Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

PLATFORM: DVD | RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 4TH

Jimmy (The Walking Dead’s Lew Temple) is a murderer put on trial after death to determine whether he should go to heaven or hell. Defending him is an inexperienced attorney, Cassiel (Scottie Thompson), while hoping to send him down for eternity is the ruthless prosecutor, Balthazar (Lucian Charles Collier). As they dive deeper into the details of Jimmy’s life, his fate seems ever more in the air and you wonder if he is really the one upon whom judgement will be passed.

The film starts a little slowly and you never feel like the actors are extracting the most out of their roles. Collier, in particular, starts out by aiming for dryness, but instead gives a performance that feels largely bland until the end. The great Veronica Cartwright also feels slightly underused in her role as Jimmy’s mother. While Limbo could make much better use of its cast, the story is nicely paced. A gripping courtroom drama reaches its peak when Jimmy is forced to confront demons of his past, the drama fizzling out slightly whenever the setting moves away from the interrogation room. Jimmy’s relationship with Angela (Lauryn Canny) adds some much-needed emotional heft to the film and contextualises Jimmy’s actions without justifying them.

Whether Jimmy’s ‘redemptive’ act is actually all that redeeming is never quite tied up, but writer-director Mark Young, for the most part, gives us a layered story of ethics and predestination. With light slices of humour and a well-crafted ending, Limbo exists in the void between something perfectly executed and somewhat unmemorable.

CERT:15 | PLATFORM: BLU-RAY | RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 10TH

Hammer’s 2012 feature film adaptation of Susan Hill’s classic 1983 Gothic horror novel The Woman in Black became, surprisingly, the biggest box office hit to bear the name of the legendary film production company, pulling in nearly $130 million worldwide from a budget of just $15m. The film succeeded in terrifying its audience despite asking it to accept a wide-eyed and unconvincingly-bewhiskered Daniel Radcliffe as a widower with young children. A far better bet, however, is this creepy, moody – and at one point absolutely bloody terrifying – TV version, broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1989 (how festive), unseen for years and now presented in a gloriously spruced-up HD transfer thanks to Network Publishing.

Lovers of MR James’ ghost stories, famously brought to screen by the BBC in a well-regarded run of spooky Christmas treats, will be right at home here. Directed with relish by Herbert Wise and with a taut script by the legendary Nigel Kneale that makes agreeable tweaks to the book’s narrative (although the author apparently didn’t agree), this is the sort of production we just don’t see on TV any more. Young solicitor Arthur Kidd (Kneale changed the name from the original Kipps as he disapproved of Hill borrowing the character name from Dickens) is dispatched by his boss to the coastal market town of Crythin Gifford to settle the estate of Alice Drablow, a reclusive local widow. But, when he arrives, he finds that the villagers are evasive and reluctant to speak of Alice’s home, the imposing Eel Marsh House, accessible only via a perilous tidal causeway. Kidd is unsettled by the sight of a mysterious, pale-faced ‘woman in black’ who he notices at Alice’s funeral and later in the churchyard but, when he takes up temporary residence at Eel Marsh House to finish up his business in the area, he becomes troubled by strange sounds and occurrences – and one apparition that will quite literally scare the pants off you – as history seems determined to drive him to the brink of insanity.

The Woman in Black is an absolute treat; a lush, lavish and utterly immersive production that is given the time and space to breathe and crank up the drama and tension in ways so many modern productions don’t have the patience for. Eel Marsh House is a grim and imposing place – its approach across the causeway is wreathed in gloomy mist – and the ‘woman in black’ herself is realised with a stark simplicity that makes her all the more disturbing and bowel-loosening. Stunningly restored and supported by a genuinely interesting and chatty commentary by film historian and writer Kim Newman, horror buff Mark Gatiss and actor Andy Nyman (Ghost Stories) who made his TV debut in this production, this is essential viewing for anyone who appreciates classy, intelligent, beautifully-played mature Gothic horror.

The Woman in Black is available exclusively from the Network website.

CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: TAKESHI KITANO / STARRING: ‘BEAT’ TAKESHI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The release of Violent Cop in 1989 found Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano embarking on a new direction for his career. A successful comedian and actor in Japan across the 1970s and 1980s, he was cast in the thriller first and, when the original director dropped out, took over that role too. Rewriting the script and able to shoot at his own pace this story of a detective, Azuma, is quite something. The screenplay embraces the clichés of the ‘tough renegade cop’ genre and then spends two hours realigning them, messing with them and ultimately making something new. Kitano has a crumpled, compelling screen presence that keeps you gripped as Azuma spirals further and further out of control. The film sets out his stall too, of apparently straightforward plots twisted into something persistently out of step and uncomfortable.

The following year’s Boiling Point follows two young men on a journey to the big city to buy a gun, where they encounter Kitano’s psychotic, cruel and impulsive gangster and fall into his very dangerous company. Here, Takeshi goes even further out into nightmarish territory, where you’re never really sure what is real and what isn’t. The third film presented here, 1993’s Sonatine, is probably the most formal of them all, but again plays with narrative, structure and reality to create something very individual. In each film, flashes of brutal violence punctuate frequent long, silent takes across these meditations on the inevitability of death.

