Review Category: VOD

DOCTOR JEKYLL

The first film to be released under the new Hammer Productions mantle is an update of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson story starring comedian Eddie Izzard in the dual role. Those groaning that this will be another gender-flipped take on the story in the vein of the studio’s ‘70s movie Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde will soon have those accusations quashed, however.

Izzard plays Nina Jekyll, head of a big pharma company, who has become a recluse following accusations of abusive behaviour. Rob (Scott Chambers), recently released from prison, takes a job as a helper at Jekyll’s sprawling mansion. He’s desperate to turn his life around to see his sick daughter, who was born while he was inside. Over the course of a few nights, he notices swings in Nina’s temperament. Unfortunately for Rob, his junkie ex has learnt of his wealthy employer and suggests a robbery…

Director Joe Stephenson and writer Dan Kelly-Mulhern take a different approach to Stevenson’s classic tale, with Jekyll’s meds keeping the sinister Rachel Hyde at bay. Izzard manages to infuse the latter with a brooding menace without the need for monstrous makeup, but both sides of the character are compelling viewing. The changes are subtle and very effective. Chambers plays a more comedic, naïve underdog whose heart is in the right place, although he’s been led astray with bad decisions.

Doctor Jekyll works well as a psychological thriller with great characterisations but features a few too many forced jump scares, which jolt from the mood rather than add to it. Interestingly, one of the major changes in the finished film from the version seen at FrightFest brings up a major flaw. In the opening set-up, we’re shown a newspaper headline revealing that Nina is trans, which wasn’t in the preview version. This becomes troublesome when we see a flashback of young Nina with her grandfather, Henry Jekyll. Of course, it could be a projection of how Nina saw herself, but the addition of that bit of information feels forced and unnecessary as Izzard’s portrayal is so mesmerising it’s really redundant.

While the film wasn’t originally made under the Hammer banner, it’s a good picture for the company to make its official comeback under the new management. Doctor Jekyll is lower-key than one would expect but works all the better because of that.

DOCTOR JEKYLL is out now on digital platforms in the UK.

THE LIST (LA LISTA)

Before its impact was diluted by repetitive sequels, and an unnecessary two-season TV series, The Purge impressed as a thrilling execution of an inspired idea. The horrifying concept of a single night of the year when all crimes could be committed without fear of prosecution drove the plot of an edgy and violent neighbourhood siege flick. The politics of The Purge were left open to interpretation, but it was difficult to ignore the contrast between the lives of the privileged and those of the marginalised on which the film’s morality pivoted. Paraguayan-Argentine vengeance thriller The List gives this same notion a clearer social conscience.

In Gran Chaco, after an oppressive regime is removed from office, a jubilant population is invited to vote in a poll that will decide which members of the old order will pay for their crimes against the people. During a twelve-hour window, generals, politicians, money launderers, and secret policemen are all fair game for marauding street gangs. Several of the regime’s inner circle seek sanctuary in a college annexe, but a group of students led by their professor track them down and are determined to evict them to exact summary justice.

Written, produced, and directed by Michael J. Hardy, The List was shot in a mixture of English and Spanish on a tiny budget. The patchy acting talents of the small ensemble, the uneven pacing, and the over-reliance on static dialogue all reduce the impact of the promising premise. Hardy does deserve credit though for pursuing a much sharper political perspective than The Purge ever adopted, and for being unapologetic about where his audience’s loyalties should lie.

THE LIST (LA LISTA) will be released on streaming platforms in the UK

V/H/S/85

When it comes to the found footage, horror-driven anthology-based V/H/S franchise, somewhat inevitably for a series so defined by its diverse pick n’ mix of stories, the results have been a real mix. We have had the good, the bad, and the ugly. The highs, the lows, and the in-between. And in this recent very healthy new Shudder released streaming era for the series, V/H/S/85 seriously challenges V/H/S/94 as the best entry in the franchise altogether.

The framing narrative ‘Total Copy’ (directed by David Bruckner) concerns scientists studying a young subject named ‘Rory’. Off the back of this, we have five segments in all (well, technically four, as one is essentially a two-parter); ‘No Wake’ and ‘Ambrosia’ (by Mike P. Nelson), the first concerning a group of young friends on a lake getaway, the second looking at an unusual family gathering. ‘God of Death’ (by Gigi Saul Guerrero) sees a Mexican news crew hit by a devastating event. ‘TKNOGD’ (by Natasha Kermani) sees a stage performance hit a tech nightmare. Then, finally, we have ‘Dreamkill’ (by Scott Derrickson), as a series of brutal taped crimes lead the police to a mind-shattering conclusion.

