With ‘Antichrist’ (2009), Lars von Trier delivered a controversial cabin-in-the-woods shocker that had husbands all over the world hiding their toolboxes from their wives. It was all a bit of a slap in the face for those who wanted to pigeonhole the director as a purveyor of sensitive art movies. But actually von Trier’s roots in horror go way back to the start of his career – witness ‘The Kingdom’, his wonderful small-screen outing, available for the first time on DVD.

The box set contains both four hour instalments of the series, made for Danish television in 1994 and 1997. An intended third instalment never saw the light of day, so be warned, the whole thing comes to an abrupt stop with any number of loose ends in the air. Even so, that still adds up to almost eight hours of brilliant television you won’t want to miss.

The setting is Copenhagen’s real life premier hospital, which, we learn in a moody intro, rests upon ancient bleaching ponds full of evil emanations. Intended to be a centre of excellence and rationality, the whole fabric of the place is soaked through with eldritch influences. A ghostly ambulance makes regular stops in the forecourt, and one of the lift shafts is haunted by a little girl with a tinkling bell which sounds the death knell for whoever hears it.

Trying to lay the little girl to rest is Mrs Russe (Kirsten Rolffes), a charismatic supernatural sleuth who feigns obscure complaints gleaned from textbooks to get herself admitted to the neurological ward. Enlisting the help of her porter son, she goes delving into the hospital’s secrets. Unfortunately, her ghost-hunting inadvertently makes things worse by opening up a hole into the underworld down in the labyrinthine basement.

Part of ‘The Kingdom’s originality lies in the way in which it weaves this classic ghost story into a busy, multi-stranded, US style medical soap. Not that any of the staff of the Kingdom could be mistaken for Dr. Kildare. Holding regular masonic lodge meetings in the laundry room, they include such creepy individuals as Professor Bondo (Baard Owe), a morbid pathologist who transplants a rare tumour into his body and lovingly nurtures it in the hope it will reach record-breaking size. There’s Hook (Soren Pilmark,) the local fixer, who’s not above blackmailing a callow intern for his theft of a cadaver’s head. There’s Hook’s romantic interest, Judith (Birgitte Raaberg,) whose pregnancy by a mystery man begins to take a worrying turn as her belly swells alarmingly.

Surpassing them all in colourfulness is Helmer (Ernst Hugo Jaregard,) an internationally acclaimed neurosurgeon who’s only been on the staff two months and has already got himself in a legal wrangle over a botched brain operation. An unwilling exile from his beloved Sweden, he relieves his feelings of scorn for Denmark in general and his colleagues in particular by going onto the roof and raging, “Danish scum!” Caught in a turf-war with Hook, it’s not long before he’s contemplating turning the insubordinate junior doctor into a zombie with a dose of poison in his morning beverage.

The tangled parallel plots combine chills and intrigue with flights of awkward, seemingly improvised comedy that foreshadow ‘The Office’ (there’s an excruciating staff sing along which you would swear could only have sprung from the brain of Ricky Gervais.) Co-writing with Niels Versel, von Trier shows a deftness, an abundance of high spirits and a gift for cunningly slow-burning punchlines that will astonish those who associate him primarily with dour, doom-laden melodramas.

The directorial style is borrowed from the documentary feel pioneered by American cop shows such as ‘Homicide: Life on the Street’ and ‘NYPD Blue’, with hand-held cameras, in-scene cuts and jerky panning shots, but here it’s taken a step further with 16 mm film stock processed to give it the ultra-grainy, bleached out look of poor quality video. After the success of ‘The Blair Witch Project’, this approach became almost standard in horror. Von Trier (co-directing with Morten Arnfred) deserves credit not only for getting there first but for the sureness with which he deploys what were then new-minted techniques. The moment, shot with a night vision lens, when a couple of characters stumble upon a fully-fledged black mass in one of the hospital cellars still delivers an incredible chill. (‘The Kingdoms’ debt to American TV was repaid when Stephen King adapted it into the glossy but ponderous ‘Kingdom Hospital‘).

The cast are all impeccable. Kirsten Rolffes is a delight as the Miss Marple-ish Mrs Drusse, while veteran stage actor Ernst Hugo Jaregard delivers what is simply one of the great small screen performances as the ‘angry Swede’ Helmer. The second instalment isn’t perhaps quite as strong as the first (and its an enormous pity the third instalment was never made,) but taken as a whole ‘The Kingdom’ is a sublime TV show which finds von Trier on inspired form. With extras including lengthy documentaries and audio commentaries, this box set is an ideal portal to a world that is as engaging as it is disturbing.

‘The Kingdom’ is released on DVD in the UK on the 4th of July.

