Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Breaking Bad was, and still, is, one of the most seminal crime dramas to have been shown on TV in recent years. It didn’t outstay its welcome by stretching it out over endless seasons, never ran out of new ideas, nor did it end in an unsatisfying manner. 2013’s series finale, Felina, provided the very best ending a show like this could get with the iconic Walter ‘Heisenberg’ White (played effortlessly by Bryan Cranston) receiving a fitting end. In that finale, we also saw White’s meth-dealing partner-in-crime Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) getting rescued by him, bidding farewell to each other, and driving off in an El Camino to freedom after being imprisoned by Todd Alquist and his gang for six months. Fans have often wondered what happened to Pinkman following those events, and now, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie answers those questions.

Jesse Pinkman was a standout character in the original series, but he was also a man that suffered a lot and lost a lot along the way since starting working for White. If Jesse’s journey in the show was evolving from a boy into a man, then this film solidifies him as becoming that man. This sees Pinkman still being haunted by all the trauma that he went through, and this film explores him trying to overcome that and achieving the quiet, peaceful freedom he’s been longing for so long, earning redemption and finally stepping out of White’s shadow. This allows Aaron Paul to give the best performance of his career, delivering the emotionally raw and distraught state Pinkman’s at, which brilliantly contrasts with the dumb yet spiky punk the character originally started out being. We also see plenty of characters from the show returning for a cameo each, and it’s a testament to Vince Gilligan that each appearance doesn’t feel tacked on but earned, and ties in brilliantly to Jesse’s swansong story. As well as returning to write this film, Gilligan has also taken up directing duties once again and manages to maintain the tense, confined, and claustrophobic atmosphere of the story, perfectly reflecting the nerve-wracking situation Jesse finds himself in as the walls are slowly closing in around him.

The Blu-ray disc contains some solid special features, including an insightful audio commentary with Gilligan and Paul, as well as a mega commentary that involves various cast and crew members detailing their experiences with the film. There’s also a half hour documentary about the making of the film (cast and crew interviews are peppered throughout), some deleted and extended scenes, plus an amusing gag reel. When it comes to features, there’s plenty here for fans to enjoy and will likely sit nicely when placed next to their Breaking Bad boxsets.

Overall, while some may view this as unnecessary, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is the fitting coda for a phenomenal five-season television show and gives Jesse Pinkman the ending he very much deserved. At two hours, the film runs exactly as long as it needs to and never feels like it is dragging or outstaying its welcome. Gilligan’s writing and directing is top-notch as ever, and Aaron Paul gives a career-defining performance. This film just further demonstrates why Breaking Bad, as well as its spin-off show Better Call Saul, is still cultural phenomenon to this day.

CERT: PG / BLU-RAY / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 2ND

A film based on a hit Broadway musical, itself based on a Fellini film, Nights of Cabiria, Sweet Charity is the story of, as the film’s subtitle tells us, The Adventures of a Girl Who Wanted to Be Loved.

As played by Shirley MacLaine, Charity has a series of unsuccessful relationships and disastrous events as she works in a dance hall where she’s a woman for hire, and yet she keeps on smiling through the heartbreak until a chance of real love walks into her life.

The first film directed and choreographed by the legendary Bob Fosse, Sweet Charity display some of the hallmarks he’d go on to perfect a few years later in Cabaret. And whilst there’s no doubting the superiority of that film, Sweet Charity has plenty of spark and some truly cracking songs, ones you probably know but weren’t aware of which musical they were from, like Big Spender and If They Could See Me Now.

In the central role, MacLaine is just fantastic, she carries it. You believe her naive optimism whilst wanting to shake her out of it. And therein lies the problem. Despite the charm, Charity is a woman who is defined only by her relationship with men. Only at the film’s climax do we see a glimmer of hope that Charity could find out who she actually is without them.

Extras include an alternate ending (not a good one), a short documentary interview with Fosse, which is fascinating, a wonderful Super 8 version of the film plus trailer and a commentary. And the whole things looks shiny, colourful and bright in this Blu-ray edition.

Originally conceived as a short film John Parker’s 1955 experimental feature Dementia is receiving a new Blu-ray release from BFI Video, and it’s certainly interesting if not necessarily entertaining.

Containing no dialogue, Dementia follows a young woman Gamine as she wakes up in a run-down Los Angeles hotel. Wandering into the night she encounters a cacophony of colourful characters from a dwarf selling newspapers featuring the headline ‘Mysterious Stabbing’ to a pimp who may or may not be a malevolent influence.

