Review: The Thing (15) / Directed by: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. / Written by: Eric Heisserer / Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje / Released: December 2nd

I’m going to start off by saying that I consider John Carpenter’s 1982 classic to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made, and as a result, had mixed feelings when I heard about this project. On one hand, I was excited by the concept of seeing what happened in the Norwegian camp prior to the original film, but I was also worried that they were going to make a complete mess of it. 

The film starts off with a Norwegian research team coming across a signal from under the ice, that leads them to an alien spacecraft, buried for over a hundred thousand years. Soon, a team of scientists is dispatched to the site, including an American palaeontologist, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, where they exhume the frozen body of the spacecraft’s occupant with a view to dissecting it in the name of science. 

At which point, things start to go a bit wrong. Well, if they didn’t it wouldn’t be much of a horror movie, would it? The creature escapes from its icy prison and goes about absorbing various cast members and replicating them in a bid to escape to the wider world.

I have to say that most of my concerns were put to rest. The movie does a decent job at building tension and the special effects are suitably gross, if a little bit too CGI looking at times. The plot moves along at a decent pace, even if there are parts in the middle of the film where it strays dangerously close to “remake” instead of prequel. I suppose there are only so many things you can do with a shape shifting carnivorous alien loose in an Antarctic research station.

I had a few niggles, if I’m honest. As I said, I think that more physical effects would have worked better than the CGI, and as well as the repeated story beats there are a couple of instances where the actions of the alien made no sense, such as attacking in a helicopter while in mid air, or putting the earring of an absorbed human back in the wrong ear. 

Those matters aside, this delivered everything I was hoping for in this prequel. It ties back to the 1982 film in a satisfying manner, the acting is generally of a good standard, and it’s an entertaining and gross way to spend an hour and forty minutes. 

It’s not as good as John Carpenter’s movie, but it doesn’t do a disservice to it either, and I don’t think that fans will be disappointed.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: The Thing (15) / Directed by: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. / Written by: Eric Heisserer / Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje / Released: December 2nd

I’m going to start off by saying that I consider John Carpenter’s 1982 classic to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made, and as a result, had mixed feelings when I heard about this project. On one hand, I was excited by the concept of seeing what happened in the Norwegian camp prior to the original film, but I was also worried that they were going to make a complete mess of it. 

The film starts off with a Norwegian research team coming across a signal from under the ice, that leads them to an alien spacecraft, buried for over a hundred thousand years. Soon, a team of scientists is dispatched to the site, including an American palaeontologist, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, where they exhume the frozen body of the spacecraft’s occupant with a view to dissecting it in the name of science. 

At which point, things start to go a bit wrong. Well, if they didn’t it wouldn’t be much of a horror movie, would it? The creature escapes from its icy prison and goes about absorbing various cast members and replicating them in a bid to escape to the wider world.

I have to say that most of my concerns were put to rest. The movie does a decent job at building tension and the special effects are suitably gross, if a little bit too CGI looking at times. The plot moves along at a decent pace, even if there are parts in the middle of the film where it strays dangerously close to “remake” instead of prequel. I suppose there are only so many things you can do with a shape shifting carnivorous alien loose in an Antarctic research station.

I had a few niggles, if I’m honest. As I said, I think that more physical effects would have worked better than the CGI, and as well as the repeated story beats there are a couple of instances where the actions of the alien made no sense, such as attacking in a helicopter while in mid air, or putting the earring of an absorbed human back in the wrong ear. 

Those matters aside, this delivered everything I was hoping for in this prequel. It ties back to the 1982 film in a satisfying manner, the acting is generally of a good standard, and it’s an entertaining and gross way to spend an hour and forty minutes. 

It’s not as good as John Carpenter’s movie, but it doesn’t do a disservice to it either, and I don’t think that fans will be disappointed.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: Take Shelter (15) / Directed by: Jeff Nichols / Written by: Jeff Nichols / Starring:  Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Tova Stewart / Released: Out Now

Burly Curtis LaFalce (Shannon) is a construction worker from Ohio living a simple, unassuming life with his wife Samantha (Chastain) and their deaf six year-old daughter Hannah (Stewart). The family pay their mortgage and their bills, they enjoy a beach holiday every summer. But Curtis is a troubled man; he’s plagued by nightmarish dreams of savage storms, swooping malevolent birds, rain falling like oil. When he wakes up he’s sweating and gasping for breath. Something’s not right and although Curtis suspects the first stirrings of the psychotic condition which affected his mother twenty-five years before, he opts not to seek help but prefers to act on the ‘visions’ in his dreams. Convinced that a huge, devastating storm is on its way he quietly sets about building a storm shelter out in the yard and in doing so he risks his job, his family and, ultimately, his fragile sanity.