 

The most brilliantly-titled film of the year sees UK comedy dream team Simon Pegg and Nick Frost reunited for the first time since Hot Fuzz but without their long-time collaborator and friend Edgar Wright in the director’s chair. This time around the boys are working with Greg Mottola, talented director of Superbad and, inevitably, they’ve created a film with a different sort of energy, albeit one which relies on the same chemistry between the two leads which powered the superior Shaun of the Dead (possibly the best British film of the last decade) and Hot Fuzz.

Pegg and Frost are back in familiar territory playing a pair of British sci-fi geeks fulfilling a lifelong dream in attending the legendary Comic-Con in San Diego before renting an RV and setting off on a road trip across America’s UFO heartland. A speeding car careers off the road across their path and out from the wreckage appears Paul, a wise-cracking, foul-mouthed alien in the classic ‘grey’ tradition of all the famous faked alien autopsy footage. Paul’s on the run and our two heroes find themselves rushing across the States with Men in Black in hot pursuit determined to track down the escaped extra-terrestrial.

It’s good to see Pegg and Frost back on screen (in a script they co-wrote) not only because they work so well together but also because they seem to do their best work together. Pegg’s solo work can be hit and miss; for every Run Fatboy Run there’s a stinker like Burke and Hare and his misjudged comic interpretation of Scotty in the first new Star Trek movie threatened to unbalance a decent reinvention of a stodgy franchise. Frost is scarcely leading man material but he offers up decent support in films such as the otherwise dire Boat That Rocked and the recent Attack the Block and gave a good account of himself in Money on BBC2 last year. But the on-screen partnership created in TV’s Spaced is where the magic really happens and they’re both on top form in Paul where they only slightly compromise their comic sensibilities for a broader American audience in a mainstream American movie.

Paul is clearly a labour of love for Pegg and Frost, allowing them to slip easily back into their preferred nerdy sci-fi fan boy personas and their script is littered with references to the most influential SF films of the last thirty years from Star Wars, Aliens and Close Encounters via a cheeky recreation of a famous cheesy scene from the original Star Trek TV series. Some of the running gags are more obvious and less subtle but the film never slips too far into American Pie crudity despite the inevitable strong language and some of Paul’s gross-out behaviour. Paul himself is a masterpiece of special effects, CGI so convincing that it’s easy to forget that he generally didn’t exist as a physical presence during the filming. The animation is flawless and intricately-detailed with Seth Rogen’s vocal performance giving a potentially-unattractive character a real warmth and, ironically,  real humanity.

Plenty of action, some good gags, great supporting performances from the always-reliable Jason Bateman and Sigourney Weaver (swearing her head off), a resolution which just about manages to stay on the right side of mawkishness and a frankly killer deadpan final line of dialogue combine to create an affectionate, inventive fun romp of a road movie. Pegg and Frost are always a delight to watch and Paul will do nicely until Edgar Wright’s back on board for the long-awaited third in the so-called ‘Cornetto’ trilogy.

Paul is out on Blu-ray and two-disc DVD with a slew of brief special features (Bloopers, the Evolution of Paul) a forty-minute detailed ‘making of’ on disc two and the inevitable commentary and the film itself appears as the theatrical version and an extended ’unrated’ version.

Agree? Disagree? Your rating…

 

Paul is available now in the UK.

 

From the opening notes of Riz Ortolani’s romantic score Ruggero Deodato’s film sets out to sidestep audience expectation somewhat. There are cannibal horror movies and there’s Cannibal Holocaust. Has there ever been such a controversial film made in all cinema history?

Abusive, disgusting, lurid, misogynistic, racist, all these descriptions sit next to: brilliant, haunting, mesmerising and powerful. Whatever you throw at – accusation or praise – it tends to stick. The movie offers a murky, blood-soaked path for the viewer to navigate – if they’re brave enough.

The closing jungle sequence, in which the intrepid gang are hunted down by the angry Ya̧nomamös, is Deodato’s most excessive point and he uses the bleakest humour. So pitch-black, in fact, some probably don’t see the satire. Even at the moment of death the camera rolls to exploit the hopeless situation. It could be said Alan, Faye, Jack and Mark stop being characters all together and become mere objects of the director’s scorn for the media. Such is the barbarity of these last moments, the viewer feels disorientated and quite possibly numb.

Of course the major issue many have with Cannibal Holocaust is it sensationalises that which it seeks to condemn. Random acts of animal slaughter which serve no purpose beyond the perfunctory adds to this sense of confusion. The new cut presented at Cine-Excess V on May 26th, 2011, has recently been granted a BBFC certificate and passed with a mere fifteen seconds worth of cuts. They come from the muskrat scene. As Felipe the guide kills the poor little critter Deodato now cuts away to the jungle, but the gruelling shriek remains. Other contentious moments have been re-edited too.

