Review Category: Movie

Review: Silent Hill – Revelation / Cert: 18 / Director: Michael J. Bassett / Screenplay: Michael J. Bassett / Starring: Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Sean Bean, Carrie-Anne Moss / Release Date: Out Now

In many ways the groundwork has already been laid for Michael J. Bassett’s sequel, Silent Hill: Revelation, as it follows very closely the tone and style of Christophe Gans’ original. Everything is present and correct: the insidious atmosphere, freaky monster designs, amazing photography, skewed angles that reference the video game, even the corny dialogue and shaky performances from usually solid actors. So how much of a revelation is this?

The story picks up a few years after events in Silent Hill (2006) and takes inspiration from Silent Hill 3. An older Sharon is posing as a girl named Heather Mason and her dad Chris/Harry (Sean Bean) protecting his adopted daughter from a vindictive, ever-pursuing cult that has forced the pair to move around America as drifters.

Heather/Sharon, played with pluck by Adelaide Clemens, is haunted by visions both day and night and acts like a first-class nutjob tripping out at any given moment. This brittle sense of reality feels more like A Nightmare on Elm Street than anything related to Silent Hill and it is easily one of the weaker aspects of the film’s ambience.

What saves this quite unnecessary but fun sequel is stunning cinematography by horror specialist Maxime Alexandre and equally brilliant production design. There are ghoulish monsters a-plenty and sinister set pieces to prop up the duller moments, including a return for Pyramid Head. The hulking beast gets an immense and bone-chilling scene – complete with booming score – as he walks down a corridor lopping off the arms of incarcerated lunatics in an asylum.

One of the major criticisms levelled at the first film was its epic running time and stoner pace. Silent Hill: Revelation clocks in at a brisk ninety-five minutes. Plot points move quickly and things roll in a straightforward, no-nonsense manner.

The Silent Hill films boast a rich and inventive backstory involving a bizarre cult, a child demon and sorcery in modern-day America. Yet one of the major failings is the sometimes cack-handed use of such material. A viewer, during any part of the film, should not be thinking, ‘I’d rather be playing the game’. Are the films tied too completely to the video game source out of wrong-headed respect?

Silent Hill: Revelation is to be enjoyed for the nightmarish tone and those warped creatures that lurk in the dark. A spider-like monster, made entirely of mannequin models, is as inventive and surreal as anything dreamed up by Dalí.

The ultimate revelation for poor conflicted Heather is never strongly conveyed and there exists a somnambulist quality to the movie that is either really clever or merely a product of weak conception as a sleepwalking continuation of the series.

Review: Maniac / Director: Frank Khalfoun / Screenplay: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur, C.A. Rosenberg / Starring: Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder / Cert: 18 / UK Release Date: March 15th

Maniac has to be one of the best remakes of a 1980s ‘classic’ – a perfect fusion of European horror and American grindhouse. And what’s more Khalfoun’s Maniac is marked with a formal daring that easily transcends the sleazy original, while retaining the more transgressive elements of the Lustig movie.

The paper-thin plot remains more or less the same: seriously disturbed loner, Frank Zito, murders women in order to get their scalps which he uses to adorn the mannequins that he keeps in his apartment. These mannequins are his only ‘friends’ until photographer Anna enters his life and offers Frank the chance of redemptive love. But with Frank’s grasp on reality becoming increasingly tenuous, will Anna end up sharing the same fate as her predecessors?

Although the remake fails to develop the themes of the original to any great extent, Khalfoun’s film is distinguished by its use of POV camera throughout; a bold stylistic choice that places Maniac in the company of Gasper Noe’s Enter the Void (2009) and Robert Montgomery’s 1949 classic The Lady in the Lake as one of only a handful of films to have attempted this. We see Frank only by his reflection in mirrors and car doors etc. almost entirely for the whole film (only moving to an objective shot of Wood once during a pivotal scene). It’s a risky ploy, denying the audience involvement with the film in the usual way but Khalfoun pulls it off brilliantly, literally drawing us inside Frank’s psychosis and his deeply skewed view of the world around him, where reality, fantasy and memory ultimately merge into one. 