These found-footage horror tales never cease to be bizarre, gruesome, or intriguing, but V/H/S/85 has to be the most collectively interesting instalment in the franchise. All the segments range from entertaining to outstanding, with influences as wide as John Carpenter’s The Thing, Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s REC, and Stieg Larsson, as well as real crimes like The Night Stalker spree.

More impressive, though, is the framing. For years now, atypically, these films have been impacted by the story off of which the many segments jump, but here, this wraparound story of sorts, that these segments are “taped over”, is the best frame narrative story this series has ever had, ending with one heck of a lunatic final image and mic drop of a closing credits track!

Despite the fun results throughout, not every aspect comes off smoothly, and one or two segments have a moment that jars a little, but overall the quality is massively consistent, and any minor flaws hardly halt the gory fun and thrills offered. Natasha Kermani’s ‘TKNOGD’ is very cool in its execution, and Scott Derrickson’s (apparently Black Phone universe set) ‘Dreamkill’ is marvellous and arguably the pick of the bunch.

As ever with this series, it’s not for everyone, of course, and some hoping for the deadly serious may come away a bit irked, but if you tap into V/H/S/85‘s very distinctive and psychotic wavelength, it’s a bloody blast from beginning to end. Please, Shudder, can you release one of these every year now because the consistent quality and varied stories are really becoming a regular Halloween treat to savour!

V/H/S/85 is a great, nasty, barmy mixtape of pure ‘80s chaos that you won’t want to skip!

V/H/S/85 arrives on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital on March 4th

V/H/S/94

The found footage VHS tape-based anthology horror franchise, since its beginning in 2012, has very much been an acquired taste. The first (and frankly best) film was a novel idea, one coated in the alluring grunge of video nasties, which in turn gave a number of new voices in horror a platform to play (or rather press Play) on. Since then more and more exciting creators of horror have jumped aboard the series but the later sequels have had a decidedly hit and miss effect. However Shudder exclusive V/H/S/94 not only sets the series back on track after the dreadful V/H/S: Viral and wildly uneven V/H/S/2 but it is the series’ best offering by far.

Jennifer Reeder’s core frame narrative ‘Holy Hell’, sees a SWAT team called to a ritualistic mass suicide scene at an abandoned building, and as they progress deeper into its blood splattered halls, they find themselves submerged in the horror. Slotted in-between this story are four shorts (and an advert !): Chloe Okuno’s ‘Storm Drain’, franchise regular Simon Barrett’s ‘The Empty Wake’, ‘Safe Haven’ (the acclaimed V/H/S/2 short) co-director/writer Timo Tjahjanto’s ‘The Subject’ and Ryan Prows’ ‘Terror’.

V/H/S/94 won’t win over found footage detesters but it is a sign that this franchise is not only back on track but on sterling form at that, as the hit rate of the shorts (or ‘segments’ if you prefer) has never been this successful or consistent. Sadly, despite an initially promising wraparound story by Reeder that evokes David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza’s Rec 2, ‘Holy Hell’ ultimately fails to reach a satisfying conclusion (a common problem in this franchise and anthology horror in general), but on a better note, the shorts themselves are all fantastic. In fact, rating this film on them alone, it has gotta be two mangled thumbs way up!

Each segment has an embrace of this film’s gritty ‘90s extreme video store rental section aesthetic, and all the stories have their own atmosphere, compelling concepts or just sheer and utter madness. Many are somewhat cult-centric but each spirals into its own perverse and outstandingly realised little world, harnessed from the melee of our own. Okuno’s ‘Storm Drain’, initially feeling like Carlo Ledesma’s The Tunnel by way of Joshua Zeman’s Cropsy, becomes a surprising and gruesome creature feature. While Barrett’s ‘The Empty Wake’ feels very Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity at points but is a rather subtle take on some ideas that feel familiar but are delivered with distinctive style and tension.