Throughout the film, when things get extra gory, the director uses a smart special effects device which presents itself as scratches over the film. It works well. The turtle sequence has been trimmed and now seems to cause no problems for the BBFC. Again, special effects are implemented over the scene when it gets that little bit too gruesome but there’s plenty to see – whether you want to or not.

On the big screen Cannibal Holocaust’s ability to shock is undiminished and surely testament to the skill of its director. The savagery of the imagery packs a mean punch as much as the transgressive cannibalism. The forced abortion, impaled girl and the burned, rotting body of an old woman are still repulsive. The unflinching camera’s gaze and the excitement of the filmmakers maximizes audience discomfort.

After 30 years the film continues to be seen one of the most shocking ever made. Unlike the works of Umberto Lenzi and others who ventured deep into the cannibal subgenre Deodato’s fine craftsmanship shines. He began his career as an assistant to Italian master Roberto Rossellini and became a noted AD working with major European and American filmmakers throughout the 1960s.

Does Cannibal Holocaust exist within the fine tradition of Italian neo-realism? Perhaps on a superficial level it does. Yet the true inspiration, one less celebratory than an iconic period of Italian cinema, are documentaries such as Mondo cane (1962), which sensationalised other cultures, faked supposedly authentic rituals and included the slaughter of animals for extra kicks. Pushing boundaries and exploiting material walked hand in hand and to hell with taste!

Deodato’s new cut, to be released in a few months time – bar a moral panic or media shit storm, will no doubt further the debate on the film’s merits and failings and allow a new generation to experience Deodato’s picture close to as originally intended. Indeed, questions still remain over the validity of its message and stance but there’s no denying, however accidental, its cinematic power.

Cannibal Holocaust is released on Blu-ray by Shameless Films Monday 26th September, 2011.

Review: 5150 Elm’s Way (18) / Director: Eric Tessier / Screenplay: Patrick Senecal / Starring: Marc-Andre Grondin, Normand D’Armour, Sonia Vachon, Mylene St-Sauveur / Release date: Out now 

Sometimes you’ll watch a film that so subverts your expectations that it can generate immense goodwill regardless of any flaws it may have.

One such movie is the French Canadian thriller 5150, Elm’s Way, a quietly efficient tale of religious psychopaths, suburban imprisonment and chess. Directed by Éric Tessier, it is a film that takes an unconventional approach to the killer and captive story, managing to navigate its way successfully through a plot that, in less assured hands, would collapse under the weight of its own implausibility.

It begins when we meet Yannick (Marc-André Grondin), a young man recently enrolled in film school, who has just moved into his own place and seems to be on the verge of a new life of exciting possibilities. Cycling along an ordinary suburban street, he has an accident after a cat dashes across his path and so, hurt and unable to ride his damaged bike, he calls at a nearby house for assistance. However, through a series of contrivances he ends up entering the house uninvited and, after hearing someone shouting for help, is imprisoned when the owner of the house drags the pleading incumbent out and locks Yannick in.

It is at this point that seasoned horror fans could be forgiven for thinking that they’re going to be subjected to prolonged depictions of torture, brutality and gore, all leading to a protracted chase sequence and a bloody showdown between killer and captive. However, this is not the case because the man who has imprisoned Yannick does not live alone, but rather shares the house with his wife and two daughters. And far from it being a charnel house of pain and degradation, it all looks rather normal, the only unusual aspect being that Dad considers himself one of the ‘righteous’ with a mission in life to punish the ‘unrighteous’. Granted, we soon learn that he is a religious maniac but as psychopaths on a mission from God go, he’s rather a sympathetic one. So when his wife persuades him that Yannick may be one of the righteous he resists the urge to murder him and instead has to work out what he’s going to do with him.

Jacques Beaulieu as Normand D’Amour is the film’s main strength, the father of the house and the film’s chief antagonist, eschewing as he does any temptation to rant or gurn his way through scenes in order to convince us of his religious mania. Instead he seems (for the most part) like the sort of guy you’d be quite happy to have as a next door neighbour, his attempts to use only reasonable force against his prisoner at odds with the cold flash of steel we glimpse in his eyes when he expresses a need to get back to work on his ‘project’.

Jacques’s relationship with the rest of the family, all of whom are aware of Yannick’s imprisonment, is one of the most interesting elements of the movie and it is a credit to the actors concerned that they are all such convincing characters, managing to sustain our interest and belief in a situation that could so easily have been one dimensional. There is the hot headed daughter Michelle (Mylène St-Sauveur), desperate for her father’s approval but constantly incurring his wrath for her use of unnecessary violence; his timid but basically decent w

ife Maude (Sonia Vachon), whose main purpose is to placate her husband while keeping her younger daughter, Anne (Élodie Larivière), safe from her father’s occasional bursts of anger; and then there is Anne herself, who is clearly psychologically disturbed by her home life, prone as she is to putting rat poison in her father’s coffee.

