Cor! It is nice when I see a film I’ve quite liked from a few years ago get a release over here. We screened The Ghastly Love of Johnny X at Abertoir in 2012 and now it’s getting a UK VOD release via TheHorrorShow.tv (nothing to deprave and corrupt here, I assure you). The film is a pulpy and high-camp homage to 50s sci-fi B-movies and musicals, so this won’t be your cup of tea if any of those things make you roll your eyes. Johnny X and his gang of juvenile misfits are exiled to Earth after their latest misadventure back home. Johnny’s ex-girlfriend, Bliss, has stolen his resurrection suit, which gives him the power to control others. The aliens find themselves somehow embroiled in a madcap adventure involving a not-so-dead crooner, a dastardly concert promoter, and, well, more aliens. The Ghastly Love of Johnny X is a very silly film, and should not really be approached with any expectations of seriousness.
Having said that, probably one of the most notable things about the film is that it’s the final feature film to use Kodak’s black and white Plus-X film stock. The film certainly benefits from a big-screen viewing, really, as the black and white is truly a lovely sight to behold. I’m not an expert at all on film stocks and physical film versus digital and all that jazz, but I know enough that this looks lovely and that effort to obtain and lovingly make use of such stock takes an admirable level of either serious nerdery, love, or a bit of both to make it happen.
The dedication to this project isn’t just in the film’s stock, either, but in its very making. Production began in 2004, and testament to what must have been good working relationships and a love for the project, the film wasn’t completed until 2011. It perhaps shows a little in the film’s rambling, odd plot, but it’s not entirely out of place in what is, after all, a B-movie. What matters most here are the song-and-dance numbers, and they are a lot of fun – if, I suppose, you’re into that sort of thing, which I am. I recently reviewed Stage Fright and called Johnny X a ‘rockabilly B-movie homage’, and it’s exactly that. It’s very obvious homage, as, perhaps, you would expect a bit of a messy mish-mash. This is not a film of subtleties. However, its mostly assured performances and clearly dedicated cast and crew means it’s an affectionate mess, at least, and it’s difficult not to admire that.
The film does drag a bit, feeling longer than its 90 minute run time, as the convoluted plot takes us on a few too many twist and turns and misadventures, but hopefully if you’ve got on board with the characters early on his won’t detract from what is, overall, a lot of fun. The film isn’t as spectacular as one might hope, with the set design often minimal at best, and as a result the film isn’t quite as memorable as you might hope either, but it’s certainly enjoyable while it’s on. The cast is peppered with notable cameos, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ Kevin McCarthy’s final film role, and the new-comers manage to hold their own too. The highlights of the film are easily, for me, De Anna Joy Brooks’ Bliss and Heather R. Provost’s Lily Raquel, who both give tone-perfect and highly entertaining performances.
The Ghastly Love of Johnny X is an affectionate homage, which for me is always to be applauded. It might not leave you humming its tunes long after the credits have rolled, but it sure is well worth giving a go.
Mild spoiler alert, on the off-chance anyone’s going to give a monkeys about this movie: that image you see above of the guy in an orange jumpsuit holding an axe as he psyches himself up to take on the onslaught of zombies about to burst through the glass doors? That’s the final shot of Zombie Resurrection. There, now you know how it ends, so it’s obviously not worth you seeing this film now.
Believe me, I just saved you 80 minutes of your life.
I’ve said it time and again: as much as we at Brutal As Hell strive to be champions of microbudget independent horror, as much as we hold it up as the crucible of genuine passion, creativity and individuality in a genre so often underserved by the mainstream – by Jupiter’s cock, they don’t half make it hard for us to maintain that position at times. I’ve already spewed vitriol over one bargain basement British horror comedy this year – Crying Wolf – and I’ve no wish to do the same again, but Zombie Resurrection falls into so many of the same pitfalls (though, not that it makes the slightest difference, we might note that Zombie Resurrection was in fact made two years earlier). Taking a stock premise and an oversized ensemble of stock characters – not one among them even remotely likeable on any level – the debut feature from co-directors Jake Hawkins and Andy Phelps takes us up a path we’ve trod a great many times before, but evidently said path has been pissed on quite a lot in the interim.
It doesn’t start badly, to be fair, opening on an actually quite impressive first-person-shooter night vision shot as we see through the visor of a lone soldier making a sneak attack in woodland. Alas, it isn’t long before said gunman is out of the picture in a chompy fashion, and we learn we’re in a near-future Britain which has been overrun by zombies, and meet our protagonists, a (cough) hilariously mismatched bunch of survivors: excessively chavvy woman, excessively middle-class man, excessively upper-class soldier, excessively foul-mouthed working class Scottish soldier, excessively religious African woman… you get the picture. They’re all a bunch of painfully broad stereotypes who clearly think playing everything at pantomime levels is going to prompt LOLs aplenty. I suspect you can already ascertain whether or not I feel they succeeded in this.
Anyway, after wandering in the woods for a painfully long time talking way too much, they wind up finding an abandoned school, venturing inside, and continuing to talk way too much, making sure they say “fuck” and “cunt” a lot because that makes them all seem cool and edgy. Quel surprise, there turn out to be way more zombies in there than there were outside – but oh wait, could they be on the brink of some astonishing discovery that forever changes their understanding of the zombie outbreak…? Well, maybe. And if you get invested enough in the story and the characters that you actually give a flying toss, well, good for you I suppose. For myself, the only revelation I was anxious for was the end credits.
There are attempts at something interesting in Zombie Resurrection, as in its own hamfisted way it attempts to tackle the religious implications of the dead returning to life, and come the final act it does make efforts to get a bit in your face with gore, craziness and stuff that might offend the oversensitive. Ultimately though, it only succeeds in offending the sensibilities of anyone who likes horror comedies to actually be a bit funny, a bit scary, and enjoyable to watch. A failure on all counts, Zombie Resurrection really should have just stayed dead.
