have to fight a multi headed serpent creature, or the pretty cool special effects surrounding Leezar’s powers. It’s also surprisingly gory, especially towards the end where swordfights often end in lost limbs or sprayings of blood. The production design and special effects are all really solid and the whole thing looks really good. Quite often in spoof cinema, the elements making up the subject being spoofed are not taken that seriously, so to see a film that has real production value with castles and countryside is refreshing. This doesn’t quite gel with the comedy aspects of the film. The humour here is pretty silly and truthfully it is best to view Your Highness if you are in a silly mood or have had a few beers or whatever your poison is. It’s no contrived Meet the Spartans type film though and doesn’t riff on modern films constantly. If you grew up during the 1980s watching fantasy films like Krull, Beastmaster, The Sword and the Sorcerer andWillow then you’ll get many of the references here and it’s clear that the writers McBride himself and Ben Best have a lot of affection for these films. David Gordon Green somehow pulled off a similar trick with Pineapple Express in that the action gelled with the silly comedy and it flowed really well. There was no problem laughing at Seth Rogen and James Franco getting stoned in the woods followed by gunfights and blown off limbs in the finale, somehow it just worked. The fantasy and comedy elements here seem like they belong in two separate films.

The comedy often comes from stoner humour which seems out of place when the fantasy is taken so seriously. There are some good chuckles to be had though. Justin Theroux as Leezar is particularly good, walking away with each scene by playing Leezar as a petulant child who has magical powers. There are also some funny scenes involving Fabious’s clockwork bird Simon and Thadeous attempts to get a similar pet in a lizard he names Stephen. During the finale Thadeous’s battle with a Minotaur leads to him taking a trophy which has to be seen to be believed. The cast all perform with pretty reasonable English accents, surprising considering that this is a spoof and many serious films (*cough Robin Hood *cough) cannot manage a believable accent. Danny McBride plays his usual character, an oafish man with a massive ego and inferiority complex but does well in his first lead role. James Franco is clearly having a lot of fun sending up the handsome prince charming role, delivering many of his cheesy lines earnestly and without irony. Sadly Natalie Portman is not much more than eye candy here but does get some good ass kicking scenes and of course the now infamous shot of her bathing in a silver bikini. The support is from mostly British thespians such as Damian Lewis, Toby Jones and Charles Dance all of whom shine in their limited screen time and seem more in on the joke than the main cast.

UltimatelyYour Highness is good value post pub viewing when its charms will work best on you. It’s just a shame that they couldn’t have figured out a way to make all the elements work together. It may yet become a cult hit as taken separately the elements are brilliant, when meshed together not so much.

Extras: Theatrical and Extended Versions, Gag Reel, Damn you Gods: Making of, Line O-Rama, Perverted Visions, A Vision of Leezar Featurette, Audio Commentary, Alternate Scenes (blu-ray only), Deleted Scenes (blu-ray only), Extended Scenes (blu-ray only).

Your Highness is out now on DVD/Blu-ray

Chances are you don’t know who the Duplass Brothers are yet. They directed the underrated indie comedy Cyrus last year which didn’t break them out as hoped. It’s likely that they will have a mainstream breakout hit soon with Jason Segel starrer Jeff who lives at Home,  but for the moment they remain obscure pioneers of the so called ‘mumblecore’ movement which also includes directors Lynn Shelton and Aaron Katz. Mumblecore is typically characterised by character based drama following middle class twenty somethings and their everyday relationships and baffling encounters with the modern world. The films are heavily indebted to Lars Von Trier’s Dogme 95 manifesto with their use of natural lighting and existing locations. Baghead is a film the Duplass Brothers made in 2008 before Cyrus and is an attempt to mix the conventions of mumblecore with a modern slasher flick. The results are not as clever as they think they are.