Stylistically, Parker’s controversial film is impressive; the use of light and framing challenge the cinematic norm and the subject matter ranging from patricide to a recurring theme of female abuse is stark in its bluntness. Gamine – played by Parker’s secretary Adrienne Barrett, the film’s source being a dream she had – is almost bestial in her portrayal, felinely unsympathetic in her actions and mannerisms.

As an historical piece, Dementia is worthy of note, but you sense it would be more at home in a museum than a cinema. The film feels long at 55 minutes, clearly stretched from the original short and the performances are clumsy at times, over-exaggerating scenes in the absence of dialogue.

Only briefly released, this version was picked up by Jack H. Harris and re-released as Daughter of Horror (also included on the Blu-ray) in 1957, but with a new edit and a curious narration that detracts rather than adds to the original.

Noirish, psychological, and unforgivingly bleak Dementia is no easy watch, and will not appeal to the masses.

CERT: 18 | PLATFORM: BLU RAY | RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 19TH

Coming right at the end of the 1980s VHS rental boom, curious horrorphiles were attracted to 976-EVIL by its director (Robert ‘Freddy Krueger’ Englund), its star (Stephen Geoffreys, who’d been a hit as vampire Evil Ed in Fright Night), and by its awesome poster art. What they found when they popped the tape into the machine, however, was lesser than the sum of its parts.

Released on Blu-ray in the UK for the first time by Eureka Classics, the movie is very much a product of its time, with dangerous bad boy Spike trying to look out for his nerdy cousin Hoax, only for Hoax to fall prey to a hotline to hell in the form of the titular dial-a-demon. Englund’s direction is all over the place, failing to properly knit together some cool set pieces, but Geoffreys is still a charismatic antagonist, and it’s a shame that he turned down Fright Night 2 to appear in this.

For those who remember the film fondly, however, the Eureka release is a decent package, with commentaries from the director and his set decorator wife, new interviews with special effects producers, and an SD version of the expanded home video release, which included scenes not featured in the cinematic version, which is presented in 1080p here.

The thirty-odd years since the VHS boom have not been kind to many of the movies that found an eager audience back then, and 976-EVIL is no exception, but it will fill a gap in the collection of those obsessed by Fangoria back in the day. Englund only ever directed one other movie, and Geoffreys was out of the business within two years of its release; 976-EVIL was a call they probably never should have made.

CERT: 18 / BLU-RAY / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 26TH

“sleep’walk’er n. Nomadic shape-shifting creatures with human and feline origins. Vulnerable to the deadly scratch of the cat, the sleepwalker feeds upon the life-force of virginal human females. Probable source of the vampire legend.”

With those three sentences the plot of Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers is neatly revealed at the film’s beginning. Mary (Alice Krige) and Charles (Brian Krause who has extraordinary feline features) are an incestuous mother and son, and the titular Sleepwalkers, perhaps the last of their kind. After fleeing California they arrive in Indiana famished but hopeful that they’ll find sustenance. And find it they do in the shape of high school student Tanya (Mädchen Amick). Now if they can only do something about those darn cats.

Sleepwalkers was King’s first original screenplay, and who better to direct the venture than Masters of Horror creator, and frequent King collaborator Mick Garris. Those expecting The Shining or The Dead Zone will be disappointed for Sleepwalkers is strictly pulp, B-movie, material. What distinguishes it from such fare is the self-referential tone of the film. This isn’t an earnest treatise on the human condition. It is darkly humorous, sometimes shocking (some may find the scenes of incest and the attempted rape scene disturbing), and a tongue-in-cheek fun filled horror. Where else might you find a characters demise from an ear of corn, or grin inducing cameos from Mark Hamill and Ron Perlman, as well as comic turns from horror luminaries Joe Dante, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, Clive Barker, and King himself.

As usual, Eureka! is generous with the special features. The two audio commentaries which both feature director Mick Garris and with film historian Lee Gamblin, and Mädchen Amick and Brian Krause respectively are a joy to listen to. Garris is honest, personable, and entertaining with his recollections regarding the making of the film, the cat wrangling in particular. There are several interviews with the cast who clearly had a good time on the production, behind-the-scenes footage and an FX featurette.

When Sleepwalkers was initially released in 1992 it was critically mauled, but the intervening years have seen the film positively re-evaluated. This is a carnival ghost train ride of a movie, not a visit to an art gallery, and as such it’s purr-fect Halloween viewing. Get it? Purr-fect, cats…!? I’ll get my coat.