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It was only recently that I offered up an enthusiastic review of The Machine, a new British movie which explores the ramifications of a human consciousness transferred into an android in an intelligent, mature way. Smart sci-fi of that breed is always welcome… but then, there’s sci-fi like Robotrix.

Sigh; remember the good old days before China took over Hong Kong? (Cue Brutal As Hell being immediately barred by all search engines in China, assuming it wasn’t already.) It seems like such a distant memory now, but there was indeed a time when a large portion of the most badass and batshit insane B-movies out there came from Hong Kong; movies in which the words ‘too much’ never applied, and the only things to kept off the table were good taste and logic. The cream of the crop from this early 90s wave of Hong Kong trash was, as far as I’m concerned, 1992’s Naked Killer – but it seems the way may have been paved for that classic slice of Cantonese sleaze by this earlier trash-tastic mix of kung-fu, sci-fi and sexploitation.

Essentially, Robotrix takes the basic premise of Robocop, and replaces all the sophisticated satire with a lame-brained police procedural/slapstick comedy/rape revenge/soft porno movie. Truly, only in the old days of Hong Kong could you find such a genre crossover. HK cop Selina (Chikako Aoyama, who was clearly in no way shape or form cast purely on the basis of her massive tits) is part of a team assigned to protect a randy young prince from some unspecified middle eastern land. However, whilst the prince is cavorting in his luxury suite with a bevy of naked ladies – while, naturally, an entire team of male HK cops with the sexual maturity of a 12-year old boy stare goggle-eyed and say “OOOOOOOOOO!” – Selina is caught unawares and shot through the heart. Next thing we know the prince has been kidnapped, and it’s all because his dad – a guy who looks about as middle-eastern as Roger Moore in a keffiyeh – is a patron of the robotic sciences, seeking to secure the services of the best robot makers in the world in order to build his own robotic army. It seems this one particular scientist Sakamoto really, really wants the job, as he’s holding the prince ransom and demanding his own research be funded; and just to prove how serious he is, he kills himself on camera and transfers his consciousness into a totally lifelike humanoid form (Chung Lin).

Not to be outdone, robotics expert Dr. Sara (Hiu-Dan Hui) and her creation Ann (Amy Yip, best known for Sex and Zen, and again quite clearly not cast purely on the basis of her massive tits) take the recently deceased cop Selina and transfer her consciousness into a robot body that’s identical to her own. Keeping it all top secret and pretending Selina is still the same, the three ladies join forces with Selina’s old squad in order to rescue the Prince and aprehend the villainous Robo-Sakamoto, who has now added the rape and murder of a prostitute to his rap sheet. As for how they go about the investigation… well, I don’t want to give everything away, suffice to say it’s probably not what they’d do on CSI.

Particularly for those of us with a more delicate disposition, a movie like Robotrix is very much an acquired taste. You have to accept going in that people are going to say and do utterly stupid, unbelievable things, and utterly stupid, unbelievable things are going to happen, as well as things which (uh-oh) some viewers may find offensive. On which note, existing fans of Robotrix will doubtless be approaching this new DVD edition from Mediumrare with one key question in mind: is this a fully restored version? Robotrix is yet another movie to fall under the knife of the BBFC, as it ventures into the old red-flag area of sexual violence. The BBFC records on the matter show that, with 2 mins 45 seconds removed, this edition of Robotrix is the most complete yet approved for an 18 certificate. Naturally, it’s not too hard to find the excised footage online if you’re so inclined (watch out though, our beloved Mr Cameron is this close to locking you away just for typing the word ‘rape’ on a computer), and I honestly can’t say the film suffers particularly from their absence. They are indeed gratuitous, salicious and distasteful scenes – but then, there’s barely a moment in Robotrix that isn’t, and the overriding cartoonish tone makes them impossible to take seriously.

As it stands, I half wish they’d been inclined to take the knife to the remaining sequences of consensual intercourse. According to the press release, Robotrix was the first Hong Kong movie to feature full-frontal nudity, so I suppose they were beginners when it came to shooting sex – and by gum, does it show. It’s rare indeed that I complain about an extended scene involving a well-endowed naked woman, but the scene in which Chikako Aoyama gets it on with her cop lover David Wu has to be among the most unsexy sex scenes ever shot; it’s painfully unnatural and forced, and it just doesn’t know when to stop. Curiously, co-star Amy Yip must have had a no-nipple clause, even though her surgically enhanced hooters are barely contained by her garish wardrobe for pretty much the duration (as the picture above might indicate).