The film begins with frustrated wannabe filmmakers Chad (Steve Zissis) and Matt (Ross Partridge) watching and sniggering during the latest pretentious arthouse flick during an underground film festival in LA. They are accompanied by Steve’s crush Michelle (current indie it girl Greta Gerwig) and Catherine (Elise Muller) Matt’s on off girlfriend. Deciding that they can make a film much better than anything they witnessed at the festival the four of them head of to Chad’s uncle’s cabin in the woods to come up with a screenplay that will give all of them the break they need. Things get complicated when Michelle rejects Chad’s advances and decides she likes Matt and Catherine gets jealous of the whole situation. Attempts to come up with a workable idea come to nought and end up in drunken flirtation. Then one night Michelle has a dream about seeing a man with a bag over his head running through the woods and goes to tell the group. Matt is enthused and thinks he has found their winning idea all about a killer with a bag over his head. After his idea is met with disdain, Baghead ends up showing up in the woods and at their windows scaring the life out of them.

Truthfully it’s a pretty good idea but doesn’t really live up to the premise. The problem with the film is it never decides what it wants to be. Is it a quirky romantic relationship drama? A satire of the current state of independent film or an out and out horror film? Baghead does not really commit to any of these themes and instead ends up as a bit of a non starter. Having said that the film does have some fairly nice scares and the low budget aesthetic does give the whole thing a nice grimy late seventies horror feel. I could have done without the overly obvious handheld camera work and the frequent zooms in and out and sudden out of focus shots, I know it’s low budget but you would think they would learn to operate a camera.

The cast are clearly having a lot of fun in this as it seems like a largely improvised script and apart from a delightful Greta Gerwig they don’t really register as anything other than the struggling actors that they are playing anyway. None of them has anything approaching the charisma of even the dead meat in the Final Destination films. Chad for example is supposed to be the funniest guy Matt knows, but you never get this in the performance. Steve just comes across as the lonely sad sack present in hundreds of other independent films. Quite often in Baghead, it’s hard to predict what is going to happen next and there are red herrings galore as to who is playing the prank, if there is a prank or if there really is someone out there in the woods with murder on their mind. I quite liked this feeling whilst watching it but come the last twenty minutes when there is a big reveal it just feels like a wasted opportunity and worst of all the whole thing feels smug. The Duplass Brothers seem to be saying “Look how clever we are with our ironic horror film” but the whole thing has been done before and better in the Scream franchise as well as the little seen Behind The Mask – The Rise of Leslie Vernon. You get the feeling the Duplass Brothers have nothing but contempt for the low budget independent horror filmmakers out there working on their projects and it leaves a nasty aftertaste.

If you happen to catch Baghead late one night whilst suffering from insomnia then by all means give it a look. In the meantime save your money until The Duplass Brothers come up with that clever script that actually is as brilliant as this film should be.

DVD Extras: None

Baghead is released in the UK August 22nd on DVD 

Like it or not we live in a transitionary period as far as how you get your films goes. In the US, things have already changed considerably, with many films that would have been arthouse or indie breakout hits debuting via on demand services and having very limited cinema showings weeks later. In the UK we haven’t quite adopted this model yet, but with the popularity of the Lovefilm service and people favouring streaming over physical copies on new formats like Blu-Ray it probably won’t be long. Whilst we make this move, we find that many movies are being given short shrift in cinemas before debuting on DVD weeks later. Super is one such movie and could be my favourite film of 2011 so far. It received a brief limited theatrical run in June and is now out on DVD and Blu-Ray for the world to discover this work of insane genius.

Nothing in James Gunn’s previous filmography prepared me for this film. His screenplay for Dawn of the Dead is great but he didn’t direct it. Slither seemed to me to be one of those films that was kind of forced into cult status by the presence of Nathan Fillion despite being a pretty shameless riff on Night of the Creeps and Brian Yuzna’s Society. Super is a different beast entirely, it manages to be nasty, comic and extremely moving without being overwhelmed by all of the different genres it navigates with skill.