The casting of Wood as Frank Zito is also a masterstroke, and Wood gives his all in the part (Frodo fans and Wood detractors would do well to remember that Wood played a similar role as the lethal Kevin in Sin City, a part that seems almost like a dry run for Maniac). Whereas Joe Spinell’s Frank was a sweaty slob, Wood is a pretty but socially awkward and seemingly harmless guy, which makes it plausible that he would be attractive to the women around him, at least superficially. 

Khalfoun’s film is marked by its reflexivity throughout, both in terms of its commentary on the original Maniac and on the Slasher sub-genre as a whole. POV camera is after all a Slasher trope, but by adopting it throughout Maniac Khalfoun critiques it and undermines it: one cannot ‘enjoy’ the killings on any level simply because we cannot distance ourselves from Frank by stepping outside the subjective camera. Michael Powell’s classic Peeping Tom (1960) is strongly invoked at times, both in terms of its ‘scopophilia’ (the love of watching) and the queasily sympathetic killer at the heart of the story. And Khalfoun has Frank take Anna to see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) at one point, “the first ever horror film”, Anna comments. Are we meant to see Frank as a killer, who like Cesare the somnambulist in Caligari, is controlled by forces outside of him?

In this respect, despite its formal brilliance and reflexivity, it has to be said that Khalfoun is unable to completely shake off the misogynistic undertones of the original. In fact, Khalfoun’s film makes even less of an effort to explore the roots of Frank’s homicidal hatred of women than the original did. At least Lustig made an effort at a plausible backstory for the Spinell character. The flashbacks to Frank’s childhood in Khalfoun’s film offer only a cursory explanation: Frank was neglected by his mother while she screwed around. Blame the mother.

That said, the remake does attempt some quite incisive social commentary that reflects the updated milieu. Whereas Lustig’s Maniac takes place in the lowlife environs of 1980s New York, the remake is set in contemporary Boho-Soho, which subtly changes the nature of Frank’s alienation from the women around him. Spinell was surrounded by hookers and druggies, but Wood’s victims are all shallow metrosexuals. Accordingly, Khalfoun has changed Frank’s occupation from seedy landlord to restorer of mannequins for the fashion industry. He runs a little shop and this is how he meets photographer Anna. The women in this Maniac (and the men too) are all drawn to Wood on a superficial level purely for his looks, and are too self-involved to notice that he is, deep down, a troubled soul who simply wants to be loved. Even the coquettish Anna, who initially seemed to offer friendship, rejects him too quickly and completely when she comes to suspect him as a murderer, not even wanting to try to understand why, as she might if she had any true feelings for him (the way the Moira Shearer, by contrast, wants to ‘understand’ Mark at the end of Peeping Tom). In this sense, at least, Frank’s compulsion to surround himself with his mannequins – who won’t reject or abandon him, ‘like real women do’ – becomes understandable in the context of the film.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Argo / Cert: 15 / Director: Ben Affleck / Screenplay: Chris Terrio / Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Victor Garber / Release Date: November 7th

Argo is not a film about a catalogue merchant, although that would obviously be enthralling. It is a film about a CIA agent who rescues six hostages from Iran by pretending they’re making a sci-fi film. If that doesn’t sound crazy enough, it’s based on a true story.

Ben Affleck directs and stars in the film, set in the midst of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The whole look of the film is very ’70s, from the credits and cut of the film down to the obligatory dodgy haircuts. A fantastic supporting cast including Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman all do the extraordinary story justice.

The film begins with militants storming the U.S embassy in Iran, angered at the USA’s support of the recently deposed Shah. As staff desperately try to destroy sensitive information, six manage to escape being taken hostage and hide out at a Canadian ambassador’s house.

