Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

IT CHAPTER 2 / CERT: / DIRECTOR: ANDY MUSCHIETTI / SCREENPLAY: GARY DAUBERMAN / STARRING: JESSICA CHASTAIN, JAMES MCAVOY, BILL SKARSGARD / RELEASE DATE: 13TH JANUARY

The second half of Andy Muschietti’s adaptation tackles the adult portion of Stephen King’s novel, in which the Losers return to Derry in a last-ditch effort to put Pennywise down for good. The gang’s (almost) all here, with James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader playing Bill, Beverley and Richie’s adult counterparts. Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone and Andy Bean fill the shoes of Mike, Ben, Eddie and Stanley (poor Stanley) and slip into the roles much easier, by virtue of their carrying less baggage than the A-list stars.

Of course, Bill Skarsgård is back as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and the otherworldly menace is as hungry as ever. This sequel opens with the brutal beating and murder of Adrian Mellor (handled more sensitively than King did back in the 80s); a promise to audiences that Pennywise is taking no prisoners these days. Neither child nor adult is safe from the clown’s bloodlust, and It Chapter Two is a roundly meaner, nastier sequel that pulls few punches.

But unlike its stars, it has gotten paunchier in its old age. Running at almost three hours, this is a complete immersion into the horrors of modern Derry, ensuring that (almost) each of the Losers gets a complete character arc and faces their childhood demon(s) in full. While Mike and Stan get the short end of the stick again, Bill Hader’s Richie and James Ransone’s Eddie emerge as the breakout heroes, their stories deepening and enriching the characters as we knew them. If only Big Bill (sounding like one of McAvoy’s Split voices and saddled with stupid hair), Bev (underwritten) and Ben (boring) had been updated and served so well. If only the meat of the story wasn’t essentially just five individual Horcrux quests with Pennywise at the end of each one.

And yet, for its considerable flaws, Chapter Two is a more nuanced, interesting film than its predecessor. While not scarier, it is crueler, sillier and weirder (no turtle, but the ritual of Chüd mostly makes it through). Ransone, in particular, is put through the wringer, abused and terrorised like the protagonist of a Sam Raimi horror film. Even with its extended runtime, this is a streamlined version of It, missing swathes of the novel’s characters and plotlines. How audiences react will depend on one’s relationship with the novel and the characters as portrayed here. For better and worse, this adaptation is its own entity, with its own ideas and themes. Given that it spends the whole film ribbing King for his often flubbed endings, it largely walks the walk, wrapping the story up in a satisfying and thoughtful manner.

While this home release offers the opportunity to watch both chapters in the one butt-numbing sitting, there’s a sense that It‘s final form has yet to be revealed; either in the rumoured director’s ‘super’ cut or something else entirely. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take them the whole twenty seven years to figure out what that is.

THE EXORCIST III / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: WILLIAM PETER BLATTY / STARRING: GEORGE C. SCOTT, ED FLANDERS, BRAD DOURIF / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Writer William Peter Blatty wasn’t going to take no for an answer when he made directing a condition of this second Exorcist sequel from 1990. If you’ve seen Exorcist II: The Heretic, you’ll understand where he was coming from; John Boorman’s bizarre contamination of strangeness was a dud of legendry proportions and no way to follow up the greatest of all ’70s horror flicks, and Blatty has proven himself more than capable behind the camera with his excellent debut feature, The Ninth Configuration (1980).

Intriguing then, that this isn’t really an Exorcist sequel either. Based on Blatty’s 1983 novel, Legion, it’s a psychological detective story with supernatural overtones that might be set in the same universe but goes off on a very different tangent. George C. Scott, looking a great deal older than his 62 years, delivers a soulfully pained performance as detective Kinderman from the first movie (Lee J Cobb, the original actor, had died in 1976). He’s on the trail of the Gemini Killer, a serial slicer of heads using the kind of heinous surgical shears David Cronenberg has wet dreams about. To perplex matters further, a local nuthouse resident not only claims to be the killer but reminds Kinderman of Damien Karras, the priest who took a tumble down the stone stairs back in 1973.

Exorcisms? None, as per the novel. But the studio wanted the green stuff and insisted on re-shoots that inserted original Exorcist actor Jason Miller into scenes already filmed with Brad Dourif as the Gemini Killer, so they effectively ‘shared’ the role. This actually works very well – the two actors’ faces merging together at times to infer the long-deceased Father Karras breaking out of Dourif’s character like some kind of tortured incubus. Far less effective was the studio’s insistence on additional demonic SFX that culminate in the arrival of Nicole Williamson’s chanting priest to give Joe Public his devil-dashing money’s worth.