It’s stretching a point somewhat to describe Jeff Nichols’ latest intense, brooding drama as “apocalyptic” as the world doesn’t actually end but the film exudes an atmosphere of impending doom and disaster throughout as the audience begins to wonder if Curtis is slowly going mad or if he genuinely is a visionary, a seer gazing through a window into some terrifying future. Curtis is a quiet, introverted and largely uncommunicative man; he’s an unremarkable blue collar worker, a man who can’t rationalise what’s happening to him and who focuses utterly on what he perceives to be the need to protect his wife and child from impending disaster. But in doing so Curtis becomes destructive and anti-social, turning away from those he’s trying to protect and eventually, turning even his friends and family against him because they can’t understand what’s happening and why he’s doing what he’s doing.

‘Take Shelter’ is a film about a man falling apart, realising he’s falling apart and yet still pursuing a course of action which he knows is putting at risk everything he holds dear. Curtis isn’t depicted as mad, he’s depicted as strong, determined and single-minded, a classic American family man confused and confounded by circumstances over which he has no control because they’re so far out of his sphere of experience.

This is a rich, thoughtful movie, a film which moves at its own unhurried pace. Nichols’ direction of his own screenplay is simple and unshowy – there are one or two ‘big’ visual scenes – but he generally lets his lead players carry the weight of the drama and they do it brilliantly. Shannon (soon to be seen as Zod in the latest ‘Superman’ reboot) is all brooding, simmering masculinity, a man whose actions are louder than words whereas Chastain is a wife and mother who loves her husband and adores her family and yet fears for the man she loves when it becomes clear his problems go deeper than just a few sleepless nights.

And yet, frustratingly, ‘Take Shelter’ nearly throws it all away by not knowing when to quit while it’s ahead. It looks as if Curtis might have found a sort of peace of mind and a justification for the torment he’s been going through when the town is actually hit by a fierce storm and he and his family take refuge in his shelter. A return to a sort of normality seems possible as Curtis accepts that his irrational behaviour needs to be addressed and the family trot off on holiday to try and restore the equilibrium in their lives and their relationship. And that’s really quite enough. But ‘Take Shelter’ has to go a step too far with an ending which tends to subvert everything we’ve seen these last two hours and suggests that the conclusions we’ve slowly come to regarding Curtis and his state of mind are themselves open to question and that maybe Curtis is more than just a man with an extreme mental health condition after all.

Despite scuppering itself at the last minute, ‘Take Shelter’ is still a brave and unusual piece of film-making powered by exceptionally strong performances, a stark and thoughtful script and some memorable and occasionally-disturbing imagery. It’s well worth setting time aside for in the run-up to the Christmas blockbuster season.

Expected rating: 5 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: The Dream House (15) / Directed by: Jim Sheridan/ Screenplay by: David Loucka / Starring: Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts / Release Date: Out Now

Following the disappointment of ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ and with the (unnecessary) remake of ‘Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ just around the corner and with his third Bond currently thundering into belated production, Daniel Craig’s profile’s rarely been higher. ‘The Dream House’ is in some ways a bit of a ‘marking time’ movie,  something Craig dashed off in some downtime between bigger projects. It’s undoubtedly a movie which will be remembered as the picture which brought Craig and his now-wife Rachel Weisz together (it’s hardly surprising – the chemistry between the two sizzles off the screen) which is a shame as, whilst it has some gaping plot holes and some incredible contrivances, it’s a decent enough little psychological thriller which dabbles here and there in the supernatural, if not the frankly totally unbelievable.

We’re in familiar territory at first. Writer Will Atenten (the unlikely surname is hugely relevant), his gorgeous artist wife Libby (Weisz) and their two “stinky kid” young daughters have moved to a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere and while Will writes his magnum opus the couple are also busily doing up the gaff and setting themselves up at the idyllic all-American family unit. But their new home in paradise threatens to turn sour when the couple discover that the wife and two children who lived in the house previously were slaughtered; the husband, the only suspect, was never convicted due to his mental condition. Suddenly the Atenten’s house is being stalked by a sinister stranger, unlikely punk teens are holding candlelit parties in the cellar and their neighbour’s acting a little suspiciously.

