I wasn't always such a grouch. Christmas was an altogether more magical time when I was younger. In the days before the VCR and satellite TV, Christmas was a glorious time for TV, when networks would roll out the big premieres. Nowadays the Harry Potter series is firmly established as the staple Christmas movie, but when I was growing up in the 80's, it was Star Wars. I was also a big Star Wars Toys kid and every Christmas I would a get Star Wars vehicle. My pride and joy was Han Solo's Millennium Falcon. My Dad still likes to remind me how much money he paid for it back in the day, and how much all my Star Wars toys would be worth today had I not swept them all up and passed them on to younger relatives. I do wish I kept them now...
Saturday, 25 December 2010
The Post of Christmas Past
Happy Christmas, or if you're deeply offended by such a vulgar gesture, Happy Holidays. I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of Christmas - I find it stressful, trying to rush out and choose presents that loved ones might actually like, rather than pretend to like; being unable to stop myself gorging on big meals and endless junk food; and having little time to do anything else because my job is really busy towards the end of the year.
I wasn't always such a grouch. Christmas was an altogether more magical time when I was younger. In the days before the VCR and satellite TV, Christmas was a glorious time for TV, when networks would roll out the big premieres. Nowadays the Harry Potter series is firmly established as the staple Christmas movie, but when I was growing up in the 80's, it was Star Wars. I was also a big Star Wars Toys kid and every Christmas I would a get Star Wars vehicle. My pride and joy was Han Solo's Millennium Falcon. My Dad still likes to remind me how much money he paid for it back in the day, and how much all my Star Wars toys would be worth today had I not swept them all up and passed them on to younger relatives. I do wish I kept them now...
I wasn't always such a grouch. Christmas was an altogether more magical time when I was younger. In the days before the VCR and satellite TV, Christmas was a glorious time for TV, when networks would roll out the big premieres. Nowadays the Harry Potter series is firmly established as the staple Christmas movie, but when I was growing up in the 80's, it was Star Wars. I was also a big Star Wars Toys kid and every Christmas I would a get Star Wars vehicle. My pride and joy was Han Solo's Millennium Falcon. My Dad still likes to remind me how much money he paid for it back in the day, and how much all my Star Wars toys would be worth today had I not swept them all up and passed them on to younger relatives. I do wish I kept them now...
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Milestones / Ice - the French DVD
Now that we are in dying weeks of 2010, I can safely say my favourite DVD release of 2010 has been the French label Capricci's 2-disc release of Robert Kramer's 1969 film Ice and his 1975 masterpiece Milestones. Ice focuses on an underground revolutionary group plotting and staging guerrilla style attacks on an American government locked in a war with Mexico. Kramer examines the workings of the organization from within the group, focusing on the tactics, strategies, and the difficulties of achieving the success of their aims in the face of internal squabbling, brutal and oppressive punishment by the police and the sheer difficulty of co-coordinating their efforts with other revolutionary groups, with similar ends but differing means. Ice was shot on b/w 16mm film stock and has an incredible vérité feel to it, remaining to this day quite a radical, thought provoking film, which fans of Pontecorvo's Battle Of Algiers and Conta-Gavras' State of Siege should seek out...
Ice's running time of two hours might seem excessive for a political thriller, but it's modest in comparison with Kramer's 1975 epic Milestones, which runs about 3 hours 20min. The film is essentially a huge patchwork of various people - including a film maker, an anti-war activist released from prison, a troubled Vietnam vet, a blind potter, a young woman preparing to have a baby - all working out their lives and problems of living in America in the 70's against the backdrop of the Vietnam conflict. Like Ice, Milestones is a sort of "fictionalized" (and scripted) documentary but some 5 years on from Ice, Kramer's direction has loosened up and the film has some stylish flourishes - Kramer uses a wide angle lens in some sequences (lending a strange exaggerated depth of field), and the director employs some Nouvelle Vague-ish licks - jump-cuts, over-lapping dialogue, and a free sense of editing, with Kramer dropping in newsreel footage and photo montages of slave trade documents, tenement poverty and the brutal, shameful treatment of blacks and Native Americans in the United States. Two sequences standout amidst this huge tapestry - an astonishing, surreal nightmare, and an unflinching child birth sequence. Epic in form, epic in content, Milestones remains a key work of American Independent Cinema.
Milestones and Ice are available as a 2-disc French DVD courtesy of Capricci. Both films are presented with optional removable subtitles (in French or Spanish). The full-frame transfers of both films are not without their problems. Ice is the worst of the two. The transfer itself is fine, but the print used is well worn, with lots of debris, lines, tears and scratches. On the plus side, the image is bright, has good contrast and detail is sharp. By no means, a Criterion remaster, but nevertheless a perfectly acceptable transfer considering the rarity of the film. Milestones which was shot in color and is the better of the two, transfer wise, with less damage, evidently sourced from a good 16mm print (less troublesome than the one used for Ice) and featuring strong detail and good color. Audio for both films is fine, each of the films having a minimal amount of music anyhow. Neither film contains any extras. Capricci's DVD set comes in a fold-out cardboard sleeve, with both discs housed separately along side some stills from both films.
Ice's running time of two hours might seem excessive for a political thriller, but it's modest in comparison with Kramer's 1975 epic Milestones, which runs about 3 hours 20min. The film is essentially a huge patchwork of various people - including a film maker, an anti-war activist released from prison, a troubled Vietnam vet, a blind potter, a young woman preparing to have a baby - all working out their lives and problems of living in America in the 70's against the backdrop of the Vietnam conflict. Like Ice, Milestones is a sort of "fictionalized" (and scripted) documentary but some 5 years on from Ice, Kramer's direction has loosened up and the film has some stylish flourishes - Kramer uses a wide angle lens in some sequences (lending a strange exaggerated depth of field), and the director employs some Nouvelle Vague-ish licks - jump-cuts, over-lapping dialogue, and a free sense of editing, with Kramer dropping in newsreel footage and photo montages of slave trade documents, tenement poverty and the brutal, shameful treatment of blacks and Native Americans in the United States. Two sequences standout amidst this huge tapestry - an astonishing, surreal nightmare, and an unflinching child birth sequence. Epic in form, epic in content, Milestones remains a key work of American Independent Cinema.
Milestones and Ice are available as a 2-disc French DVD courtesy of Capricci. Both films are presented with optional removable subtitles (in French or Spanish). The full-frame transfers of both films are not without their problems. Ice is the worst of the two. The transfer itself is fine, but the print used is well worn, with lots of debris, lines, tears and scratches. On the plus side, the image is bright, has good contrast and detail is sharp. By no means, a Criterion remaster, but nevertheless a perfectly acceptable transfer considering the rarity of the film. Milestones which was shot in color and is the better of the two, transfer wise, with less damage, evidently sourced from a good 16mm print (less troublesome than the one used for Ice) and featuring strong detail and good color. Audio for both films is fine, each of the films having a minimal amount of music anyhow. Neither film contains any extras. Capricci's DVD set comes in a fold-out cardboard sleeve, with both discs housed separately along side some stills from both films.
------------
Notes
------------
Robert Kramer is well represented on French DVD. In addition to the Milestones / Ice DVD, there are DVDs of Cities of the Plain (his final film, from 2001), a double-bill DVD featuring Doc's Kingdom / Walk the Walk ('87/'96) and a 3-disc edition of Kramer's long-form road movie masterpiece Route One USA (1989). Unfortunately Doc's Kingdom / Walk the Walk have hard coded subtitles, and the French language Cities of the Plain has no English subs. Thankfully Route One USA is a superb set, with an excellent transfer and extras, and featuring removable subs. The 4-hour film spread over 2 discs, the third disc being an audio CD of the music from the film.
Wednesday, 1 December 2010
The Art of Hammer - Posters from the Archive of Hammer Films
Hammer fans and movie poster lovers would do well to check out Titan's latest Hammer effort, The Art of Hammer - Posters from the Archive of Hammer Films, a large 26 x 33cm 192 page hardback coffee table book collecting almost 300 Hammer movie posters from down thru the years - British quads, US one-sheets, foreign and International posters of Hammers famous, not so famous and down right obscure (The Snorkel ?). The book is printed on high quality glossy paper and divided into three decades - 50's, 60's and 70's. The book features credits for each poster, including some interesting notes and facts - did you know that ubiquitous Hammer player Michael Ripper's name only ever appeared on one Hammer poster - the 1957 war film The Steel Bayonet; or that the poster for Hammer's Camp on Blood Island (below) was banned from appearing in locations around London (and on the Underground). The following pics are taken from my copy.
Thursday, 25 November 2010
Peter Christopherson 1955 - 2010
I'm still stunned and confused by the sudden death yesterday of Peter Christopherson aka Sleazy, one-quarter of Throbbing Gristle and one-half of Coil. I've been listening to TG and Coil for 18 years now so Peter has always been a huge presence in my life. Hardly a few days would go by without me putting on one of their albums. Peter was also one of the designers at Hipgnosis (and worked on sleeve designs for Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and Animals, and Peter Gabriel's early solo LPs), in between TG and Coil, he was a member of Psychic TV, he was an accomplished video director (Erasure's A Little Respect, videos for Rage Against the Machine, Sepultura, Ministry, and Nine Inch Nails' The Broken Movie) and in recent times was still producing brilliant post-Coil music with The Threshold HouseBoys Choir, SoiSong and the reformed Throbbing Gristle. A few years ago we swapped emails - I was bugging him about re-issuing old Coil albums and he was always friendly, accessible and generous with his time. I will miss him dearly.