This two-disc set from Arrow presents the 1990 cut and a new restoration of Blatty’s originally-intended version which takes out all the re-shot sequences and brings things right back to earth using raw, character-based ‘dailies’ from a VHS source. This reveals a contemplative and quietly unnerving film, whose greatest scares always came not from satanic pyrotechnics but from Blatty and editor Todd (The Thing) Ramsay’s dread-inducing extended takes. The locked-off shot of a nurse systematically checking each room in a gothic hospital corridor, for one harrowing example, pays off in shears.

For all the revisionist appraisal on offer in the extras (including a thorough 90-minute documentary), The Exorcist III remains a decidedly dour experience, but this intriguing revisitation deserves to win it a moderate band of new acolytes, if not quite a legion.

JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURE / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: RICHARDF EPCAR, KYLE HEBERT, DAISUKE HIRAKAWA / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The first two series, comprising the first three story arcs of this hugely enjoyable anime, have made their way to Blu-Ray. This may be a little bit sprawling for those who are only used to the more compact anime series currently making the rounds on Netflix, but anyone with a penchant for this type of entertainment will not be disappointed by this intergenerational epic.

We begin in the late 1800s with the “Phantom Blood” storyline, and are introduced to the Joestar family who aren’t in good shape. Their horse and carriage have crashed, leaving George Joestar struggling for life as his wife lays dead with a screaming baby in her arms. An old drunk called Dino Brando, along with his son Dio, are trying to loot the family, but George mistakes this for kindness and vows to take in the child after Dino succumbs to his alcoholism. Several years later and Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando are rivals, with Dio revealing himself as a sinister presence, only after the fortune of the family. As we then cut to the two boys as adults, we are introduced to the maguffin of the series; a stone mask with the power to turn people into vampires. This is ultimately Dio’s fate as he becomes the antagonist, while JoJo discovers that a light-based martial art called Hamon is the only way to beat him.

Even though this first part feels a little dated in terms of animation and structure, we really get a detailed rivalry between the two and you feel the unadulterated evil of Dio. The English dub is actually stronger than the original Japanese language track, as the characters use English slang and colloquialism. The strongest character of this part is Speedwagon, a thug who joins Jonathan’s adventure and becomes an exposition machine with great lines such as “This savagery is unbelievable!”

The second part, and strongest story of the disc, entitled “Battle Tendency,” sees Jonathan’s great grandson, Joseph, in 1938 New York, using Hamon to defeat the Pillar Men who also want the stone mask and a mysterious red jewel to conquer all. Joseph is a much more interesting character than his Grandad – cocky and silly, but a true hero through and through, represented in the way only an anime can. The animation is improved and the action is more exciting, with a large amount of detail being added to how and why an attack can work (again, if you are anime veteran, this won’t come as a surprise).

We jump one final time into the 1980s for the third part, entitled “Stardust Crusaders.” Our protagonist is now Jotaro, the Japanese grandson of Joseph and one hell of a teen delinquent, calling his mother a bitch on a regular basis. Dio has returned and must be defeated with the use of Hamon and a new ability called Stand.

Unfortunately, there are no extras on the disc but, with 72 episodes to contend with, you won’t have time to worry about that. Maybe a bit much for beginners, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure offers all the delights that anime fans thrive on. No other medium presents heroes and villains in such an illuminating light. If this resonates with you, this disc is essential viewing.

ONE PUNCH MAN – SEASON 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: MAKOTO FURUKAWA, KAITO ISHIKAWA, MAX MITTELMAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

One Punch Man is an interesting cultural phenomenon. The titular character began life as a parody of jokey childrens’ superhero character, Apanman. The core gag behind One Punch Man is that he is an overpowered hero who can defeat anything with one punch, and so he is bored. The other jokes are that he’s a bit dim and his bald head makes him look a bit like food. Though he began life as a comic book hero, he’s best known for the cartoon series. That and an internet meme associated with apathy.

This Blu-ray brings together series one of the cult hit in the usual sort of way. It’s nice to have It all in one piece, though the extras aren’t anything special. The show expands on One Punch Man’s world, introducing us to a Japan filled with heroes, most of whom are vain attention-seeking superstars looking to make a name for themselves. The most powerful simply want to be top dog.

Like a lot of anime, some of the humour doesn’t translate well. Many of the heroes and villains are riffs on characters from other sources and, unless you’re really into the genre, this will go over your head. Another example of the humour falling flat is the character of Puri Puri Prisoner. He is an effeminate muscle man and the show basically plays his homosexuality for cheap, bawdy laughs. This shows a lack of awareness about modern audiences and the jokes are so old fashioned we had to check this wasn’t written in the 1970s. They border on the offensive, and there’s just too much of this sort of thing in the show; it goes for the easy gag and comes across tired and lame.

