Review: War of the Dead (TBC) / Directed by: Marko Makilaakso / Written by: Barr B. Potter / Starring: Andrew Tiernan, Mikko Leppilampi, Samuel Vauramo / Release Date: TBC

This troubled movie originally premiered at Cannes in 2008 then quickly vanished, the negative remaining locked up due to financial problems ever since. We recently had the opportunity to view the film at a screening in Los Angeles, which hints that the film may now eventually see the light of day on DVD…

Filmed primarily with an English speaking Finnish cast, the story takes place during the Finn/Russian war of 1941-42; a subject matter very few people know about. Captain Niemi (Jouko Ahola) & Lieutenant Laasko (Mikko Leppilampi) and their men team up with an American unit led by Captain Martin Stone (Andrew Tieman) to destroy a Russian occupied bunker.

Taking refuge in a local house owned by an elderly scientist, one of the Finn soldiers purloins a clockwork type device (secretly invented by him for the Nazis to bring the dead back to life) not knowing what’s its true, sinister purpose is. After a fierce firefight with Russian soldiers where Finns, Russians and Americans are killed and are soon brought back to life where they are viciously stalked by the living dead soldiers with no allegiance to any side. Putting aside their differences, what’s left of the three groups band together and with the help of the scientist’s daughter, Desha (Magdalena Gorska), try to stop what they’ve started.

It’s a confusing story with far too much going on to make any sense. Writers Makilaakso and Barr D. Potter seemed to dream up a bunch of ideas while playing Castle Wolfenstein for the umpteenth time, combined them with bits of Alex Proyas’ Dark City then threw them in a blender, whipped it up and poured out the script.

The acting is pretty bland with delivery of lines no better than actors in a high school play. Tieman wears a single expression throughout the movie as if his face was filled with Novocain. You really know nothing about the soldiers or their plight to care enough what happens to them. They play out like characters in a video game that are quickly expendable. The only recognizable name was washed up, 80’s martial arts actor Oliver Gruner billed as a Russian soldier whose on screen appearance is more that of an extra role. 

Action sequences are also weak – even watching Roger Corman’s Ski Troop Attack is better than this movie and he combined stock footage with scenes he shot in the snow covered South Dakota Mountains in two weeks!

War of the Dead wasn’t a good idea on paper and nor does it work on film. Avoid.

Expected rating: 7 out of 10

Actual rating: 

Review: Saint Dracula 3D (TBC) / Directed by: Rupesh Paul / Written by: Rupesh Paul / Starring: Mitch Powell, Patricia Duarte, Daniel Shayler, Suzanne Roche / Release Date: TBC

Written and directed by Rupesh Paul based on his novel, this version of Dracula is set in modern day and depicts a tortured Dracula, Prince of Wallachia, losing his one love. Alone, he takes to wandering the night and hiding by day from those that want to destroy him for the past 150 years.

Yet Dracula gets a second chance at love (as indeed he should!) in Clara, a woman he sees wandering the abandoned castle grounds. Problem is – she’s a nun. Maybe regaining love will mellow him out a bit, but then again, there’s always those pesky villagers that just want to rain on ol’ Drac’s parade. Bastards.

Clara passionately falls in love with Dracula who’s torn between who he is and making her immortal with his bite. Clara’s torn between her vows and her duty to the Catholic Church. To make matters worse, the Vatican decides to use Clara as bait to set a trap for Dracula ending his reign of terror once and for all. I’ve been in love before, but it’s never been this complicated!

Mitch Powell as Dracula turns in a good performance as well as Brazilian beauty Patricia Duarte as Clara. The rest of the cast is rounded out with solid performances. Rupesh Paul’s use of relatively unknown actors from the UK and the States helps the believability of the story.

Beautifully shot in and around the English countryside, Saint Dracula weaves a solid tale of love lost and regained between two tortured souls in a gothic, horror romance story that works on all accounts.

Expected rating: 5 out of 10

Actual rating:

For more information visit www.saintdracula3d.com

Review: Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol (12A) / Directed by: Brad Bird / Starring: Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner / Release date: December 26th

Ethan Hunt is in a trap: a thoroughly cinematic one. When the Mission: Impossible series launched in 1996 007 had just made a stunning comeback the year earlier in GoldenEye and the likes of Arnie and Stallone’s brand of blockbuster was dying out. Jason Bourne, Robert Ludlum’s amnesiac assassin, was yet to get the film treatment and effectively force the re-calibration of the whole action/spy genre. IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, never really the strongest or compelling figure, has been wedged somewhere in between these mighty pillars and suffered a little bit. Bond is Bond, Bourne is a highly paranoid man on a mission and Hunt is incredibly bland.