Kitano is a great director with a keen eye for framing events in interesting ways and these prints show that off in fine style. Settings range from the city at night to sun-blasted beaches and everything is sharp and clear. For relatively low budget three-decade old films they are in good shape. Extras on the first and second discs include recent interviews with some of the principal actors. There are trailers and audio commentaries on all three films, which are reasonable and full of information for those who want to learn more. It’s no real surprise Kitano doesn’t take part in any of them as trying to explain the meaning or purpose behind these films or where and how ideas came about could serve only to stop you from interpreting them yourself, something the films avoid. The set also comes with a 44-page book including new writing on the films by genre experts.

For any already established fan of Kitano’s work this comes highly recommended. If you don’t know him, this is an excellent starting point to explore the unique style and genuinely once-in-a-lifetime charisma and talent of a remarkable filmmaker.

CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JOHN WATERS / STARRING: DIVINE, DAVID LOCHARY, MARY VIVIAN PEARCE, MINK STOLE, EDITH MASSEY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

There was a time when John Waters was hailed as the Pope of Trash and his films played at midnight to hordes of misfits and deviants. Now the ultimate boutique label Criterion releases his films in stunning HD. Just like how Sex Pistols have grown to represent British culture, American underground cinema has risen to the level of high art. We’ve always known it as such, of course, and it’s up to the rest of the world to catch up with the glorious misadventures of Divine and co.

Dawn Davenport (Divine) is a typical delinquent teen. A habitual liar and troublemaker, she ruins Christmas for her parents because she doesn’t get the cha-cha heeled shoes she wanted, and runs away to fend for herself. Falling pregnant to a lecherous slob who picks her up while hitchhiking (also played fantastically by Divine), she marries the only straight hairdresser at the ultra-exclusive Lipstick Beauty Salon (if you look too respectable, they don’t want you!). The owners (Lochary and Pearce) want to photograph Dawn committing her crimes, but the attention goes to the disturbed Davenport’s head as she believes she’s an untouchable, famous model.

Rather than trying to top the pinnacle of bad taste that is Pink Flamingos, Waters and his troupe of outsiders do what they do best and craft a story that shocks and repels but it never less than entertaining. Larger than life characters and absurd yet relatable situations abound and it features some of the most quotable dialogue of the ‘70s.

The story is perhaps even more pertinent today, with youngsters (and older folk) desperate for fame and attention, just as Dawn is. As biting as the satire is, it’s the small details that makes this so entertaining. Mink Stole’s portrayal of Dawn’s teenage daughter Taffy is a gurning delight, particularly when she’s ‘playing car accident’ and, as always, Edith Massey steals every scene she’s in. It’s a putrid time capsule of a place that no doubt still exists in some lurid backwater.

The film alone would be enough to recommend this release, but Criterion has filled the disc with some great extras too. The glorious commentary from Waters adds plenty of scene-specific nuggets and brilliant anecdotes, while the other supplements are just as fascinating. On-camera interviews include Waters chatting to both critic Dennis Lim and the woman who played Taffy as an infant are insightful, as are unseen interviews from the I am Divine documentary. For those who savour every nugget, there are deleted and out-take scenes and some footage filmed behind the scenes on-set with commentary by Waters. Utterly essential.

PLATFORM: BLU-RAY | RELEASE DATE: JULY 20TH

Available for the first time in the UK in a strictly-limited-edition of 2000 copies, The Masters of Cinema label lives up to its name with its HD Blu-ray 2-Disc box set triple-bill of Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Black Cat, and The Raven. All three titles are of course based – some famously loosely – on the work of Edgar Allan Poe; all feature Bela Lugosi, fresh from Dracula; but they’re also the final cry of the depiction of Pre-code studio horror, with levels of sadistic imagery soon to disappear from Hollywood. Even if we’ll never be scared by the imagery as audiences would have been when these titles were released in the 1930s, there’s an eternal chill to the stories and imagery that would be visually referenced in cinema ever after. And, of course, in two of these three, Lugosi is pitted against Frankenstein‘s Boris Karloff, adding to the self-referential celebration of all that was and remains great about the cinematic Gothic.

Picture quality alone would make this box set an opportunity not to be missed. However, the wealth of additional material is brought together with the same level of care and celebration of the titles, their heritage and context. Whether you’re a lover of the stories that provided the kick-off to these very different adaptations, or found Poe through cinema, Kim Newman’s typically enjoyable and effortlessly informative interview contextualises with typical depth and friendliness to keep any viewer feeling fully in the picture. Newman’s interview alone would double the value of any release but there are further treats with, among others, the video essays of Lee Gambin on Cats in Horror, and American Gothic by Kat Ellinger. Audio commentaries on the films themselves are by Gregory William Mank, Amy Simmons, and Sam Deighan, with radio recordings of The Tell-Tale Heart involving Karloff and Lugosi also included.

While they won’t scare a modern audience as they would then, the visual beauty and the power of the images from the stories lose nothing – of Poe’s fundamental terror, cinema’s sadistic innocence, or of Lugosi and Karloff. Even if you know all three 1930s releases, you don’t know them like this.