For a show about a hero who is so powerful that he has become bored with it all, the show is pretty lazy. Much of the action does not focus on One Punch Man and although there are some great moments of heroes being heroes and some nicely paced plotting, the whole thing just feels a little tired.

Honestly, if you want superhero themed anime with humour and heart, you should really be watching My Hero Academia. The main problem with One Punch Man is that its one joke is told many times, mostly to a cynical and jaded audience. What it passes off as parody and world weariness is really just two dimensional storytelling. It has its moments, but they’re not worth the journey.

THE HALFWAY HOUSE / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: BASIL DEARDEN / SCREENPLAY: ANGUS MACPHAIL / STARRING: MERVYN JOHNS, GLYNIS JOHNS, TOM WALLS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Ghosts aren’t always focused on terrifying us. Sometimes, they’re here to teach us a lesson or put our lives back on the right track. That’s exactly what recently-deceased innkeeper Rhys and his daughter Gwyneth are here for, when they and their spectral hostelry materialise in a sunlit Welsh valley and begin accepting guests a year after a devastating Nazi air raid.

Their guests are a disparate group, including a couple on the verge of divorce (with their precocious daughter in tow), a grieving French woman desperate to make supernatural contact with the son she lost during the war, a conman, a black marketeer and a sickly orchestra conductor who’s just found out he has a limited time to live. But they’ve barely settled in before most of them realise things aren’t quite right in the sleepy Halfway House: according to the register and out-of-date newspapers, no-one has stayed here for exactly a year, and then there’s the small matter that the lovely and wise-beyond-her-years Gwyneth doesn’t cast a shadow and when her father stands in front of the mirror he casts no reflection…

After the precocious daughter stages a stunt to reunite her parents that almost ends in tragedy, and the French woman holds a séance that is brutally cut short by her disapproving husband (who has secrets of his own to reveal), the guests begin to realise that their stay at the inn will be far shorter and more violent than any of them suspected. The events of a year ago are about to be re-enacted and the Nazi bomber is already approaching to (once again) destroy the inn and everybody inside it.

The Halfway House is a charming wartime ghost story that’s slow moving and bereft of frights but still has enough emotional intensity to hold a modern audience’s attention. Like a lot of Ealing Studios’ output, there’s a nostalgic feelgood whimsy to the film that somehow avoids nose-diving into sentimentality, although that’s largely thanks to the performances rather than the script. Mervyn Johns and his real-life daughter (and future Mary Poppins star) Glynis are particularly fantastic here, although there isn’t a weak link in the entire ensemble. If more places were haunted by ghosts like these, we’d definitely take up paranormal investigation as a hobby.

Studiocanal’s new fully-restored Blu-ray looks great, although it’s sadly stingy on the special features. Still, with a movie like Halfway House, it’s the main attraction we’re here for and fans of vintage British cinema won’t be disappointed.

DAD’S ARMY: THE LOST EPISODES / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: BEN KELLETT / SCREENPLAY: JIMMY PERRY, DAVID CROFT / STARRING: KEVIN MCNALLY, ROBERT BATHURST, KEVIN ELDON, DAVID HAYMAN, TIMOTHY WEST, TOM ROSENTHAL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

The sitcom is an undervalued art form. Its burden is to make it seem easy to create a set of characters that a wide audience can engage with and come back to time after time. Dad’s Army is one of the very best British examples of this. Since its first broadcast back in 1968, it has rarely been far from television screens and enjoys solid audiences in repeats to this day. Well, almost all of it. Back in the mists of time the BBC had the great cost cutting idea that to save on space, resources and to reuse tape they would just wipe what was already on it, the programme lost forever. Dad’s Army was not immune to this and three episodes were permanently lost.

To mark the show’s 50th anniversary, a project was devised to bring those episodes back using a new cast. These Lost Episodes are all from the second series and feature a cast headed up by Kevin McNally as Captain Mainwaring and Robert Bathurst as Sergeant Wilson. The mise-en-scène of the show is faithfully recreated and the cast mostly give careful, respectful performances that are approximations of the originals, more homage than pastiche. The episode scripts themselves are solid examples of what makes the show great. Well drawn characters, classic sitcom set-ups and some laugh out loud moments are all here. It’s actually really well done and serves as a compliment to the original series.

There’s nothing especially remarkable about the production in terms of direction or anything else, and as it’s a recent production everything is crystal clear with no complaints about picture or sound. Complementing the episodes are a decent set of extras, most in the form of cast interviews. Every one of them says the same thing about the opportunity to take part in the production that it was not one they could turn down and there’s a lot of affection and reverence for the original cast that comes through. Outtakes are not always worth their time but the ones included here show a cast at the top of their game having fun making mistakes and there’s plenty to enjoy in this decent round of extras.