For most of its running time the film switches between Yannick’s attempts to escape and Jacques’s efforts to keep his domestic situation under control while carrying on with the work of punishing those he deems deserving. He does this while seeking to initiate his eldest daughter into the business of killing with a view to continuing his mission when his ‘project’ is complete.

The main psychological strength of the film is in the burgeoning relationship between Yannick and Jacques as the latter’s complete conviction in the rightness of his actions is challenged by the former. Yannick’s need to prove to Jacques that he is insane and that what he is doing is not the work of God gradually comes to eclipse his desire to escape. So when Jacques proposes that if Yannick can beat him in just one game of chess he will accept he is wrong and release him, Yannick’s desire to do so becomes all encompassing.

Throughout, Yannick is attempting to resist his own descent into insanity, made manifest through hallucinatory sequences brought about by his feelings of claustrophobia and his obsession with proving Jacques wrong. But, in keeping with its habit of gently subverting your expectations, the film resists the temptation to pursue a resolution that seems inevitable at this point and, by doing so, retains both the credibility of its story and the integrity of its characters.

This is a film that won’t be for everyone with a taste for horror/thrillers, as its pacing is occasionally uneven and there may be those who find the running time of 110 minutes a tad indulgent. In truth, the film does sag somewhat around the half way mark before picking up again once the chess challenge has been made. Also, the plot developments as it nears its finale will perhaps be a step too far for anyone unable to ignore the practical difficulties of one revelation in particular. But for me the dénouement was a gloriously ghoulish finale that, though pushing the bounds of credibility, exhibited a Grand Guignol sensibility that meant I couldn’t help but admire the audacity of it all.

5150, Elm’s Way surprised me a lot, there being very little in it that I thought was predictable or formulaic. This being a film that was made in 2009 it seems a shame that it seems to have garnered such scant attention (at least in the UK) since its initial release. I’d therefore advise anyone with an interest in seeing a thriller that offers something a little bit different to rectify that oversight, now that it has found a release on DVD.

If there is one horror film scenario that fans of the genre might project themselves into more than any other, it is perhaps the one where society collapses as the result of a Zombie Apocalypse. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had conversations on numerous occasions with like-minded folk (and unlike-minded folk who always seem to want to move away from me if I’m honest) about where I would seek to hide out, who I would endeavour to take with me and what possessions I would be prepared to leave behind. Then there is that old chestnut where I’ve asked myself how ruthless could I be in dispatching a loved one who’d received a bite from the undead (I’ve been assured by my girlfriend that she wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between my eyes the moment I went green around the gills and started to drool).

For such people, the arrival of season one of The Walking Dead on DVD and Blu-ray, is all of their Zombie Christmases come at once. Telling its story over 6 hour-long episodes, the debut season of The Walking Dead follows a small group of survivors as they travel across Georgia, trying to stay alive in a world where the dead have come to life. So far, so same old story. However, what elevates The Walking Dead above all but a handful of Zombie movies is the time it is able to take to focus on the survivors and their individual stories. So any fan of such classics as Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead or Zombie Flesh Eaters who has ever wondered what happens to the survivors after the credits roll, can get those questions answered as they go on at that very journey with them. Thanks to show runner, co-writer and sometime director, Frank Darabont, it is a journey that is often moving, frequently horrific and never anything less than thoroughly compelling.

Darabont may not have seemed the most obvious contender to bring Robert Kirkman’s comic book series to life but anyone who has seen his adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist will appreciate his ability to focus on human dynamics, bringing drama to the fore in a tale ostensibly concerned with monsters. It is this human drama that sustains The Walking Dead, with several episodes featuring surprisingly little Zombie action. But that’s okay because as well as having to cope with the end of the world, this bunch of happy campers have to deal with dilemmas such as spousal infidelity, red neck racists, wife-beaters, and Latino street gangs, all whilst looking for a place to which they can retreat and rebuild their shattered lives.

However, Zombie action is never far away and just when you’ve become engrossed by the struggles the survivors are experiencing within their group, a large horde of very hungry Zombies will hover into view to focus everybody’s minds on the overriding issue of the day. It is this balance of the human drama interspersed with adrenaline pumping scenes of action and peril that makes The Walking Dead so utterly gripping. Highlights include Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes’ (Andrew Lincoln) arrival in a seemingly deserted Atlanta and a daring attempt by Rick and Glen (Steven Yeun) to make their way through Zombie infested streets covered in blood and entrails to disguise their human scent. The cliffhanger to episode three suggests that the second season will see the return of a problem that may force the unwanted attentions of the undead onto the back burner (and if you don’t consider yourself to be in this for the long haul by the end of this thrilling episode, then stories of Zombie survival horror are clearly not for you).