So far so good – if also so far seen all this before. Up to about the halfway point this is agreeably watchable stuff, nicely filmed and with powerful, naturalistic performances by Craig and Weisz. The twist, when it comes (and it comes sooner than you might expect), is one that M Night Shyamalan himself might have thought twice about and when it comes your eyebrows will rise and they’ll stay that way throughout the rest of the film. So while ‘The Dream House’ goes off in an entirely different direction it’s actually hard not to feel a bit disappointed that we’ve lost the warm, cosy family dynamic of the first half of the film even if our sympathies remain with Will as he struggles to come to terms with the reality of his world and the enormity of the lie he’s been living. The film lurches off the rails a bit towards the end as the story struggles to join the dots and ultimately, despite all the clumsy exposition, there’s too much left unsaid and too many unanswered questions. The hurried, fiery finale comes across as little more than an afterthought, tacked on by a studio which thought the film was a bit too drab and downbeat and needed something colourful and spectacular to round things off.

The truth is that ‘The Dream House’ had a troubled production. Director Sheridan fought to have his name taken off the credits, such was his displeasure at the final theatrical cut (some 45 minutes worth of filmed material was removed) and newly-weds Craig and Weisz gave the thumbs-down to the idea of publicising their film. It’s a pity because, despite the slightly derivative nature of the story, there are some strong performances and good ideas here, even if, in retrospect, most of them were fairly unsubtly signposted early on in the movie.

‘The Dream House’ isn’t the nightmare it’s been made out to be by sniffier critics and, with its snowy, wintry setting and slightly off-kilter atmosphere, it manages to deliver a few decent chills before it throws away its credibility.  But the knowledge that the movie’s been tampered with and disowned can only leave the impression that somewhere out there is a far better, far subtler and far more successful film which, we can only hope, might even one day see the light of day on DVD or Blu Ray.

Expected rating: 5 out of 10

Actual rating:

‘The Dream House’ is open for viewing all over the UK now.

Review: Zombie Ass – Toilet of the Dead (TBC) / Directed by: Noboru Iguchi / Written by: Noboru Iguchi, Ao Murata, Jun Tsugita / Starring: Asami, Danny, Kentaro Kishi / Release Date: Japan February 2012, UK (TBC)

Clearly one of the funniest horror/comedies I’ve seen in a long time! Japanese cult director, Noboru Iguchi, who brought us Karate Robo Zaborgar; a hilarious homage to the 60’s Japanese TV shows of Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, Space Giants and Ultraman, shows he is in his element once again.

From the opening credits where we have an assortment of beauties gyrating their behinds into the camera while eating ice cream bars to a rock and roll beat the story takes us into a group of misfit friends going on a camping trip in search of a trout containing a tape worm that makes one thin.

The characters are pretty well drawn out with the martial arts student/high school girl Megumi mourning the death of her sister, Maki; the snobby, super model wannabe, Aya; the leader of the group and her horn dog/druggy boyfriend, Tak, but it’s nerd boy Naoi who gets the laughs with his Davey Jones/Monkees hair cut and one liners.

The group finds the trout, splits it open and Maki eagerly swallows the worm-like parasite. With the sudden appearance of a feces covered zombie that attacks them, they seek refuge in a local deserted village as Maki begins to have serious bowel problems. As she runs to the local outhouse to do her business, a zombie crawls out of the toilet trying to get a bite of her derriere. It’s not just one that crawls out of the toilet, but the local villagers the group dubs, Poo Men, that pursue them. With Maki’s flatulence building up, she blasts out a giant, gaseous release from her buttocks that even includes an image of the devil himself in the cloud it’s so poisonous, thwarting off the Poo Men as the group seeks refuge for a final stand against them.

Turns out the worms in the trouts are actually alien parasites bent of taking over Earth. Its up to our heroes to stop them and they go all out, with the finale, clearly a bizarre hybrid of the ending of Aliens and an Ultraman episode between our bare breasted hottie and a giant, anal alien worm queen flatulating their way upwards to a dynamic sky battle.

Silly, sure. But, when you have a theater full of grown adults laughing and having a good time you know it’s going to be an instant cult classic. See it! It’s a gas!

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: The Last Circus (TBC) / Directed by: Alex De La Iglesia / Written by: Alex De La Iglesia / Starring: Carlos Areces, Antonio De La torre, Caroline Bang / UK Release Date: (TBC) 

Director Alex De La Iglesia has not yet had the mainstream success that has been enjoyed by his contemporaries Pedro Almodovar and Guillermo Del Toro. He is perhaps best known as the director of the underrated films Perdita Durrango and The Day of the Beast. Quite often he will get compared to Del Toro in terms of the fascination he has with the dark and grotesque but truthfully his influences seem to be more like Brian De Palma, Jean Pierre-Jeunet and perhaps Tim Burton. His latest film The Last Circus (Balada triste de trompeta) plays out very much like a Tim Burton movie, except on a really bad acid trip.