Zombie Resurrection is released on UK DVD and Blu-ray on 23rd March 2015, from Left Films.
Within Madness is not a particularly enjoyable film. For me, its flaws outweigh its strong points, but I know that some of you out there will really love this. So, stick with me for a bit and I’ll walk you through it. But first, you might want to check out the three minute trailer embedded below. It’s filled with some footage that wasn’t even in the film and it gives you a good idea of the tone and look of the film.
What we have here is another film that claims to be based on true events. The press info indicates that it was inspired by Ricardo Lopez. He’s the guy that stalked Björk in the 90s and made videos about it. Really creepy stuff where his face is painted red. Google it and tell me it’s not George Lucas’ inspiration for Darth Maul. Along with the “Based on true events” disclaimer, Within Madness also looks like it was probably made on a tiny budget. This isn’t a knock, but for those of you who like their horror lo-fi (as do I, usually) – it doesn’t get much more lo-fi than this.
The film runs for a little under 75 minutes. It consists mainly of grainy black and white video footage of a young man named Donovan Summers recording entries for his video diary. He starts off by talking about himself. He mostly goes into details about his job as a personal trainer at a fitness center and he makes it a point to mention that he makes $65,000 a year. Donovan’s reason for making videos is that he wants to be able to connect better with other people. In the first couple of entries, he is holding a small white dog while he talks about himself. After a few of these, he mentions a client he has at his gym named Brandy. It doesn’t take long to figure out that Donovan is a sociopath and his fixation on Brandy gets pretty dark and weird. This all leads up to an ending that is both disturbing and genuinely surprising.
J.M. Stelly has made a few short films, but this is his first feature. His direction leads a little to be desired and the choice to use the black and white, grainy format makes the whole thing feel gimmicky. It even starts with an old projector sound. This only lasts a few minutes, but for the rest of the film we get a surreal blend of music and sound effects that are more distracting than effective. The placement of stock footage is a bit awkward too. It’s mostly scenes from old bondage films and clips from what looks an awful lot like Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. That film is from 1922, so it’s most likely public domain. But I’m not sure it was all that necessary to borrow from it.
Stelly does make a few impressive decisions with his direction. While Donovan is speaking to the camera, there are some great compositions. My favorite is a shot where he’s sitting in front of a painting and it’s above him. Then it cuts to a profile in front of a window with mini-blinds. It looks fantastic. The other aspect of the film where Stelly shines is with his writing. The script has some nice details and it takes its time moving Donovan toward full-blown insanity. At one point it occurred to me that this script might make a wonderful stage play. I would absolutely go see that in a heartbeat.
Finally, Matt Story as Donovan Summers is really good. Physically, he looks like Ted Bundy (the king of the sociopaths) but he delivers his lines like he’s improvising. It all feels natural and I believe much of what he’s saying. It goes without saying that there is more than a little Patrick Bateman in this character, but Matt Story draws you inside his feelings (or at least that place where feelings are made.) Summers is probably a little less sociopathic than Patrick Bateman, but he’s just as dangerous.
I believe if Stelly hadn’t chosen to make this with the grainy effects and the overdone sound effects, it would have worked so much better. The lo-fi mixed with some gore effects will appeal to those who want their movies bloody. But what we have is still a character study that is worthy of appreciation.
Within Madness is set for release on April 7th and will be available on special limited edition Blu-Ray and limited edition DVD at leglesscorpse.com/shop. Digital release of the film is TBD but will be available on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, and other popular VOD outlets from Self Destruct Films.
It is with some surprise that I sit down to write this review of The ABCs of Death 2 and realise that I am the first person at Brutal As Hell to do so. I say this because, over 2012 and 2013, its predecessor became one of the most written about movies to grace the pages (or, y’know, bandwidth) of this site, with no less than four reviews: after our guest contributor Eric covered the anthology movie at its Fantastic Fest 2012 premiere, further reviews ensued from myself, Tristan, and our former writer Kit. Given the format of the film – 26 short films from 26 different directors, each centring on a form of death represented by a letter of the alphabet – it’s one that should in theory leave you with a great deal to write about, and yet it proves so tricky to sum up concisely that it can paradoxically leave one without much to say at the end of the day. Lending a close critical eye to each individual chapter seems an exercise in futility given it would pretty much necessitate an entire book, let alone a thousand words or less; and given the sheer diversity of ideas and styles at play it’s also quite an undertaking to try and identify any overriding themes. The long and short of it was, The ABCs of Death was a cinematic experience quite unlike other, more akin to taking in a random splurge of clips on Youtube than a motion picture, and it was by turns as compelling and entertaining as it was exasperating and tedious.
And wouldn’t you know it – much the same is true of The ABCs of Death 2. But the difference this time is, we have experienced this before, and so (presumably) have the participating filmmakers. It must have been a strange feeling contributing to the original ABCs of Death, having no idea what anyone else’s chapters would look like, hence some coasted by on the bare minimum whilst others went way more out there than we might have anticipated. This time around the 26 directors obviously have a better idea of what works and what doesn’t in this context, and the bulk of the shorts here would fit into one of three categories: very silly, very strange, or very nasty. Or some combination thereof. (Okay, so technically that’s seven categories. Or maybe it isn’t, I’m not very good at maths.)
Of course, the audience also goes into The ABCs of Death 2 with a similar sense of what to expect this time around, and subsequently that thrill-of-the-new novelty value which made the original what it was is inevitably absent – and, for this writer at least, it gets old even faster than in the first film. Sure, it can be argued that if you’re not enjoying one particular chapter there’s no sense grumbling as the next one will be along soon enough – but when no chapter lasts longer than a few minutes, that really doesn’t give you long enough to get invested in anything that occurs.