Then there’s Tjahjanto’s ‘The Subject’ which is an unhinged body horror joyride, that feels like a brutal viscera-coated blend of Ilya Naishuller’s Hardcore Henry and Richard Raaphorst’s Frankenstein’s Army, peppered with soul beneath the tech n’ flesh survival horror. And finally there is Ryan Prows’ ‘Terror’, a slower building but effective Waco reflecting horror tale about homegrown right wing extremism and human idiocy, that does something particularly different with a familiar genre, akin to Derek Lee and Clif Prowse’s Afflicted.

Not only is the consistency at an all time high but so is the construction. The makeup and effects work (and creature designs) are especially outstanding and, without doubt, the series’ best (as well as impressively practical heavy). While the format itself has never been so embraced aesthetically, as this all genuinely feels like work from some depraved corners of the ‘90s, collected from an array of tapes found in some madman’s basement labelled ‘sick sh*t”.

The Best V/H/S yet. Hail Raatma.

V/H/S/94 is released on Blu-ray, DVD and digital from February 26th.

COLD MEAT

Taking a rest stop at a diner in the Canadian Rockies, David (Allen Leech) finds himself out in the cold when he comes between waitress Ana (Nina Bergman) and her violent ex (Yan Tual). Later stuck on the road together with a terrible injury and the billowing snow, Ana and David suddenly face a terrifying fight for survival. The last thing they need is some manner of beastie banging on the window, but that’s what they have on their hands here (plus frostbite).

Director Sébastien Drouin helms this icy survival thriller – a tense game of cat-and-mouse between hunter and prey… and then back again, as the tables turn to and fro. Beyond its table-setting opening sequence, Drouin locks the (car) doors and hunkers down to a single setting that’s both isolated and claustrophobic. The trapped-in-a-bad-place thriller is nothing new, but Drouin and co-writers James Kermack and Andrew Desmond find plenty of ways to reinvent the wheel. It’s a unique take on the subgenre, served well by the sharply observed interplay between its leads.

As the temperature drops and the pair’s situation becomes more perilous, Cold Meat impresses with its bleak plot twists and ever-building sense of dread and danger – but the thing which really stands out is the characters, brought to life with terrific performances from Bergman and Leech. A shining example of the snowbound survival thriller.

COLD MEAT is out now on digital platforms.

FIRECRACKER

A bonfire night house viewing becomes deadly when Jack (Andrew Lee Potts) and Lena (Eloise Lovell Anderson) are not prospective buyers but hardened criminals. They take the estate agent, Matilda (Katie Sheridan), hostage as they search the place for a safe containing something of value to them. Using the fireworks exploding all around as cover, they have to demolish a wall to get to what they want. However, things don’t go as smoothly as they planned.

Andrew Lee Potts’ feature directorial debut is a tense and gripping crime thriller. He doesn’t try to make it as flashy as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (a comparison to which is unavoidable given the appearance of Jason Flemyng and Nick Moran). However, he manages to make a despicable bad guy likeable and adds elements of humour that don’t overpower the drama. Fans of Potts will recognise his wry style, but ultimately, his character is a nasty piece of work, and he definitely doesn’t hold back. Likewise, Anderson and Sheridan are fantastic in their respective roles. The former excels at projecting a hard-as-nails demeanour, while the latter has a resilient, if vulnerable, composure when put in a terrifying predicament. The chemistry between the trio brings extra tension to the situation. Predominantly set within the one house, Potts utilises as much of the location as possible and creates a palpable nervous energy in scenes where the villains might get caught, with some shots straight from the Hitchcock playbook (and that’s a good thing!).

Potts has been cutting his directing teeth on shorts for many years, particularly with Kindred and the superb web series Wireless, and this venture into feature-length filmmaking shows he has the eye for crafting engaging, fresh movies and appears to be as comfortable behind the camera as he is in front.

FIRECRACKER is available in select cinemas and on demand in the US and can be rented or bought on digital platforms in the UK.

UNDERGROUND

A group of women become trapped underground following the events of a bachelorette party gone wrong (someone puked in the taxi). Adrift in a subterranean bunker complex, the friends battle for survival as an ancient Nazi curse takes hold… if they can stop bickering first.

This found footage film by director Lars Janssen has an intriguing hook, even if it is one that has been done many times before (and never better than Neil Marshall’s The Descent). Unfortunately, it takes too long to get there and, once it does reach its destination, spends far too much of its time on drunken arguing between friends.