The film starts in 1937 and a rebellion in the Spanish civil war invades a circus tent and recruits the inhabitants. A happy clown turns out to be quite handy with a machete and ends up taking out an entire platoon of soldiers almost single handed whilst wearing oversized shoes. The man is placed in prison and tells his son Javier that it is his destiny to follow his father into clowning but to be a sad clown rather than a happy clown. Javier attempts to break his father out of prison but ultimately it leads to tragedy. Flash forward to the 70s and Franco’s regime in Spain is in its last days; Javier (played by Carlos Areces) now a fully fledged sad clown goes to work for a circus ruled over by their popular happy clown Sergio (Antonio de la Torre). Sergio is a drunken brute whose ego is way out of control and he frequently takes out his rage on his beautiful trapeze artist fiancé Natalia (the smoking hot Carolina Bang). When Javier arrives he sees Natalia swinging above him and is instantly smitten, this leads to him having conflicting feelings when his boss Sergio brutalises her and humiliates him as the sad clown in front of the children. Javier and Natalia strike up a friendship built on the mutual desire to escape and enjoy secret trips to funfairs whilst Sergio is asleep. Although Javier has strong feelings it’s clear that Natalia is using him to get back at Sergio, then one night having witnessed one brutal act too many, Javier snaps and attacks Sergio with a trumpet, beating him almost to death and disfiguring him in the process. Javier flees into the wilderness and starts to live as a half crazy feral being, munching on raw deer and whatever comes along. Eventually he is captured by the ruling dictatorship and subjected to more humiliation. After literally biting the hands that feeds him, Javier emerges from the wilderness as a disfigured and gun toting sad clown freedom fighter who gains infamy across Spain for his acts of terrorism. Meanwhile Sergio is trying to still be a happy clown, but having been so disfigured he frightens children and is not having much luck. Both men are still in love with Natalia who has left the circus to become a dancer and this sets them once again on a collision course.

I can safely say that whilst The Last Circus has influences it derives from, it is unlike anything you have ever seen. It’s a mixture of so many different opposing elements that it shouldn’t work and yet somehow, for the most part, it does. This won’t be everyone’s cocktail of choice though and many will resist the many switches between tone and genre. Is it a tragic romance? A horror film? A slapstick comedy? It’s all of these things and that is what makes this film so unique. Does it all work? No not really.

The problem is that the film is so concerned with being as outrageous and covering so many bases in two hours that some of the characterisation suffers as a result. We are presented with the character of Sergio and we know straight away that he could easily become an out and out monster due to the fact that he is an egotistical bastard. With Javier though we are not really given any inkling that he is capable of such violence apart from his previous family history. When he suddenly shifts into forest dwelling feral lunatic it feels like you missed about twenty minutes somewhere because it’s so sudden and nothing previously has given you an idea this was coming. Javier is brutalised and humiliated but never to the extent where you might understand why he would take a hot iron to his face.

Thankfully once this twisted origin story is dealt with the film comes together beautifully in the final thirty minutes with a lunatic cartoon style battle between the two clowns that consumes all around them and also culminates in some impressive set pieces. There are some wonderful secondary characters from the circus who are invested in the conflict and are each given their moment to shine. Especially a motorcycle stuntman who has his own little arc which pays off impressively at the end.

Out of the performers in the film the ones that stand out are Antonio de la Torre as Sergio, a really menacing and evil character given a sharp, strong core by the actor who may well one day follow Javier Bardem into international stardom. Also Carolina Bang is a revelation; first she is striking looking and has one of those great visual introductions which they used to do so well with actresses. She imbues Natalia with a damaged grace and fragility that makes you really care for her.

At the moment The Last Circus doesn’t have UK distribution. When it eventually does pick up a deal you would do well to seek it out. It’s certainly well off the beaten path and original in terms of its story and for this alone deserves to be seen.