Although this is a television show boasting a wonderful emsemble cast, it is the Zombies themselves who are the stars of the show. I’ve seen a lot of Zombie movies but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a finer array of the undead on screen anywhere before. The series’ make-up and special effects teams have been employed superbly to create an army of shuffling, flesh hungry corpses in various stages of decomposition, all of whom look so thoroughly repulsive that you cannot wait to see various implements and weaponry utilized creatively in an effort to remove their stinking Zombie heads from their filthy, reeking Zombie shoulders. Of course, there’s plenty of that.

In a nutshell this is a DVD that offers everything anybody could ever want from a quality TV serial about zombies. The story arc of this first season sets things up very nicely for a more substantial run of episodes in Season 2, scheduled to air on FXUK later in the year. Season one has done such an astounding job of setting up a variety of enthralling sub-plots and character arcs that I for one cannot wait.

Extras: Quite a bumper package. The “Making Of” documentary includes contributions from all the main players, including creator Robert Kirkman who is clearly delighted with the way season one turned out. There are featurettes that focus on each of the individual episodes as well as a fair bit of on-set footage presented by both Kirkman and Andrew Lincoln. My favourite extras were “Zombie School”, where we learn what it takes to be a walking corpse, and Zombie make up tips that illustrate how you can use porridge oats and gelatine to achieve that ‘just stepped out of the grave’ look. There are also special effects features and footage from a convention panel that includes contributions from all of the producers on the show.

Sergio Sollima’s excellent (and virtually forgotten) spaghetti western, Faccia a faccia (Face to Face), made in 1967, features an inventive pop art credit sequence which recalls Andy Warhol’s iconic silk screen prints. The stylish montage and Ennio Morricone’s blaring score helps create a brilliant cinematic frisson. This film is just waiting to be re-discovered from the movie crypt of obscurity and celebrated as a great piece of cult cinema. The brilliant Eureka label release it on DVD for the first time ever in the UK.

Sergio Leone’s successful Dollars trilogy heralded a fresh perspective on a dying but quintessential American genre and other directors quickly followed suit. Genres, whether exploitation flicks or not, tend to thrive after a particular title goes down well at the box office. The mean-eyed stare of the Euro Western ended up influencing the very genre it was aping.

‘Violence is an Italian art,’ said Lucio Fulci, and the country’s take on the cowboy flick delivered such a notion in spades. Faccia a faccia stands out from the crowd by front-loading a political metaphor. It is easy to read Marxist subtexts in spaghetti westerns with their emphasis on avarice and commodity fetishism. Men kill for ‘a fistful of dollars’ and a dog-eat-dog world walks hand in hand with death. The high-pitch sound of a revolver firing is like a cash register. As the bodies drop the take goes up. Money drives men to murder as if led by the spiritual verve of possessing riches. Faccia a faccia attempts to do things a bit differently.

The story takes place in the arid climes of Texas and focuses on themes of identity and corruption of the soul, not by money, but power. The film has been noted as an allegory of fascism, and it’s clear to see why.

Brad Fletcher (Gian Maria Volonté) is a professor with an unspecified illness. Given he’s seeking warmer climes out west and insinuates he’s dying we can safely assume the man suffers from tuberculosis. Solomon ‘Beauregard’ Bennet (Tomas Milian) is the eccentric-looking leader of the Wild Gang. If you thought Javier Bardem’s mop top hairdo in No Country for Old Men (2007) was wacky – wait until you see Milian’s haircut in this! Bennet has finally been captured by the sheriff’s posse but makes his move for freedom when Brad offers him water to drink. Demonstrating civility turns into high drama when Bennet shoots down the sheriff and his men then holds Brad hostage.

The professor and the bandit, however, become friends allowing Brad’s moral decline to begin as his rise to inner strength occurs. What follows is a genuinely brilliant tale of outlaws, bank jobs, duplicity and murder.

Its Texas setting is pure fantasy, too, as the largest US state is as flat as a pancake. Sollima, like others, shot the picture around

Almería and Madrid with interior scenes done in Rome. There is striking use of locations, especially, with the Techniscope photography.

The major set-piece is a bank heist. Sollima overlaps Brad explaining what is to be done with a flash forward device. The winning effect sees the action taking place as Brad explains the plan to the Wild Gang. The desert finale, too, makes for a thrilling and heavily symbolic finish with Brad and Solomon facing off against a gang of vigilante’s led by a former friend. The film works so well largely due to its clever role reversals much like John Woo achieved in Face/Off (1997).

Solomon is an instinctual, unthinking killer but his moral compass (if we can call it such) is in better shape than Brad’s. The character arc of this intellectual, wonderfully played with growing malevolence and arrogance by the iconic Volonté, is the movie’s true core.