Reflecting on Peter's work today, I found myself drawn to his photography and those recurring themes - urban landscapes, naked flesh, injured bodies, and the kind of violent, thuggish youth that might have stepped from the pages of Burroughs' 1971 novel The Wild Boys. I gathered together some favorites...
Reflecting on Peter's work today, I found myself drawn to his photography and those recurring themes - urban landscapes, naked flesh, injured bodies, and the kind of violent, thuggish youth that might have stepped from the pages of Burroughs' 1971 novel The Wild Boys. I gathered together some favorites...
▲ John Lydon photographed in 1976. Malcolm McClaren commissioned Peter to take the first publicity photos of the Sex Pistols but deciding that the portraits were too grim the photographs were never used.
▲ Val Denham with Hitler Youth knife photographed in 1979. This image appeared on Volume 1 of Mute's Live TG collection while an alternative shot appeared on Fetish's Discipline 12"
▲ One of Peter's "Casualty Simulation" photographs, date unknown.
▲ Adrenalin/Distant Dreams (Part 2) 7" single. The image of a desolate suburban street is given a sinister flavor by the presence of a singe discarded shoe. The inset picture is more mysterious - some kind of machine, possibly the bellows of an old camera.
▲ An evocative photo of the Oakland bridge for the Mission of Dead Souls album, Throbbing Gristle's original final concert in San Francisco in 1981. Photographing the bridge from this particular angle, the vanishing point makes it appear that the bridge goes on forever
▲ Reel to reel tape recorder photographed for the William Burroughs tape experiments collection Nothing Here Now But The Recordings, the original final release on Industrial Records, 1981
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Creepshow 2
In many ways, Creepshow 2 is best described in terms of other unappreciated sequels like Halloween II and Hellbound: Hellraiser II - they don't hold a candle to their parent films, but in amongst the clutter, there is plenty to enjoy. In the case of Creepshow 2, at least two of the segments are genuine winners. Old Chief Wood'n Head, is a bit of a dud, but The Raft and The Hitchhiker are wonderfully grisly and gory (with FX courtesy of Ed French and two-thirds of KNB, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger). Michael Gornick's direction on Creepshow 2 is not especially slick or stylish but at least the film looks good, from the dusty Arizona town of Old Chief Wood'n Head, to the tranquil lake-setting of The Raft, and the chilly woodlands of The Hitchhiker. Veteran Hollywood soldiers George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour add some marquee value but in general the film is weakened by some stiff performances. Constant readers of Stephen King will get a kick out of seeing their hero playing another character from his gallery of rednecks in his short cameo. Incidentally the trailer for The Raft reveals the great sucker punch ending so if you haven't seen the film it's best avoided. Worth mentioning the animated segments of the film, starring "The Creep" who introduces each story. In addition there's a second animated thread about a young Creepshow reader, and one effective way of dealing with bullies. The animation is rather clunky - think Scooby-Doo, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Anchor Bay have dusted off Creepshow 2 for a very fine release on both sides of the Atlantic. The transfer is pretty good considering the film stock of this era - it's still a soft looking film, but at least the colors look solid and the print itself is clean. Audio is good too, as are the extras - a short featurette on the film and an audio commentary by Michael Gornick who discusses the nuts and bolts of the production.
------------
Notes
------------
1. Romero fans will know Michael Gornick as the cinematographer on some of the director's key films - Martin, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Creepshow. Originally Tom Savini was to make his directorial debut with Creepshow 2 but the task eventually fell to Gornick who had previously directed an episode of TV series Tales From the Darkside. Savini does appear in the film, albeit under heavy makeup as "The Creep" in the live action sequences that bookend the film.
2. Low-key and low-budget... Warners who bankrolled the original Creepshow were less enthused about a sequel, and the film wound up at the more modest New World Pictures. The production had its fair share of difficulties. Delays due to bad weather put the film behind schedule, there was a change of principle crew members at one point, and Barbara Eden who was originally cast as the lead in The Hitchhiker episode was forced to drop out of the film.
3. Creepshow 2's trilogy of stories were penned by Stephen King and George Romero. The Raft was an existing story and came from King's 1985 short story collection Skeleton Crew. It was never intended that George Romero direct the film - at the time, the director was preparing his adaptation of Pet Semetary, which of course never happened and the project went on to be filmed by Mary Harron. And while the Pet Semetary film is no great shakes, neither is Romero's adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Half...
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Barn of the Naked Dead
Laaaadies and Gentlemen ! Children of all ages ! The Greatest show on earth is about to begin - we have 3 beautiful showgirls chained up like animals in a circus for the perverse desires of a psychopath in top hat and tails, wielding a whip and nursing a Mommy-fixation. Watch them dismally try to escape only to be captured and face the biting sting of the lash ! Gasp in horror at the severed head in the birdcage ! Shriek in terror at the strange freak of nature locked up in the outhouse ! All these heart-stopping thrills n' spills await you at the Barn of the Naked Dead !
A candidate for Greatest Film Title of the 70's, this early effort by Alan Rudolph (his 2nd film in fact) is propelled along by the sheer strangeness of the story, and plenty of sleaze, despite never quite delivering on the flesh and blood of its outrageous title. Rudolph's direction is far slicker than a lot of low-rent exploitation of this era, and the film has a visual spark when Rudolph takes his camera outside to the desert flatlands where most of the action takes place. Shot around Lancaster, California, the desert scapes are suitably grim - in fact the bizarre events of the film are seemingly caused by the military experiments resulting in a poisoned wilderness1, and the horribly disfigured mutant locked up in the outhouse. The film has little of the quirky stylings of Rudolph's later films, but there is one brilliant sequence late in the film where the action assumes a strange, hallucinatory quality quite at odds with the rest of the film which is more Tourist Trap and Schoolgirls In Chains than Trouble In Mind...
As with the direction, performances are much better than the usual kind of drive-in fare, Andrew Prine2 especially good as the psychotic circus master. Behind his striking handsome looks, Prine's character is sinister and clearly unhinged. Barn of the Naked Dead was released in August 1974, two months before the release of Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the timing was perhaps fortunate. Alongside Tobe Hooper's great masterwork, Rudolph's film looks rather quaint. Still, looking at the film today, it has a disquieting, dark undercurrent, considering some recent high profile media stories about young women disappearing only to be found after years of captivity and mistreatment.
Barn of the Naked Dead was released on DVD (coded for R1) in 2009 in a joint venture by Shriek Show and Code Red under the more sedate title of Terror Circus. An earlier DVD of the film was released some time back, but this disc is the one to get - featuring a fine, sharp, colourful image using a mostly pristine print. Audio is strong too, showcasing the weird avant-jazz score (listen to those rasping trumpets!) and the disc comes with some very interesting extras - an audio commentary from the film's FX artists, a 24-minute retrospective entitled, “Barn Again: Returning to the Terror Circus” (which doesn't include Rudolph among the participants), the trailer and the alternative title sequence under the Barn of the Naked Dead moniker. If you're a fan of 70's independent Horror, the film is well worth investigating...
------------
Notes
------------
1. Wes Craven would re-use the radioactive desert location motif a few years later with his 1977 film The Hills Have Eyes, which has strange mutants picking off travellers that have strayed too far off the path.
2. Andrew Prine is perhaps best recognized as one of the unfriendly "Visitors" in the original series of V, but his filmography has quite a few interesting, and noteworthy films including Simon King of the Witches, The Centrefold Girls, The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Grizzly and Amityville II: The Possession
A candidate for Greatest Film Title of the 70's, this early effort by Alan Rudolph (his 2nd film in fact) is propelled along by the sheer strangeness of the story, and plenty of sleaze, despite never quite delivering on the flesh and blood of its outrageous title. Rudolph's direction is far slicker than a lot of low-rent exploitation of this era, and the film has a visual spark when Rudolph takes his camera outside to the desert flatlands where most of the action takes place. Shot around Lancaster, California, the desert scapes are suitably grim - in fact the bizarre events of the film are seemingly caused by the military experiments resulting in a poisoned wilderness1, and the horribly disfigured mutant locked up in the outhouse. The film has little of the quirky stylings of Rudolph's later films, but there is one brilliant sequence late in the film where the action assumes a strange, hallucinatory quality quite at odds with the rest of the film which is more Tourist Trap and Schoolgirls In Chains than Trouble In Mind...
As with the direction, performances are much better than the usual kind of drive-in fare, Andrew Prine2 especially good as the psychotic circus master. Behind his striking handsome looks, Prine's character is sinister and clearly unhinged. Barn of the Naked Dead was released in August 1974, two months before the release of Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the timing was perhaps fortunate. Alongside Tobe Hooper's great masterwork, Rudolph's film looks rather quaint. Still, looking at the film today, it has a disquieting, dark undercurrent, considering some recent high profile media stories about young women disappearing only to be found after years of captivity and mistreatment.
Barn of the Naked Dead was released on DVD (coded for R1) in 2009 in a joint venture by Shriek Show and Code Red under the more sedate title of Terror Circus. An earlier DVD of the film was released some time back, but this disc is the one to get - featuring a fine, sharp, colourful image using a mostly pristine print. Audio is strong too, showcasing the weird avant-jazz score (listen to those rasping trumpets!) and the disc comes with some very interesting extras - an audio commentary from the film's FX artists, a 24-minute retrospective entitled, “Barn Again: Returning to the Terror Circus” (which doesn't include Rudolph among the participants), the trailer and the alternative title sequence under the Barn of the Naked Dead moniker. If you're a fan of 70's independent Horror, the film is well worth investigating...
------------
Notes
------------
1. Wes Craven would re-use the radioactive desert location motif a few years later with his 1977 film The Hills Have Eyes, which has strange mutants picking off travellers that have strayed too far off the path.