Expected rating: 10 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: Resistance (PG) / Directed by: Amit Gupta / Written by: Owen Sheers, Amit Gupta / Starring: Michael Sheen, Andrea Riseborough, Iwan Rheon, Kimberley Nixon, Stanislav Ianevski / Release Date: 25/11/11

Alternate history has long been a staple of genre cinema. Most famously in literature it has been represented by Robert A.Heinlein’s 1941 novel Elsewhen and Philip K.Dick novel The Man in the High Castle which depicted a world in which Japan and Germany won the second world war. There has been something of a boom since the 90s with a whole myriad of ‘steampunk’ literature depicting fantasy worlds where steam is the power of choice over electricity. The sub genre has been represented in film with the little seen Fatherland from 1994, most recently in Inglourious Basterds, and faux documentary The Confederate States of America. Resistance is based on the novel by Owen Sheers and depicts a world where D-Day has failed and Nazi Germany is invading England. This story is less concerned with flash bangs and pyrotechnics and instead focusses on character and emotion, and in this respect it works really well.

The film begins with Sarah Lewis (Andrea Riseborough) awaking in her farm house in an isolated Welsh valley to find her husband has gone. All men have vanished from this small farming community as they have, overnight, gone off to join the resistance. We see the evidence of a small resistance movement building, and a local man is tasked with providing information via a drop point under a bridge. Through radio broadcasts we learn that there are major battles going on in cities like Birmingham, Manchester and London. From here we follow Sarah and Maggie (Sharon Morgan) as they await the arrival of a small squadron of Germans who are tasked with searching for an old artefact by the SS. The Germans eventually show up lead by Captain Albrecht Wolfram (Tom Wlaschiha) and make themselves at home in the valley. The women initially resist their offers of companionship and camaraderie, Captain Albrecht however finds himself drawn to Sarah who is increasingly heart broken and distant over her missing husband.

If you do not go into Resistance expecting bullets to fly all over the place and limbs being blown off Saving Private Ryan style then there is much here to admire. The story poses some interesting questions that often get lost in higher budget movies that are more concerned with explosions and death. Specifically when do you stop resisting the new regime and start getting along just to survive? Are women, who have essentially been abandoned by their husbands, collaborators because they have no other means of living? These are interesting questions that must have been asked many times the world over in countries with less stable histories. By transposing the story to a theoretical scenario in a quiet community in Wales, it brings the horror of the situation home and makes it more identifiable. One of the great things about this story is the fact that the Germans in the film are not portrayed as monsters taking great joy in doing great evil. The men are essentially portrayed as human beings, vulnerable and as scared as everyone else and tasked to do something they may not agree with but happens to be their job. Further food for thought is provided when the German forces behave with nothing but dignity and kindness and the resistance that there is left behave in an almost despicable and vindictive fashion.

The film is anchored by a trio of terrific performances. Andrea Riseborough who was so impressive in Brighton Rock, plays a woman who is always on the verge of collapsing to her knees in hopeless despair and manages to convey an awful lot just through the look in her eyes. This actress will definitely go a long way and I look forward to what she gets involved with next. Sharon Morgan is not an actress whose work I am familiar with but here she plays almost an older version of Riseborough’s character and does a stellar job. Being the oldest of the women left behind she is seen as the matriarchal figure and clearly is just as troubled as the rest of them by the new occupation. There is a moment when Morgan has to portray an absolute sense of loss and grief and does so magnificently and with incredible ease. Lastly the German actor Tom Wlaschiha certainly looks the part, he has the same appearance that many of the Nazi’s from the Indiana Jones movies have, a kind of steely icy resolve, but manages to invest Captain Wolfram with a warmth and humanity that is entirely absent from most cinematic portrayals of Nazis. There are some brilliant scenes of Captain Wolfram with his men, who are all scared and homesick, and Wolfram has to keep up morale and somehow not betray his command due to his growing feeling for Sarah. It’s a credit to director Amit Gupta that he manages to keep all of these performances balanced and reined in just enough so that it doesn’t slide into histrionics.

The problems with Resistance and what holds it back from being a great movie are specifically two things. The first thing is, essentially apart from the thought provoking story, it does not seem like it amounts to a hell of a lot. It sort of just hangs around with a generally dour feeling to it without ever truly thrilling either through the narrative or any kind of set piece. We learn that there is a major war going on across the rest of the UK through radio broadcasts. A couple of scenes depicting this would have gone some way to addressing the feeling that there isn’t much at stake. Another issue is something that should have been a major strength – I don’t know what it was shot on, and it may have just been the screen I saw it on, but Resistance is an ugly looking film. Every frame has a washed out look to it and most of the film seemed to be quite blurry. Considering that Wales is very beautiful and you can tell the locations were picturesque it’s a shame that somehow they were not able to capture that and give the film more of an epic sweep that is sorely missing.

Resistance likely won’t change your life, but for the short running time it’s entertaining enough and nice change of pace from the norm. Sadly its flaws are all too glaring and you can’t shake the feeling this was a missed opportunity.