Brian De Palma’s audacious opener had its action-packed moments, but deep down it was a high-tech spy thriller. By Mission: Impossible II the series, essentially, became bang-for-your-buck actioners without much thought gone into characterisation. These films are perhaps more about Tom Cruise’s ego and desire to have his action-man cake and eat it. He’s always been a great character actor wanting to play superstar. We’ve only encouraged him by providing our hard earned money at the box office. The return, we might say, has been mixed.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, the fourth instalment in the franchise, received a major shot in the arm thanks to J.J. Abrams’ crazy third entry, which thankfully banished all memories of John Woo’s dud sequel. Hunt was back in the spying game proper with a new team and some superb action sequences. More importantly it felt, at least in spirit, like what we expect from something called Mission: Impossible.

Tom Cruise and returning producer Abrams hired award-winning animation filmmaker Brad Bird to oversee Ghost Protocol and it has proved a smart move. Bird opted out of using 3D and chose to shoot over thirty minutes worth of scenes in the IMAX format.

The opening helicopter shot over Budapest may well induce nausea and the whole Dubai tower sequence is easily one of the best examples of stunt work for ages. That Cruise actually did a lot of hair-raising stunts himself is commendable. It’s a sequence that manages to be tense and funny.

The story kicks off with IMF point man Ethan Hunt languishing in a Moscow jailhouse. He’s rescued by fellow agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg). Hunt refuses to leave the prison until he’s rescued a guy named Sergei, who turns out to be used in the third act as an awfully convenient plot device. The opening scene however paves the way for an ace ‘light the fuse’ moment which then bursts into a thunderous credit sequence accompanied by the iconic theme tune. It is things like this that really deliver those movie thrills.

The major problem with Ghost Protocol, apart from the egregious product placement, is the sub-Bondean narrative. Michael Nyvist plays a nuclear scientist who truly believes the world needs to experience nuclear annihilation in order to realise what a danger it is. That’s all the story there is bar a poorly realised subplot involving Hunt and new boy William Brandt (Jeremy Renner).

What saves the entire film is Brad Bird’s assured direction and Jeremy Renner’s mystery man character. Who is Brandt and can he be trusted? Renner plays him as an initially scared corporate suit but gets to join in the fun and unleash his deadly skills in the third act. He’s also funny and plays well off Simon Pegg’s geeky tech man.

The use of handheld camera work in early scenes gives the movie an immediacy and quite unexpected frisson given the glossy sheen of the Hollywood action flick. Mixed in with this are sleek tracking shots, IMAX sequences, gorgeously framed compositions, massive special effects and taut editing. Given his background in animation there is a rather sly cartoon-like feel which serves rather than deters from the overall hugely enjoyable experience that is Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

Hunt, however, is a colossal bore and one of the least thought out characters in any action series. The attempt to give the man a back story and introduce a wife in the third film was at least an attempt to address this, but there’s a very clunky coda here which feels little more than a poor attempt to add depth to a pretty soulless sort.

Expected rating: 7 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: Superheroes (TBC) / Directed by: Michael Barnett / Starring: Mr. Xtreme, Zimmer, Master Legend, Life, Apocalypse Meow / Release date: (TBC)

It’s dark, it’s late and your loved ones are asleep. Can you doze off? No. The city needs you. Crime, corruption and danger remain unchecked. You pull on your outfit, finishing with the mask. It feels so good, doesn’t it? Stepping out of your front door, you are no longer a mere citizen – you are a superhero!

Surely everyone has dreamed of being a superhero at some point? Most of us, however, don’t actually do it. Superheroes is a documentary that follows a few of America’s real heroes as they go about their daily routines. We meet Master Legend, one of the longest serving superheroes. He is well-known in the area, but relies on perhaps a few too many beers to feed his super-thirst when on his rounds. There is Mr. Xtreme, who is in the process of moving out – to live in his van. This is so that he doesn’t put any of his family at risk. He is also currently the only member of the ‘Xtreme Justice League’. We meet a group of superheroes in Brooklyn who ‘bait’ criminals – a dangerous and legally awkward past-time.