Even the found footage element adds little, being too clean and tidy for the story being told. Where the film works best is in its earliest interactions between the women and a chauvinist ass on the street and as they try on dresses in the film’s opening sequence. The rest feels either dragged out (a scene in a taxi keeps going long after they should have been kicked out for the first time) or incomplete. What few chills there are come second to scenes of the women sitting around grumbling or wandering around, also grumbling. Its central threat, meanwhile, goes underutilised and without proper definition.

Underground has its bright spots, but it’s a largely wasted opportunity which doesn’t take its ideas nearly far enough. As before, so again.

UNDERGROUND is available on digital platforms from February 26th.

THE WAY

The Way is Michael Sheen’s TV directing debut, and it’s clearly a project that he’s extremely passionate about because it’s set in and filmed in and around his home town, the South Wales steelworks community of Port Talbot. Broadly, it deals with tough contemporary social issues and puts a potentially fascinating narrative twist on events that, whilst largely fictional, have sailed close to reality thanks to recent worrying newsworthy developments in the area. At least, that was the plan. The resulting drama, sadly, is something of a mess. It’s extraordinarily uneven tonally, its script requires its audience to make the most astonishing leaps of faith to even begin to invest in the largely caricatured characters and their frankly desperately unlikely plight, and it throws in woeful sub-Black Mirror/Years and Years ideas and then tosses in some vague Welsh mythology mumbo-jumbo for good measure.

Frustratingly, it all starts rather promisingly. The first episode has a gritty, semi-documentary feel to it as we meet the Driscolls, a working-class family struggling to survive and whose fairly peaceful life in Port Talbot is threatened when it becomes apparent that the Chinese owners of the (real-life) Port Talbot steelworks are planning to wind the facility down, causing mass unemployment and strife across the area. Trade union steward Geoff Driscoll (Steffan Rhodri) ties to keep the peace between the frustrated owners and volatile steelworker Glynn (Mark Lewis Jones) and a town meeting to discuss an approach to dealing with the situation falls apart when the flame from one of the furnaces that have burned for decades and become a symbol of the industry is turned off (in reality the actual flame was turned off years ago) and the workers begin a blockade of the steelworks and a series of ugly riots erupt throughout the town. So far, so good. But minutes into the second episode, disbelief becomes a little harder to suspend when the entire Driscoll family – Geoff’s estranged wife Dee (Mali Harries), his drug-dependant son Owen (It’s A Sin’s Callum Scott Howells), and his police officer daughter Thea (Sophie Melville) are turned into scapegoats and branded the ringleaders of the civil unrest tearing apart the town and spreading across Wales. The family and Owen’s Polish immigrant love interest, Anna (Maja Laskowska), decide to flee Wales and head for sanctuary in England with no real plan about what they’ll do when they get there or what the future might hold in store for them. Oh, and Geoff is haunted by visions of his late father, Denny (Michael Sheen), who took part in the 1984 miners’ strike but eventually took his own life.

To say that The Way falls apart in its second and third episodes would be, at the very least, an understatement. Part Two itself has a slightly surreal quality as the Driscolls flee the town – surreal to the extent that it’s hard to believe that what had started as a realistic, if stylised, modern drama literally torn from newspaper headlines has so quickly devolved into something so irrational and incredible. Wales, we’re told, is burning, and the Welsh are pariahs, the army rounding up civilians and taking them off to internment camps and with self-appointed militias blocking English villages so no “dirty, infected Welsh” can slip through. The Driscolls are left to trample through the countryside, and not only is Geoff conversing frequently with the ghost of his dead dad, but Owen is suffering withdrawal hallucinations. At one point, an abandoned teddy bear in a ditch starts to talk to him, and he suffers strange dreams of being submerged and wading through underwater ruins. To make matters even worse (and even more ridiculous), we’re told that there’s a mercenary called Hogwood (Luke Evans in a big hat) who has become known as ‘the Welsh Catcher’ as he has been contracted to hunt down Welsh people who have crossed to border into England. Part Three crumbles completely; after the Driscolls interrupt a magnificently ineptly staged ‘swingers’ party, they are given a shot at freedom thanks to a handy freemason who allows them to use his convenient canal boat so they can head to the coast where they can be smuggled across the Channel.