It’s not all tits, ass and questionable attitudes toward sex, however. As with all the best Hong Kong movies, Robotrix packs a fair bit of chop socky as well, and indeed the only scenes in which Amy Yip and Chikako Aoyama go double-team on a guy, it’s in a fisticuffs capacity. Given the action involves superpowered robots, they do unnatural levels of damage, hence we have some wonderfully ridiculous and gory deaths, most notably a moment involving what looks like a picnic hamper put to unexpected use.

Is Robotrix sexist, degrading, offensive and idiotic? Quite probably. But hey, that’s what we call paracinema. It’s by no means a lost classic, but it’s good midnight movie entertainment if you’re in the mood for something with absolutely no sense of taste and decency. It may disappoint some viewers that, while this edition has restored a least a little previously excised footage (the aforementioned cuts are not especially glaring), they didn’t also go to the trouble of cleaning the print up a bit; it’s dirty VHS quality with fairly muffled sound. Personally, I’m quite content with this, as it feels like the way it was meant to be seen; spotlessly clean HD versions of movies like this just don’t seem that appropriate to my mind. But again, existing fans of the movie may find this another reason to be disappointed, on top of this not being a fully uncut version. There are also no extras beyond a trailer. But hey – it’s still got big breasted ladies doing kung fu, so it’s not as if it’s a dead loss, right?

 Robotrix is out on Region 2 DVD on 25th November 2013, from Mediumrare Entertainment.

Review by Quin

If anybody thought there was going to be a subgenre of horror films that take place in dark holes, deep within the earth’s bowels, let me just say that I declare it officially dead. In 2005, The Descent did something truly amazing. It gave us something scary and different; its sequel in 2009 was a total failure. The original My Bloody Valentine from 1981 was great, and that took place in a mine; but its remake was probably the worst remake of them all. So as far as I’m concerned, everything has been said on the subject. Now along comes a film called Abandoned Mine, with its cast of no-name actors (except Alexa Vega who was in Repo! The Genetic Opera, but I didn’t see that and I don’t recognize her), and its first time director and its ridiculous movie poster – all the signs are saying turn back before it’s too late. But I just shrug and say to myself, “What’s one more cave movie?” They do say that your initial impulse is probably the right one. I know some impulsive people that make terrible decisions, but perhaps when choosing which movie to watch, being impulsive is helpful.

Abandoned Mine briefly gets off to a good start. I’ve always thought that in any movie, it’s best to engage the viewer during the credits. White text over a black background while music plays is dreadfully boring and a waste of valuable screen time. I even fast forward now through the opening credits of James Bond movies. So why not start the movie while you tell us quietly and subtly who made the damn thing? Well, Abandoned Mine gets some of the back story out of the way during the opening credits by using old photos and newspaper headlines. We see images of people from the late 1800s as well as words like “Mystery” and “Accident.” Later in the film, the kids elaborate on the tale of people who died in the mine, but they were actually murdered and as a result we have this tale of the Jarvis Mine.

This brings me to the title of the film. Abandoned Mine is lazy and uncreative. It would be the same as calling your restaurant Food. The name of the mine is the Jarvis Mine. There’s a great title right there. Maybe the filmmakers were worried people would think the mine was haunted by Jarvis Cocker, but I doubt it. But surely they could have incorporated it in the title – perhaps The Legend of the Jarvis Mine or Incident at Jarvis Mine. They missed the boat… er… mine car on that one.

The plot of the film is mostly your typical haunted house story – just replace the old house with an old mine. Then insert 5 teenagers – 2 jocks, 2 blondes and an Indian – have them all walk into a mine, and you have a setup for a joke that probably isn’t that funny (or a horror movie that isn’t that scary.) It’s Halloween night and the leader of the group decides to take them to the mine so they can hang out and scare each other with tales of things that happened there exactly 100 years ago. Once it starts raining, the kids move inside the mine. This is where the movie starts to get good. The tone shifts and becomes a bit darker, while the lights go out, disorienting the viewer as well as the characters. The turning point is when one of the jocks has a full blown panic attack brought on by claustrophobia. Things get fairly tense after the group leaves the jock behind while they go get lost looking for who knows what. This sets things up for a twist in the plot. I must admit, I’m pretty mad at myself for not figuring out what would happen. Then there’s another twist and then another one. The movie lost me completely after the first twist. Since they got inside the mine, I had been forming a fairly positive review inside my head, but that all went away when they went and did what they did.