It would be, of course, very easy to produce a documentary that simply makes fun of these individuals. To a certain extent, Superheroes does. Thankfully, however, there is more to it.

The focus shifts slightly in the second half to the various things that these superheroes actually achieve – which is far more than simply fighting crime. They go out of their way to speak to the homeless, and hand out packs which include water, socks, sanitiser and other useful items. They work on community ventures, and use their superhero personas to help publicise these acts. Real good is achieved, and the world is certainly a better place for all their hard work.

It also becomes clear throughout the film that nearly every superhero involved has, at some point, been a victim or deeply affected by violent crime. This isn’t just a game, but a serious reaction to life-changing events.

While I have no desire to dress as a superhero, I did leave the cinema wanting to do a little more good in the world. That, surely, is a sign that some of the passion of Mr. Xtreme and his cohorts is successfully carried through the film. Don’t worry about the mask, just make the world a better place.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: Another Earth (12A) / Director: Mike Cahill / Screenplay by: Mike Cahill, Britt Marling / Starring: Britt Marling, William Mapother, Matthew lee-Erlbach / Release Date: Out Now

Talk about bad timing. Promising young student Rhoda Williams (Marling) is out at night drinking whilst drunk and is, not surprisingly, a bit distracted when a mirror-image planet Earth suddenly appears in the sky.

So startled is Rhoda that she loses control of the car and she ploughs into another vehicle, killing two of the occupants. Rhoda is jailed for four years and the accident survivor, music professor John Burroughs (Mapother), is left comatose, his pregnant wife and son dead. Emerging from prison an introverted, nervy changed woman, Rhoda wants to slink into the shadows and she takes a mundane job as a cleaner at the local school. But a chance close encounter with the grieving Burroughs persuades Rhoda to at least try to make amends for the devastation she’s wrought but her attempts are fraught with complications when she finds herself posing as a domestic cleaner, unable to tell Burroughs the truth. As her presence in his life starts to ease the professor out of his despair, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity forces Rhoda to confront herself and her past head-on and she has some life-changing decisions to make.

It might not sound like it, but there’s a big, solid sci-fi concept throbbing away at the heart of ‘Another Earth’ and while it’s only explored in the broadest and most allegorical of manners (the film’s not concerned with what would be the  physical effects of such close proximity with a planet the same size as our own or the psychological consequences for humanity of Earth 2’s discovery) it informs every frame of this moody, melancholic and proudly lo-fi indie movie. To all intents and purposes this is a two-hander, two characters both devastated by the same tragedy, two characters still trying to understand and make sense of what’s happened years after the event. But where Rhoda at least has a shot at redemption and the chance of a new life – albeit a rather less starry one than she might have been expecting as an MIT student – John Burroughs has lost everything, even the will to live, and he’s become a grubby, listless recluse when Rhoda inveigles her way into his life and slowly but surely starts to turn him around. In the background there’s constant media chatter about Earth 2 – what will it be like? How can we communicate with it? The film doesn’t explain why it’s taken four years to make contact with the planet – when it’s made it’s through a simple radio transmission where the mirror-image nature of the planet and its occupants is revealed – and the conceit of a competition where the prize is a seat on a shuttle to the new planet seems a bit unlikely when no-one has any real idea what the planet’s actually like. But ‘Another Earth’ isn’t hugely bothered with such relative inconsequentialities; the film needs Rhoda to become obsessed with Earth 2 because of what it’s done to her, it needs her to want to leave her world behind and travel to another one, particularly when she realises, on watching a late-night TV broadcast, that Earth 2, identical as it may be, might possibly offer a ’road not travelled’ alternative.

Like last month’s ’Take Shelter’, this is a raw and intelligent indie movie which takes some big ideas and grounds them in a four-square real world populated not with super-heroes in tights but with ordinary folk trying to deal with something extraordinary. The script is tight and economic, the performances from both Marling, a strikingly-attractive girl and a name to watch – wait till Hollywood gets its hands on her – and Mapother are spectacularly persuasive and compelling. The jagged, handheld cinematography gives the film a bold and sometimes uncomfortable intimacy and the simple visual image of the duplicate Earth hanging in the sky gazing balefully down upon its twin is effortlessly effective. It’s not often this reviewer’s neck-hairs are forced to stand to attention but there’s a sequence in ‘Another Earth’ where Burroughs takes Rhoda to a small concert hall and performs a beautiful and haunting piece of music with a most unusual instrument which will remain with me for some time.

