Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

FORMAT: BLU-RAY, DIGITAL / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 30TH

The ‘70s brought a wave of films involving Nazi officers or based during the Second World War and from the German viewpoint. Many are in the outrageous Nazisploitation subgenre, but some – like Luchino Visconti’s The Damned and Bob Fosse’s Cabaret – take a serious look at relationships at the start of and during the war, but The Night Porter takes place thirteen years after the war ended, and involves a complicated and disturbing affair between a former prisoner of war and her captor.

Lucia (Charlotte Rampling) is in Vienna with her conductor husband but when checking into their hotel recognises the night porter as one of her tormentors while she was incarcerated as a prisoner of war by the Nazis. Max (Dirk Bogarde) is the titular hotel worker and former Nazi who took a shine to Lucia in the concentration camp. He just wants to live a quiet life now and is quiet and timid, fully aware that the authorities are close to seeking him out to make him pay for his war crimes. When it comes to Max confronting Lucia about whether she is going to expose him, the pair embark on a disturbingly violent but passionate affair.

With the concentration camp scenes shown in vivid and distressing flashback, we see how Lucia develops a type of Stockholm syndrome with Max, whether out of self-preservation or genuine love. The sadomasochistic side is a little hard to stomach, particularly during these flashbacks but the outburst of violence when Max finally faces Lucia again is genuinely hard to watch (apparently Bogarde actually struck Rampling several times).

Director Liliana Cavani lets the story unfold as though it was a mystery, each piece that’s revealed bringing us closer to the inevitable conclusion. There’s a juxtaposition of Max’s position in flashback scenes with almost slavish occupation in the hotel. He gets the dirty jobs of finding young men for the aging ‘Countess’ who resides there and gets drugs for a male ballet dancer in exchange for watching him dance. His arrogance gone until he is faced with Lucia again. While the relationship between the pair is more Last Tango than Fifty Shades, Cavani doesn’t go deep enough into how Lucia may have dealt with her sexual abuse at the hands of Max during the war. Was she complicit to stay alive or, as we’re led to believe, did she genuinely fall in love with a monster? It’s a troubling proposition, but Cavani brings the relationship full circle in the final act as the pair are imprisoned by their love.

The new release, from a 4K scan, looks great (although there’s still a visible hair during the most dramatic scene, which is distracting, but apparently it was Cavani’s choice to leave it in) and there’s a real sense of depression in the ‘50s Vienna hotel. A couple of new special features make this an essential purchase for fans, though. There are two lengthy interviews with the director and Charlotte Rampling. Both are very enlightening. Liliana Cavani, particularly, reveals a lot of great nuggets about the shoot and the people that made it happen, as well as the context and themes the movie represents.

The Night Porter is a difficult film to ‘enjoy’ but is certainly an important piece of cinema. Even in the grimmest scenes, it’s beautifully shot and is a tour de force of acting from Bogarde and Rampling.

Mario Bava’s celebrated adaptation of the hit Italian comic book created by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani has a new, feature-packed Blu-ray thanks to Australian boutique label Imprint, and it’s never looked as good.

Masked super criminal Diabolik (John Phillip Law) is running rings around the police; whatever measures they take to fool him when transporting cash, for example, are foiled. He’s also rubbing the gangland boss Valmont (Adolfo Celi) up the wrong way too as he’s getting most of the action. Hidden away in his swish subterranean hideout, he and his girl, Eva (Marisa Mell) plan their heists while the authorities and the underworld try to catch up with him.

Bava’s film – produced by Dino De Laurentiis, who was also behind the other ‘60s comic book adaptation Barbarella – is a feast for both the eyes and ears. It’s more successful in execution than the campier Jane Fonda film, utilising real locations and matt paintings rather than studio-based action. Bava’s movies are renowned for their use of colour and this is no exception as it has a sumptuous, vivid palette. It also doesn’t follow the campiness of Roger Vadim’s film or the Batman TV series that appeared a few years before. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, though, noticeably with the inclusion of Terry-Thomas as a government minister and some outrageous stunts. The film is even audacious enough to literally wink at the audience in the end, but it is generally played as straight as it can be. The only drawback is the bad dubbing, which is off-putting at first, but once the action starts, it’s soon forgotten. If the on-screen action isn’t enough to make you swoon with delight, the score by the Maestro Ennio Morricone will. The dreamy theme song Deep Down (featuring vocals from Maria Cristina Brancucci) will be in your head for days.

Extras-wise, the disc excels. As well as features ported over from previous releases, there’s a new fact-filled commentary by Bava biographer Tim Lucas and an interesting video essay from Kat Ellinger. In short, everything you’d need to accompany this glorious movie.

While there’s a rich history of horror anthology movies out there, they tend to either fall into the category of hammy, British ghost stories or painfully low-budget affairs designed to showcase the work of various up-and-coming directors. Tales from the Hood is a unique entry in the subgenre, focusing in on issues and themes related specifically to the African American experience, with segments featuring sadly more-relevant-than-ever topics like police brutality and racists assuming political office. Tales from the Hood isn’t just unique in its subject matter, but also in that it’s an auteur-led horror anthology with something to say.

