Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

TWO FROM HELL: HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES & THE DEVIL’S REJECTS / CERT: M (AUS) / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ROB ZOMBIE / STARRING: SID HAIG, BILL MOSELEY, SHERRI MOON ZOMBIE, KAREN BLACK, LESLIE EASTERBROOK / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (AUS)

With 3 From Hell, the final part of Rob Zombie’s “Firefly” trilogy, set for release later this year, Umbrella Entertainment have bundled the first two instalments – House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects – together in Two From Hell, now available for the Australian market.

…Corpses is Zombie’s 2003 directorial debut and, if we’re honest, it kind of shows. During a road trip to research obscure and unusual roadside attractions, a bunch of kids end up at Captain Spaulding’s Museum of Monsters and Madmen. One unfortunately-timed robbery gone (very) wrong later, the kids follow Spaulding’s directions to an old tree which, legend has it, is the place where sadistic scientist Dr. Satan was hanged. It all goes (further) downhill from here, as the travellers are captured by the Firefly family, and all hell really breaks loose.

Playing out like an over the top homage to 70s horror (it’s very very Chainsaw Massacre), Corpses is extremely in your face – there’s definitely nothing subtle about it. There are some wonderful turns from the cast, especially Sid Haig as the delightfully evil clown Captain Spaulding, but the plot is all over the place and there’s so much going on visually that by the time the film ends you’re not even quite sure what you’ve just watched. It’s an all-out assault on the senses from beginning to end, but if you’re into chaos and mayhem, it’s well worth a look.

Following the events of Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects finds the Firefly family on the run from the police. The body count continues to rise as they encounter a variety of characters along the way, leading to a memorable finale – after witnessing it, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” will never be the same again. Otis (Bill Moseley), Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) and Captain Spaulding return from Corpses, as does Mother, but now played by Police Academy‘s Leslie Easterbrook, who occasionally overacts to the point of absurdity, but it adds a lot to the overall tone of the film so we’ll give her a pass.

If you think of Corpses being 90 minutes of people being horrible to each other, Rejects is (just over) 90 minutes of people being even more horrible to each other. It’s depraved, sickening and relentlessly grim from beginning to end, but still entertaining to watch, thanks to some truly vile characters that you somehow find yourself really caring about, despite the fact that they’re absolute shits.

While there are a ton of extra features, other expanded editions are available with way more content. The previously-released two and a half hour-long Rejects “making of” isn’t here, for example, which is quite a shame. This isn’t intended to be an “ultimate edition”, but it does mean that owners of other releases might not need to worry about seeking this one out on import. For newcomers though, this is as good a place to start as any.

Extras:

HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES: Audio comm with director Rob Zombie, The Making Of, Rehearsal footage, Casting footage, Cast and crew interviews, New interview with William Bassett, Theatrical Trailer

THE DEVIL’S REJECTS: Bloody Stand-up, Matthew McGrory Tribute, Buck Owens: Satan’s Got to Get Along Without Me, “Mary the Monkey Girl” Commercial, Captain Spaulding’s Xmas Commercial, Otis’ Home Movies, Deleted Scenes, Blooper Reel, Make-up Test, The Morris Green Show

DEF-CON 4 / BD / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: PAUL DONOVAN / STARRING: LENORE ZANN, MAURY CHAYKIN, KATE LYNCH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Post-apocalyptic movies are making a comeback, largely due to the dystopia we currently find ourselves living in; the inference being that either we need tips for survival or that spending time in an atomic wasteland might be preferable to Trump’s America or Brexit Britain.

Def-Con 4 was made at the dirty end of the Cold War, when fears had relaxed to the point that such movies could be made and released, unlike two decades before when such things were taboo and verboten. A Canadian production – part of the VHS-boom wave of “Canuxploitation” films – from young director Paul Donovan, whose Salter Street Films company later produced comedy show This Hour Has 22 Minutes and genre fave Lexx.

Def-Con 4 opens with three American astronauts, orbiting the Earth as part of the US’s missile defence system. When nuclear war breaks out, they survive an attack by a Russian missile, and spend the next few months in isolated safety. A glitch in the spaceship’s programming brings them back down to Earth, landing in an unspecified location in the north east of the North American continent (the film was made in Nova Scotia).

From there it’s a race to survive, as things have gone to ruin very quickly, with society falling apart and cannibalistic feral humans roaming the countryside. Some humans have banded together in relative safety, though, but how will they respond to outsiders..?

It’s from that premise that the film’s action and terror spring, and Donovan does a fair job – on what must have been a very limited budget – of keeping the viewer’s blood pumping. The most well-known of the cast is Maury Chaykin, who plays armed farmer Vinnie, and went on to play Nero Wolfe in the TV series based on the Rex Stout novels. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag, although they all give eager performances, especially Tim Choate as astronaut Howe, and Lenore Zann (who would go on to become a representative in the Nova Scotian parliament) as tough schoolgirl JJ.

The second half of the film does often resemble Mad Max, particularly in its representation of a ramshackle rebuilt society, but Def-Con 4 was filmed in 1983, long after any initial cash-in opportunities had slipped away. Unreleased until 1985, some rather misleading but absolutely beautiful poster art by painter Gary Pullin helped it make back over five times what it cost to make, and it has been a staple of low-budget sci-fi diets ever since.