2. Andrew Prine is perhaps best recognized as one of the unfriendly "Visitors" in the original series of V, but his filmography has quite a few interesting, and noteworthy films including Simon King of the Witches, The Centrefold Girls, The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Grizzly and Amityville II: The Possession
Sunday, 14 November 2010
Video Nasties - The Definitive Guide
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... UK DVD label Nucleus Films' latest release is their long awaited retrospective of that curious British phenomenon, the "Video Nasties". Spread over 3 discs, the set contains 72 trailers for films which at one point or another made the legendary Director of Public Prosecutions' list of contentious titles, plus the feature length documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape as well as some worthwhile extras to round off the set. But before I dive into the contents of the set, let's have a quick history lesson and rewind the cassette back to the early '80's (please forgive the tracking noise on the tape, its entirely unavoidable).Fear & Loathing at the local videoshop... The year is 1982 and the shelves of video libraries across the UK are teeming with a bewildering range of horror and exploitation films which, for small independent video labels, are cheap to acquire and cheap to put out.
Lacking, big stars and big titles, video labels like GO Video and VIPCO mount increasingly explicit advertising campaigns, not to mention lurid video sleeves to attract customers. The strategy is working. Sales in horror videos are at an all-time high. And the moral watchdogs are beginning to notice. 1983, and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), alerted to the violent and perverse content of videos like Cannibal Holocaust, I Spit On Your Grave, SS Experiment Camp and The Driller Killer, has drawn up a list of titles which are likely to deprave and corrupt an unsuspecting public. In the months ahead, video shops across the UK are raided by police officers in an attempt to sweep up and destroy videos considered obscene and beyond the limits of acceptability. The terror has begun, the "Video Nasty" era has arrived...Video Nasties - The Definitive Guide
Disc 1 - Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape
Kicking off Nucleus' superb 3-disc set is the excellent and engrossing documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape. Directed by Jake West, and produced by Nucleus chief (and VHS tape collector extraordinaire) Marc Morris, this documentary gathers together all of the surviving participants on both sides of the Video Nasty argument - the politicians and law enforcement officers who led the prosecutions, and the brave voices who opposed the campaign and the erosion of their civil liberties; plus contributions from film makers (Neil Marshall among others), film professors and those involved in the video business at the time.
Interspersed among the interviews are historical interviews, news footage and press clippings, superbly illustrating the peculiar climate of that era. The video industry was at that time something of an unregulated twilight zone - the BBFC were still some years away from controlling the content of videos, while the seizures and banning of controversial titles was haphazard at best, the DPP list in a constant state of flux, as titles disappeared from shelves only to reappear back in video shops a few months later. The documentary is extremely fair minded, and represents well the views, however ridiculous it seems, of those who believed (and evidently still do) that the greater public were in harms way from a tide of violent and sexually depraved videos.
Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape is expertly put together, with some gorgeous poster artwork illustrating the advertising of the films in question, and there are some very amusing visual references to the VCR age (and what we had to suffer through before the arrival of laserdisc and DVD!). Absolutely essential viewing for Horror fans.
Disc 2 & 3 - The Trailers
Of the 72 trailers, 39 of these are for films which were successfully prosecuted in the UK. These are contained on Disc 2. Disc 3 collects the remaining 33 trailers, which did at one point appear on the DPP list but were subsequently removed (most famously The Evil Dead)
Many of them have already been made available on previous trailer comps. and individual DVDs, but having them gathered together in one program, is an absolute perfect cystalization of the Nasties list. Simply put, if you're new to the Nasties phenomenon, this is ground zero. The trailers themselves are in very good, if not excellent condition and content-wise, are mostly wonderful and surprisingly explicit - the clip from The Beast In Heat shows the pubic hair eating scene (surely the most ludicrous scene in European Trash Cinema!); the trailer for SF Brownrigg's Don't Look In the Basement factors in some explicit gore shots from Last House on the Left; there's Night of the Demon, with its penis-ripping shot; and the very kinky trailer for the Greek oddity Island of Death (under the German title Die Teuflischen von Mykonos, or the Devils of Mykonosthe). Some rarities too - the trailer for Delirium which opens with the music for BBC quiz show Mastermind!; the trailer for the ultra obscure and ultra weird Frozen Scream; a widescreen trailer for Madhouse, the trailer for Don't Go Near the Woods (not on the Code Red Special Edition) and an Italian trailer for Gestapo's Last Orgy (here as L'ultima orgia del III Reich, or The Last Orgy of the 3rd Reich)
Whatever you do - DON'T ! The Video Nasties list included no less than 4 films that carried a deadly warning
In addition, each trailer is introduced by a film critic and author who offer a short critique of the film with a little trivia thrown in good measure, as well as some amusing personal anecdotes - for the trailer of Zombie Flesh Eaters, Alan Jones remembers meeting with Fulci only for the director to vomit all over him; Kim Newman wonders how Slaughter, the original incarnation of Snuff, is meant to end; Stephen Thrower admits the considerable feat of seeing Franco's Bloody Moon "about 30 times"; Allan Bryce points out some bad acting from a playful dog in Love Camp 7; Brad Steven's identifies some footage in the Driller Killer trailer which didn't make the final cut; film critics Julian Petley and Xavier Mendik strongly argue the merits of Cannibal Holocaust and I Spit on Your Grave; and Dr. Patricia MacCormack (dressed in amazing goth chic) gives a startling reading of The Revenge of the Boogyman, and shows us her wonderful tattoo tribute to The Beyond ! All 72 trailers can be viewed with or without the introductions.
If all that wasn't enough, the 3 discs are rounded off with image galleries of original VHS artwork, and for video nostalgists there are 50mins (!) of video company logos from the pre-certificate days of British home video.
Video Nasties - The Definitive Guide comes as as a Region free set and is packaged in a lovely alpha case housing the 3 discs, with the first 5000 copies containing an extra goodie - gorgeous postcard replicas of some of the most notorious of the Nasties in their original VHS artwork. On the whole, the set is simply magnificent and quite obviously the best DVD release of 2010.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
aka I Am Legend
The plot of The Last Man on Earth sticks closely to I Am Legend, but for those unfamiliar with the book, the film goes like this - a plague which originated from Europe (Transylvania perhaps?) has spread worldwide carried by the winds and bringing fever, blindness and death to those infected. Inexplicably unburned bodies of the dead are seemingly returning to life and displaying vampire-like characteristics. Robert Morgan, (changed from Neville in the book) once a doctor working on a cure for the plague, remains the only human left alive, and is locked in a perpetual battle with the living dead. However, a chance discovery of another human being may prove to be the deadliest danger of all...
A bleak and downbeat film, The Last Man On Earth sticks closely to the structure of Matheson's novel - the first section of the film sees Gordon going about his business of eradicating the vampires, the second act of the film flashes back to Gordon's previous life, while the third act concludes the film with Gordon's discovery of the woman and the so-called New Society. The film was directed by Sidney Salkow who directed many routine programmers before defecting to TV. Here, his work in not terribly distinguished but the film does look good, with fine black & white 'scope photography by Franco Delli Colli (who shot Django Kill and Strip Nude for Your Killer among others).
The first act of the film is heavy with Vincent Price narration, rather than letting the story flow visually but a wordless opening 25mins would have been perhaps too radical for audiences in the mid-sixties. It's often a deeply melancholic film, with a very fine Vincent Price affecting an aching weariness, unlike the the sardonic smirk of Charlton Heston in The Omega Man) and Gordon's life seems precariously on the brink of collapse, his home alarmingly ramshackle, and his defences make-shift, unlike the got-it-together Will Smith in Warners' 2007 adaptation.
Richard Matheson had his onscreen credit changed to "Logan Swanson", unhappy with the finished film
The film does have its flaws - the film lensed around the suburbs of Rome, although sufficiently depopulated of people doesn't make for a good stand-in for Los Angeles, (The Omega Man was superb in this respect). Also, the post-synced dialogue is often quite poor (although the canned voices of the vampires calling to Gordon do sound somewhat eerie at times). The importance of Matheson's novel on the Fantasy genre cannot be overstated, and would be a key influence on modern Horror Cinema by way of Night of the Living Dead. The Last Man on Earth must have been in Romero's thoughts when shooting his landmark living dead film - the shots of the vampires laying siege to Gordon's home echo the sequences in Night of the Living Dead when the zombies gather at the farmhouse. Even more so, the final sequences of The Last Man on Earth strongly resonates in Romero's later work - the bitter ending where Gordon formulates a cure for the plague only for it to go ignored would turn up again in the climax of The Crazies, while the shots of armed mutants pursuing Gordon down a smoke-filled staircase are close to the swat-team sequence in the opening of Dawn of the Dead.
MGM's DVD of The Last Man On Earth is a very good effort. The 2.35 transfer looks especially good and sounds good, and there's a short but worthy interview with Richard Matheson. The disc also features on the flipside Ray Milland's interesting 1962 apocalypse film Panic In Year Zero. The film is a public domain title also so beware of inferior releases. The MGM disc is the one to get.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Bullet Ballet
There are certain film fans out there (perhaps myself included) who believe that David Lynch never quite made another film to match his debut, Eraserhead. A similar opinion applies to Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto and Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Tsukamoto's first full lenght feature from 1988 still remains the director's greatest film, but his 1998 film, Bullet Ballet certainly gives it a run for its money. The story concerns Goda, a TV commercials director (played by Tsukamoto himself) whose well-oiled, successful life comes unstuck when his long-term girlfriend shoots herself with a gun she was holding for a friend. Trying to come to terms with her suicide Goda becomes obsessed with obtaining a gun to fulfill a death wish. Descending into the Tokyo underworld Goda gets mixed up with a gang of violent punks, increasingly drawn to the self-destructive lifestyle of the gang's female member...