He embraces the outlaw life with vigour and applies logic and calculated menace to contrast with Bennet’s approach. Brad injects fascist steel into his philosophy as he becomes de facto head of the gang. The small outpost, Pietra di Fuoco, becomes a personal fiefdom and the inhabitants his subjects. It really is an unusual kind of narrative for a western to explore.

The DVD presents Faccia a faccia in its original aspect ratio and new audio mix. Although it hasn’t been given a Blu-ray release it’s still a must-have for Italian cinema fans. Included in the bonus features is an insightful sixteen minute interview with the director which goes into the movie’s origins and how they relate to his experiences during the Second World War. He notes how plenty of people he knew underwent personality changes much like his lead character Brad Fletcher.

There are a couple of trailers and the option to watch in the original dubbed Italian or with English subtitles. A sixteen page booklet by spaghetti western expert Howard Hughes rounds off a fine release. Faccia a faccia is a fantastic movie.

Appearances really can be deceptive. Director Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go looks like many a British period drama that has gone before and its depiction of life at an English boarding school, set in the midst of verdant, rolling fields, is one that will seem familiar to anyone with a taste for the likes of Brideshead Revisited. However, in what is only the first of its many surprises, you’re almost half an hour in before you realise that what you are actually watching is science fiction. Because although this adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel may wear the comfy cardigans and prissy blouses of an England glimpsed in Brief Encounter, within its breast beats the dark dystopian heart of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield) & Ruth (Kiera Knightly), are all pupils at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham Boarding School in the 1970s. When we first meet them they are children on the verge of adolescence, Kathy falling in love with Tommy only for him and Ruth to start a relationship. However, there are darker secrets at work in their world and we soon learn the harsh reality of their existence when Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins), a teacher new to the school, explains to them their true purpose in life. It is a horrific revelation but is presented with very little drama, the children seemingly unfazed and blithely accepting of their destiny. The next day at school, the teacher is gone, never to be mentioned again; the headmistress (Charlotte Rampling) alluding to the need to eradicate disruptive influences.

As the three of them grow up together they are moved to a place called The Cottages, where they meet and live with others like them. And as the suppressed feelings that Kathy and Tommy have for each other come to a head, they discover the possibility that their love for each other may be crucial in postponing a fate that they had accepted as being inevitable.

Never Let Me Go is told almost exclusively from the perspective of the three protagonists, a narrative device that serves to heighten the empathy you feel for them. The life that is set out for each of them is never questioned or challenged and their eager and childlike fascination with a wider society that we never really see (and they will never know) is often heart breaking in its naivety.

All three leads give remarkable performances, with Mulligan in particular offering an astonishing portrait of a young woman haunted as much by her future as she is by her past. She is the sort of actress who manages to convey a stillness beneath which a maelstrom of feeling is conveyed and Romanek’s camera dwells on her visage of thoughtful fragility to remarkable effect. Garfield too demonstrates his increasing versatility with the tricky task of portraying a character who rages against his fate while at the same time being utterly accepting of it. It is a dichotomy that could have fallen flat in less capable hands but one that he pulls off convincingly.

Along with the strength of the performances, much of the power of Never Let Me Go lies in its depiction of a world that looks virtually indistinguishable from our own.  In that regard it calls to mind Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, a movie that also took a contemporary social and ethical issue (in that case immigration) and developed it to the extreme, setting its story in a country where some human beings are degraded  by a faceless society that condones their treatment. What is disturbing in both movies is that it is recognisably our society.

I finished watching Never Let Me Go and then sat thinking about it for the next 20 minutes. Since then I’ve thought about it off and on every day. Although it is both a drama and a love story, I’m increasingly convinced that it’s one of the best science fiction movies I’ve seen in the last decade. It’s just that it is one concerned with very powerful ideas and real human drama, rather than special effects or interior design.

In the end, this is a film from which you may take many meanings. It is a film about the choices we make and how we deal with our own mortality. It is about the inclination within many of us to accept what we perceive as our fate and our remarkable ability as adults to live with it. But perhaps more than anything, it is about how a society can raise its children to believe everything they are told and how completely they will accept it. And that is a responsibility in which we all share.

Extras: Both the Blu-ray and DVD release feature a decent ‘making of’ featurette in The Secrets of Never Let Me Go, along with various stills galleries including Mark Romanek’s photography (taken on set) and a selection of Artwork created by the character of Tommy in the film. A theatrical trailer is also included.