Abandoned Mine is actually quite nuanced in its badness. It wisely avoids being a found footage film, although it clearly wants to be one. When the characters are introduced, we see clips of them, in what appears to be agony or maybe just intense fear, in quick cuts while they are all meeting up for the evening. We also see an unknown figure at a computer, reviewing and compiling the footage. In the mine, they wear helmets equipped with cameras, so we know there will be footage. It’s just nice that we don’t have to be the ones to sift through all of it.

The characters are mostly typical movie teens. The two girls are the most interesting, but not by much. However, what I can not forgive is the way they wrote Ethan, the character from India. He’s written in a way that makes him look clueless. The two jocks use him as the butt of their jokes while the girls defend him. But the use of stereotypes as humor combined with the mean-spirited comments, just makes everybody look bad – especially the writer of this script. I do give credit to actor Charan Prabhakar for doing the best he can with the material. He brings an endearing quality to Ethan.

On one hand, this movie is well made, has some decent moments inside the mine and rarely relies on jump scares. But on the other hand it’s contrived, manipulative, and racially insensitive. Basically, this movie figuratively calls your mother a whore, then just after apologizing, it kicks sand in your face, only to offer to wash your eyes out for you with urine. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, Abandoned Mine is available now on VOD and iTunes.

Review by Stephanie Scaife

Jeremy Lovering’s feature film debut In Fear opens in UK cinemas today. It’s an extremely taut little thriller that very efficiently follows the number one rule for effective low-budget horror – keep it simple!

Tom (Iain De Caestecker) and Lucy (Alice Englert) have just started dating; in fact they barely know each other, but she has agreed to go with him to a music festival in Ireland. Perhaps chancing his luck even further Tom has decided to book a romantic evening in a remote country hotel for the pair en-route. Initially reluctant, Lucy agrees and soon our young lovebirds find themselves lost in the countryside, and guess what? They’re not alone. The initial set up harks back to the likes of Straw Dogs or An American Werewolf in London, where our protagonists find themselves amongst some less than hospitable locals, and we’re introduced to poor Lucy as someone eyeballs her through a hole in wall whilst she’s in the bathroom. Tom doesn’t fare much better and ends up having to buy the entire pub a drink to avoid any sort of altercation after spilling his pint. So right from the off, we know something is amiss with this place and it only gets weirder as the pair set off to find a so-called guide who is going to lead them to the hotel, which is conspicuously difficult to find. Of course this doesn’t go to plan and Tom and Lucy find themselves trapped, going around in endless circles, engaged in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a mysterious assailant.

In Fear is a master class in creating tension. The fact that Tom and Lucy don’t know each other very well creates a strained atmosphere between the two, where they say and do stupid things and increasingly distrust one another; this combined with getting lost in a dark and creepy place. The camera barely lets up giving the viewer a voyeuristic feel as we circle around the two, often in close-up, whilst in the cramped confines of their car adding to the feeling of claustrophobia and increasing panic. The film may borrow recognisable stylistic tropes from other genre films – the creaky abandoned shack, etc. – but by not giving too much away early on, making fantastic use of sound (Roly Porter and Daniel Pemberton‘s score is fantastic), and with the strong central performances it overcomes most of the issues that arise from working within genre confines. It has been widely reported that Lovering shot in sequence, and didn’t let the actors see the script in its entirety; that they were encouraged to improvise and often didn’t know what was going to happen next during filming, meaning that the shock and fear they display on screen is close to genuine. Allen Leach turns up as a mysterious stranger who may or may not be their tormentor, adding some much needed humour and menace to our duo just as we’re starting to tire of their bickering.

With its 85 minute running time, naturalistic performances and white knuckle inducing tension, In Fear is a prime example of how to do a lot with very little, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better British horror movie this year. That’s not to say that it isn’t flawed, with some notable plot holes coming to mind and an ending that teeters on the edge of silliness, but overall In Fear is a pretty commendable achievement for a first feature and it’s a competent, well made, indie British horror film that is an original idea – not something that comes along very often, so when it does it ought to be celebrated.