Best described as an extraordinary fusion of Tsukamoto's earlier films like Tetsuo and Tokyo Fist with the nightmarish city noir of Taxi Driver, Bullet Ballet took some ten years to bring to the screen, as Tsukamoto endlessly re-worked and re-shaped the script, becoming so involved that he was compelled to take the lead role in the film. The long gestation period paid off as Bullet Ballet is one of the director's most independent and fiercely uncompromising works. Appropriate to its whiplash pace, it's a hugely violent film, full of beatings, stabbings and gun carnage, and Tokyo itself is portrayed as a claustrophobic city where salarymen are routinely attacked and robbed for kicks, and vengeful yakuza are out stalking the streets.
Visually it all looks the work of an extremist - shot in inky black and white on grungy 16mm film stock using a hand held camera, the film is often disorientating - a high speed foot chase turns into a blurry, abstract painting, and so intense at times is the film that it appears the celluloid may rip apart in the projector gate at any moment. Tsukamoto's trademark industrial aesthetic adds another layer of texture, and the film is loaded with shots of leaking pipes and various metallic flotsam, with much of the action taking place in run-down back alleys, derelict buildings and deserted wasteland. Fans of Takashi Miike's more radical work (like Dead Or Alive and its frenzied opening 10mins) need to see this film right away.
Artsmagic's DVD of Bullet Ballet is excellent. The transfer, framed around 1.76 looks rough, but this is how the film always looked. The contrast does seem a little high in places - some of the whites tend to blow out but its a minor quibble. This is a solid job all round. The audio is equally good and well mixed - the dialogue is never swamped by the aggressive pounding soundtrack. English subs are easy to read. The disc comes with two very fine extras - an informative commentary track by Tom Mes (author of Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto) and a 34-min Q&A interview with Tsukamoto about the film and his career (and at one point revealing his desire to make Tetsuo USA!).
Best described as an extraordinary fusion of Tsukamoto's earlier films like Tetsuo and Tokyo Fist with the nightmarish city noir of Taxi Driver, Bullet Ballet took some ten years to bring to the screen, as Tsukamoto endlessly re-worked and re-shaped the script, becoming so involved that he was compelled to take the lead role in the film. The long gestation period paid off as Bullet Ballet is one of the director's most independent and fiercely uncompromising works. Appropriate to its whiplash pace, it's a hugely violent film, full of beatings, stabbings and gun carnage, and Tokyo itself is portrayed as a claustrophobic city where salarymen are routinely attacked and robbed for kicks, and vengeful yakuza are out stalking the streets.
Visually it all looks the work of an extremist - shot in inky black and white on grungy 16mm film stock using a hand held camera, the film is often disorientating - a high speed foot chase turns into a blurry, abstract painting, and so intense at times is the film that it appears the celluloid may rip apart in the projector gate at any moment. Tsukamoto's trademark industrial aesthetic adds another layer of texture, and the film is loaded with shots of leaking pipes and various metallic flotsam, with much of the action taking place in run-down back alleys, derelict buildings and deserted wasteland. Fans of Takashi Miike's more radical work (like Dead Or Alive and its frenzied opening 10mins) need to see this film right away.
Artsmagic's DVD of Bullet Ballet is excellent. The transfer, framed around 1.76 looks rough, but this is how the film always looked. The contrast does seem a little high in places - some of the whites tend to blow out but its a minor quibble. This is a solid job all round. The audio is equally good and well mixed - the dialogue is never swamped by the aggressive pounding soundtrack. English subs are easy to read. The disc comes with two very fine extras - an informative commentary track by Tom Mes (author of Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto) and a 34-min Q&A interview with Tsukamoto about the film and his career (and at one point revealing his desire to make Tetsuo USA!).
Sunday, 7 November 2010
A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss (BBC)
Just finished watching this 3-part BBC documentary series on the history of Horror Cinema, screened on BBC2 in the run up to Halloween.
Written and presented by League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss (with English Gothic author Jonathan Rigby as script consultant), A History of Horror is a whistle-stop tour through three important epochs of Horror - Episode 1 - Frankenstein Goes to Hollywood explored the early horror films of Universal and RKO, Ep. 2 - Home County Horrors took a look at British Horror: the films of Hammer and Amicus, while Ep. 3 - The American Scream concluded the series with the new wave of American Horror Cinema of the 70's.
Three 1-hour episodes could hardly do justice to Horror Cinema's most important and fruitful eras and Mark Gatiss is immediately up front about this in Episode 1's opening prologue, adding a disclaimer that the program would be his own personal journey through the annals of Horror. And while I could live without mention of important Horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Carnival of Souls and Black Christmas, the series did have some serious omissions, like Murnau's Nosferatu, Last House on the Left and Suspiria. In fact Gatiss finishes the program with Halloween, admitting that he doesn't have much time for the 80's slasher boom, but what of The Evil Dead, the original Nightmare on Elm Street and The Blair Witch Project ?
For seasoned Horror fans, there was little new information to be gleamed, but Gatiss made for an intelligent, passionate and likeable host, interspersing the history lesson with some enjoyable comments about his own love of Horror films. The program did features some excellent interviews - Hammer's Jimmy Sangster's frank appraisal of latter day Hammer and his direction on The Horror of Frankenstein and Lust for a Vampire; Barbara Steele on the genius of Mario Bava and Black Sunday, John Carpenter explaining why Cat People is so overrated, and George Romero deciding that his troubled teenager Martin is really not a vampire. The program also featured some fine clips - the Val Lewton segment will send me digging into the Warners' boxset as soon as I can, and some choice moments from Terence Fisher's The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula made me yearn to have for these Hammer classics on Blu-Ray.
At the time of writing this post, A History of Horror is stillavailable online at the BBC website (accessible to UK residents only it seems), but I'm sure the complete series will be freely available to catch on youtube - in any event, it's well worth seeing.
Written and presented by League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss (with English Gothic author Jonathan Rigby as script consultant), A History of Horror is a whistle-stop tour through three important epochs of Horror - Episode 1 - Frankenstein Goes to Hollywood explored the early horror films of Universal and RKO, Ep. 2 - Home County Horrors took a look at British Horror: the films of Hammer and Amicus, while Ep. 3 - The American Scream concluded the series with the new wave of American Horror Cinema of the 70's.
Three 1-hour episodes could hardly do justice to Horror Cinema's most important and fruitful eras and Mark Gatiss is immediately up front about this in Episode 1's opening prologue, adding a disclaimer that the program would be his own personal journey through the annals of Horror. And while I could live without mention of important Horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Carnival of Souls and Black Christmas, the series did have some serious omissions, like Murnau's Nosferatu, Last House on the Left and Suspiria. In fact Gatiss finishes the program with Halloween, admitting that he doesn't have much time for the 80's slasher boom, but what of The Evil Dead, the original Nightmare on Elm Street and The Blair Witch Project ?
For seasoned Horror fans, there was little new information to be gleamed, but Gatiss made for an intelligent, passionate and likeable host, interspersing the history lesson with some enjoyable comments about his own love of Horror films. The program did features some excellent interviews - Hammer's Jimmy Sangster's frank appraisal of latter day Hammer and his direction on The Horror of Frankenstein and Lust for a Vampire; Barbara Steele on the genius of Mario Bava and Black Sunday, John Carpenter explaining why Cat People is so overrated, and George Romero deciding that his troubled teenager Martin is really not a vampire. The program also featured some fine clips - the Val Lewton segment will send me digging into the Warners' boxset as soon as I can, and some choice moments from Terence Fisher's The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula made me yearn to have for these Hammer classics on Blu-Ray.
At the time of writing this post, A History of Horror is still
Saturday, 6 November 2010
The Grapes of Death
My first viewing of Jean Rollin's 1978 film The Grapes Of Death did not go well. I thought it was a dismal film, an obvious commercial venture, lacking the strange, surreal power of Rollin's earlier work. Still I persevered and on subsequent viewings my opinion began to soften, and while the film is no masterpiece like The Nude Vampire, it remains a well-crafted, atmospheric chiller. In the film a young woman travelling by train through a remote part of the French countryside stumbles upon a village where a pesticide has poisoned the wine and turned the residents into depraved murderers with a taste for carnage...
The Grapes of Death's theme of mankind's interference with nature and suffering the consequences is hardly ground-breaking stuff, Jorge Grau mined similar territory, (and had a lot more to say about it) with his 1974 film The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue. But The Grapes of Death is one of Rollin's most accomplished films, working with a strong narrative - aside from one bit of daft plotting to do with Brigitte Lahaie's character who seems to have a supernatural immunity to the infection. Rollin's great skill as a visual director is well to the fore here and the film is often striking looking, as well as eerie - it's certainly one of the bleakest looking rural horror films, as the heroine moves through rugged, boulder strewn landscapes, dilapidated farm houses and ravished grape plantations.
The film does have its fair share of problems - there's the uneven pace, some tacky plague make-up which manages to look both disgusting and phony, and a general air of uncertainty which hangs over the film - Rollin seems to have taken inspiration from George Romero, but doesn't quite know if he's riffing on the zombies of Night of the Living Dead or the homicidal maniacs of The Crazies. Either way, Rollin gets the job done and provides some gory thrills along the way - a pitchfork killing and a nasty decapitation. Interestingly the film has some neat parallels with Cabin Fever, however unlikely it may be that Eli Roth was inspired to write his debut feature after seeing Rollin's film.