The Arrow Video Blu-ray release comes with a handful of very interesting extras, including interviews with New World picture editor Michael Spence, and author Chris Poggiali on the history of the distributor, and especially an interview with composer Christopher Young, who also scored Hellraiser and A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 for the company.

Def-Con 4 is eighty-eight minutes of schlocky fun, time spent in the company of some sympathetic – and not so sympathetic – characters that will not stick long in the memory after you’ve watched it. And, let’s face it, in these days of living in the worst possible timeline, that’s exactly what you need.

Special Features: Original lossless mono soundtrack / Brave New World video interview / Nemesis Descending video interview / legacy of New World Pictures video interview / Theatrical trailer / Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin

DEMONLOVER (2002) / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: OLIVIER ASSAYAS / STARRING: CONNIE NIELSEN, CHARLES BERLING, CHLOE SEVIGNY, GINA GERSHON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

With national corporations vying over worldwide exclusive rights to the latest in cutting edge hentai, up-and-coming executive Diane de Monx (Connie Nielsen) finds herself way in over her head when one of the companies she is working for is, in fact, a front for an online portal to the Hellfire Club. An interactive website which gives users the chance to watch real women tortured in real time, Diane soon discovers that ties to the Hellfire Club stretch further than she could have ever imagined.

A neo-noir thriller with ties to New French Extremism, Demonlover is a hauntingly atmospheric look at the desensitisation of sex and violence in the 21st century. Having shocked many upon its original release, it’s now coming onto Blu-ray for the very first time with a whole load of extras for fans to sink their teeth into. With programmes such as Black Mirror having shone a light on the darker side of technology, it’s no wonder why a film such as Demonlover has managed to find an audience after all these years. Despite a couple of fond pop culture references from the past, it still manages to remain timeless due to society’s increasing use of technology for nefarious means.

Written and directed by Olivier Assayas, there’s an almost nightmarish quality to the film with themes such as paranoia and deception managing to translate not just through the script but from the camera work too. There’s a bleakness that shudders throughout with all of the characters hiding behind a much more sinister facade that’s slowly unveiled through the course of the story. The music by Sonic Youth does a great job at capturing the atmosphere whilst also being the perfect accompaniment to the events that slowly unfold. A collage of experimental sounds, there’s an industrial dread which is constantly present, adding to the claustrophobic nature of the film.

Much of the praise, however, has to be given to Connie Nielsen who is without a doubt one of the biggest highlights of the film. Managing to bring the most out of a self-contained performance, she manages to effortlessly play a character on the absolute brink without ever slipping into the stereotypical damsel in distress. Cold hearted and stubborn, her character manages to be by far the most interesting in the film as she stumbles from one bad situation to another whilst refusing to give into the horrors that surround her.

With enough twist and turns to keep viewers on the edge of their seats, Demonlover is a true cult classic that’ll please fans of foreign cinema. A cyber horror which still looks just as good today as it did back then, Olivier Assayas has created something almost prophetic in the way that modern society has continued to use the internet for unthinkable acts of terror. Whilst some may argue that the film was made way ahead of its time, now is the perfect opportunity to watch it in all of its glory.

Special Edition Contents: Brand new 2K restoration of the 121-minute director’s cut, approved by Olivier Assayas, High Definition Blu-Ray (1080p) presentation, Original 5.1 DTS-HD master audio, Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, Audio commentary by writer/director Olivier Assayas, New visual essay written and narrated by critic Jonathan Romney, Peripherie de Demonlover, an hour-long behind-the-scenes documentary directed by Yorick Le Saux, Archive interviews with Olivier Assayas, Connie Nielsen, Chloe Sevigny and Charles Berling, SY NYC 12/12/01: The Demonlover Sessions, a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the recording of the music score by Sonic Youth, Q&A with Olivier Assayas filmed at the Wexner Center for the Arts in 2003, Extended version of the Hellfire Club sequence, Original theatrical trailers, Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon

 

COLD PURSUIT / CERT:15 / DIRECTOR: HANS PETTER MOLAND / SCREENPLAY: FRANK BALDWIN / STARRING: LIAM NEESON, TOM BATEMAN, TOM JACKSON, LAURA DERN, EMILY ROSSUM / RELEASE DATE:  JUNE 17TH (DOWNLOAD),  JUNE 24TH (DVD, BLU RAY)

Possibly due to some ill-judged comments made by Liam Neeson during its press junket Cold Pursuit met a frosty reception at the Box Office as the star (and the film) suffered the brunt of the inevitable hysterical social media overreaction which practically demanded that all evidence of the actor’s very existence be erased from the face of the Earth. Saner heads appear to have prevailed for the moment (or maybe the next media faux outrage quickly took its place) and Neeson seems likely to continue his career as one of cinema’s most unlikely action heroes and perhaps now audiences might be able to sit back and enjoy Cold Pursuit undisturbed by the steam gushing out of their flapping ears.