That said, one of the key lessons learned from the first ABCs of Death would seem to be the optimum chapter length. The first had some chapters so brief and insubstantial you wondered why they even bothered (cough Ti West ahem), and others that didn’t seem to know when to stop, hence the movie dragged on to a rather excessive length of 124 minutes. At 117 minutes, The ABCs of Death 2 isn’t that much more concise, but each chapter does seem to fall more closely around the four minute mark – though there are still some that feel a little dragged out, and others that feel like they would have been better served in a longer format.
As for the specific highs and lows: as I said, I’m not about to go into detail on every last one of them, but as with the original I found myself favouring the more absurdist, comedic chapters such as the contributions from Julian Barrett, Steven Kostanski, Alejandro Brugues, and Robert Boocheck: indeed, given that Boocheck’s M is for Masticate won the international contest to be included in the final film, it’s kind of nice to see how heavily the film’s marketing has drawn on footage from his entry. Alas, too many other entries just seem to lean too hard on eccentricity – Jim Hosking, Erik Matti and in particular Todd Rohal’s were over-egging the pudding a bit much for my taste – whilst others were a bit too clever-clever for my liking (EL Katz and Larry Fessenden come to mind).
Invariably the main question likely to come up from The ABCs of Death 2 is whether or not it’ll lead to an ABCs of Death 3. Personally, I’d sooner they left it here. The anthology horror format seems to be thriving of late, the bulk of them taking a more manageable approach with fewer directors getting more time to work with, and common themes which keep them from feeling quite so sporadic. If the main legacy of The ABCs of Death (aside from potentially landing a dim-witted substitute teacher in jail) is to have helped revive anthology horror, then it’s more than done its job. What felt unique and different the first time is already starting to feel a little tiresome here; to retread the same path any more times would surely result in outright tedium.
Of course, I’ve written this whole damn thing working on the assumption that the reader will have already seen the original. If you haven’t – who knows, maybe you’ll think The ABCs of Death 2 is the dog’s bollocks.
The ABCs of Death 2 is released to UK DVD and Blu-ray on 23rd March 2015, from Monster Pictures.
Hard to believe it’s almost eight years since Rodriguez and Tarantino released their ambitious double-feature Grindhouse in US cinemas to a staggering lack of success. Stranger still to think that a cinematic venture that was deemed a colossal failure on release has in fact proved so influential that we’re still feeling its echo the best part of a decade later. Whether this influence is so keenly felt by the mainstream is debatable, though, for while it may have spawned the two Machete movies, and the whole faux-vintage aesthetic may have caught on in advertising and music videos, Grindhouse surely made the biggest impact on the indie filmmaking scene. That combination of eye-catching titles, lo-fi stylistics and willfully outlandish (not to mention deliberately offensive) content has resulted in a slew of neo-grindhouse flicks, and – unlike QT & RR’s $50 million+ efforts – the vast majority of these have been made by fledgling filmmakers for the studio equivalent of pocket change. I don’t know about anyone else, but whenever I read a Hollywood trade report on Blumhouse which describes their output as ‘microbudget,’ I tend to spray coffee out of my nose and think, “good god, there are a few films I could show you…”
And a new film to add to that list is Holy Hell, debut of writer, director, editor and lead actor Ryan LaPlante, which looks to have been made for less than Kurt Russell’s Brylcreem budget on Death Proof. If the likes of Hobo With A Shotgun, Dear God No! and Nude Nuns With Big Guns left you cold, then it’s unlikely this one will do much for you either; but if you do have a taste for neo-grindhouse schtick, as well as a healthy appreciation for casual blasphemy, Troma-esque theatrics and droll psuedo-Dirty Harry one-liners, it may be right up your alley.
LaPlante is Father Augustus Bane, and he’s the sort of priest that once upon a time we imagined all priests to be: i.e., when he talks about God’s love, forgiveness, turning the other cheek and so forth, he actually means it. He’s Ned Flanders-esque in his perpetual optimism, even in the face of widespread crime on the streets, graffiti all over his church, and apathy from his miniscule congregation. It leaves one wondering just what it would take to dent his faith and send him over the edge – and, of course, we soon enough find out, as whether it’s God’s will or not, Bane is about to face a big test of faith, Job-style (heheh, ‘Big Job’). Visiting the home of the Bonners, a suburban family who fear for the soul of their rebellious daughter Amy (Alysa King), Bane suddenly finds himself in a hellish situation when the house is invaded by the MacFarlanes, a family of gun-toting, incestuous psychos motivated by nothing but their own homicidal mania. Soon enough all the Bonners have been shot, beaten and/or mutilated to death, with only Bane and a crippled, anally-raped Amy left barely alive. After a near-miraculous recovery, Bane sees the light, procures a gun, and sets off to go Old Testament on the MacFarlanes, and any other sinners who cross his path.
Again – if you’ve seen any of the aforementioned neo-grindhouse/rewindhouse flicks then you pretty much know the drill: insanely over-the-top villains who are as depraved as possible, whose absurdly gory acts of cruelty inspire an equally absurd and gory revenge. The thing is, the bar for such absurdity and cruelty has been set pretty high of late, meaning Holy Hell had to do at least one of two things to really stand apart – go even nastier, or even more ridiculous. I think it’s safe to say LaPlante and co attempted the latter option. While Holy Hell certainly isn’t low on content sure to upset the sensitive or prudish, there’s also a curious restraint on show; for example, while the initial home invasion sequence doesn’t shy away from showing some fairly extreme nastiness (I’ll avoid specifics to keep this spoiler-light), the rape of Amy occurs entirely off-camera. Indeed, sex in general is largely off the table, the few love scenes (if we can call them that) played in a comic manner by fully clothed actors, and the only brief nudity impaired by gaffer tape pasties. It’s curious how, while I wasn’t exactly won over by Dear God No! on release, I’ve since come to appreciate that it really is the finest example of modern grindhouse, because of how unabashedly it embraces the no-holds-barred, excess-all-areas ethic that defines grindhouse; if you’re going to go there plot-wise, you must also have the nerve to show everything in all its ugliness. Holy Hell aspires to such an approach, but ultimately doesn’t go all the way with it, meaning it can’t help but feel a little lightweight by comparison (though it is by no means the only neo-grindhouse flick guilty of this).