In Fear is in UK cinemas now, from StudioCanal.

Review by Quin

In general, I am not a fan of blending comedy and horror. I think horror is best when there is non-stop tension with as little relief as possible. Now of course there are many exceptions to this rule. I enjoy comic relief when it’s used sparingly, and the more subtle it is the better. I can think of very few films that are completely humorless with no relief – and most of the ones that come to mind aren’t even horror. Something I really have a hard time with are horror comedies and even worse – horror spoofs. I want to take a second to differentiate between them. A horror spoof is something like the Scary Movie series or the 1990 Exorcist sendup Repossessed starring Linda Blair and Leslie Nielsen. If you haven’t seen or even heard of the latter, it probably sounds good, right? Well, there’s a reason it’s been forgotten. Nobody cares to remember a possessed Linda Blair on a televised exorcism program that looks like a game show while an aging Leslie Nielsen carries out the rest of his days, doomed to make these kind of movies until the day he died. A spoof directly parodies another film. The films that combine horror and comedy – I like to divide up into two different groups: horror/comedy and comedy/horror. As you might guess, horror/comedy focuses more on the horror (something like Fright Night) and comedy/horror focuses more on the comedy (movies like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.) Hell Baby does something a little different and manages to be all three, and it does it really well.

Jack (Rob Corddry) and Vanessa (Leslie Bibb) are a young couple expecting twins. They have just purchased and moved in to a new, old home in New Orleans. Their first evening in the place is interrupted by nosy neighbor F’resnal. He provides most of the film’s jump scares, because what’s a horror comedy/spoof without those? He also tells them about the history of their house. The locals call it Maison de Sang, which translates to House of Blood. He goes on to say, “But nobody’s been murdered here in a long time…actually there have been recent murders, but not in this calendar year.” The film then moves to The Vatican, where we meet Father Sebastian and Father Padrigo. They are kind of the Blues Brothers of priests that specialize in performing Exorcisms. The duo is played by comedians Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon. They also wrote, directed and produced the film. Their tough guy, no nonsense approach to fighting the devil is hilarious. This is evident in such lines of dialogue like, “Between you and me and the crucified guy on the wall – this is the work of the devil…the devil is real and he’s a dick.”

It doesn’t take long for spooky things to start happening around Maison de Sang. But it takes Jack way more time than the viewer to realize that strange things are afoot. Even after his wife vanishes while in the shower, he just kinda shrugs and goes on with his day. Soon after she is exhibiting the kind of behavior we associate with people who are possessed. She can even talk to dogs. In one of the film’s many running gags, the big dog from The Omen keeps appearing. When Vanessa scares it away, Jack says puzzled, “You speak Bull Mastiff?” To which she replies, “Rottweiler.” Another one of the sillier running gags is all of the startling. People are constantly jumping out, but it’s played more for laughs than scares. In one of the more subtly brilliant lines, Jack yells out, “I am so sick of being startled!” This is dialogue that should be required in most big budget Hollywood horror productions.

I’ve already mentioned that this film borrows from The Omen and The Exorcist, or pays homage rather. It also references Poltergeist, The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby. Even the title and structure of the plot are direct references to Rosemary’s Baby. Much like the Polanski film, this one focuses on the events leading up to the birth rather than the child itself. The film’s poster is rather misleading. You see it and think it’s going to be a demonic Look Who’s Talking. Jokes aside, there is some genuine horror and frightening imagery in the film. It feels more like comedic actors were dropped into a horror film. This actually makes them smarter than the average horror character and it makes them react in ways that go against what we have come to expect. It’s the way the film gets its laughs. Luckily, the writers haven’t gone in a direction that pokes fun at the fans of horror. They seem to embrace the genre, while pointing out its flaws and clichés. But even with a mere $2 Million budget, they deliver on some impressive and gruesome effects. Although for me, I’d have to say the grossest scene in the movie involves a group of guys eating sandwiches.

Going into this film, my expectations were super low. Even though I knew it had comedians from Reno 911 and MTV’s 90’s sketch comedy show The State, and I think Rob Corddry is one of the funniest comedic actors working today. I just had a bad feeling about it. But almost immediately, I knew I was going to enjoy it. There are a few scenes that feel like SNL sketches, but overall, the tone remains consistent and follows some established rules, but never feels less than bonkers in the writing of the material. As an added bonus, you get to see Riki Lindhome naked again (way better than her nude scene in the Last House on the Left remake). Also, if you saw the awful A Haunted House from earlier this year, Hell Baby will restore your faith in combining horror and comedy, and you’ll have a great time.