Synapse's DVD presents The Grapes of Death in fine form, with a nice sharp, clean 1.66 transfer. Audio is fine and experiencing the film in its original French language does benefit the film more so than a dub track. English subs are optional. As well as the theatrical trailer the disc comes with interviews with Rollin and his muse Brigitte Lahaie. If you are a new comer to the idiosyncratic Cinema of Jean Rollin The Grapes of Death makes for a fine starting point.
The Grapes of Death's theme of mankind's interference with nature and suffering the consequences is hardly ground-breaking stuff, Jorge Grau mined similar territory, (and had a lot more to say about it) with his 1974 film The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue. But The Grapes of Death is one of Rollin's most accomplished films, working with a strong narrative - aside from one bit of daft plotting to do with Brigitte Lahaie's character who seems to have a supernatural immunity to the infection. Rollin's great skill as a visual director is well to the fore here and the film is often striking looking, as well as eerie - it's certainly one of the bleakest looking rural horror films, as the heroine moves through rugged, boulder strewn landscapes, dilapidated farm houses and ravished grape plantations.
The film does have its fair share of problems - there's the uneven pace, some tacky plague make-up which manages to look both disgusting and phony, and a general air of uncertainty which hangs over the film - Rollin seems to have taken inspiration from George Romero, but doesn't quite know if he's riffing on the zombies of Night of the Living Dead or the homicidal maniacs of The Crazies. Either way, Rollin gets the job done and provides some gory thrills along the way - a pitchfork killing and a nasty decapitation. Interestingly the film has some neat parallels with Cabin Fever, however unlikely it may be that Eli Roth was inspired to write his debut feature after seeing Rollin's film.
Synapse's DVD presents The Grapes of Death in fine form, with a nice sharp, clean 1.66 transfer. Audio is fine and experiencing the film in its original French language does benefit the film more so than a dub track. English subs are optional. As well as the theatrical trailer the disc comes with interviews with Rollin and his muse Brigitte Lahaie. If you are a new comer to the idiosyncratic Cinema of Jean Rollin The Grapes of Death makes for a fine starting point.
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Rabid Dogs
Shot in the summer of '75, Rabid Dogs was for a long time considered to be Mario Bava's lost film. After the production wrapped, the film ran aground due to financing difficulties and more or less vanished into thin air. More about that in a moment. The story, essentially, one long getaway sequence, begins when 4 armed robbers hit a payroll delivery. With the cops in pursuit, their driver is shot dead and the remaining gang members kidnap a woman and force a man on the way to hospital with his sick and comatose child, to take them to their remote hideout...
Rabid Dogs may be Mario Bava's roughest looking film, don't expect any pools of surreal lighting in this one, the director goes for a natural, often primitive look that is entirely suited to the proceedings. This is one of the most compressed thrillers you are ever likely to see, the entire film taking place in the space of a few hours, and most of the action set in the cramped confines of a car. Occasionally Bava opens up the action - a crowded gas station stop where help seems tantalizingly close, and a magnificent sequence where the woman makes a desperate escape attempt through a field of crops only to be debased and humiliated for her transgression.
Bava's direction is a masterclass of film making, placing the audience right there in the car. Logistically, it must have been quite difficult to shoot actors speaking dialogue in such tight conditions but the film meshes together so seamlessly, Bava makes it all look effortless. Performances are pitch perfect and each of the actors attend to their roles with utter conviction, not an easy task I'm sure as the dialogue is often extremely nasty, with the two heavies in the gang dishing out sexual slurs and threats of physical abuse to the three hostages. The always great George Eastman, appearing here under his real name Luigi Montefiori is especially menacing and creates a palpable mood of barely contained violence.
Rabid Dogs comes right at the beginning of a new era of Italian Exploitation cinema, films like Night Train Murders, Terror Express and House on the Edge of the Park, which were dark, deeply pessimistic, and featured disturbing sexualized violence. In fact, Bava's film delivers an absolute knockout twist at the climax which is as bitter and cynical as it is ingenious.
After the Italian financier behind the film was killed, the funds required to complete post-production dried up and Rabid Dogs went into freefall. However, Bava's lost film made a surprise comeback almost two decades later when its lead actress Lea Lander acquired the rights to the film and had it reassembled in line with Bava's original intention. Furthermore, Bava's American producer Alfred Leone then purchased the rights a few years later and shot some additional scenes (by Lamberto Bava) to flesh out the story and the film was re-scored and renamed Kidnapped. Viewing the two versions (available on Anchor Bay's Kidnapped DVD), the older Rabid Dogs cut is much superior, the additional scenes in the Kidnapped cut manage to dilute the tension in Bava's taut thriller. Also, Stelvio Cipriani's Rabid Dogs score is far superior to the Kidnapped music.
Rabid Dogs may be Mario Bava's roughest looking film, don't expect any pools of surreal lighting in this one, the director goes for a natural, often primitive look that is entirely suited to the proceedings. This is one of the most compressed thrillers you are ever likely to see, the entire film taking place in the space of a few hours, and most of the action set in the cramped confines of a car. Occasionally Bava opens up the action - a crowded gas station stop where help seems tantalizingly close, and a magnificent sequence where the woman makes a desperate escape attempt through a field of crops only to be debased and humiliated for her transgression.
Bava's direction is a masterclass of film making, placing the audience right there in the car. Logistically, it must have been quite difficult to shoot actors speaking dialogue in such tight conditions but the film meshes together so seamlessly, Bava makes it all look effortless. Performances are pitch perfect and each of the actors attend to their roles with utter conviction, not an easy task I'm sure as the dialogue is often extremely nasty, with the two heavies in the gang dishing out sexual slurs and threats of physical abuse to the three hostages. The always great George Eastman, appearing here under his real name Luigi Montefiori is especially menacing and creates a palpable mood of barely contained violence.
Rabid Dogs comes right at the beginning of a new era of Italian Exploitation cinema, films like Night Train Murders, Terror Express and House on the Edge of the Park, which were dark, deeply pessimistic, and featured disturbing sexualized violence. In fact, Bava's film delivers an absolute knockout twist at the climax which is as bitter and cynical as it is ingenious.
After the Italian financier behind the film was killed, the funds required to complete post-production dried up and Rabid Dogs went into freefall. However, Bava's lost film made a surprise comeback almost two decades later when its lead actress Lea Lander acquired the rights to the film and had it reassembled in line with Bava's original intention. Furthermore, Bava's American producer Alfred Leone then purchased the rights a few years later and shot some additional scenes (by Lamberto Bava) to flesh out the story and the film was re-scored and renamed Kidnapped. Viewing the two versions (available on Anchor Bay's Kidnapped DVD), the older Rabid Dogs cut is much superior, the additional scenes in the Kidnapped cut manage to dilute the tension in Bava's taut thriller. Also, Stelvio Cipriani's Rabid Dogs score is far superior to the Kidnapped music.
Rabid Dogs was released on DVD in 1997 courtesy of German soundtrack specialist label Lucertola Media. However, the best edition of the film is the Anchor Bay Kidnapped DVD which includes both versions of the film. The image (letterboxed at around 1.66) and sound are very impressive considering the film's ragged history and the disc comes with another essential Tim Lucas commentary and an excellent featurette on the trials and tribulations of this great Mario Bava treasure.
Monday, 1 November 2010
The Man From Hong Kong
East meets West in this 1975 Australian/Hong Kong co-production riffing on the megahit Enter the Dragon, and directed by Ozploitation favourite Brian Trenchard Smith. In the film, a Hong Kong police inspector, Fang Sing Leng comes to Sydney to interrogate a Chinese suspect (a early part for Sammo Hung) picked up for trafficking cocaine for local crime kingpin Jack Wilton. After the assassination of the Chinese, Fang resolves to smash Wilton's operation by any means necessary...
The short synopsis above doesn't quite capture the relentless mayhem of bullets, bombs, fights, high speed car chases and causal destruction of Trenchard Smith's deliriously entertaining action caper. Golden Harvest star Jimmy Wang Yu (One-Armed Swordsman) plays the Hong Kong super-cop who shows the Sydney police how its done. Wang Yu doesn't quite have the cool cynical attitude of Bruce Lee, but he still manages to bed down with two babes, as well dishing out some bone-crunching kung fu. His dust up with a contract killer in a Chinese restaurant kitchen is a classic.
Sterling support too from the rest of the cast. One-shot James Bond actor George Lazenby, is suitably slimy as Jack Wilton, while the best lines go to Mad Max villain Hugh Keays-Byrne who plays one of the Australian cops exasperated by Fang's less than delicate methods - at one point he declares "This is Australia mate, not 55 Days of Peking!"
Amazingly this was the director's first full length feature and his work here is absolutely top notch, shot in 'scope (by Picnic at Hanging Rock cameraman Russell Boyd, who captures some striking panoramic shots of Sydney harbour) and directed with incredible verve and considerable skill - check out the spectacular opening sequence where a car explodes perfectly framed against Ayers Rock! The film bounces from one action set piece to another with a manic energy, so much so that a short romantic interlude which could have been turgid in another film, serves as a welcome resting spot for the audience before slamming back into a thrilling car chase and the explosive finale.
Madman's Region 4 coded DVD of The Man From Hong Kong sports an excellent anamorphic transfer preserving the film's 2.35 'scope photography. The print used shows a little wear but it's perfectly fine. The stereo audio is strong too, with a rousing score and a catchy theme song that you will sing for days afterwards. Madman have issued The Man From Hong Kong as a lavish double-disc with a bounty of extras on disc 2. As well as trailers for the fim, we get some silent on set footage, and two additional Brian Trenchard Smith films - Kung Fu Killers (1974, 72 minutes) and Hospitals Don't Burn Down (1978, 24 minutes.) Trenchard Smith also provides an excellent commentary for the main feature.