Having said all that, dependent on your sense of humour, Holy Hell still offers plenty to enjoy. As mentioned earlier it does feel very akin to a Troma movie, particularly with its garish costumes and make-up and grotesque caricatures; indeed, substitute Melvin the mop boy for Bane the wet behind the ears priest who is transformed into a bargain basement Charles Bronson rather than a massive super-powered mutant, and Holy Hell could more or less pass for a Toxic Avenger movie. If you enjoy that particular brand of excessively cartoonish, self-consciously stupid B-movie, then there’s no reason you won’t have fun here. And it certainly doesn’t hurt that LaPlante came up with so many endearingly old-school action hero one-liners for Bane to dryly intone before blowing away the sinners. Indeed, I can’t help suspecting the script may have begun with a list of one-liners which LaPlante proceeded to build scenes around… but whether that’s the case or not, he did a good job.
As grindhouse goes it may leave a little to be desired, but as a shoestring indie debut feature film goes, Holy Hell is a commendable effort, and we can but hope it’s the first of many from LaPlante and company.
Japanese director Sion Sono has been gradually making an international name for himself since the eighties. He really started attracting attention in 2001 with the gruesome and creepy Suicide Club, riding the J-horror wave that exploded after Hideo Nakata’s Ringu (1998), and in recent years has seen enormous critical success with 2010’s cartoony-yet-bleak serial killer film Cold Fish (2010) and last year’s ultra-violent gangster thriller Why Don’t You Play In Hell. Despite being a favourite of more serious film critics, Sono, like his fellow countryman Takashi Miike, isn’t afraid of wading into more extreme waters, and so, for his latest effort, has delivered us what can only be described as a gangsta rap musical/martial arts hybrid.
Adapted from Santa Inoue’s manga series of the same name by Sono himself, Tokyo Tribe takes place in an alternate universe Tokyo, where different districts are ruled by their own gangs (bringing to mind Walter Hill’s The Warriors). The hulking Merra, leader of the Wu-Ronz (played by Ryohei Suzuki, who you may recognise from the outrageously entertaining HK Kamen : Forbidden Superhero), who dresses in not much more than a thong, teams up with Buppa, a rich, corpulent gangster (and leader of the eponymously-named Buppa Town), who likes to enslave (and occasionally eat) schoolgirls, and has a son who collects people as ‘living furniture’. Together they plan to rule over the whole of Tokyo, and their first plot is to do away with Kai (the amusingly named Japanese rapper Young Dais), mild-mannered and peace-loving leader of Murashino Saru, who are, in the words of the young chap who acts as a Greek chorus (in rhyme, of course) throughout the film, ‘into love’. Merra sets a trap to enslave Kai in a local brothel, using a girl named Erika who was kidnapped off the street. Unfortunately this backfires somewhat, as Merra ends up killing Kai’s friend Tera instead (who, it transpires, was known and loved amongst all the gangs in Tokyo). In a further complication, Erika turns out to not only be an expert martial artist, but also the daughter of the ‘high priest’, who, it seems, is a sort of dark lord of Japan, and who Buppa is in league with. These events eventually escalate into all-out war amongst the gangs of Tokyo, and the already dangerous neon streets explode into an orgy of violence.
The idea of a ‘battle rap’ musical may seem fairly new, but, let’s face it, Shakespeare had his characters delivering rhyming couplets a fair while before Sono was walking this Earth. However, I’m pretty sure Shakespeare never had these verses delivered in time to huge banging trap-hop beats. Let’s be fully clear here – if you hate hip-hop, this is not the film for you. The music and culture permeates every single frame of the film, and the rap-phobic amongst us will be instantly turned-off. Thankfully, for those who like their beats and rhymes, the music here (from the BCDMG collective) is truly excellent- The end song is still stuck in my head three days after seeing the film (ok, it helps that the chorus is in English and repeated a lot). Now I don’t know more than five words of Japanese, so I don’t feel I’m fully able to appreciate the rap skills of all of the actors, but to my ears they range from excellent to a bit clumsy, which is actually how I feel about the film itself. Sono is undoubtedly an excellent visual stylist; long panning shots over the vibrant slums are occasionally breath-taking, but they are tempered by an over-reliance on CGI effects, something which is forgivable in very low-budget productions, but Tokyo Tribe certainly appears to have had quite a lot of money spent on it in all other departments, so it’s disappointing when CGI blood spurts (and, at one admittedly funny point, a ‘bling’ tank) look so out of place – especially when you remember how well the Japanese samurai films of the 1970’s pulled these off.
My other issue with Tokyo Tribe could actually be an accusation levelled at much of mainstream hip-hop over the last twenty years – the juvenile obsession with (forgive me, but this is contextual) ‘bitches’. The B word turns up frequently as a slur (in addition to one gay slur spoken by the otherwise very likeable Greek Chorus character), and, despite the awesome, arse-kicking Erika and an all-female badass gang called the Giri Giri Girls, whose leader sports a whip and fetish gear, most of the girls in the film are there for window dressing or to be abused – one has to stop and raise an eyebrow when Sono features THREE separate scenes with flick-knives being drawn across bare female breasts. Of course those familiar with Japanese cinema will point out that this is a Nikkatsu Studios film, and is pretty tame in that area compared to their output from 30-40 years ago, but when you’ve got some excellent female characters being disappointingly underused it becomes more of an annoyance.