CIA specialist Tony Mendez (Affleck) is called in to create a rescue plan, and, after watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes, comes up with the idea that they’ll smuggle the six out under the pretence they’re a Canadian sci-film crew. The ‘best of a bad bunch’ idea is green-lighted and Mendez and his supervisor (Cranston) begin to set up an actual film production for plausibility, enlisting the help of a Hollywood make-up artist (Goodman) and a film producer (Arkin).

The thriller’s occasional moments of well-timed comedy banter are immediately replaced with building tension as Mendez arrives in Iran and everyone involved has to fight against increasingly difficult odds to succeed and survive. This climaxes in an airport scene that is genuinely one of the tensest few minutes of cinema in recent years.

The film is only spoiled by a couple of minutes of cliché towards the end, but overall is a superb and mostly historically accurate effort. However, the Canadians were allegedly a bit annoyed that the original cut didn’t give them the credit they deserved during ‘The Canadian Caper’ the film is based on.

Affleck’s resurgence continues with a solid third directorial outing, and great performances from the entire cast.

Review: Skyfall / Cert: 12A / Director: Sam Mendes / Screenplay: Neil Purvis, Robert Wave, John Logan / Starring: Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ben Whishaw, Helen McRory, Naomi Harris, Berenice Marlohe, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney / Release Date; Out Now

He’s back – and how. Four years after the almost painfully-ruinous Quantum of Solace the Secret Service’s most resilient and timeless super spy is back in Skyfall, which will surely soon find itself sitting somewhere near the very top of every Bond fan’s favourite movies in the fifty year-old franchise. Director Sam Mendes (along with writer John Logan who kicked co-writers Purvis and Wade’s script into slick, sophisticated shape) has taken the Bond series by the scruff of the neck, dusted it down and, with the help a few discreet and more than welcome nods to the series’ past, dragged it alive and kicking into the 21st century in ways that neither Casino Royale or the woeful Quantum could even dream of. This is James Bond for the post-Bourne generation, this is Bond finding himself and his place in the scheme of things after years struggling in the wilderness and this is the film which has pretty much guaranteed that 007’s future has never looked brighter. Seriously, Skyfall is that good.

The last two Bonds tried too hard to reinvent the perfect wheel. James Bond movies are very specific beasts and James Bond is a very specific character with a very specific style. Tamper with that at your peril. Attempts to turn Bond into some angst-ridden, post-Cold War ageing agent, battling to remain relevant in a gloomy post-9/11 world where super villains stroking cats in hollowed-out volcanoes are just too frivolous to take seriously, led to two anaemic movies which tried to make Bond something he was never meant to be. Bond on the big screen is supposed to be larger than life, his enemies are meant to be ruthless, pitiless barking mad psycopaths with some unique mental or physical abnormality. Recreating Bond as  a gritty rival to Jason Bourne or Mission: Impossible’s Ethan Hunt just misses the whole point of the man. We love Bond and his exploits because they’re wild flights of fantasy with just one Roger Moore eyebrow arched in the direction of the real world; Bond is the ultimate escapist hero and bringing him down to Earth isn’t just a mistake it’s just plain wrong.

Sam Mendes is clearly on the same page but he knows that in this day and age we need a bit of meat on the flesh and bones of our heroes otherwise they’re just rather dull cyphers. So Skyfall – which opens with a breathlessly-inventive, lengthy action sequence designed and positioned to  put the ‘bang’ back into Bond – cleverly pits a real, emotional and ageing 007 into a scenario which cuts closer to home courtesy of an insane villain with a major grudge and an apparently-endless army of typically disposable Bond henchmen. Skyfall sees the very foundations of the Bond series – M, still played here by the redoubtable Judi Dench and MI6 itself – under threat; M is being targeted by an old agent with a personal axe to grind and a Leveson-style official enquiry with its own agenda as it questions not only M’s competence but whether Britain still needs MI6’s old-fashioned espionage techniques. A certain Mr Bond, missing and presumed dead but quickly back on the scene when MI6’s headquarters  suffers a terrorist attack, is  on hand to remind everyone that…well, yes, we certainly do need his very special skill set and with the insane Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) on the loose like some unstoppable force-of-nature assassin, who else is there to turn to?