Super begins with sad sack cook Frank (Rainn Wilson) coming to the realisation that his beautiful former drug addict wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) is going to leave him for slimy drug dealer/club owner Jacques (Kevin Bacon). Try as he might Frank can’t compete with the life of glamour and status that Jacques offers her. Eventually she leaves and Frank’s mind fractures once he sees cheesy christian channel crusader The Holy Avenger (a hilarious Nathan Fillion) on TV and he gets a message from a tentacled messenger from beyond. It seems that Frank’s higher power wants Frank to strap on a red suit and fight crime as the Crimson Bolt. Frank’s early attempts at crime fighting do not go well and he is often beaten by street dealers and thugs. Looking for a weapon he finds one in the shape of a wrench and starts to beat open the heads of people who are out there raping, robbing and even cutting in line at the cinema. During his research into comic book heroes he meets comic shop clerk Libby (Ellen Page) who is just as keen on amateur crime fighting as Frank except a little more unhinged, and decides to suit up herself as Boltie. Together they learn that Jacques may well be an even more sinister threat than Frank first thought.

The basic set up is reminiscent of last years Kick-Ass and the film has been compared to that a lot. Whilst Kick-Ass is a fantasy action version of what would really happen if people decided to suit up and fight crime in real life, Super is the really real version of the madness that would ensue. This film is brutal – it’s brutal in its violence, its comedy and emotionally too. Whilst watching Frank’s actions as the Crimson Bolt you are alternately revolted and inspired as he does the things we would never dream of. There is no glorifying of the violence either, no slow motion or speed ramping here. A man’s head is split open with a wrench and it does exactly that, sickening crack and all the details. Frank’s actions are definitely questionable but once he meets Libby his actions seem positively sedate. Ellen Page plays Libby as the manic pixie dream girl she has played many times except with a damaged homicidal streak a mile wide. It’s a brave performance from Page who has had much acclaim very early in her career but nothing indicating she was capable of this. Libby’s behaviour brings sharp focus to the amount of general wrong Frank has been committing but there is a general feeling that its too late to turn back and so Frank’s real mission and the purpose of his quest comes back into focus. Rainn Wilson is outstanding in this role, his naturally sad posture and everyman demeanour work perfectly for the character and Wilson flips seamlessly between mad, sad and heroic. It’s the kind of performance the academy won’t look at due to the subject matter but it really is awards worthy stuff. The rest of the supporting cast is up to the sharp, nasty script and well defined characters Gunn has written for them. Kevin Bacon is great as a real slimebag and Liv Tyler as Frank’s troubled wife lends sympathy to a character that should be easy to hate. Genre faves Michael Rooker and Gregg Henry also pop up in smaller roles and make the most of their limited screen time.

The feeling that anything could happen is increasingly rare in these times of studio mandated blockbusters based on existing properties, but that’s what you get with Super. It’s a film that constantly surprises you with where it goes and never becomes offensive or crass despite some extreme subject matter. From the raucous animated intro to the tear jerking finale, I loved every minute of Super and it’s one of the very best films 2011 has had to offer. I can’t wait to see what James Gunn comes up with next.

Extras: Behind the scenes footage, Trailer.

Super is out now on DVD/Blu-ray

It seems that every time a hot new director comes on the scene and has some success, there will be a time when critics will turn and a backlash will begin. For Zack Snyder, who had some success with Dawn of the Dead, 300 and Watchmen, it came with his fourth film. This was the first film that Snyder came up with the story himself and was not an adaptation of some other material. That tinny sound you could hear back in late March? that was critics sharpening their knives. Whatever your opinion of the final product, its fair to say that Sucker Punch didn’t deserve the critical and commercial mauling it got and now it’s out on home video, it deserves a second look.

The film begins quietly in a dark fairytale like fashion with Baby Doll (Emily Browning) clashing with her violent step father after her mother dies. She defends herself against this brutal man and accidentally kills her sister in the process. Her step father has her committed to an insane asylum and does a deal with a corrupt orderly named Blue (Oscar Isaac) so that she bypasses traditional care and is placed at the front of the queue to receive a lobotomy. This is where a break with reality occurs and we descend into Baby Doll’s mind for the second level of reality in the film. Baby Doll imagines the hospital to be a high class brothel where the inmates are prostitutes imprisoned against their will, working for Blue (who is now a gangster and pimp) and cared for by dance choreographer/madam/therapist Madam Gorski (Carla Gugino). Baby Doll is told she has a date in a week with the ‘high roller’ a rich man who will come into the establishment to pay top dollar to take Baby Doll’s virginity. Meanwhile she bonds with fellow inmates Sweet Pea (Abby Cornish) Rocket (Jena Malone) Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung). Baby Doll is found to have a major talent for provocative dancing and it is during these sequences that a third level of reality is involved. In these sequences Baby Doll is spoken to by a wise sage like figure (Scott Glenn) who lets her know that in order to escape her fate she must retrieve five items. Back in the brothel Baby Doll convinces the others to join her in an escape attempt by getting the five items they will need. Each mission they go on takes place both in the brothel and in Baby Doll’s mind involving dragons, robots, clockwork zombie soldiers and gigantic angry samurai’s.