The short synopsis above doesn't quite capture the relentless mayhem of bullets, bombs, fights, high speed car chases and causal destruction of Trenchard Smith's deliriously entertaining action caper. Golden Harvest star Jimmy Wang Yu (One-Armed Swordsman) plays the Hong Kong super-cop who shows the Sydney police how its done. Wang Yu doesn't quite have the cool cynical attitude of Bruce Lee, but he still manages to bed down with two babes, as well dishing out some bone-crunching kung fu. His dust up with a contract killer in a Chinese restaurant kitchen is a classic.
Sterling support too from the rest of the cast. One-shot James Bond actor George Lazenby, is suitably slimy as Jack Wilton, while the best lines go to Mad Max villain Hugh Keays-Byrne who plays one of the Australian cops exasperated by Fang's less than delicate methods - at one point he declares "This is Australia mate, not 55 Days of Peking!"
Amazingly this was the director's first full length feature and his work here is absolutely top notch, shot in 'scope (by Picnic at Hanging Rock cameraman Russell Boyd, who captures some striking panoramic shots of Sydney harbour) and directed with incredible verve and considerable skill - check out the spectacular opening sequence where a car explodes perfectly framed against Ayers Rock! The film bounces from one action set piece to another with a manic energy, so much so that a short romantic interlude which could have been turgid in another film, serves as a welcome resting spot for the audience before slamming back into a thrilling car chase and the explosive finale.
Madman's Region 4 coded DVD of The Man From Hong Kong sports an excellent anamorphic transfer preserving the film's 2.35 'scope photography. The print used shows a little wear but it's perfectly fine. The stereo audio is strong too, with a rousing score and a catchy theme song that you will sing for days afterwards. Madman have issued The Man From Hong Kong as a lavish double-disc with a bounty of extras on disc 2. As well as trailers for the fim, we get some silent on set footage, and two additional Brian Trenchard Smith films - Kung Fu Killers (1974, 72 minutes) and Hospitals Don't Burn Down (1978, 24 minutes.) Trenchard Smith also provides an excellent commentary for the main feature.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
An Irish ghost story as told by Orson Welles
Return to Glennascaul is a wonderful 2-reel short from 1951, written and directed by Hilton Edwards of the famous Gate Theatre in Dublin. The film is best remembered for the participation of Orson Welles who became involved with the project during some downtime on the troubled production of Othello (which starred Gate co-founder Micheál Mac Liammóir), and was asked to narrate the film as well as appear in the opening and closing sequences of the film.
In the first scene of the film, Welles is seen taking time away from the Mercury production of Othello to travel to Dublin to see Edwards. On the way, Welles picks up a man whose car has broken down, and passing the time, the man tells Welles a story about two strange women he once gave a lift to. Invited in for a night cap at the stately home of the women, the man leaves a cigarette case behind, but moments later when he returns to the house to retrieve the case, the grounds appear over grown with weeds, the house locked up and in a state of disrepair and seemingly abandoned for years...
A short story straight from the haunted land of Ireland as Welles puts it in opening narration, Return to Glennascaul is an atmospheric little film, with beautiful lighting, (in a style reminiscent of Welles' own films) and an evocative harp music score. It's quite a creepy film too - there's a wonderful sequence where the man walks through the empty house and becomes frightened when he hears ghostly whispering all around him. There's some nice touches of humour too, at one point Welles reacting to his passenger's car trouble, replies "I've had trouble with my distributor too", and a scene where a suitably spooked Welles drives off at speed past two women looking for a lift!
The film has had quite an interesting history since its initial release. After a few screenings in 1951, the film vanished and was largely forgotten about, only to be rescued from obscurity when horror movie producer Richard Gordon (Tower of Evil, Inseminoid) found the film in the archives of Irish television broadcaster RTE. The film was cleaned up by the BFI and Gordon commissioned Peter Bogdanovich to film an introduction to accompany the film. In 1992 the film was re-released in a program entitled A Tribute To Orson Welles
Return to Glennascaul can be found on UK label Second Sight's DVD of Othello, as the complete A Tribute To Orson Welles program. The image quality is very good for an obscure title of this vintage while the dialogue is a bit hissy at times, it's perfectly fine. The DVD is region free.
In the first scene of the film, Welles is seen taking time away from the Mercury production of Othello to travel to Dublin to see Edwards. On the way, Welles picks up a man whose car has broken down, and passing the time, the man tells Welles a story about two strange women he once gave a lift to. Invited in for a night cap at the stately home of the women, the man leaves a cigarette case behind, but moments later when he returns to the house to retrieve the case, the grounds appear over grown with weeds, the house locked up and in a state of disrepair and seemingly abandoned for years...
A short story straight from the haunted land of Ireland as Welles puts it in opening narration, Return to Glennascaul is an atmospheric little film, with beautiful lighting, (in a style reminiscent of Welles' own films) and an evocative harp music score. It's quite a creepy film too - there's a wonderful sequence where the man walks through the empty house and becomes frightened when he hears ghostly whispering all around him. There's some nice touches of humour too, at one point Welles reacting to his passenger's car trouble, replies "I've had trouble with my distributor too", and a scene where a suitably spooked Welles drives off at speed past two women looking for a lift!
The film has had quite an interesting history since its initial release. After a few screenings in 1951, the film vanished and was largely forgotten about, only to be rescued from obscurity when horror movie producer Richard Gordon (Tower of Evil, Inseminoid) found the film in the archives of Irish television broadcaster RTE. The film was cleaned up by the BFI and Gordon commissioned Peter Bogdanovich to film an introduction to accompany the film. In 1992 the film was re-released in a program entitled A Tribute To Orson Welles
Return to Glennascaul can be found on UK label Second Sight's DVD of Othello, as the complete A Tribute To Orson Welles program. The image quality is very good for an obscure title of this vintage while the dialogue is a bit hissy at times, it's perfectly fine. The DVD is region free.
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Whore
Fans of Ken Russell are well accustomed to taking the rough with the smooth when it comes to the director's long career in film making. Whore from 1991 is significant in that it would be Russell's last good film, his filmography from then on is a wasteland of mediocre, uninteresting projects. The film is a day in the life portrait of an LA prostitute trying to make a quick buck under the nose of her former boss, a violent and dangerous pimp who's patrolling the streets looking to recoup his investment...
The film, adapted from the David Hines one-woman play Bondage, which Hines wrote based on conversations the playwright had with a number of prostitutes he regularly drove home whilst working as cab driver in London. Russell's transposing of the play to Los Angeles might seem drastic but the director rarely opens up the film, retaining the tight claustrophobic set ups of the stage play, with most of the film taking place in bathrooms, bedrooms, strip bars, empty sidewalks and anonymous public spaces.
The strength of the film leans heavily on Theresa Russell, her performance as the foul mouthed Liz is very impressive, most of the time speaking directly to the camera about her unhappy life before drifting into the prostitution, the do's and don't's of hooking and the constant dangers she faces - abuse, humiliation, violence and at one point a vicious gang rape. Good turns too from Antonio Fargas as a homeless man and impromptu guardian angel, and Benjamin Mouton playing Blake, Liz's sadistic pimp, grumbling about the price of rubbers and abortions. Look out too for a quick cameo from Eraserhead's Jack Nance and an early appearance by Danny Trejo as a tattoo artist.
Whore is grim stuff to be sure, but the film is not without humour - Liz dishes out hilarious swipes at male sexual sensibilities, and ultimately the film is a realistic and sensitive treatment of the oldest profession and a far more potent film than Hollywood trash like Pretty Woman. And this being a Ken Russell film, expect plenty of sleaze and sex.
As far as I know, Whore has not surfaced on DVD in the UK or North America, (where its US VHS release was sometimes repackaged as If You Can’t Say It, Just See It (?)). I believe there was German DVD at one point but its most likely out of print now. In the meantime, check the comments for a very good, uncut VHS rip.
The film, adapted from the David Hines one-woman play Bondage, which Hines wrote based on conversations the playwright had with a number of prostitutes he regularly drove home whilst working as cab driver in London. Russell's transposing of the play to Los Angeles might seem drastic but the director rarely opens up the film, retaining the tight claustrophobic set ups of the stage play, with most of the film taking place in bathrooms, bedrooms, strip bars, empty sidewalks and anonymous public spaces.
The strength of the film leans heavily on Theresa Russell, her performance as the foul mouthed Liz is very impressive, most of the time speaking directly to the camera about her unhappy life before drifting into the prostitution, the do's and don't's of hooking and the constant dangers she faces - abuse, humiliation, violence and at one point a vicious gang rape. Good turns too from Antonio Fargas as a homeless man and impromptu guardian angel, and Benjamin Mouton playing Blake, Liz's sadistic pimp, grumbling about the price of rubbers and abortions. Look out too for a quick cameo from Eraserhead's Jack Nance and an early appearance by Danny Trejo as a tattoo artist.
Whore is grim stuff to be sure, but the film is not without humour - Liz dishes out hilarious swipes at male sexual sensibilities, and ultimately the film is a realistic and sensitive treatment of the oldest profession and a far more potent film than Hollywood trash like Pretty Woman. And this being a Ken Russell film, expect plenty of sleaze and sex.
As far as I know, Whore has not surfaced on DVD in the UK or North America, (where its US VHS release was sometimes repackaged as If You Can’t Say It, Just See It (?)). I believe there was German DVD at one point but its most likely out of print now. In the meantime, check the comments for a very good, uncut VHS rip.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Messiah of Evil
Now here's something you don't see everyday - a film that opens with director Walter Hill having his throat slashed by a dreamy looking teenage girl ! Messiah of Evil is one of the great secret masterpieces of 70's American Horror. In the film, a woman is drawn to the sleepy coastal town of Point Dune in search of her artist father, whose letters have become increasingly bizarre and worrisome. Arriving at her father's deserted home, the woman gets involved with a strange bohemian aristocrat and his two groupie girlfriends. Stranger still are the townsfolk of Point Dune, who seem to be in a zombie-like trance and keep a vigil of beach fires awaiting the arrival of a mysterious "dark stranger"...