Refreshingly simple and honest as it handles big emotional and fantastical subjects, ‘Another Earth’ is an enchanting and rewarding little movie, another win for the indie sector as the big studios go round and round in circles obsessed with remaking and rebooting and squeezing every last penny from even the most exhausted of franchises. ‘Another Earth’ is a movie to cherish.

Expected rating: 6 out of 10

Actual rating:

Review: Hugo (U) / Directed by: Martin Scorsese / Written by: John Logan, Brian Selznick / Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Lee, Ben Kingsley, Jude Law / Released: December 2nd

Martin Scorsese is reflective in his latest film, it hails back to an era where children enjoyed reading books and were inspired by the movies. It is a romantic look at the past and at the films of George Méliès. Based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick and influenced by Scorsese’s love for early cinema this is an entertaining and educational film for all the family.

Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives in the walls of a 1930s Paris train station keeping the centrepiece clock ticking and living an isolated existence, until he meets a young girl called Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) and they embark on an adventure of discovery together. The world that Scorsese has created is rich in tone, steam filled and dusty. Clockwork is like magic, orphans are rife and the fantastical cinema of Méliès is no longer in demand after The Great War. You can see every thread of the authentically recreated clothing and the actors have this lavish golden sheen to their skin; the 3D is utilised well and it enhances the surroundings.

The story is slowly presented as each character is introduced; Hugo wanders around the bustling train station coming across a toyshop owner (Sir Ben Kingsley) who questions Hugo’s ownership of a handwritten manual on how to work an automaton. He is then chased across the enchanting set (thanks to the expert eye of production designer Dante Ferretti) by the lean turquoise clad station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) who he manages to escape from through a steamy vista. The scene is set wonderfully. Hugo’s solitude in the busiest of places is used to move the supporting characters’ stories along as he watches their interaction on the concourse of the train station. A love story between the station inspector and a flower girl (Emily Mortimer) is seen through the eyes of a child and presented to the viewer from this detached but charming vantage point.

Christopher Lee joins the story as bookshop owner, Monsieur Labisse, who dotes on Isabelle and warms to Hugo. The bookshop is again, rich in appearance, books piled up high creating a hiding place for the children to get lost in their imaginations and to begin their voyage of discovery. Scorsese also uses the cinema as a refuge when Hugo and Isabelle sneak their way into a theatre to catch a glimpse of the moving picture. Both these locations are portrayed as special, magical places to be and the cautious mood as they (GASP!) hold hands is a lovely nod to a bygone era.

Asa Butterfield’s performance starts off a little creaky but as soon as he is joined by Moretz his acting gets more assured. Moretz is lovely to watch as Isabelle, with her eagerness for adventure and her affection for vocabulary. The interaction between the two and their enthusiasm lifts the film into adventure territory as they lay the foundations of their relationship. Hugo is a nab hand at fixing clockwork mechanisms, and his fondness for an automaton that is the last link to his late father (Jude Law) is extraordinarily fascinating to look at. The automaton is incredibly creepy; its blank expression on a metal canvas is quite disturbing. The casing hides an intricate clockwork interior that comes alive to unlock the secret surrounding its existence.

The first part of the film revolves around the inventive clockwork world that Hugo inhabits, whereas the second half takes the viewer to even more surreal surroundings from the films of Méliès, lovingly recreated by Scorsese. Méliès’ science fiction film A Trip to the Moon, where a spaceship hits the moon in the eye, is brought to the big screen and will delight cineastes and perhaps trigger some interest with those not familiar with his work. Méliès story is a sad one, his work was neglected, he went bankrupt and many of his films were melted down to make boot heels. A pioneer such as Méliès deserves to have his films honoured and Scorsese is the man for the job.

Is it indulgent? Yes. But it is worthy subject matter and Scorsese’s passionate message about the importance of film preservation and his attachment to the films of George Méliès is exquisitely illuminated on screen. He is passing his knowledge onto the next generation and does so extremely well in this finely crafted piece of homage. Nostalgic, heart-warming and beautiful to watch, this is a thoughtful and impressive piece of cinema with a great message at its core.

Expected rating: 7 out of 10

Actual rating:

Related reads: Hugo Press Conference

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.