Predicted rating: 8 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: Bellflower (TBC) / Directed by: Evan Glodell / Screenplay by: Evan Glodell / Starring: Evan Glodell, Tyler Dawson, Jessie Wiseman, Rebekah Brandes / Release Date: TBC

American independent cinema is back! After the success of films like The Woman, Red White and Blue and Super it feels like 2011 has seen the shot in the arm that the low budget indie scene needed. Bellflower is the latest in a brilliant run of low budget gems and is a snarling, angry and fiercely original thrill ride. It’s a hell of a debut from writer/director/actor Evan Glodell and is one of the most assured directorial debuts of the last ten years.

Starting with a quote from Mad Max 2 character Lord Humungous, the film follows the exploits of two best friends and geeks Woodrow and Aiden (played by Evan Glodell and Tyler Dawson) who, from an early age, have both been obsessed with the Mad Max films. They are so obsessed that they have planned out that once the apocalypse happens they will form a gang called ‘Mother Medusa’ and rule the wasteland. Even going to the extent that they have built homemade flamethrowers and are on the look out for a muscle car which they can turn into their apocalypse wagon. All is well in their world such as it is, but then one night they go to a bar and meet Milly (Jessie Wiseman) and Courtney (Rebekah Brandes) and there is an instant attraction between Milly and Woodrow. The two of them embark on a whirlwind romance and disappear on a road trip to Texas for a few days. Woodrow is smitten but Milly is non committal and secretive. Aiden is left out in the cold for a bit as he hopelessly tries to woo Courtney. Some time goes by and Woodrow catches Milly cheating on him, heartbroken he flees the scene and ends up in a crash. Once discharged from hospital and with a possible brain injury he starts having revenge fantasies about getting his own back on Milly and begins a fling with Courtney. All the while Aiden is there beside him, still keen on them being the lone survivors of the apocalypse. What happens is kind of a love triangle with each character exposing more and more of their layers of hurt and how far they will go to share their heartbreak with the world.

Bellflower is visually striking considering it was made for only $17,000. The early scenes are shot through a lens filter that lends the whole thing the feel of a summer holiday romance. Adding to this is the fact that in each frame quite often some of it is intentionally out of focus, with only what matters in the scene actually in focus. This again makes the first act feel like it is a memory being recalled by a somewhat unreliable narrator. As the film goes on and things get more and more messed up and complicated for our characters, dirt is smeared and thrown on to the camera and it feels like the happy memory has been invaded by the scars carried by the characters. It’s a wonderful effect and really makes Bellflower stand out from the crowd. Equally as impressive is the fact that Evan Glodell wrote, directed and stars in this thing as well as actually building the flamethrowers and flame throwing muscle cars that are a major point of the film. Bellflower also has one of the best soundtracks of the year, along with The Woman and Drive it is a great example of when a soundtrack is used as almost another character in the film and builds an overall feeling.

The screenplay and strength of the character building are key to this film’s success and a reason why, when the final act goes into full on overdrive, it really works. Evan Glodell as Woodrow is fantastic, as gifted in front of the camera as he is behind it. Woodrow starts off very shy and completely charming but Milly really brings his personality out and their romance is really well handled. You can genuinely see why the two characters would be attracted to each other and their scenes on their road trip really work to get across the idea that this was a defining point in their lives. Glodell is great as a romantic lead but there is also another side to him which is extremely violent and brutal. As soon as Aiden is threatened or his heart is in jeopardy, Woodrow will think nothing of putting a bottle over the head of the attacker and Glodell handles both sides of the character flawlessly. Jessie Wiseman as Milly is just as good and perhaps just as damaged. Everybody has met this character at one point in their lives, the lively hard drinking girl who is just out for some fun. Of course the problems come when you imbue this person with a romanticism that just isn’t there and put them on a pedestal because you will almost always be disappointed. Wiseman plays this role to perfection and you grow to really like her so when the inevitable betrayal scene happens you feel just as disappointed as the characters in the film. Later scenes with her cracking under the pressure of the jealousy and pain that makes up the final act are brilliant and prove this actress is a major find. Tyler Dawson is also very good as Aiden, this is the character that initially you think is going to be the one to crack first and go on a rampage and Glodell has a lot of fun in playing with this, flipping the expectations on their head. Rebekah Brandes is also impressive as Courtney, perhaps the most damaged of all of them and showing an inner pain and constant sense of low self esteem with simple dialogue and little character moments. There is a real sense of confusion and pain in Bellflower, much like films Reality Bites and Clerks conveyed the sense of aimlessness that generation X felt in the 90s, Bellflower feels like a cry for help from the trenches of generation Y who have even less to live for and have grown numb to it. The bleak message seems to be that no matter what, your best moment will eventually turn out to be built on lies so you may as well prepare for it to all come crashing down, so why not live for anarchy? Modern life doesn’t seem to be working out too well.