Directed in 1973 by husband and wife team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, during a hiatus from writing American Graffiti for George Lucas, Messiah of Evil is one of the most unusual zombie films to emerge in the wake of Night of the Living Dead. The film's scope and ambition are only fully revealed in the final act, and for once you wish there was a second installment to continue the story. The film recalls the moodiness of Carnival of Souls, and you'll find shades of Messiah in films like The Fog and Dead And Buried. John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon may have seen the film at some point in the 70's, but it seems unlikely Lucio Fulci would have caught it, yet seasoned fans of Italian Horror might recognize elements of the film in Fulci's City of the Living Dead, both films tapping a rich vein of weird Lovecraftian horror.
Visually, Messiah of Evil looks hugely impressive - shot in Cinemascope (unusual for an independent horror film of this era) with striking Bava-esque lighting, and some quite amazing art direction - the film is full of surreal perspective artworks which dazzle and disorientate the eye. There are excellent set pieces too - a cinema which slowly fills up with sinister patrons, and an eerie sequence where a girl wanders into to a supermarket to find the living dead chewing down on raw meat. Special mention too for Phillan Bishop's wonderfully evocative electronic score.
Code Red's DVD of Messiah of Evil is excellent. The print used for the film exhibits quite a fair degree of dirt and debris but its a minor complaint considering the film can now be seen the correctly framed in all its 2.35 glory. Surprisingly Code Red have managed to dig up some very worthwhile extras - a very enjoyable, engaging commentary track by the film makers, a comprehensive featurette, Remembering Messiah of Evil, and two b/w short films. Messiah of Evil is a film you will want to see again and again so be sure to pick this masterwork up as soon as possible.
Directed in 1973 by husband and wife team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, during a hiatus from writing American Graffiti for George Lucas, Messiah of Evil is one of the most unusual zombie films to emerge in the wake of Night of the Living Dead. The film's scope and ambition are only fully revealed in the final act, and for once you wish there was a second installment to continue the story. The film recalls the moodiness of Carnival of Souls, and you'll find shades of Messiah in films like The Fog and Dead And Buried. John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon may have seen the film at some point in the 70's, but it seems unlikely Lucio Fulci would have caught it, yet seasoned fans of Italian Horror might recognize elements of the film in Fulci's City of the Living Dead, both films tapping a rich vein of weird Lovecraftian horror.
Visually, Messiah of Evil looks hugely impressive - shot in Cinemascope (unusual for an independent horror film of this era) with striking Bava-esque lighting, and some quite amazing art direction - the film is full of surreal perspective artworks which dazzle and disorientate the eye. There are excellent set pieces too - a cinema which slowly fills up with sinister patrons, and an eerie sequence where a girl wanders into to a supermarket to find the living dead chewing down on raw meat. Special mention too for Phillan Bishop's wonderfully evocative electronic score.
Code Red's DVD of Messiah of Evil is excellent. The print used for the film exhibits quite a fair degree of dirt and debris but its a minor complaint considering the film can now be seen the correctly framed in all its 2.35 glory. Surprisingly Code Red have managed to dig up some very worthwhile extras - a very enjoyable, engaging commentary track by the film makers, a comprehensive featurette, Remembering Messiah of Evil, and two b/w short films. Messiah of Evil is a film you will want to see again and again so be sure to pick this masterwork up as soon as possible.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Count Dracula (BBC production, 1977)
Among the endless films based on Bram Stoker's iconic creature of the night, this BBC production, originally made for television in 1977, has over the years earned itself quite a considerable fan base. Gerald Savory's screenplay is one of the more faithful adaptations of Stoker's novel (if you haven't read the book, the plot closely resembles Coppola's film), with some minor departures from the text made to streamline the story - Mina and Lucy are now sisters; Arthur Holmwood, one of Lucy's suitors is combined into the character of Quincey Morris; and Dracula himself, is portrayed as an eternally youthful man, and not the aged vampire of the book.
Director Philip Saville brings a strong visual sense to the film, with some fine location work - crumbling castles, nocturnal graveyards, dark haunted woodlands, and the gloomy wind-swept coast of Whitby. Style wise the lacks the garish technicolor of Hammer, or the operatic bombast of the Coppola film, and bears more of a resemblance to Herzog's Nosferatu, both films rich in atmosphere. The film has few special effects shots, perhaps due to budget reasons, but the odd negative image effect strays in from time to time, adding a touch of weirdness to the proceedings.
Louis Jourdan plays Dracula with a quiet, understated power - charming, with impeccable manners and deeply sinister. His Dracula is refreshingly unpretentious, not simply some emissary from Hell, but rather a creature who needs to feed on the blood of humans to further his race. Impressive too is Frank Finlay as the courageous and strangely paternal Van Helsing, and Jack Shepherd as the twitchy and ill-tempered Renfield. Some of the minor players lack certainty, and Richard Barnes' Quincy is quite disastrous, his faltering Texan accent will remind you of the equally inept turn by Keanu Reeves in Coppola's film.
BBC's DVD (coded for R2 and R4) containing the full 152min film is completely barebones as one might suspect. It's a shame some liner notes could not be provided to shed some light on the production (which originally aired a few days before Christmas of '77). The image quality is good, if a little underwhelming. The transfer exhibits some noise not helped by a certain televisual blandness inherent in small screen productions of this vintage (think of BBC sci-fi series Blake's Seven, or the British serial Thriller for a visual reference). Still, the DVD comes highly recommended and for the best results see this one on a cold winter's night to generate the required thrills.
Director Philip Saville brings a strong visual sense to the film, with some fine location work - crumbling castles, nocturnal graveyards, dark haunted woodlands, and the gloomy wind-swept coast of Whitby. Style wise the lacks the garish technicolor of Hammer, or the operatic bombast of the Coppola film, and bears more of a resemblance to Herzog's Nosferatu, both films rich in atmosphere. The film has few special effects shots, perhaps due to budget reasons, but the odd negative image effect strays in from time to time, adding a touch of weirdness to the proceedings.
Louis Jourdan plays Dracula with a quiet, understated power - charming, with impeccable manners and deeply sinister. His Dracula is refreshingly unpretentious, not simply some emissary from Hell, but rather a creature who needs to feed on the blood of humans to further his race. Impressive too is Frank Finlay as the courageous and strangely paternal Van Helsing, and Jack Shepherd as the twitchy and ill-tempered Renfield. Some of the minor players lack certainty, and Richard Barnes' Quincy is quite disastrous, his faltering Texan accent will remind you of the equally inept turn by Keanu Reeves in Coppola's film.
BBC's DVD (coded for R2 and R4) containing the full 152min film is completely barebones as one might suspect. It's a shame some liner notes could not be provided to shed some light on the production (which originally aired a few days before Christmas of '77). The image quality is good, if a little underwhelming. The transfer exhibits some noise not helped by a certain televisual blandness inherent in small screen productions of this vintage (think of BBC sci-fi series Blake's Seven, or the British serial Thriller for a visual reference). Still, the DVD comes highly recommended and for the best results see this one on a cold winter's night to generate the required thrills.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Hour of the Wolf
Watching Hour of the Wolf, Ingmar Bergman's 1968 film, feels like wading through a full blown nightmare. Bergman had played with macabre imagery in his previous films - the character of Death in The Seventh Seal, and two impressively eerie sequences in The Magician and Sawdust and Tinsel, but Hour of the Wolf is one of the Swedish director's darkest, most intense films.
The film takes place on a small, isolated island where Johan, a painter accompanied by his wife Alma, has set up home to work on his art. Johan's fragile mental state, given to bouts of moodiness and plagued by vivid dreams of nightmarish creatures, is weakened further when the couple are courted by the mysterious Baron and his eccentric entourage. These unwelcome guests in the lives of Johan and Alma are not so benevolent as first appears, in fact they may not even be human...
On the face of it, Hour of the Wolf is an abstract and difficult film, but early on in the film, Liv Ullman's character Alma reveals a clue to the audience when she posits a theory that over time, lovers can come to mirror each other, even sharing their very thoughts. And demons. For Bergman, being an artist is a dangerous business, a constant wrestle for control over the spectres of self-doubt, flagging creativity and humiliation. The film shot like a surreal Gothic Horror, is full of strange, hallucinatory images - the corpse of a murdered boy sinking into the depths of the sea, a man walking on a ceiling, and a corridor full of frenzied, flapping pigeons. Bergman's perennial cameraman Sven Nykvist's work here is utterly extraordinary, lighting faces so they resemble the rugged surfaces of the rocky island.
If you're looking to discover the work of Ingmar Bergman, Hour of the Wolf may present an enormous challenge - instead stick with conventional wisdom and see The Seventh Seal first. But if this is a Bergman you've missed in the past, the film is highly recommended. If you bear the weight of such heavy drama, the film makes for a fascinating double-bill with Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, both sharing some interesting parallels with one another.