Skyfall just doesn’t put a foot wrong. Spines will tingle as Adele’s gets-better-every-time-your-hear-it theme song kicks in over a defiantly Maurice Binder-ish title sequence and, even during a lengthy sequence where Bond gets himself match fit again our attention never wanders because we’re so invested by now in Bond and we’re all willing Skyfall to not fumble the ball so catastrophically dropped by the messy Quantum. Before long Bond is off to Shanghai, slugging it out in casinos and smooching Marlohe’s token Bond girl Severine (and some aficionados may bemoan the lack of any proper romantic interest for our hero but then maybe some of the old Bond tropes really don’t have a place in the modern world). Bardem electrifies the screen as the ambiguous Silva who captures and torments Bond before being himself captured and then escaping his M16 cell in London to reap a whirlwind of carnage on the city. But in the end Skyfall (it’s the name of Bond’s ancestral home deep in the Scottish Highlands) is about the series’ two most enduring and important icons – Bond himself and M – brought together by circumstance, M very much the mother-figure 007 never had. Bond and M flee London courtesy of a familiar old ‘friend’ but Silva and his stooges are in hot pursuit and the stage is set for an explosive edge-of-the-seat final battle at the very place where Bond the boy became Bond the man. It’s brilliant.

Skyfall is a classic Bond movie despite being cast very much away from the classic mould. It’s witty but never camp, its action sequences have the ‘wow’ factor of the old Bond but with a genuine sense of realism – Mendes does his best to avoid the traditional Bond punch-up, the best here being an in-silhouette fight scene – and all the explosions and impossible escapes we’ve come to expect from the series but have found ourselves missing in the last couple of movies are back. Daniel Craig finally makes his proper mark on the series – he oozes charisma and edgy charm here – and his performance in Skyfall finally sees him realise the potential stifled in two films more concerned with being different than exploiting a fine actor. Dench is as commanding as we might expect, Bardem is a terrific and genuinely dangerous adversary and there’s solid support from Ralph Fiennes, Naomi Harris and Rory Kinnear all of whom are to be welcomed back into the Bond fold any time they like.

The ultimate kudos though, must go to Sam Mendes. He’s struck right at the core of where Bond went wrong, thrown away the pretension and just delivered a scorching, intimate adventure story, beautifully photographed by cinematographer Roger Deakins and scored by Mendes old-hander Thomas Newman (whose music cues contain innumerable little riffs on old Bond themes) and with enough kisses to the past films to raise neck-hairs the world over. Twelve months ago, most would have written-off James Bond  as the “sexist, mysogynist dinosaur” he was accused of being by M back in GoldenEye, his place on the big screen taken by the new spies on the block. But he’s back – possibly better than ever – and very clearly ready for action for the next fifty years. Make mine shaken, but not stirred…

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Frankenweenie / Cert: PG / Director: Tim Burton / Screenplay: John August, Leonard Ripps, Tim Burton / Starring: (voice) Charlie Tahan, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder, Atticus Shaffer, Robert Capron / Release Date: October 17th

It is arguable that Tim Burton’s movies of late have been disappointing. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows did not capture the imagination as Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood or even Big Fish did. It is therefore a relief to see a return to form with Frankenweenie, an animated film based on Burton’s own 1984 short. Burton has success in the animation field, having previously produced the cult classic The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.

Burton’s resurrection (ahem) is a story about a boy named Victor (Tahan) and his pet dog Sparky. One tragic day, Sparky dies in an accident and budding scientist Victor decides to dig him up and try and bring him back to life with the aid of a kite and some lightning. Before you start thinking Pet Sematary, this is actually a Disney film, and despite the macabre plot and a couple of morbid moments, it’s definitely highly enjoyable family friendly fare.

The film is, quite obviously, a spoof of Frankenstein and nearly every character in the is named or modelled after a classic horror icon, with a couple of references to more contemporary films such as Jurassic Park. One character, the brilliant Mr. Rzykruski (Landau), is modelled on Vincent Price himself (whose last film was actually Burton’s Edward Scissorhands) and there is a cameo of sorts from Christopher Lee as Dracula.