On first viewing Sucker Punch seems like its all style and no substance and truthfully is a bit of a disappointment. On subsequent viewing, knowing how the whole thing turns out you are able to pick up on things not noticed on first viewing. There are lines of dialogue and certain locations that take on extra meaning the more you watch and as things unfold you start to see what Zack Snyder and his co-writer Steve Shibuya were actually going for. When you have this realisation the film takes on a whole other emotional core that the surface flash and bangs detract from initially. It’s not a film where the meaning is there slapping you upside the head, but subtext about the plight of women and their objectification is there if you are prepared to look for it. It’s no coincidence that this film is set in the 1960s, right before the women’s liberation movement, where it’s more than likely that headstrong females who spoke out were carted off to the asylum by emasculated men. Snyder could have developed this subtle dig at male chauvinism a bit, so that more people got it and your casual viewer wasn’t scratching their head. Having said that he has done us a service by letting us figure things out for ourselves, a luxury all too rare in your modern blockbuster. It’s a daring move to pitch an 82 million dollar movie with huge special effects which is basically a massive finger wagging at the male audience and the collective guilt we should feel around the everyday viewing of women as nothing more than figures of lust, particularly in works of fantasy. Like I said the film has subtext it’s just not glaringly obvious first time around. It’s impossible to talk more about the subject matter and themes without leading heavily into spoiler territory but the film is definitely one that should provoke conversation about what the purpose of women is in works of fantasy. Have we really changed as a society? Is Lara Croft really a symbol of girl power? Or is it just perpetuating an age old cycle with her short shorts and ample chest? Baby Doll imagines an escape where she and her cohorts are dressed skimpily in almost fetish gear. Is this because this is her view of how powerful females should be dressed? There are no easy answers but much food for thought.

Like in his previous films, Zack Snyder pulls off the action sequences with aplomb and proves he is one of the best action directors working today. Each fantasy sequence is breathtakingly beautiful to behold. From a speeding train on a distant planet to a castle filled with marauding orc armies to a Japanese garden with lashings of snow. Each sequence is brilliant and executed perfectly without the heavy CGI or green screen work being obvious or intrusive. Snyder also gives each fantasy sequence a signature song reworked so it fits the overall mood and the scene it soundtracks. Considering the subject matter it’s a wonder that so much attention and craft was poured into this film by a major studio. The film is so beautiful to look at that it’s the kind of thing that would look great projected on to the wall of a trendy nightclub.

The acting by the female leads is great if not incredible. Especially impressive are Abbie Cornish and Jena Malone as sisters (or are they?) who have an attachment and a lot invested in Baby Doll’s escape plans. Carla Gugino is also very good in her dual role as shrink and madam and the guy playing Blue; Oscar Isaacson is not an actor I’m familiar with but he does a great job of playing a slimy pimp no matter which level of reality he is operating on. The film in its extended version is the version to see. It reinstates the much discussed musical number as well as extended action sequences and a final moving sequence which adds to the emotional impact of the film’s epilogue. The theatrical version felt a bit slight and the scenes added flesh it out perfectly.

If you have seen this once and dismissed it, see it again. If you have paid attention to all the negativity without giving the film as chance, then forget that and watch this movie as soon as you can. Love it or hate it, you can’t deny it has ambition. It’s called Sucker Punch for a reason.

Extras: Maximum movie mode (blu-ray only) featuring picture in picture commentary, storyboards and interactive galleries, Original animated prequel shorts, Sucker Punch – behind the soundtrack featurette.

Sucker Punch is out now on DVD/Blu-ray