The final act is where the structure all comes crashing down around you. The good performances and character work that has been built in the first half leads to a growing feel of unease and tension that definitely had me on the edge of my seat. People say and do awful things as a means of dealing with their pain and each act leads to a more visceral and painful reaction from these damaged people. Much of this is presented as subjective in a similar manner to the climax of Darren Aronofsky’s debut film Pi. You can definitely interpret what unfolds in your own way or you can go with what is presented to you. Glodell doesn’t give you any easy answers and through clever editing and little details he invites you to make up your own mind about what really went down.

Bellflower is a fantastic debut from a promising new talent. I am so anxious to see what else Evan Glodell can do that I wish I had some money to give him to just go make something else. In time this may well prove to be as big a representative generational film as Saturday Night Fever, Trainspotting, Donnie Darko or Fight Club.

Expected rating: 7 out of 10

Actual rating:

 

Review: The Awakening (15) / Directed by: Nick Murphy / Screenplay by: Nick Murphy, Stephen Volk / Starring: Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, Shaun Dooley, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Lucy Cohu

No-one’s able to tell a good, old-fashioned spine-tingling ghost story any more. Where are the new stories about shadowy half-seen figures, something moving in the corner of your eye, inexplicable sounds carried on a breeze in the night? Gone forever, you might think, in these days of explicit gore and body horror, where no throat is left unslashed and queasy torture porn’s the name of the game. ‘The Awakening’, from director Nick Murphy and co-writer Stephen Volk (who terrified a generation back in 1991 with the extraordinary and controversial BBC pseudo-drama ‘Ghostwatch’ and impressed more recently with ITV’s underrated ‘Afterlife’ supernatural drama) is a compelling and atmospheric antidote to all that pumping claret and cheesy screaming. It’s  a generally-triumphant return to the sort of eerie, wintry, fireside tale of ghostly doings once popularised by the likes of M.R. James. Brrrrr….

It’s 1921 and Britain is still shivering from the after-effects of the Great War. In London the slightly-stuffy  Florence Cathcart (Hall) is waging her own war, this time against chancers and fraudsters out to make a quick buck from the recently-bereaved at fake séances. But even she is intrigued by an invite from Robert Mallory (West), history teacher (and war invalid) at a bleak and remote Cumbrian boarding school blighted by a ghost whose presence, it’s suggested, has recently caused the death of a young pupil. Florence sets off to debunk this myth and at first it looks as if she does her job with her typical flair when she finds a rational explanation in the form of one particularly terrified and lonely boy who just wanted to make friends (awww!!) but, as the school empties for the half-term holiday, Florence finds herself alone with just Mallory, the school’s Matron (Staunton) and an odd little boy called Tom (Hempstead-Wright) for company in the big, draughty, rather grubby old school. Florence is tempted to return to London but there’s something about the school which won’t quite let her go just yet…

A co-production with BBC Films, ‘The Awakening’ just oozes class and period detail and the film looks absolutely stunning (courtesy of Director of Photography Edward Grau). It does, however, look a bit like a TV production – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing – and many of its themes and images recall the BBC’s own adaptation of ‘The Turning of the Screw’ screened at Christmas a couple of years ago. In fact, ‘The Awakening’ would sit pretty well in the BBC’s post-turkey schedule as, one tame sex scene aside, there’s nothing here likely to disturb or terrify. It does, however, manage to send the odd shiver spinewards as it reacquaints us with many old ghost story tropes; the hazy figure in the photograph, the creepy doll’s house, the creaking door; here even something as simple as a ball rolling lazily down a flight of stairs is capable of raising a goosebump or two.

‘The Awakening’ does a good job of setting up its mystery and establishing its supernatural credentials but the film almost falls apart in the last act as the ultimate explanation and rationale relies on such an enormous and fanciful plot twist (involving a major character’s beyond-unlikely loss of memory) that it requires a suspension of disbelief which would itself be supernatural to really make it work. Add to this a few plot holes and unexplained plot points (who can and can’t see our ghost exactly – and why?) and we’ve got a film which seems to think that just being old-fashioned will do the trick when it really needed a script with a bit more subtlety and clarity. Full marks, though, for a double-bluff ending which will lead you in one direction before taking you in another, the one you probably didn’t see coming.