Never Let Me Go is released on Blu-ray & DVD on 27 June

Starring: Jack Black, Jason Segal, Emily Blunt, Chris O’Dowd, Billy Connolly, Catherine Tate, James Corden

Classic literature fiends out there will, of course, remember Jonathan Swift’s classic 1726 satire in which Lemuel Gulliver, a squat, air-guitar-obsessed underachieving mailroom supervisor in a Manhattan publishing house writes false travel reports to impress the Girl Of His Dreams and finds himself sent out to report on an island in the Bermuda Triangle. A storm whips him off to Lilliput where he’s a giant amongst little people and he quickly ingratiates themselves amongst the locals by forcing them to build a huge movie theatre where the Lilliputians can re-enact classic Hollywood and by turning the town into a facsimile of Times Square. He also incurs the wrath of the town’s General who ultimately fashions a giant Transformer-style robot so he can take control of the town and banish Gulliver. Hang on, that’s not the book I read…

I’ve always held the naïve belief that no-one really wants to make a bad movie. Of course sometimes circumstances turn something with potential into a bit of a disaster or some dodgy casting can scupper an otherwise worthwhile project. But this woeful remake of ‘Gulliver’s Travels‘, with that star (has the always-irritating Jack Black ever been this punchable?), this script (“Boosh!”) and these slightly-dodgy FX should have set the alarm bells ringing well before the tuxedos came out of mothballs for the premiere. This is dumbed-down Hollywood at its very dumbest, lowest common denominator comedy which surely even the most undemanding and slightly-backward child would find irredeemably insulting and offensive. Here’s a film with hardly any redeeming features; this is a movie which does just about everything wrong all the time. It’s not funny. It offers nothing new to the idea of Gulliver and his adventures on Lilliput, it’s happy just to strip everything away and replace it with crass and obvious pop culture references and flat, cack-handed dialogue and humour-free jokes. The writers don’t even have the wit to change Gulliver’s name (who the Hell’s called Lemuel in the twenty-first century??) which is baffling as they saw fit to change virtually everything else about the story.

With Jack Black just playing himself again (put the belly and those stubby legs away now, please, Jack) we can’t help but notice the string of ‘I did this for the money’ British types who’ll surely be tippexing this one off their CV if they’ve got any common sense left. What on Earth was Billy Connolly doing signing up for this twaddle? Catherine Tate’s wasted in a role which gives her about three lines of dialogue and James Corden pretty much disappears after forty-odd minutes. The IT Crowd’s Chris O’Dowd throws himself into the role of the cuckolded General with some gusto and gives his performance more comedy chops than it really deserves; he’s at least trying to salvage something from this absolute shipwreck of a movie.

Lazy, shoddy, underwritten and dull, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ is marginally redeemed only by some decent production design and while the movie’s running time is around 80 minutes actually watching it seems like a lifetime spent in purgatory. Excuse me now while I go and try to wash the memory of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ out of my brain with a big brush. Awful.

In Dario Argento’s masterful directorial debut, an American writer living in Rome is drawn into a grisly mystery after witnessing an attempted homicide. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage heralded a major new voice in genre cinema and would become an influential picture inspiring countless riffs and knock offs.

Argento may not have invented the giallo but he might as well have done. Not only did he announce his own cinematic intentions but, arguably, helped cement the iconography and narrative devices for an entire subgenre.

Another noteworthy aspect was the decision to plant the story firmly on Italian soil. The Rome setting would be a daring move on the director’s part. Gialli, despite creative Italian origins, usually featured plots set in foreign locales. It felt European as opposed to distinctly local.

Argento changed this fundamentally. It might have been unbelievable for home grown audiences to accept such outlandish tales taking place on their own doorstep, culturally, but such was the skill of Argento and his production team, the genre never looked back.

This exquisite Blu-ray release by Arrow Video is a must-have. Firstly, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage has withstood the test of time and aged with grace. Period details and quirks mar some old films but none of that occurs here.

Argento’s world is arty and sophisticated. There are no crazy hairdos, clothes or cheesy pop synthesiser soundtracks to mark it. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a neat modernist thriller which echoes with influences yet remains equally influential.

The cinematography by the legendary Vittorio Storaro is sharp and startling in its use of symmetrical designs and tableaux. The digital transfer is naturally sharp and crisp given Blu-rays capabilities. The sound mix is layered and clear as bell. The lush aesthetic of Argento suits this format well.

Ennio Morricone’s iconic score provides another revolutionary facet of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage’s overall design. The soundtrack is quirky and utilises experimental compositions to great effect. You’ll likely have the theme tune in your head for days.

Argento wrote the screenplay based on Frederic Brown’s novel The Screaming Mimi. An American writer, Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante), witnesses a murder in an art gallery and becomes embroiled in a great mystery which may cost him his life. Surprisingly the gore quota is minimal compared to later works painted in all the colours of blood.

The gallery sequence remains one of Argento’s most famous. Dalmas runs to the aid of a young lady being attacked by a black-gloved, trench coat clad killer yet trapped between two automatic doors. He looks upon the grim scene in desperation, but something isn’t quite right. The subsequent plot is wrapped around the lead character attempting to unravel the clue obscured by his mind.