The same is also true of its sequel. As a straight-to-on-demand follow-up to a film from 23 years ago – not to mention one that had to re-cast its lead character – Tales from the Hood 2 is so, so much better than it has any right to be. While the hit-and-miss nature of the film is the same as the first, but with the misses missing harder and without any ‘90s charm to carry them, the film hands the role of Mr Simms over to Keith David who is, as ever, a joy to watch in a wraparound sequence that arguably tops anything in the first film.

It’s really nice to have both films presented together like this. If there’s one complaint, it’s simply that watching both of them left us eager to check out Tales from the Hood 3, which is still yet to receive any confirmation of a UK release following a US on-demand release in October. Still, this set is the perfect way to tide ourselves over.

This two-disc set of Hope’s comedy-horror films is a welcome excuse to rediscover the fantastically creepy movies he made alongside Paulette Goddard, especially since their TV screenings have appeared to have dried up.

In The Cat and the Canary, Hope is one of the descendants of a millionaire who meet ten years after his death in his mansion on the bayou for the reading of the will. Jealousy and greed abounds as Goddard’s character – the heir – is put in physical and mental danger while the group attempt to survive the night. An escaped lunatic known as the Cat is also on the prowl.

This is without doubt the stronger of the two films, with Hope’s wisecracking entertainer adds some chuckles alongside some genuinely creepy moments. The legendary George Zucco would become known for horror films following his role as the lawyer and Gale Sondergaard (The Spider Woman) puts in a Danvers-esque performance as the ice cold housekeeper.

The Ghost Breakers, released a year later, capitalises on the chemistry between Hope and Goddard and once again puts them into a haunted house. Unfortunately, it takes almost an hour to get to the Cuban mansion inhabited by spirits and zombies. There’s still plenty to enjoy before we get there, though. Hope is accompanied by his ‘man servant’ (for want of a better expression), played by the brilliant Willie Best. While this creates a troubling situation looking through a modern perspective, it’s interesting to note that despite the occasional bit of casual racism, the character is given a large part to play. Best easily holds his own in the comedy stakes and bounces off Hope excellently – he even saves his life a number of times. That ‘of its time’ element aside, The Ghost Breakers manages to straddle a few genres – comedy, horror, and gangster – and works well within all of them. The Cuban mansion scenes are particularly eerie.

The presentation of both films is excellent – although The Cat and the Canary looks much better. Aside from a fun radio adaptation on The Ghost Breakers, the only extras of note are the commentary on each film. Authors Stephen Jones and Kim Newman guide us through the films’ histories, and are amiable and entertaining chat tracks. The box in which the discs are contained is impressive, too, being a hard card case that is opened via a lid. Australian boutique label Imprint certainly does things right. Even with the sparseness of special features, this set is highly recommended for fans of yesteryear.

FORMAT: DVD / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 23RD

Death of Me, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (taking a break from grisly Saw duties), takes an intriguing and slightly disturbing initial premise and then proceeds to do nothing of interest with it. Holidaying on a remote Thai island Neil (Luke Hemsworth) and Christine (Maggie Q) wake up after a night of wild partying. There’s blood everywhere, their passports are missing and they have no idea what happened the night before. With a typhoon heading their way they decide to get off the island but with no tickets or passports they are turned away and forced to try and work out what’s going on. Neil checks his phone for photographic clues only to find a shocking video where he appears to kill Christine and bury her in a shallow grave. Then a tribal talisman keeps appearing around Christine’s neck and the phone’s footage shows mysterious bar worker Madee (Kat Ingkarat) serving them a strange hallucinogenic Buddhist concoction. The perplexed pair soon discover that reality appears to be twisted upside down and inside out and no-one – least of all the audience – has any idea what’s real and what’s a drug-induced fantasy.

Death of Me ties itself up in knots so quickly you’re more likely to be exasperated by its obscurity than engrossed in its mystery. As logic and narrative fly out of the window, the film piles on any macabre cliché it can think of – voodoo rites, repeated hallucinatory horrors, even a touch of Wicker Man ritualising – in its desperation to make us think it’s cleverer than it is. We’re not fooled. The location footage is attractive and Maggie Q does a damned good puzzled face but Death of Me is pretty much dead on arrival.

FORMAT: BLU-RAY / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 23RD

There was a time when short films would play with main features at cinemas up and down the country. This latest release – no 41 in the BFI Flipside series – unearths nine shorts spanning four decades that have been rarely seen since their release.

The films included are a mixed bag of black and white and colour productions. The earliest, Lock Your Door and The Reformation of St Jules come from 1949 and are essentially a spoken word recital by the writer Algernon Blackwood. As creaky and awkward as they appear, there’s a warmth about them, as though a grandfather is telling a creepy bedtime story. Compared to the later offerings, you may call them quaint. All the shorts included possess a sense of otherworldliness rather than outright horror. Twenty-Nine is a particular highlight, as the story unravels before our eyes. It also includes some great footage of late-‘60s swinging London, and an outstanding appearance by Alexis Kanner (who you may recognise from Goodbye Gemini and The Prisoner). The real standout, however, is the tour de force performance from Sir Stanley Baker in The Tell-Tale Heart. Long lost, it’s a stroke of fate that it turned up at all. This solo rendition is an acting masterclass and is suitably filmed in a creepy, Gothic style.