As with Alice in Wonderland, Burton has continued with the postmodern penchant for 3D but has turned back the clock to use stop-motion, which works brilliantly in black and white. There are a lot of clever jokes in the film and genuine laugh out loud moments, with one brilliant moment involving a psychic cat. The film ultimately tugs at the heartstrings as well, as any tale about a boy and his dog should.

The supporting characters are also brilliant, and surprisingly there is no involvement from Johnny Depp or wife Helena Bonham Carter. However there is music from long-time collaborator Danny Elfman, and regulars Winona Ryder and Catherine O’ Hara return to voice characters.

Frankenweenie is a refreshing addition to Burton’s gothic back catalogue, just in time for Halloween.

Review: Attack of the 50ft Cheerleader / Director: Kevin O’Neil / Screenplay: Mike MacLean / Producer: Roger Corman / Starring: Jena Sims, Olivia Alexander, Ryan Merriman, Anne McDaniels, Mary Woronov, Treat Williams, Ted Raimi and Sean Young / Release Date: TBC (UK), Out Now (US, via EPIX)

Filmed in 3D, Attack of the 50 Ft. Cheerleader opens with James Bond/Maurice Binder style credits  (complete with catchy title song) setting the mood for this fun film that’s a delightful nod to the sci-fi gigantism movies of the ’50s.

Plain Jane, college science major, Cassie Stratford (Sims) lives in the shadow of her domineering, former cheerleading debutant mother (Young). Reluctantly she tries out for a role on the cheer squad, led by the ego driven Brittany (Olivia Alexander), only to be ridiculed and laughed at by the mean spirited girl group.

Not to be discouraged, she and her lab partner Kyle (Merriman) have been working on a serum to alter the effects of ones genetics for corporate CEO sponsor, Dr. Grey (Williams). After successfully testing it on the lab mice Cassie decides to try it on herself. I mean, why not? If it works on rodents with bad complexions it has to work on humans… right?

Sort of. Initially successful, the serum makes her gorgeous and athletic, and by default the darling of the cheer squad – drawing the ire of Brittany in the process.

What follows is pure B-Movie magic as Cassie grows into the eponymous 50ft Cheerleader, is hunted by Dr.Grey and ends up in a topless catfight, with a now 50ft Brittany, resulting in both girls showing their bodacious ta ta’s on the football field during a crucial game. Now that’s a half time show!

Jena Sims is a stand out in this film as is her counter part, Olivia Alexander. Both women have a lot of fun with their roles. Miss Sims does a great job transforming from a shy, nerdy girl to an out going, voluptuous sex kitten. Miss Alexander tackles her part with gusto as the vengeful, queen bee, cheerleader overlord.

Treat Williams chews up the scenery as Dr. Grey and its always good to see Corman favorite, Mary Woronov on screen as a sorority house mother who plays her character with zest, perhaps even channeling a touch of Miss Hogar; the principal she portrayed in Rock n’ Roll High School. Ted Raimi does a fine job as the head teacher of the science lab, Dr. Higgs. Sean Young rounds out the movie veterans with an interesting turn as Cassie’s doting mother.

The supporting cast also does well with Kyle Merriman as Kyle getting the Richard Carlson/Hugh Marlowe archetypical hero of the ’50s down perfectly, and Anne McDaniels as Tiffany is easy on the optics as Brittany’s second-in-command on the cheerleading squad.

We’re even treated to a very amusing cameo by the master himself, Roger Corman, who plays the college dean auditing a teacher’s class (it just so happens that it’s none other than John Landis behind the podium.)

Filmed at the campuses of U.C.L.A. and Santa Ana College, director Kevin O’Neil makes good use of the locations as well as doing a good job handling the story written by Mike MacLean. Effects are by O’Neil as well and are adequate though there is an additional scene involving a spider that gets some of the growth serum on it that could have been cut. It merely splits the story into two for a brief time and is just distracting. Despite its meagre budget the 3D is generally good and is very convincing in several parts (and you don’t have to guess what parts those are…)

Overall, it’s a fun movie to watch. Embrace the ’50s B-movie spirit with your mates on a Friday night, and go see this with pig snacks and case of barley pop.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

We interview the 50ft Cheerleader herself, Jena Sims, here.