Gripes aside, I have to say I LOVED Tokyo Tribe from the halfway point onwards – it’s vibrant, colourful, loud and ridiculous as only the Japanese can do. At points it feels like the characters from Miike’s Ichi The Killer (2001) remaking West Side Story, and the second half is pretty much a full-on martial arts sequence – some of which is truly impressive – and the ending sequence is full-on hilarious in its comment on the macho nature of gang culture and hip-hop. I would recommend catching Tokyo Tribe on the big screen, or at the very least plugging into some big speakers at home and turning it up, because the loud bass and aggressive beats really hammer the action home. If you’re looking for a brash and tasteless, yet colourful and stylish good time, this is the tribe to party with.
Tokyo Tribe goes on limited theatrical release in the UK and Eire on 8th May 2015, from Eureka.
How well can a TV show hold up after fifty years? Surprisingly well, it turns out. No doubt we could pick and choose any number of once-popular shows from the 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s and be overwhelmed by how dated they feel, how old hat the storytelling and dialogue seem, how cheesy and outmoded the aesthetics are. But when all the elements are in place – good casting, good writing, good direction, interesting stories and visuals – we may find that the small screen entertainment of years gone by can prove just as entertaining now. And I’m quite happy to report this is most definitely the case with series 4 of The Avengers, now making its Blu-ray debut half a century on from its original airing.
A couple of points to emphasise right away, just so we’re all on the same page; no, this particular Avengers has nothing whatsoever to do with the Marvel Comics super-team (though it is the reason that Marvel chivalrously renamed their 2012 mega-blockbuster Avengers Assemble in the British isles, to avoid any confusion). Marvel debuted their team in 1963, by which time the British secret agent series had already been on the air for two years. The next question, then, is what’s so special about series 4, and aren’t we missing out not watching the first three beforehand? Well, first off a lot of the earliest episodes are lost – not too uncommon for TV shows of the time, alas – and the line-up of the team changed somewhat over the first few years. There’s definitely a case to be made that The Avengers really found their feet around the second and third series, during which time Patrick Macnee’s John Steed became the lead and Honor Blackman became his first leather-clad female cohort Cathy Gale. However, it would seem to be widely agreed that it was with series 4 that the show perfected the formula and reached its most iconic phase, thanks to increased budgets which allowed them to shoot on film rather than video, and – not for nothing – the retiring Blackman’s replacement by Diana Rigg as Mrs Emma Peel. Macnee may not have been the original hero, and Rigg may not have been the original heroine (nor was she the last), but if we mention The Avengers – assuming we don’t automatically think of Iron Man, Thor and so on – the first names that come to mind are Steed and Mrs Peel, he with his bowler hat and umbrella, she in her skin-tight black leather catsuit. Sounds kinky, you say? Well, that’s hardly accidental. And if it still raises an eyebrow now, just think what the reaction must have been in 1965.
Oh, and as regards that other question about series continuity: just forget about it. One of the real joys of revisiting The Avengers now – and I’m sure this could be said of any number of old adventure-themed shows – is to be taken back to a time when you could quite easily catch a random episode of any given TV show and not be left a babe in the woods if you hadn’t seen every single episode that came before. As sophisticated and rewarding as TV drama can be nowadays, it really does demand great resilience on the part of the viewer, with backstory after backstory, subplot after subplot – skip one week and the whole thing can collapse like a house of cards. How refreshing, then, to just put your feet up and take on a far simpler, episodic TV show with a dramatic arc so small as to be almost non-existent.
From the first episode on, a very simple formula is established for just about every episode of The Avengers. In the opening scene, a stranger is murdered under mysterious, often bizarre circumstances, so Steed and Mrs Peel take a break from their affluent hedonistic lifestyle to investigate, generally with both of them taking on assumed identities (though almost always using their real names). The villains generally work in seemingly innocuous establishments – department stores, dancing schools, wine manufacturers etc – and strive to arouse no suspicion, but invariably give themselves away with shifty behaviour. Soon enough, Mrs Peel will get captured and (wouldn’t you know it) almost always tied up; once free, she and Steed beat the crap out of the baddies, and – seemingly without a jot of paperwork – ride away down some anonymous country lane on a vehicle of some description. And then, we cue the music (and damned if I haven’t had that tune on earworm since watching these).
If that all sounds boringly predictable, the other thing to take into account is how incredibly bizarre the show gets. As one of the most notable secret agent franchises of the 1960s, The Avengers may tend to be mentioned in the same breath as James Bond, but in tone and content the two are lightyears apart. Where Bond routinely traverses the globe, The Avengers remain in Britain, and generally within about a twenty mile radius of central London, aside from one episode set (though I suspect not shot) in Scotland; and The Avengers went to some altogether weirder places with their plots and characters. All manner of eccentric villains abound, with increasingly oddball evil schemes, and while oftentimes these boil down to simple enough murder mysteries, it often branches out into more off-the-wall sci-fi fantasy territory, some of the stranger plots including psychics, robots, and – surely the most bonkers of all – sentient man-eating plants from outer space. And yet they get away with it all, as never for a moment do you get the impression that anyone involved is taking any of it seriously in the least.
So yes, it’s an easy show to dip in and out of, with no overarching plot threads running through the series as has long since become the norm. What really kept the viewers coming back, then, was surely the cast. It’s small wonder that Patrick Macnee’s Steed was not the show’s original male lead, as he’s such an unlikely hero in so many respects; with his anachronistic old English gent garb and his overly chipper ex-public schoolboy manner, he seems so utterly un-macho, non-threatening, even laughable. But this is worked to his advantage, Colombo-style; Steed’s harmless, dim-witted outer appearance hides a lethally sharp mind, quick wit and killer fighting moves (even if his stunt double proves easy to spot). More stringently left-leaning viewers might deem his upper class carefree nature as a reflection of patriarchal imperialist Britain at its most loathsome, but I daresay such viewers may need to lighten up a bit.