By the time the final scenes roll around, any residual investment in the characters has long since drained away, and the drama itself has become a stupid, badly realised dystopian farce. The Driscolls reach the coast and find ‘New Port Talbot’ being established in the sand dunes. Unfortunately, this consists of a handful of tin huts, six extras, and a cameo from a clearly-embarrassed Paul Rhys. The whole series fizzles out in a feeble ‘desperate refugees at sea’ sequence, and the farrago comes to a merciful end with two acts of dreary self-sacrifice.

It’s hard to pinpoint quite why and how The Way was allowed to hurtle off the rails so astonishingly after an intriguing first episode. Sheen was keen to create a drama asking why a normal family might go on the run from its own community, but it’s hard to imagine a storyline that brings that idea to the screen with less finesse than The Way. Clumsy attempts to evoke the atmosphere of the pandemic lockdowns are undermined by the idiocy of the unfurling narrative that gets bogged down in its second episode by tedious sub-soap opera family dramatics – “You’re not my real Dad?!” – and any attempts at social realism are completely lost in a sea of clichés, achingly stupid ideas and genuinely bad dialogue that betrays a strong and usually-distinguished cast… and let’s not even start on the ‘mysterious’ Red Monks. Part One has an edginess and an urgency, thanks to a few interesting directorial flourishes by Sheen, but the two remaining episodes are pretty much car crash TV. The Way is a massive misfire, a disastrously ill-considered piece of work that purports to celebrate Welsh culture and the Welsh community but only ends up demeaning it.

All three episodes of THE WAY are available on BBC iPlayer

LIGHTS OUT

Frank Grillo is Duffy, a PTSD-suffering ex-soldier who’s wandered into Los Angeles looking to make some money to buy his mother a headstone and give her some dignity in death. When he gets into a ruckus in a bar, he comes to the attention of Max (Mekhi Phifer), who offers to set him up as a bare-knuckle fighter. Duffy wins his fights easily, but the daughter of Max’s sister inadvertently gets the pair mixed up with a gangland villain (Dermot Mulroney) and a corrupt cop (Jaime King).

Lights Out (we assume as in ‘punching his lights out’) plays as a routine action drama and is full of well-choreographed and shot fight scenes. As the story plays out, character elements are not as strong as they should be, and action superstar Scott Adkins (Avengement) is underused, merely appearing only in flashbacks and doesn’t last too long during the bombastic finale.

It’s a movie that plays to its strengths, and when it’s hitting those moments (and smashing skulls), it’s a fun and exciting romp. Grillo’s portrayal of the shell-shocked ex-soldier is spot-on. It’s both scary and sad. Sadly, the human drama and violence is let down by the predictable plotting.

LIGHTS OUT is out now in the US.

THE SEEDING

Rambling through the desert, a photographer, Wyndham Stone (Scott Haze), stumbles across a young boy claiming to have lost his parents. Attempting to do the right thing, Stone himself becomes lost and, as the sun falls, happens across an isolated shack at the bottom of a deep ravine.

Logic and common sense be damned (someone clearly hasn’t seen Wrong Turn), Stone knocks on the door of this tin hut and meets Alina (Kate Lyn Sheil). Before you know it, he’s been coerced into staying the night and, the next morning, discovers that the ladder out of this pit has disappeared. As the situation continues to tumble downhill, Stone is tormented by a gang of sadistic boys who do things like piss on his face, destroy his vegetable patch, and spit in his general direction. Alina, meanwhile, seems worryingly unconcerned by the whole situation.

Anyone who has seen the 1964 film Woman in the Dunes (upon which Barnaby Clay’s The Seeding is very much based) can see where all of this is headed. A slow-burn crossbreed of The Hills Have Eyes, 127 Hours, and Aronofsky’s Mother!, this arthouse horror story wears its metaphor on its sleeve (and in the title). Stone’s fate is well-telegraphed – but much of the tension is in the inevitability of his situation and the hurdles he has to leap through in plotting an escape.

Instead, the film is content to bask in its striking cinematography and grotesque imagery, letting the looming, imposing peaks of the Utah desert do much of the work while strong performances paper over any cracks in logic.

The Seeding is a haunting work of folk horror that is well-cultivated and nurtured to the bitter, inevitable end.

THE SEEDING is out on digital from February 12th 2024.