Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

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.

Based on Jaws author Peter Benchley’s book of the same name, The Deep finds David (Nick Nolte) and Gail (Jacqueline Bisset) taking in a spot of diving during a romantic getaway to Bermuda. After stumbling across an ampule of morphine on a sunken World War II freighter, they’re soon in the crosshairs of a Haitian drug gang headed up by Cloche (Louis Gossett Jr.). Before they know it, David and Gail find themselves working with veteran treasure seeker Romer Treece (Robert Shaw) to nab this treasure before Cloche and his men can get their hands on it.

While the underwater sequences are often excellent and the musical beats of John Barry are phenomenal, The Deep sadly sinks more than it swims. Robert Shaw often steals the show whenever he’s on screen, and Louis Gossett Jr. is always great to watch, but the central story of The Deep is a sadly dull one that struggles to hold the attention – not helped out by the fact that the film clocks in at just over two hours in length.

Fleshing out this release, The Making of The Deep is a fun deep dive into the process of putting the picture together. An archived featurette from the time of the film’s original release, having Robert Shaw guide us through the ins and outs of The Deep was never going to disappoint. Elsewhere, film critic Kevin Lyons provides a solid chat crack and there are additional scenes pulled from the three-hour (yes, really!) cut of The Deep.

If you’re a fan of Shaw, this new release of The Deep could prove well worth your time. For everybody else, the film’s plodding narrative may find you biting off more than you can chew.

FORMAT: BLU-RAY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Ronny Yu’s slice of Asian phantasmagoria gets a fine Blu-ray release courtesy of Eureka. The film, from 1993, holds up incredibly well; practical effects, dramatic lighting and a host of fantastic actors are enhanced by a great transfer and a plethora of special features (an archival ‘making of feature’ reminds you of the leap in digital quality).

Based on the wuxia novel Baifa Monü Zhuan, the film stars the late, great Leslie Cheung as Zhuo Yihang, an undisciplined member of the Wudang clan (the martial art sect not a rap group) who falls in love with mighty heroine Lian Nichang (Brigitte Lin), who was raised by wolves and then taken in by an evil cult. She is fantastic, never has anyone wielded a whip so skilfully, slicing people’s heads and bodies in half with ease. Naturally, Zhuo Yihang is smitten, they fall in love and vow to leave their respective sects for each other, but, of course, fate has other ideas. As is custom with films of this era, such as The Chinese Ghost Story Trilogy, the screen is often permeated with fog, bright blue lights and flowing costumes that create an ethereal look without the use of CGI.

The Bride with White Hair towers above the crowded wuxia genre with a concise run time, kinetic action, sensual love story and majestic moments of madness. To round the package off, we get two audio commentaries, one with Asian film expert Frank Djeng and one with Ronnie Yu, as well as interviews with the screenwriter, actor Joe Tay and Ronnie himself. It is great to see a classic film receive such loving treatment, something only physical media can provide.

CERT: 15 / PLATFORM: 4K UHD / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Based on Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s comic book miniseries of the same, V for Vendetta first stomped to the silver screen in 2006. With Hugo Weaving as the mysterious, masked freedom fighter V, the film depicts a tale of revolution in which Natalie Portman’s Evey finds herself swept up in. Given its elements of social commentary and questions of governance – not to mention a virus starting to rise up – there are alarming elements of relevancy to V for Vendetta here in 2020. Not to linger too long on the plot, then, it’s time to see what’s under the hood of this new release of an old favourite.

From the moment that the opening V for Vendetta logo pops from the screen, you realise that this is a movie that will look glorious in 4K. And glorious, it most certainly does indeed look. The palette of director James McTeigue’s film lends itself beautifully and brilliantly to this 4K restoration of the original camera negative. Whether it’s the dark shadows of underground tunnels or the vibrant slashes and splatters of blood, V for Vendetta has never looked better. At times, it can feel a little like a redundant cash-grab when certain other movies are revisited and served up in 4K, but that is far from the case here. The film looks phenomenal, it sounds phenomenal (with a remixed soundtrack at play), and the movie hits just as hard now in 2020 as it did 14 years ago.