And then there’s Diana Rigg’s Mrs Peel. There can, and indeed have been endless tomes written on her character, and what it meant in comparatively unenlightened mid-60s Britain to have a genuinely strong, smart, independent woman as the heroine in a top-rated TV show. To this day, every time a new Bond movie comes out, the PR will stress how the latest Bond girl is a true equal to 007, but we all know such claims will invariably prove facile. However, with Mrs Peel (and no, we never do see Mr Peel or learn anything about him), there really is no question that she is on a par with her male partner. Yes, she is frequently called on to do the damsel in distress bit – even getting tied to a railway track in one particularly cartoonish episode – but we almost never get the sense that she is at a disadvantage; a little sigh and roll of the eyes tells us that she simply puts up with the condescension of men, knowing full well she’s better than they are. Like Steed, she too kicks copious amounts of arse, but – and this really cannot be overstated – she looks a whole lot better doing it. And that without doubt is one of the key things that kept audiences coming back in droves, and made Mrs Peel so iconic: damn, Diana Rigg looks good. Over the course of the series, she perhaps doesn’t spend quite as much time in her iconic leather catsuit as you might expect, but they don’t pass up any opportunity to get her in any number of overtly titillating outfits: nurse, harem dancer, Robin Hood costume that makes no effort to conceal her buttocks, and most notoriously the Queen of Sin pictured above. But regardless of the get-up, there’s just something inescapably intoxicating about the woman herself, radiating genuine strength and intelligence as much as raw sex appeal. Truly, if watching Diana Rigg in The Avengers doesn’t stir any sensation below the navel, see a doctor.
The jewel in the crown of late British producer and screenwriter Brian Clemens, The Avengers also boasted its fair share of notable guest stars. Series 4 sees appearances from, amongst others, Michael Gough, Peter Wyngarde, Geoffrey Palmer, Nigel Davenport, Hammer actor Harvey Hall, Monty Python’s Carol Cleveland, even a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance from future sitcom queen Penelope Keith, whilst behind the camera the esteemed Roy Ward Baker, billed simply as Roy Baker, gets a fair few directorial credits under his belt. Nostalgia hounds will be happy to see this seven-disc Blu-ray set isn’t short on extras either, with a number of episode commentaries, old promo material, behind the scenes footage and more, and the monochrome photography is stunningly beautiful in high definition. For any British pop culture historians, then, The Avengers Series 4 is an essential purchase; but above and beyond that, it remains a hugely enjoyable, endlessly rewatchable package of action-adventure TV at its finest.
The Avengers: Series 4 is out now on Blu-Ray from Studiocanal.
It was recently reported that David Cronenberg is no fan of self-appointed online film critics who lack the backing of a legitimate powerhouse of say, a newspaper. Well, if he’s right, here’s hoping I’m one of the ‘quite good’ ones, even if I do continue to ‘dilute’ the voices of those real critics by daring to air my thoughts on a film on a website. Given Cronenberg’s recent tendency toward scathing deconstructions of the establishment of fame, in Cosmopolis and Maps to the Stars, he might do better to turn that attention to the establishment of cultural criticism too, rather than casually dismissing swathes of passionate and enthusiastic writers. Regardless: this is a review of one of Cronenberg’s earliest films, Rabid, and back in 1977 he was already demonstrating something of an insightful and brutal eye for satire.
Rose (Marilyn Chambers) and her boyfriend Hart (Frank Moore) are involved in a motorcycle crash in the Canadian countryside. The blaze is spotted by a patient at a cosmetic surgery clinic, and the couple are picked up by the clinic’s ambulance. Hart is relatively unscathed, suffering only from concussion and some broken bones. Rose’s situation is somewhat more desperate, having been trapped under the burning bike. The clinic’s chief, Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan), decides to treat her there and then, and Rose undergoes an experimental skin-grafting procedure. Rose is slow to recover, and Hart is instructed to return home to Montreal and await news. When Rose finally wakes up, it becomes immediately evident that the skin-grafts that seem to have saved her life might not be such a blessing. Rose harbours a retractable appendage in her armpit, and she is compelled to use it to suck the blood of other people, the only thing that will satiate her new-found hunger. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that those who are attacked by Rose become rabid, and if they go on to bite other people – which they do – then they are in turn transformed into out-of-control maniacs. As Montreal falls increasingly into chaos, Rose makes her way back home, and Hart, along with the Keloid Clinic’s businessman Murray Cypher (Joe Silver) try to get to the bottom of what’s going on.
I confess I am less familiar with Cronenberg’s work than I should be, especially his earlier films. I’ve not seen Shivers, which I’m aware has a very similar narrative to Rabid, so I can’t really make much comment on that. I had a vague memory that I’d seen Rabid, several years ago, but if I had it obviously didn’t make that much of an impression on me as, in re-watching the film, I had no memory of any of it. That’s not to say the film is forgettable: I enjoyed it very much, as it bears all the features of a sleazy exploitation pic from the late-70s, while at the same time demonstrating a more subtle talent than is usually evident in such films.
While the filmmaking talent on show is subtle, the at-first obvious and titter-inducing nature of Rose’s growth is also something of a subtle indictment of phallic power (or perhaps that’s just my, shall we say, biased reading of it). On the one hand, Rose’s phallus is unusual: it does not ejaculate, it consumes. Notably, however, the urge to consume that it incites in Rose is uninvited, and unwanted – although she attacks people in order to sustain herself, she does not seem particularly happy to do so, particularly in the latter half of the film. When we first witness Rose attack, it is a clever inversion of what we might expect to happen: she is prone, in a hospital bed, an orderly finding her topless and confused. My first thought was that he might try to molest her, and that she would attack him as a result of that, but no: she takes advantage of him. She is given unconscious power by the appendage, and it is not there only to defend or take revenge. Ultimately, however, while this initial power that Rose gains might seem subversive and an advantage, it is wholly destructive, and, indeed, uncontrollable. That Rose’s own assessment of her new state is negative – “I’m a monster” – speaks volumes. Whether that’s a useful depiction of phallic power is in the eye of the beholder, no doubt, but it’s an interesting one to find in a slightly sleazy film from 1977.