Argento brazenly gives the game away very early but like Sam we are distracted from the truth. It is a brilliant twist and a devious one at that. The staircase murder sequence is another visual treat displaying the confidence and sadistic relish which would become hallmarks of Argento’s style. A young lady is slashed to death in her apartment block by the razorblade-wielding fiend. It features superb use of subjective camera work. The effect being the murderer swipes a cut-throat razor at the audience.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is not without weaknesses. On psychological grounds, the motive for the murder spree is absolutely bonkers, to say the least. Yet the power of imagery and its effects would become a fascination for Argento and appear in other works. The plot too, at times, feels a little bit too mechanical and contrived, especially the red herrings.

The bonus features on the disc include a retrospective interview with Argento, who openly rejects the ‘Italian Hitchcock’ label, informing us that, aside from shared Catholicism, the two directors are entirely different.

Elsewhere an interview with Argento’s collaborator and friend, Luigi Cozzi, takes the viewer into the movie’s surprising origins. The material was suggested by none other than Bernardo Bertolucci. Cozzi also highlights the giallo aspects of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time in the West (1968). He does have a good point despite the seeming differences. Argento and Bertolucci both worked on the story with Leone.

The bonus material gets better and better with a retrospective featuring another giallo legend – Sergio Martino – in which he discusses the origins of the genre and their impact. An informative commentary by film critics Alan Jones and Kim Newman finishes off an excellent and worthy batch of extras.

The menu screen is rendered in graphic novel-like panels with scenes from the movie playing behind. There’s the option of watching in dubbed Italian, English subtitles or dubbed English. The choice is yours.

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage might not be the maestro’s best film, nevertheless it is an astonishing debut enriched by Vittorio Storaro’s photography, Franco Fraticelli’s whip-tight editing and Ennio Morricone’s experimental and original score.

Doctor Who : MANNEQUIN MANIA DVD REVIEW.

Last month brought us the end of the third doctors era in the form of Planet of the Spiders while this month brings us a box set containing his very first story. This box could have been called – regenerations 2.5 as it not only holds a DVD we already own but deals with two 70’S reboots for our beloved show.

The first story – Spearhead from Space – is the benchmark in post regeneration stories. The parallels with the Eighth Doctor Movie and the Eleventh Hour are plane as the nose on the Doctors new face. While we are engrossed in learning about the latest Doctor some sneaky aliens have invaded the Home Counties and had the audacity to place an order for some plastic dolls. (Obviously with evil intent.) Our Hero most come to terms with a new self and a new place stuck on earth while defeating a squelchy box full of Clingfilm and hair gel. Oh and not to forget , introducing us to a new companion.

Due to industrial action the entire story was shot on film giving it a quality and uniformity not seen again for many years. And as such it has a cinematic look and feel which the story so richly deserves. The basic plot of an invasion which UNIT must stop will be echoed and re worked for the next four years but we see it here in its purest form. The Brig on top form, practical and lacking the humour that came through later.

The second story – Terror of the Autons – marks the arrival of the, so called, Doctors Moriarty, The Master. Played here by the magnificent Rodger Delagado. As well as seeing the arrival of the lovely Jo Grant. (Played by Katie Manning)

Unlike the first story this was shot in a more traditional way making an increasing use of CSO (and then lost to the bbc) We now have a superb repair job from an NTSC copy. Viewed side by side its clear to see that the third doctors time could have looked so much better. Though we should be grateful we can see them at all.

In both of these stories the ‘Monster’ is secondary to the establishment of new characters and it is a testament to the superb writing that this is never overly apparent. The Autons are an idea ‘any monster’ with simple costumes that wouldn’t stretch any budget.

As always it is the extras that give these stories added value and this box set does not let you down.

An original commentary with actors Caroline John and the late Nicholas Courtney are augmented with a new commentary by the producer Derrick Sherwin and Script a making of called Down To Earth and a superb documentary called Regenerations dealing with the change in both production crew/cast and the changes from black and white to colour production. All of these come with the usual suspects in the form of Photo Gallery, Coming Soon (Earth Stories) and Radio Times Listings.

Terror of the Autons extras has a single commentary by Katy Manning and Nicolas Courtney and Producer Barry Letts, its making of Documentary (Life On Earth) takes a different tack from usual by looking beyond the basic facts and looking at the larger picture, this is secondary to the wonderful short – The Doctor’s Moriarty. A Featurette looking at the Master, as played by Delgado. A short feature – Plastic Fantastic rounds this disc off with a look at the Autons and the use of the ‘new’ wonder material Plastic.

You would be forgiven for thinking that you have been tricked into buying Spearhead for a second time in order to buy Terror and if you feel that way Id consider hanging on until it is reduced – but given that you’ll probably be paying less for this double pack than you did for the original release of Spearhead in sure you can justify it to yourself.

Over all this is a superb box set. Worthy of