If you’re expecting another joyless if efficient punch-along-a-Neeson thriller-by-numbers then Cold Pursuit is likely to come as a bit of a surprise.  Here our man plays Nels Coxman, a snowplow operator (Mr Coxman, that’s my name; that name again is Mr Coxman) in a swanky Colorado ski resort. All seems well in Coxman’s world –  he’s just been named ‘Citizen of the Year’ after all –  but his life comes crashing down around him when his son is brutally murdered by members of a ruthless drugs cartel.  Nels does what any sane snow plough operator would do in such dire circumstances; he tools himself up and swiftly kills the three hoods and dumps their bodies – often to the accompaniment of a curiously jaunty musical score – into a nearby river. The leader of the cartel is the psychotic, unhinged Trevor “Viking” Calcote (you’re not alone in thinking that Trevor isn’t perhaps the most terrifying name for a formidable crime lord) and a deadly gang war quickly erupts when Trev mistakenly believes that his men were murdered by a rival gang operated by Native American drug lord White Bull. Trev eventually discovers the truth about Coxman’s involvement; cue an avalanche of bloodshed which threatens to turn the town’s crisp white snow a deeper shade of red.

Cold Pursuit is actually a lot better than it might have been even if it outstays its welcome a little by clocking in at nearly two hours. Neeson eats up stuff like this but is clearly enjoying playing a character with a bit more light and shade than we’re used to and Moland, remaking his original 2014 Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance but with an American sensibility which might evoke the likes of Fargo and Grosse Pointe Blank, has clearly worked hard to make its characters a littler quirkier and a little less predictable than the movie’s over-familiar genre might usually dictate and given the film an edge of surreal black humour. The  narrative over-reaches itself at times and Coxman’s involvement gets sidelined somewhat as the focus shifts to the gang war subplot but the action scenes are well-delivered, the cinematography exploits the starkness of the landscape and Tom Bateman’s manic bad guy Trevor (seriously!) is on a different level to the cootie-cutter gangsters who usually populate Neeson shoot-‘em-ups.  Don’t put this one on ice; it’s worth a look, if you get our drift…

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971) / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: ROBERT WISE / SCREENPLAY: NELSON GIDDING /  STARRING: ARTHUR HILL, JAMES OLSON, KATE REID, DAVID WAYNE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Based on the 1969 novel by Michael Crichton but purported in the opening credits to be derived from de-classified US government reports, The Andromeda Strain is a disaster movie with a difference. The 1970s was full of disaster movies; you couldn’t move for towering infernos, Poseidon adventures, earthquakes and airports. At its core, The Andromeda Strain sits firmly in this milieu, but with some key differences.

The titular threat is a biological threat that fell to Earth, presumably from space. When it catches a lift on a military satellite named Scoop 7, which crashes down in the small New Mexico town of Piedmont (population formerly 68), a hastily-assembled team scramble to discover just what the Andromeda strain is, and how to neutralise it.

Leading the government’s crack team is Nobel Prize winner Dr Jeremy Stone, played with studied reserve by Arthur Hill. The cast was picked to be largely unrecognisable from a credits list, with director Robert Wise hoping that this would not take away from the performances on screen, and leave the audience unsure whether the characters would survive. Hill is joined in the main cast by David Wayne, Kate Reid, and James Olson, and they are ably backed by a roster of solid character actors whose faces you’ll recognise, if not their names.

The film takes place mostly in a subterranean government laboratory, the home to Project: Wildfire, a taskforce proposed by Stone two years previously in the wake of the Moon landings, to deal with any subsequent space-born infection. After a rigorous process of decontamination, the team get to breaking down the mysterious pathogen, racing against time before the infection spreads in the outside world.

Where The Andromeda Strain differs from the usual disaster fare is in its intimacy; discounting some unfortunate lab animals, we never see the contagion at work, with all deaths off camera, and there are no big, destructive scenes. Instead, the tension is delivered up close, microscopically in places, with a real feel for the oppression of working to save the world without knowing precisely what you’re saving it from.

The principal quartet are good value, with Hill stoicism matched by Olson’s youthful passion, Wayne’s world-weary curiosity, and Reid’s woman in a man’s world (her character was male in the Crichton novel). Wise, who won Oscars for West Side Story and The Sound of Music (as well as delivering the more STARBURST-friendly The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Haunting) is an experienced hand, letting the screenplay by Nelson Giddings unfold tidily.

The Blu Ray release from Arrow Pictures comes with a host of extras, with a new video essay by Kim Newman joining featurettes on the making of the film from the 2001 DVD release, and a commentary track from critic Bryan Reesman. The film itself is presented in 1080p but real buffs may be more pleased with the 4K scan from an original camera negative.

After the surprising success of both Planet of the Apes and 2001, The Andromeda Strain heralded a golden age for studio-backed sci-fi film, and was soon joined in cinemas by The Omega Man, Silent Running, Soylent Green, and Westworld. Watching almost fifty years later, the taut, claustrophobic threat of an alien threat is not diminished, despite its prescience being dulled by the absence of any real-life equivalent. It’s a little longer than it needed have been but make no mistake, The Andromeda Strain is a treat and well worth, erm, catching.