Hell Baby had a theatrical release in early September and is available now on VOD. It will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray in the US on December 31st.

Review by Abbie Stutzer

Cannibal Diner is nothing special. It’s a run-of-the-mill “murderous mutant family” horror film. It’s filled with gross-out gore and most of the deaths are relatively tame, and not creative. Lame! (I mean, you’d think mutants would think of creative ways to kill young co-eds, whilst wasting away in their toxic, industrial home. But what do I know…)

Moderate spoilers ahead.

The film starts off similar to a found-footage film. This choice is effective, albeit confusing at first. We see the main characters of the film (a group of busty women – yawn) filming each other while hiking to their weekend campsite.

Suddenly, the audience’s view is pulled back into the woods and we are watching the women from afar. The angle suggests that (not so subtly) the women are being watched by someone, or something. This suspicion is quickly confirmed once a woman who is driving to the campsite (separately from the main gaggle of girls) gets lost, and comes across a drunken, female harbinger in the woods. The shady lady directs the young woman to drive through an industrial site that’s been condemned for leaking toxic fluids, which, apparently, turned the people near the site into mutant freaks. Totally safe!

While this wayward busty chick is wandering around in an attempt to find the industrial site, the film cuts back to the other women who are part of the group of female weekend warriors: One group (the original group) of ladies proceeds to get high, and have a topless make out session; the other group consists of two women who are riding a pseudo-bike cart… for some reason. It doesn’t take long for all of the women to become overwhelmed by the soot-covered slobbering fools. How these mutants over-power the women, I’m not certain. I mean these things can barely walk in a straight line. Anyhow… the mutants begin to pick off the girls one by one, and either kill them, or place their semi-alive bodies in their family’s cannibal diner.

The one woman who is not immediately overcome by these strange-o mouth-breathers (not surprisingly, she’s the most “titted up” one) is able to use her wiles to get through the toxic site. “Sadly,” she is eventually captured by one of the mutant people and is brought to the compound’s kitchen. The dining area is, of course, covered with dirt, maggots and blood. And guess what the mutants eat? They eat decaying, maggot filled humans! And the filmmakers make sure to direct the actor zombie freaks to eat all gross and slow-like, just to make the point that the mutants are disgusting and have no morals – they’re freaks, you see. Got it.

Our female lead is forced to eat the mutants’ human meals and watch one of her blonde buddies get slaughtered. During a scuffle, she breaks free only to be chased down and almost raped (because really – what is a mutant without the desire to rape?) She kills her partial human assailant and moves on to find her way out of the cannibal complex.

The last surviving woman stumbles around the complex for a few more minutes, but gets attacked by another sullied male. However, she’s learned something from her previous attacker – mutants enjoy looking at ta-tas She uses this knowledge to her advantage to easily defeat the dude by distracting him with her naked body. After our heroine fights off the second would-be rapist, the film pretty much stalls. The main character stumbles around in the dark, attempting to find her way out of the building, only to get attacked by another mutant. That’s when the film comes to an abrupt end.

Sadly, this film has the same tired tropes that every other “deadly weirdo family” movie follows, and it doesn’t even depict the standard storyline well. The film has hardly any surprising moments, and there are no characters that are likeable (case in point: I couldn’t even remember then main character’s name.) That’s mainly because the plot is simply, “hot girls get killed by mutant freaks.” And, hey, I’m the first to say that I love some ridiculous tits-and-ass-heavy films. I’ve no problem watching bombshells meet terrible demises. But I do have a problem with this weak genre staple when there’s no story, or real horror, in a film.

Cannibal Diner is out now on US DVD and VOD from BrinkVision.