The films themselves are worthy of purchase for fans of genre cinema history, but they are also accompanied by some really interesting special features. The first disc includes an interview with the chair of Adelphi Films, Kate Lees, who talks about the rediscovery of The Tell-Tale Heart and the fascinating history of the studio. The second is even more packed. There’s a lengthy and entertaining interview with producer Peter Shillingford, who as well as talking about Twenty-Nine, is refreshingly frank about the rest of his career, which included filming The Making of Star Wars. Renée Glynne, continuity/script supervisor on Twenty-Nine also opens up on making the film and, as always, is a delight to listen to. Actor Julie Peasgood enthusiastically recalls The Lake as well as joyously recounting making House of Long Shadows with the quartet of horror legends, Cushing, Lee, Price, and Carradine. The best of the lot is three quarters of an hour in the erudite virtual company of David McGillivray, screenwriter and producer of The Errand. We could listen to him talk all day as he takes us through the highlights (and lows) of his career. There are also plenty of image galleries and such, but they are just the icing on the cake of a great presentation. The accompanying booklet is also worthy of mention as it contains, as well as the usual notes on the films, an interesting interview with The Lake director Lesley Vickers, but a fun fumble through that man McGillivray’s diary, as he recalls (with fondness now) his nightmare filming The Errand.

A great collection for fans of cinema, particularly those who love the strange and unsettling.

Skyfire is a gloriously silly disaster movie with none of the knowing sense of the absurd that often bedevils modern entries into a genre popularised in the 1970s in classics such as The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and The Towering Inferno. Already a huge hit at the Chinese Box Office (much of the film is subtitled), Skyfire is nothing more and nothing less than a shameless re-tread of all those joyously entertaining clichés – the dodgy businessman, the professionals warning of dire consequences, the loved-up young couple, the frightened orphaned girl and a father/daughter whose relationship has been fractured by a family tragedy from their past. It’s utterly nuts, wonderfully predictable and sometimes embarrassingly entertaining.

Twenty years after a devastating eruption on the beautiful island of Tianhuo, businessman Jack Harris (Jason Isaacs) is about to open a sprawling new holiday resort on the slopes of the volcano that dominates the island’s skyline. He’s short of funds and hopes that a presentation to a bunch of potential investors will secure not only the future of the rest of the resort but also ease his own financial difficulties. But the volcano is grumbling and Xiaomeng (Hannah Quinlivan) whose mother perished in the earlier eruption, now part of the scientific team monitoring the volcano, finds her warnings brushed aside by Harris whose has been assured that the volcano isn’t expected to spring to life again for at least 150 years. Suffice to say only one is them is right…

Skyfire explodes into life within minutes and if you can cope with the idiotic concept of someone building a leisure complex on the side of an active volcano you’ll find much to enjoy in the explosive special effects and dazzling pyrotechnics that ensue when the volcano blows its top. It’s all preposterous but delightfully thrilling, highlights including a heart-in-mouth monorail sequence and an eye-raisingly insane set piece in which a jeep races to outrun a steaming, raging wall of molten magma.

Skyfire, directed by Simon West, revels in its spectacle (although there are a few slightly dodgy blue screen shots) and its utter disinterest in doing anything other than ticking every box in the ‘disaster movie’ checklist. The film might lava lot to be desired in terms of subtlety, characterisation and plot nuance but it’s a red hot blast of super-heated adventure nonsense pretty much guaranteed to briefly chase away the winter blues.

War is hell – it’s a universal truth that’s been seen time and again in everything from Paths of Glory and Saving Private Ryan to The Hurt Locker and Full Metal Jacket, and Václav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird once again plumbs the depths of human behaviour. Based on the bleak and brutal novel by Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird is a full on descent into a barren hell.

We’re led through the movie through the eyes of a child Petr Kotlár, like in Elem Klimov’s Come and See whose central character is aged by the ravages of his experience before our very eyes. The child is silent throughout, an unfortunate leader through the pain and base action of humanity. The film doesn’t give you any easy answers and it would be hard to imagine many people jumping back in for a rewatch.

The Painted Bird has less of a plot, more a series of vignettes titled by the characters the child meets along his journey in pursuit of safety or home. Stretched to almost three hours, and filled with eye gouging, murder, bestiality, animal torture, abuse and violence, it’s heavy watching and certainly difficult for some to stomach. But the film draws you in with its slow moving camera that paints the scenes in a hauntingly beautiful black and white. By the time you crawl past the second hour mark your interest and patience may start to wane and any hope of light at the end of the tunnel starts to be extinguished.

This release has very few extras to speak of, only a picture gallery and making of, but after watching the film you might not want to delve any more into its dark world, but perhaps more about the novel adaption and the ideas and themes behind the story might have been appreciated.