Not only has V for Vendetta been given a 4K upgrade here, but the release also has several new pieces of bonus material included. The V for Vendetta Unmasked and James McTeigue & Lana Wachowski in Conversation featurettes give a fun, fascinating and in-depth look back on putting the film together and the process of taking an iconic comic book of the same name. Then there’s a brilliant glimpse behind the curtain as we get to see Natalie Portman’s audition for the movie. Those special features are included on the 4K UHD disc, and then the accompanying Blu-ray disc includes all of the additional content that’s been featured on previous releases of V for Vendetta.

As a movie, V for Vendetta holds up amazingly well over a decade after its initial release. And as a release, this new, packed 4K UHD offering is the absolute perfect way to devour a film that almost seemed ahead of its time, yet simultaneously timeless.

CERT: 18 / PLATFORM: BLU-RAY, 4K UHD (REVIEWED) / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 16TH

Nobody has ever done zombies quite like George A. Romero. And in the pantheon of shuffling cinematic offerings served up by this iconic filmmaker, nothing quite touches the genius of 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. Now, 42 years after its initial release, Romero’s masterpiece is getting an absolutely crammed 4K release.

To brush over the plot, Dawn of the Dead – the second of Romero’s Dead franchise – finds a small group of survivors coming together to seek solace within a shopping mall as the zombie apocalypse unravels around them. It’s terrifying, it’s engaging, it’s humorous, it’s laced in social commentary, and it’s one of the all-time great horror movies. But chances are, you’re already well aware of this.

The big question here is what does this new release of an old favourite offer up to make it a worthy of spending your pennies on. Putting it out there, this release of Dawn of the Dead is one of the most impressive collections we’ve ever seen. Both the standard Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases of this set feature four discs of brilliance, with a further three audio CDs, a hardback book, and the Dawn of the Dead novelisation.

Across this glorious set, we have the original theatrical cut of Dawn of the Dead, the extended Cannes cut of the film, and Dario Argento’s cut of the picture. All three cuts are spruced up with 4K restorations, while there is a ludicrous amount of special features collected across all four discs – with one disc consisting solely of largely new bonus material. There are new documentaries, new production featurettes, new commentary tracks, and the always-welcome addition of new discussions with Tom Savaini.

To do justice to Second Sight’s new Dawn of the Dead boxset would take far, far more words than we’re afforded here. At around £75 for the 4K UHD set and £65 for the standard Blu-ray set, this is clearly an expensive addition to make to your collection. In terms of value for money though, this Dawn of the Dead release certainly offers up a ridiculous amount of bang for your buck.

Many will already have at least one version of Dawn of the Dead in their collection, meaning it may be hard to justify purchasing yet another release of Romero’s 1978 classic – especially given its price tag – but this beautiful boxed release of Dawn of the Dead is everything horror hounds could ask for and then some.

When Dalia (Saara Lamberg) was a child, she was rescued from an underground pagan cult. She was split from her two sisters, though, and vowed to never give up looking for them. Now older, she meets black metal fan Samoth (Dean Kirkright), who leads her to Moloch (Albert Goikhman), an enigmatic musician who lives the black metal lifestyle and lives deep in the woods. When she is faced with him, a world of malevolent forces and the fate of her siblings becomes clear.

Folk horror is making something of a resurgence and this Australian effort from director Mark Bakaitis takes a surreal, ethereal approach to the subject of paganism. Shooting some scenes in Lithuania adds a fantastic quality to the visuals – particularly in the in the drone shot over a packed graveyard. The nearest reference point would be Jean Rollin rather than Ari Aster, though. There’s nudity aplenty and dreamlike ceremonies pepper the action.

It’s ably acted – particularly by Lamberg and Jane Badler, who plays the High Priestess who presided over the cult in which she was incarcerated as a child – and the crossover with the black metal scene isn’t some hackneyed outsiders view of the subject. Care has been taken to treat the subject with respect rather than knee-jerk finger-pointing and scaremongering on the musical genre. It’s been made on a low budget, which may put off a casual viewer, but fans of ‘70s Euro horror may get a kick out of it.

Umbrella’s DVD has around 45 minutes of supplementary material, the best being a making-of featurette that also includes a separate section that focuses on the impressive sound design and music of the film. Likewise, the commentary from the director and executive producer Nathan Hill is enlightening and easy on the ear.