Review: Cloud Atlas / Cert: 15 / Director: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski / Screenplay: Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski / Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D’Arcy, Xun Zhou, Keith David / UK Release Date: February 22nd

Cloud Atlas is an adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel that is as energetic as it is emotionally engaging, with the depth and breadth of the source material reflected in its magnitude and ambition. The collaborative team of directors, Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer and Andy Wachowski integrate six stories in a bold fashion with the main cast of actors appearing under different guises throughout the various strands. This is an extremely exciting, daring and sweeping undertaking that has been taken on by three capable and imaginative directors.

The narrative alternates between different genres and time periods throughout – in 1849 a man struggles on a journey across the pacific ocean amidst a world embroiled in debate about slavery; in the 1930s a composer’s apprentice aims for artistic greatness; in the 1970s a China Syndrome-like story plays out; the present day UK is channelled through disorganized publisher Timothy Canvendish in Ealing comedy style whose story is dramatized inspiring a Fabricant in the New Seoul future. The final strand is set in post-apocalyptic Hawaii which boasts a mystical zeal full of imaginatively creative beings and startling scenes. Each story is strung together by universal themes and paced well, building passion for its grand conclusion.

Just as the virtuoso in one strand of the story composes the sublime Cloud Atlas Sextet (a nostalgic and lingering tune) these directors have honed their skills to create an intricate tapestry of life looking at the grand adventure, the tying bonds of the human experience and the pursuit of love, art and freedom. Wandering through the many exquisite worlds proves to be confusing at first as all the stories and their characters are introduced but after an initial awkward getting to know you phase you can’t help but be swept up in their stories.

Each actor plays their serious roles well, with Doona Bae as Sonmi-451, parading her versatility and being brilliant as a Fabricant waitress who is persuaded to shed her shackles and life of servitude by a human. It’s only right that Hugo Weaving gets the stand out malevolent characters; with a particularly menacing Nurse Ratchet inspired performance in one strand. Tom Hanks brings his usual earnest face to the proceedings but also takes a turn as an aggressive Irish gangster which is strangely entertaining. Ben Whishaw is utterly captivating and with the love story that plays out in his strand is sure to pluck on the old heart strings. Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Jim Sturgess are all equally wonderful in their roles and get to shine in some funny and strange appearances. The same mistakes and understandings play out through each story with each main character connected by a shooting star tattoo to represent their shared experiences.

Ambitious, dazzling, and moving, but also silly and cheesy with a sense of humour, this is a spectacular, symphonic ride through different time periods that connects the dots in a visually resplendent and wondrous way. Rather than trying to be overly clever this is a vast film, full of emotion and romanticism, which considers and communicates the feeling that we are all connected and throughout time our lives will cross and re-cross the same paths in a melancholic, melodramatic and entertaining way. It is an amazing adventure that will be extremely enjoyable if you decide to embrace its sincerity.

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Excision / Cert: 18 / Director: Richard Bates Jr. / Screenplay: Richard Bates Jr. / Starring: AnnaLynne McCord, Traci Lords, Ariel Winter, Roger Bart / UK Release Date: November 2nd

Excision is the latest in the subgenre of films about troubled young women that includes the likes of Carrie, Ginger Snaps, Teeth and May. Richard Bates Jr. makes a strong feature debut that will linger in the memory for a while despite actually lacking a little focus.

AnnaLynne McCord plays Pauline, a troubled, lonely, frumpy teenager who aspires to be a surgeon despite her disproving uptight mother and stricken sister who gets all of the attention. Pauline has horrific/erotic dreams about surgery and mopes about school speaking her mind and upsetting pretty much everyone. Her sister’s illness gets worse and she must get a lung transplant as soon as possible in order to survive, so Pauline hatches a plan.