Despite its frustrating flaws, ‘The Awakening’ is a refreshing change of pace for horror cinema, a welcome return to core values. Hall, perfect as the sniffy, repressed Cathcart, is well-supported by the ever-impressive West and always-reliable Staunton and while the film will remind you of ‘The Others’ and ‘The Orphanage’ in places even if it probably won’t be as memorable as either, it’s a taut and intelligent horror thriller in its own right and a reminder to less-subtle filmmakers that you don’t always needs gallons of blood, grisly mutilations and decapitations to put the frighteners on an audience.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

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‘The Awakening’ is manifesting itself in cinemas in the UK now.

Review: Immortals (15) / Directed by: Tarsem Singh / Written by: Charley Parlapanides, Vlas Parlapanides / Starring: Henry Cavill, Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff, Frieda Pinto, John Hurt

Immortals is only Tarsem Singh’s third feature and it’s easy to dismiss him as an incredible visualist who fails to command story or keep hold of narrative, let alone deliver nuance and drama to proceedings. This graphic novel-style fantasy comes across as a sort of heavy metal Flash Gordon directed by somebody with encyclopaedic knowledge of art history.

His debut, The Cell, was a surrealist slice of hokum and the same can be said here. Only The Fall appears to have been touched by a fleeting greatness. Perhaps since it’s a remake of an obscure Bulgarian picture from the 1980s, Tarsem was on safer ground than usual.

Immortals places itself (loosely) within the aesthetic world of Zack Snyder’s 300, which is really like a spiritual cousin, and wraps itself around Greek mythology rather than ancient history. However this is less ‘clash of the titans’ and more meshing of art periods.

Theseus (Henry Cavill) teams up with oracle Phaedra (Frieda Pinto) and a band of rogues to find a mystical bow and arrow. King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) is also after said items in order to unleash the titans trapped inside a prison which lies inside a mountain. Zeus (Luke Evans) believes Theseus can stop the evil king from destroying the world, but that doesn’t stop Poisedon (Kellan Lutz) and Athena (Isabel Lucas) from meddling in affairs.

What causes problems for Immortals is lack of emotional depth and the story is perfunctory at best. Yes, even though it’s a fantasy film connection and resonance is needed for a movie to ultimately succeed. Here we’ve only the imagery to savour. This was always the concern with Immortals and initial fears prove correct. Therefore despite having some truly breathtaking compositions and tableaux on display it’s devoid of life.

The director described his approach as ‘electric Caravaggio’ and to this we can add S&M leather gear, Giotto-like religious compositions, Max Ernst style landscapes and costumes by Oscar-winning designer Eiko Ishioka (who has done sterling work in all of Tarsem’s films). One of Frieda Pinto’s dresses recalls Ernst’s the Disrobing of the Bride painting. It always treads a fine line between gorgeous and empty with the latter winning out on final consideration. 

The action scenes are shot well and employ slow motion for extra bone-crunching effect. The 3D is like all 3D in this current crop – totally unnecessary.

Cavill’s performance is rather bland and Tarsem’s handling of archetypes is certainly not archetypal. Mickey Rourke looks to be having fun riffing off Marlon Brando’s ponderous turn in Apocalypse Now. There’s even a scene of him rambling, cast in a half light, just in case you don’t get where the actor’s coming from. Quite why Tarsem and Rourke thought such open homage was the way to go rather than create a fresh character is very weak creatively.

The best compliment one can give Immortals is to say it’s much better than Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans remake. Still that feels like a back-handed jibe. This is a curious work in all. Definitely not the sum of its parts but the costume designs and even the cinematography could well be up for a few awards early next year.

But if Tarsem is to truly succeed as a director he needs to get a much better handle on narrative and not rely so much on providing admittedly incredible mise-en-scène. For him, that’s shooting fish in a barrel.

Of course we can also argue cinema is more than narrative but he’s working in the mainstream Hollywood milieu, which although he can struggle with the concept of storytelling and get lost in MTV aesthetics and the tyranny of special effects, Tarsem needs to shape up if anybody is going to give a damn about his films.

Only for the briefest of moments does Immortals ever come alive. It’s not a chore to sit through but you’ll find yourself wanting more engagement than staring at pretty pictures and epic, CG battles and vistas. One can revel in Ishioka’s superb costumes and appreciate the production design – as one would do in art gallery – but there’s something missing here. Alas, the final shot is absolutely magnificent.

Expected rating: 8 out of 10

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‘The Immortals’ hits cinemas November 11th