MGM's DVD of Hour of the Wolf, available as part of their Ingmar Bergman Collection, or on its own, presents the film in its original full-frame ratio. The b/w image is good, grainy at times but sharp nonetheless. It's not up to the standard of Criterion's Bergman discs but it should suffice. The audio is quite standard, but the Swedish dialogue is free from hiss and distortion, and Lars Johan Werle's sparse avant garde score is well represented. Subtitles are offered in English, French and Spanish. The R1 disc (unlike its barbones R2 counterpart) has some interesting extras - a short feature on the film, interviews with Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, and a commentary by Bergman scholar, Marc Gervais. The disc is rounded out with the inclusion of two stills galleries
The film takes place on a small, isolated island where Johan, a painter accompanied by his wife Alma, has set up home to work on his art. Johan's fragile mental state, given to bouts of moodiness and plagued by vivid dreams of nightmarish creatures, is weakened further when the couple are courted by the mysterious Baron and his eccentric entourage. These unwelcome guests in the lives of Johan and Alma are not so benevolent as first appears, in fact they may not even be human...
On the face of it, Hour of the Wolf is an abstract and difficult film, but early on in the film, Liv Ullman's character Alma reveals a clue to the audience when she posits a theory that over time, lovers can come to mirror each other, even sharing their very thoughts. And demons. For Bergman, being an artist is a dangerous business, a constant wrestle for control over the spectres of self-doubt, flagging creativity and humiliation. The film shot like a surreal Gothic Horror, is full of strange, hallucinatory images - the corpse of a murdered boy sinking into the depths of the sea, a man walking on a ceiling, and a corridor full of frenzied, flapping pigeons. Bergman's perennial cameraman Sven Nykvist's work here is utterly extraordinary, lighting faces so they resemble the rugged surfaces of the rocky island.
If you're looking to discover the work of Ingmar Bergman, Hour of the Wolf may present an enormous challenge - instead stick with conventional wisdom and see The Seventh Seal first. But if this is a Bergman you've missed in the past, the film is highly recommended. If you bear the weight of such heavy drama, the film makes for a fascinating double-bill with Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, both sharing some interesting parallels with one another.
MGM's DVD of Hour of the Wolf, available as part of their Ingmar Bergman Collection, or on its own, presents the film in its original full-frame ratio. The b/w image is good, grainy at times but sharp nonetheless. It's not up to the standard of Criterion's Bergman discs but it should suffice. The audio is quite standard, but the Swedish dialogue is free from hiss and distortion, and Lars Johan Werle's sparse avant garde score is well represented. Subtitles are offered in English, French and Spanish. The R1 disc (unlike its barbones R2 counterpart) has some interesting extras - a short feature on the film, interviews with Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson, and a commentary by Bergman scholar, Marc Gervais. The disc is rounded out with the inclusion of two stills galleries
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Phantom of the Paradise - the French Blu-Ray
One of 3 Blu-Rays I picked up in Paris last week, Phantom of the Paradise has been given a very impressive hi-def makeover for its French release (Region-free by the way). Brian de Palma's 1974 film looks absolutely superb, transferred from a clean, spotless print, full of eye-popping detail (you can spot Cheryl Smith of Lemora fame bedding down with Swan in one scene) and gorgeous color - Larry Pizer's gaudy cinematography positively radiates off the screen. Film grain is present but not excessive and there is only one instance where the picture looks anything less than stellar - the scene where Swan gives his press conference at the airport looks a little soft, but I would guess this is how it always looked. The audio is extremely robust - the opening sequence of the Juicy Fruits rockin' out is wonderful. Turn this baby up !
The extras** on the Blu have been carried over from the previous French DVD, the best of which is Paradise Regained, the excellent and meaty 50-min documentary about the film, which gathers together all the principle cast and crew including a very proud Brian De Palma. I won't spoil all the surprises but some interesting factoids gleamed from the doc - the film originally began life as The Phantom of the Fillmore, Taxi Driver's Peter Boyle was originally considered to play Beef, and Led Zeppelin had de Palma optically replace all references to Swan's record label Swan Song, which was Zep's own label !
The film itself can be viewed without the French subtitles, but the French subs are forced for the Paradise Regained documentary. The French subs are discreet enough to ignore although actor Gerrit Graham does one of his interview segments in French !
** Edit Thanks to reader Principal Archivist who left this comment regarding the extras on the French Blu:
It's probably fair to warn your North American readers that although the French BluRay is region free, the extra features can only be played on a PAL-compatible BluRay player; most North American BluRay players aren't.
Phantom fans should check out the Principal Archivist's incredible website The Swan Archives for all thing Phantom related...
The extras** on the Blu have been carried over from the previous French DVD, the best of which is Paradise Regained, the excellent and meaty 50-min documentary about the film, which gathers together all the principle cast and crew including a very proud Brian De Palma. I won't spoil all the surprises but some interesting factoids gleamed from the doc - the film originally began life as The Phantom of the Fillmore, Taxi Driver's Peter Boyle was originally considered to play Beef, and Led Zeppelin had de Palma optically replace all references to Swan's record label Swan Song, which was Zep's own label !
The film itself can be viewed without the French subtitles, but the French subs are forced for the Paradise Regained documentary. The French subs are discreet enough to ignore although actor Gerrit Graham does one of his interview segments in French !
** Edit Thanks to reader Principal Archivist who left this comment regarding the extras on the French Blu:
It's probably fair to warn your North American readers that although the French BluRay is region free, the extra features can only be played on a PAL-compatible BluRay player; most North American BluRay players aren't.
Phantom fans should check out the Principal Archivist's incredible website The Swan Archives for all thing Phantom related...
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Bullet In the Head
It may not be as revered as A Better Tomorrow or The Killer, but John Woo's 1990 film Bullet In the Head is one of the director's most ambitious films, working out the familiar gangster themes of loyalty, betrayal and revenge against the backdrop of the Vietnam war. Its 1967, and three lifelong friends looking to make a fast buck on the turbulent streets of Hong Kong escape to Saigon after the accidental killing of a small time hood. Initially, sent there to run contraband in and out of the country, the three friends make a hit on a gangster for an ammunition box full of gold, and are inadvertently thrust into the very heart of the Vietnam conflict...
Directed with style and verve by John Woo, Bullet In the Head may not feature the kind of balletic World War III carnage of Hardbolied, but rather the film's violence is harsh and ugly, the central section of the film where the three heroes are captured by the Viet Cong is often harrowing, the director putting a disturbing twist on the Russian roulette sequence from The Deer Hunter, one of the key influences on the film. Thankfully Woo for most of the film, keeps the mawkish sentimentality that spoils a lot of his work in check - no white doves were harmed in the making of this film I can assure you.
The screenplay co-written by John Woo has a pleasing symmetry and the director in an early section of the movie, very bravely smuggles in one extraordinary shot of a student standing before a tank, a sly reference to Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - no small thing for a Chinese film maker. Performances throughout are strong, with the always dependable Tony Leung delivering another solid turn. Even in this early lead role, he was obviously destined to be a great star. Great support too from Simon Yam, playing an ultra-cool Saigon contract killer.
Bullet In the Head is not without its weaknesses - at two hours the film is perhaps overlong, the synth score is a little flimsy compared to the ferocity of the visuals, and Woo doesn't quite nail the Vietnam sequences, the flat looking Thailand locations looking more like Missing In Action, rather than moody jungle vistas of Apocalypse Now. Minor criticisms aside, this being a pre-Hollywood John Woo film, the action is nothing less than jaw-dropping, demonstrating that the Hong Kong film crews simply were the best in the world at making this kind of movie. Hardly anyone escapes from the film without being ripped apart by machine fire, beaten, stabbed, chopped, burned or blown to bits by grenades and bombs.
The best way to see Bullet In the Head is the R2 two-disc edition courtesy of Hong Kong Legends, which features a good, sharp 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer and strong audio. The film can be watched in the original Cantonese, or with an English dub. A bounty of extras are contained on the second disc, the best of all, a superb commentary by Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan. The disc is officially out-of-print these days, but you can still score a copy from Amazon UK relatively cheap.
Directed with style and verve by John Woo, Bullet In the Head may not feature the kind of balletic World War III carnage of Hardbolied, but rather the film's violence is harsh and ugly, the central section of the film where the three heroes are captured by the Viet Cong is often harrowing, the director putting a disturbing twist on the Russian roulette sequence from The Deer Hunter, one of the key influences on the film. Thankfully Woo for most of the film, keeps the mawkish sentimentality that spoils a lot of his work in check - no white doves were harmed in the making of this film I can assure you.
The screenplay co-written by John Woo has a pleasing symmetry and the director in an early section of the movie, very bravely smuggles in one extraordinary shot of a student standing before a tank, a sly reference to Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - no small thing for a Chinese film maker. Performances throughout are strong, with the always dependable Tony Leung delivering another solid turn. Even in this early lead role, he was obviously destined to be a great star. Great support too from Simon Yam, playing an ultra-cool Saigon contract killer.
Bullet In the Head is not without its weaknesses - at two hours the film is perhaps overlong, the synth score is a little flimsy compared to the ferocity of the visuals, and Woo doesn't quite nail the Vietnam sequences, the flat looking Thailand locations looking more like Missing In Action, rather than moody jungle vistas of Apocalypse Now. Minor criticisms aside, this being a pre-Hollywood John Woo film, the action is nothing less than jaw-dropping, demonstrating that the Hong Kong film crews simply were the best in the world at making this kind of movie. Hardly anyone escapes from the film without being ripped apart by machine fire, beaten, stabbed, chopped, burned or blown to bits by grenades and bombs.
The best way to see Bullet In the Head is the R2 two-disc edition courtesy of Hong Kong Legends, which features a good, sharp 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer and strong audio. The film can be watched in the original Cantonese, or with an English dub. A bounty of extras are contained on the second disc, the best of all, a superb commentary by Hong Kong film expert Bey Logan. The disc is officially out-of-print these days, but you can still score a copy from Amazon UK relatively cheap.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)