If you know anything of AnnaLynne McCord’s previous acting career then you will know that this is a truly transformative performance, physically she looks completely different; like a small ball of concentrated rage about to burst. Her dialogue is all delivered with completely natural conviction and she reminds you of that person we all knew in school who was a little ‘off’. The other important performance in this film belongs to Traci Lords, yes that Traci Lords who usually plays a femme fatale or vampire, here plays an uptight housewife and does it perfectly in a performance that wouldn’t be out of place in something like American Beauty. The film makes many satirical stabs at the suburban lifestyle and obsessions of Middle America, raising a chuckle and contrasting nicely with the haunting dream sequences.

The main problem with Excision is that it spends far too much time meandering through suburbia and the various characters living there. Roles for cult luminaries including Ray Wise, Malcolm McDowell and John Waters distract from the core of the film as Pauline mopes about obsessing over her virginity, venereal disease or getting out of an awful cotillion class. As an audience you know that something awful is about to happen but it’s not until the last twenty minutes when it really starts to come into focus and leads to a satisfyingly horrific climax. The second half could have focussed a bit more on the impending horror and the thinking leading to it, and it may have been a minor classic if it were not for the fact that many of the story threads sadly go nowhere.

We’re convinced that Bates Jr. will make a classic somewhere down the line. He has a distinctive voice and just needs to give his future films a little more focus if he is to become a contender. That said, Excision is still an interesting dark comedy that’s well worth your time.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 4 / Cert: 15 / Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman / Screenplay: Christopher Landon, Chad Feehan / Starring: Kathryn Newton, Brady Allen, Matt Shively, Katie Featherston / Release Date: October 17th

By far the most interesting aspect of the Paranormal Activity movies is their marketing campaign: training the camera on preview audiences (while us jaded journalists are discreetly seated at the back of the theatre safely out of the camera’s gaze), trailers for the movies focus on the fearful faces of the fans as each jump scare in the movie makes the popcorn fly, the night-vision camera homing in on the guys and gals shrinking in their seats or grabbing the arm of the person next to them. It’s meta if you say it is: the audience is filmed watching movies in which fear is caught by surveillance technology (the very fact that audiences act up to the camera when it’s trained on them seems not to matter). But really the raison d’etre of the Paranormal Activity movies is to provide a scare machine that will draw in audiences and get bums on seats; meaning is secondary, making the bucks is what counts. And so it is with Paranormal Activity 4.

PA4 takes place five years after the last one and we are given a brief reminder of the events that led to Katie (Featherstone) killing her family and kidnapping her nephew. Jump forward to 2011, teenager Alex (Newton) and her boyfriend, Ben (Shively) communicate nightly by video chat and keep a daily diary of their lives on Alex’s camcorder. When their mysterious neighbour is taken into hospital, Alex’s parents open their home to her son, Robbie (Allen) who turns out to be more than a little creepy.  Sure enough ‘paranormal activity’ ensues, captured on the teenagers’ recording devices, and it seems Robbie has brought a malevolent force into Alex’s home.

Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (who also directed PA3) do a pretty good job of keeping things believable, given the slender premise and the hardnosed commercial drive of providing a seemingly never-ending series of jump scares. Newton and Shively are really quite likable as the two fifteen year olds who are trying (like the characters in Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street) to prove to the adults that shit is, like, really happening here. Mom and Dad are too distracted by their own marital strife to notice at first (the underlying threat of family break up is slyly captured by the surveillance cams set up by Ben) until their youngest son starts to act strangely, but by then it’s too late.

PA4 doesn’t solve the two basic problems inherent in found footage movies: namely a) why are the characters still filming when any sane person would throw down the camera and run; and b) who edited this footage afterwards and why? Instead Joost and Schulman just assume that the audience will accept these implausibilities, and simply get on with it. The jump-scares are – need we say it – a little overdone. After a while the audience becomes inured to them, and there are also times when Joost and Schulman fail to take us sufficiently unawares for the ‘stings’ to work as effectively as they might. Having said that, the web chat/laptop gimmick helps to conjure one particular moment of supreme dread as Alex leaves the frame to investigate strange noises and we are left staring into an empty bedroom through the webcam in total silence for minutes on end, waiting for the worst to happen.