I think it’s a bit impossible to write about Rabid without paying due attention to Marilyn Chambers. The pornographic actress was not Cronenberg’s first choice, but rather the choice of producers wishing to sex-up the film a bit. Her casting certainly works on that level, but it also brings a wonderful sense of subversion and underlying satire to many of the film’s sequences, the best example being Rose’s visit to a porn theatre to prey on whichever unsuspecting sap thinks it’s a good idea to approach her.
I’ve seen the rabid victims in the film referred to as zombies, which doesn’t seem quite accurate, and it’s nice to see that Arrow don’t refer to them as either zombies or vampires. While the film cleverly plays on the vampiric, making Rose’s appetite a blood thirst, Cronenberg’s concerns are here scientific to the extreme. The repeated misrecognition of the infected as suffering from rabies in the film underlines Cronenberg’s preoccupation with the medical and the scientific, and his masterful use of familiar mythology to explore those themes.
Arrow once again deliver a comprehensive package of special features on this release and do sterling work on the Blu-ray transfer. Rabid might not be one of Cronenberg’s finest, but it sure is a bit more subtle than it first seems.
Rabid is available now on UK Blu-Ray from Arrow Video.
This movie is great! I just had to get right to the point. After all, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead doesn’t waste any of its 99 minutes, and I wanted to pay it the respect that it has so clearly earned. This is a fast moving, fun, inventive, well-made, well-acted, grisly ride that finally makes running zombies worth getting excited about.
We are first introduced to a group of men clad in armor that resembles wearable protective sporting equipment – hockey masks, shin guards, etc… Within seconds, they are shooting and decapitating zombies. Next, we see three women in a garage in the middle of a photo shoot. Again, very quickly, one of them suddenly grows agitated and in no time at all, one of the other women has her throat bitten open. The survivor, Brooke, is able to call her brother before men in gas masks drug and abduct her. Her brother, Barry, lives with his wife and daughter. He notices something is wrong when a deranged man is standing in his kitchen, going through the refrigerator. There is a struggle but the family is able to get out and drive away. The plan is to make it to Bulla Bulla to find Brooke, but along the way, Barry’s family becomes infected. Barry meets up with the hilarious Benny on the road, portrayed by the Aboriginal pot comedian and actor Leon Burchill. Then they meet Frank and another guy who isn’t around very long but proves to be incredibly useful to them. And so begins their adventure, killing zombies on the way to Bulla Bulla.
There have been volumes written on the argument over which are better – slow zombies or fast zombies. I won’t reopen the debate here. I’ll only say for me, as a lifelong fan of the classic Romero zombie (and a guy who didn’t like 28 Days Later at all) I am pretty quick to dismiss a movie the minute the undead start doing their warm-up stretches. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is indeed a movie with probably the fastest moving zombies ever. But I’m happy to say that I was on board with all of it. There are two main things that helped me through the initial sigh I began to let out as I saw the dead were getting up and running – the quick pacing of the film as a whole and the super creative elements that the script injects into the veins of a genre that is rotting and beginning to smell.
The film is getting compared (by pretty much everybody) to the Mad Max films mixed with zombies. I don’t disagree. But I can list countless Australian films that take place on the road. Australian films ranging from Wake in Fright and Bad Boy Bubby to Rabbit Proof Fence and The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert are all about travel and adventure. It’s the common thread I’ve noticed that draws me to films from that part of the world. But it doesn’t seem to be particularly futuristic. And apart from the zombie problem, the world doesn’t have that post apocalyptic look to it yet – at least no more than the endless landscape of Australia already has. From a design standpoint, the men in their armor do resemble Master Blaster if his top half was replaced with Jason Voorhees. Fortunately, the film creates its own vision. The direction and cinematography are particularly enjoyable. Gore is used pretty excessively, but blood smears across the screen in a way that enhances composition and adds to the already lovely use of color.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is the first film for brothers Kiah and Tristan Roach-Turner. Kiah directed it and the two wrote the script together. As first time films go, it doesn’t get much better than this. The acting is great as well. Along with Leon Burchill as Benny, another standout is a mad scientist of sorts played by Berynn Schwerdt. With his goggles and hazmat suit and maniacal laugh, you’ll root against him, but he might just disco dance right into your heart just a little.
Just one more thing, I’m staying away from revealing some twists that occur. They’ve been mentioned in almost every other review of this film, and I have to express my disapproval. I will say that along the way, things are revealed about the nature of the zombie apocalypse that are completely new. But at the same time, there is a bit of a throwback to the pre-Romero zombie. Back in the days of White Zombie and I Walked with a Zombie – when a zombie served a much different purpose. Cheers to the Roach-Turner Brothers for the updated reference. It’s truly brilliant and fun. I definitely would love to see a whole series of Wyrmwood films.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead is available now on VOD in the US from IFC Midnight.
This is the kind of film that I really don’t enjoy reviewing, because to say anything is to say too much. So I’d urge you to go in cold if you haven’t already seen it. If you have any expectations, you’re likely to be disappointed because I can almost guarantee that this movie is not what you think it is (based on the trailers, marketing etc.) This isn’t to say that I don’t recommend it, because I do, but it was definitely one of the most extreme examples of what I expected versus what I got being very much at odds in recent memory.
Luckily I didn’t really know much about Denis Villeneuve’s (Prisoners, Incendies) Enemy before seeing it, other that it had Jake Gyllenhaal playing two identical characters. Having seen Prisoners I was expecting a fairly straight forward thriller, but what I got was more something along the lines of Brian De Palma remaking Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers. At its best Enemy is deeply unnerving and at its worst it’s tonally uneven, if not even verging on dull. I feel that it will attract just as many detractors as admirers and that’s certainly something I admire in a film; not unlike Only God Forgives, Enemy is a singular vision of a filmmaker not wishing to compromise in the name of coherence, who will not pander to his audience.