Some of the cast make the point that there’s no reason they would have done the shows if it was a reboot or remake. Instead, this is an important part of entertainment history being recreated and, in that respect, it is as successful as could have been hoped. Fans of the series should appreciate this and enjoy the experiment and for them this is an easy one to recommend picking up.

A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: SERGIO LEONE / STARRING: ROD STEIGER, JAMES COBURN, ROMOLO VALLI / RELEASE DATE: 6TH DECEMBER

Sergio Leone’s 1971 epic A Fistful of Dynamite (aka Duck, You Sucker! or Once Upon a Time…the Revolution) is the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service of Spaghetti westerns: it has lead actors you don’t expect, it’s invested with a disarming humanity, it has richly-realised characters and it looks and sounds extraordinary. Most crucially, no one gave two figs about it when it came out and its critical renaissance is well-deserved.

With no Clint Eastwood in sight, the film is grounded in two extraordinary performances from Rod Steiger and James Coburn (despite the latter’s dodgy ‘oirish’ accent). Set in revolution-torn 1913 Mexico (but shot, as usual in the Andalucía region of Spain), it opens in typical rug-pulling Leone style; Steiger, blacked-up (very effectively, it has to be said) as barbaric bandit Juan Miranda, boards a stagecoach full of wealthy Americans and allows them to spit intellectual disdain at him. We see his sad eyes enduring their peasant-baiting insults for the few tortuous minutes it takes for his men to intercept the coach, rob the sniping weasels blind and leave them stark naked in a ditch (but not before Juan has had his way with the sole lady insulter and stolen her hat).

Riding his motorbike into this idyll of barbarism looking like Jeffrey Epstein in a flasher mac, James Coburn’s ex-IRA terrorist John Mallory engages in a game of (literally) explosive one-upmanship with Miranda before the two men bond, Butch and Sundance style, in the shared goal of bringing down the massed Federales. It’s love at first blast.

By turns brutal and humane, A Fistful of Dynamite has one foot in the world of Leone’s Dollars trilogy and the other in the politically-charged Once Upon A Time in the West (1968). Where it arguably trumps both is in its crackling, wry script and those magnetic lead turns from Steiger (who apparently clashed with Leone and nearly walked off the film) and a career-best Coburn as the morally undone comrades in arms.

This UK Blu-ray debut serves Leone’s trademark sweeping vistas and brilliantly-staged giant war scenes using hundreds of extras very well indeed. There’s a Mexican platter of extra features full of taking heads lending historical context and critical approval including, of course, Kim Newman (who could probably wax lyrical about Danish Dentist on the Job – volume 15). Alex Cox’s appreciation shines brightest in a warmly inclusive commentary and it comes in a sturdy red box that could probably withstand detonation. But really, just watch the film because it’s a secret masterpiece.

THE INTRUDER / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DEON TAYLOR / SCREENPLAY: DAVID LOUGHERY / STARRING: MICHAEL EALY, MEAGAN GOOD, DENNIS QUAID / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

When Scott (Ealy) and Annie (Good) decide to buy a house in the country, they find Foxglove, a lovely home in beautiful surroundings that has been in Charlie’s (Quaid) family since it was built. Charlie wants to move to Florida to be with his daughter and, loathe though he is to sell, allows the couple to purchase the family home. It all appears to be a dream, but as Charlie starts turning up to mow the lawn and show them where the Christmas decorations are stored, it becomes clear that Charlie is finding it hard to let go. After all, his wife died from cancer in the house. Or did she?

As Scott starts to find things out about Charlie, he wonders if the old guy is who he says he is. Characters turn up for a single scene just to provide a little bit of exposition and things start to spiral out of control quicker than you can say “clone of every 90s thriller.” It all starts in a way to pique your interest, and Quaid plays the unhinged Charlie extremely well, but Ealy is not a strong enough leading man to carry the film from the primary perspective. The plot starts to unravel pretty quickly and the final third is plagued by bad character choice after bad character choice – and we mean like in an awful 80s horror cliche way. You will literally find yourself shouting at the screen as the next dumb decision is made just to propel the story on.

The plot-holes are pretty glaringly obvious but, not wanting to give any spoilers, you have to ask why someone moving into a new home wouldn’t check out every square inch of what they have just bought. What could have been a tight thriller, recalling classics like Arlington Road or The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, instead devolves into a bargain bin release that eschews any real tension. For a thriller, that has got to be one of the biggest failures that the screenplay can commit. It’s lazy and poorly written, ticking the cliché boxes as it goes.

We wouldn’t suggest that you invite The Intruder round your house anytime soon, and not for any good reason.