Apart from this neat use of Skype and the like as a recording instrument for fear, there’s nothing particularly original in Paranormal Activity 4; Robbie is a creepy kid like Danny in The Shining (there’s even an homage to Kubrick’s classic in the scene where Alex’s younger brother is riding his tricycle around the kitchen); the house eventually gets completely overtaken by supernatural like The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist; and the demon in PA4 likes to levitate his victims as he did in The Exorcist. (The levitation scene in Paranormal Activity 4, it has to be said though, really is something else, perhaps the most chillingly believable one ever filmed).

Hard to know where the Paranormal Activity franchise can go next, because the found footage gimmick on which it is based really doesn’t add that much here. What it is really crying out for is some development to the themes. What is this demon? What does it want? Alas we may never find out, not unless the producers go easier on the hollow scares route for a while and dig a little deeper into the mythology of coven.

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: The ABCs of Death / Cert: TBC / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: / UK Release Date: TBC

The ABCs of Death is an alphabetical anthology presented by over twenty-six genre directors from across the world. Each filmmaker was given free reign, apart from the letter they were assigned, and $5000 to create a horrible way to die.  It features mostly funny skits and a few controversial and confrontational pieces that may cross the boundaries of bad taste for some. The segments vary greatly in style and level of sickness but to talk too much about them would be to give some of the fun away. Presented in the format where the short is shown before the title is revealed makes it fun to guess exactly where the director is going and what the letter will stand for.

There are a few shorts that will stick in the memory, one of our personal favourites being the incredibly witty segment from A Horrible Way To Die’s Adam Wingard & Simon Barrett, which is full of self-mockery and silly humour. Though the most amazingly silly thing on offer consisted of a windy school girl getting sucked up a woman’s bottom. Some may find it juvenile but it works in its short running time and surreal nature.

Director Nacho Vigalondo (Time Crimes) sets the bar high, delivering something cruel and comedic, and Jason Eisener’s (Hobo with a Shotgun) is bold and sickening images dripping with perversity the film delivers both delight and disgust. Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) goes past the point of bad taste in his surreal fast paced short. Disappointing and slightly simple in content are Andrew Traucki’s (The Reef) entry, staying with his watery themes but presenting nothing new, and Ti West (The Innkeepers), who is keen to make a bloody mess but it comes across as lazy. Bruno Forzani and Helene Cattett deliver a sexy little Giallo inspired number but it doesn’t really do anything particularly different from their excellent debut feature, Amer. There is a diverse range of the brilliant and bland laid out in this anthology.

As Lee Hardcastle’s short, Toilet, is available to watch on YouTube already we won’t be ruining anything by saying it’s a very funny and disgusting Claymation about potty training backfiring, resulting in horrible consequence. The letter T had many entries from filmmakers across the world with Hardcastle being the winner of a public vote for his entry. Featuring lines such as “Danny Glover had nothing to be afraid of in Lethal Weapon 2” it’s hard not to laugh at this quick firing torrent of turds and splatter.

Special mention goes to Xavier Gens (The Divide) whose confrontational short looks at societal expectations and the pressure women are under to conform to a particular frame. Norwegian Ninja Director, Thomas Cappelen Malling really ups the visual stakes and Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film) looks at the death of film in a particularly creative way with some classic film footage in a clinical setting. There are some incredible eye-popping visuals not to be missed including a hypnotic femme fatale fox type, a vicious boxing dog, some bloody revenge, masturbation with prosthetics and body horror that will either offend or entertain.

The talented film folks flex their muscles and skills well in the anthology, some of the others simply fall back into old habits presenting nothing new or aiming to induce anger. There are a couple of ill-judged misses amongst this mostly funny and gruesome deluge of deathly skits.

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

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