Gyllenhall stars as Adam Bell, a university lecturer in Toronto who appears to lead a fairly isolated life with the exception of some occasional, if cold, trysts with his girlfriend Mary (Melanie Laurent). In a frankly bizarre and wholly unnatural conversation with a colleague that would not be out of place in a David Lynch film, Adam is recommended a movie to watch, which he decides to rent that evening from the video store. Whilst watching the film he spots what would appear to be his doppelganger in a small bit part, and after a quick search online he finds that the actor is called Antony Clair and that he lives locally in Toronto. After becoming obsessed with Antony and tracking him down via the talent agency that represents him, Adam finally convinces him that they should meet up. Where Adam is sullen and dishevelled Antony oozes charisma, he rides a motorcycle and wears a leather jacket. Antony’s heavily pregnant wife Helen (Sarah Gadon) also develops a fascination with Adam. Needless to say things don’t end well for anyone concerned. Toss in some underground sex clubs, a giant spider and a brief cameo from Isabella Rossellini and you’re still not even close to what’s ultimately going on in this movie.
For the most part however I found it to be consistently watchable, stylish and the performances are very strong. Complaints that it never amounts to much are understandable even if I don’t necessarily agree, Enemy is not a film that gives easy (if any) answers and is a solid exercise in style over substance I have a feeling that as a viewer you will either admire its excesses and inconsistencies or be entirely put off by its over indulgences.
Enemy is available on DVD now from Curzon Film World.
I’m not sure I need to open on a disclaimer, but I really feel the need to emphasise straight away that I am not in any way biased against mainstream horror. There does tend to be this default ‘mainstream bad, indie good’ mentality that comes up among self-professed serious genre fans, but I’ve noted time and again that the indie scene is frequently guilty of producing just as much unimaginative cookie cutter garbage as the type of bigger-budget horror flicks that perpetually clog up the multiplexes; on top of which, there have been plenty of studio horrors that have been widely dismissed by fandom which I have no qualms admitting I thoroughly enjoyed, such as Sorority Row, The Purge or Insidious. That said, I absolutely understand the frustration that mainstream horror so often inspires, given the deluge of remakes, sequels and found footage flicks that makes up most studio output, and how frequently these movies play it safe, aiming to appeal to the lowest common denominator with obvious cheap scares, predictable plots and bland catalogue model lead actors who are almost impossible to care about. When you think about the extra resources these studio-financed films have at their disposal, and what a filmmaker of real vision might be able to accomplish with all that (if only they were granted the necessary creative freedom), it’s little wonder that so many mainstream horror films inspire such vitriol.
And, as this preamble might have implied, Annabelle is absolutely no exception. It’s all very well-made, it looks good, has some truly decent supporting actors in Alfre Woodard and F Murray Abraham, and even has some promising plot elements by basing its genesis story of the possessed doll in a Manson Family-esque Age of Aquarius cult – and yet it all winds up painfully bland, uninvolving, and instantly forgettable.
(Okay, time for a second disclaimer – I realise this is a prequel to 2013 movie The Conjuring, which is based at least in part on allegedly real events. I haven’t actually seen The Conjuring, nor do I have any knowledge of the true stories behind it. I don’t know if that makes a great deal of difference. I’m not too well-versed on the finer details of the real life tragedies that occurred on 7th December 1941, but I still know the movie Pearl Harbor was a giant turd.)
The plot, so much as I can bothered to recount what little I remember of it, centres on a young well-to-do couple living the American dream at the tail end of the flower power era, with a baby on the way. However, one night their house is invaded by a couple of dirty hippy satanist types who try to kill them, until the cops show up and blow them away. However, one of the attackers – a young woman – is clutching the hideously ugly collector’s item doll that handsome doctor hubby bought for bland blonde wife the day before based on some supremely misguided notion that it would brighten up the nursery. Anyway, a drop of the dying woman’s blood trickles into the eye of the doll, only making it even uglier. And guess what – the dying crazy hippy girl’s name is Annabelle. And now the doll’s possessed. She didn’t have to chant “Ade due damballa, give me the power, I beg of you” or anything.
So beyond that – couple movie into an apartment with their new baby, presumably so it can all seem a bit more like Rosemary’s Baby, and wifey encounters strange phenomena while hubby remains sceptical, Alfre Woodard becomes a mother figure/provider of mystical exposition, things go creak, there are sudden cheap jump scares, and it’s all so prosaic and dull it hurts. Horror movies come in all shapes and sizes: nasty, silly, loud, quiet, ugly, pretty… but the last things they should ever be are nice, safe and boring. But that’s how everything in Annabelle plays out: nice, safe, boring story; nice, safe, boring camerawork; nice, safe, boring performances. This seems to be the most common complaint of mainstream horror, and if Annabelle’s anything to go by the studios just aren’t learning from their mistakes. There’s absolutely nothing in here to prompt any excitement, any tension, any emotional response at all beyond indifference. I don’t know if having seen The Conjuring will add a great deal to the experience, but I seriously doubt it, as whichever way you cut it Annabelle is a turgid, tedious waste of time.
Annabelle is released to UK DVD, Blu-ray and VOD on 23rd February, from Warner Bros.
By Nia Edwards-Behi
Having said that, probably one of the most notable things about the film is that it’s the final feature film to use Kodak’s black and white Plus-X film stock. The film certainly benefits from a big-screen viewing, really, as the black and white is truly a lovely sight to behold. I’m not an expert at all on film stocks and physical film versus digital and all that jazz, but I know enough that this looks lovely and that effort to obtain and lovingly make use of such stock takes an admirable level of either serious nerdery, love, or a bit of both to make it happen.
By Quin
By Ben Bussey
By Nia Edwards-Behi
Review by Stephanie Scaife