Review by Ben Bussey

Mavericks, rebels, iconoclasts, non-conformists; these are labels we tend to throw around romantically, typically in reference to those we class as heroes. Then there are such labels as freak, weirdo, nutcase, menace; more often than not these can be applied to the exact same people, depending on whether or not we agree with their stance. Little wonder, then, that pretty much all those descriptors can and invariably have been used in reference to John Milius. Hearing his name, those of us who don’t automatically say “who’s he?” will probably automatically think “director of Conan and Red Dawn” and/or “paranoid right wing militant.” It’s hard to find a reference to him from recent years that doesn’t refer to him in such terms. This being so, a great deal about him tends to be overlooked; in particular, the fact that he was one of the most respected and prolific screenwriters of the 1970s, and a member of the same crop of UCLA film graduates who proceeded to conquer Hollywood and remould it in their own image. Moreso, the likes of Coppolla, Spielberg and Lucas are even said to have looked up to Milius, considering him the leader of the pack – or, at least, that’s how it’s told in this documentary from debutante directors Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson. Their overall tone is certainly pro-Milius, but by no means do they gloss over the less palatable aspects of their subject.

Milius infamously declared that after Red Dawn his outspoken right wing stance effectively got him blacklisted in hippy-dippy lefty Hollywood. Still, a great many of those Hollywood liberals are eager to speak in his defence: not just his fellow UCLA alumni Spielberg, Lucas and Coppolla, but younger guys like Bryan Singer. All of them seem united in celebrating Milius as, in their eyes, perhaps the greatest storyteller of that time. Even when he was just a hired hand doing a little script doctoring, he made his mark. Anthologies could be filled with the great speeches and one-liners he’s responsible for. Dirty Harry’s “Do I feel lucky.” Quint’s Indianapolis monologue from Jaws.  “Go ahead, make my day.” “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” He even contributed to Clear and Present Danger, and although I can’t find anything to corroborate this (they don’t mention it in the doc), I have to believe he’s responsible for the bit when Harrison Ford shouts “How dare YOU, sir!” at the President. (Mediocre film, badass line.)

One thing this documentary really makes clear is that, while it’s widely held up as Coppolla’s masterpiece, Apocalypse Now was absolutely John Millius’s baby. The title alone originated in his bastardisation of a hippy slogan, ‘Nirvana Now,’ that his classmates were touting back in college. Indeed, it’s suggested here that at least half the reason Milius crafted such a larger-than-life modern primitive persona was out of a desire to shake things up, piss people off, and challenge the hippy values which had somewhat become the norm in his circles. In a sense, we can almost see him as a proto-punk in that regard; he was trying to tear down flower power while it was happening.

Uh-oh, I brought up politics. Guess I’m going to have to say a little more on that subject – feel free to skip ahead, I’ll forgive you…

As I’ve spoken about in these digital pages of ours before, I am pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool liberal pacifist. As is the norm for this group, I naturally think I’m correct about everything all the time – and as such it’s a challenge to me to seperate the art from the artist when it comes to those who espouse opinions opposed to my own (see this editorial from last year on the subject, which I’m not sure I entirely stand by anymore). I’m doing my best to get over that, and a film like Milius is helpful in that regard. Once again, we see scores of Hollywood players who do not concur with the man’s politics but have no qualms singing his praises. Like it or not (and I’m speaking as much to myself as anyone else here), we need people who take oppositional stances, even on matters we hold sacrosanct. That old ‘freedom of speech’ chestnut doesn’t just work one way, and if we want to progress as a civilisation/species, we have to constantly question everything, not just the select few matters we deem significant – and that means having guys like Milius who (to the ears of lefties like me, at least) say things we might not want to hear. No, we may not agree with everything that falls out of their mouths – but who knows, they might have some valid points to make, or if nothing else, they might provide us with some entertainment.

Okay, back to movie talk. Milius is a fun watch. It’s a pretty simple talking heads documentary for the most part, plenty of movie footage, plenty of archive interview footage – and it all comes together to paint a picture of a guy it’s hard not to feel some affection for. A guy who punched out a stuck-up college professor and pulled a gun on an obnoxious studio exec. A surfer and a biker. A loyal friend and father. And, damn it all, a guy responsible for so much awesome testosterone fuelled cinema. It all winds up on a fairly sad note – recent medical dramas which I’d not heard about before, and which account for Milius’s comparative absence in recent years (and his non-involvement in The Legend of Conan, dammit). But before that there are more than enough amusing anecdotes – at once heart-warming, yet faintly disturbing – to make this a very entertaining and enriching 100-odd minutes.

If Sam Elliot’s words 30 seconds into the trailer don’t sell you, I don’t know what will…

Following a limited UK cinema release, Milius comes to DVD on 18th November, via Studiocanal.