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Review by Stephanie Scaife

Alfred Sole has in more recent years carved out a career for himself as a production designer on US television. Although having just four feature film credits to his name as a director (including hardcore porn and a bizarre slasher film about a mounty), he certainly made a mark with Alice, Sweet Alice which is perhaps the closest American cinema has come to giallo, by the way of Don’t Look Now and perhaps a touch of the melodrama of De Palma’s Sisters.

A young Brooke Shields stars in her first film role as Karen, the perfect daughter, who much to her elder sister Alice’s (Paula Sheppard) chagrin is favoured by their devout Catholic mother Catherine (Linda Miller). In the run up to Karen’s first communion where all attention centres around her, Alice starts to act up by terrorising her little sister and generally acting like a complete bitch to everyone around her, doing creepy things like keeping a jar of pet cockroaches in the basement of their apartment complex.

Karen is murdered right before her communion by someone wearing a yellow raincoat much like Alice’s, making her the prime suspect. However the bodies soon start piling up and to its credit the film actually reveals the killer about 2/3 of the way through, leaving it up to everyone else to figure it out in the final act. This is one of the many interesting twists Alice, Sweet Alice takes in its approach to the slasher genre. In addition to the unconventional narrative structure the film also boasts a host of well developed characters, something often lacking in horror films of this period (and even today), such as the vulgar and obese landlord Mr. Alphonso (Alphonso DeNoble) with his apartment full of cats and his disgusting sweat pants complete with noticeable crotch stains.

There are some notable scares that remain intact and the masked killer is a genuinely creepy presence in the film. The murder scenes also still pack a punch and have aged well, particularly a protracted scene in the apartment stairway where the victim is repeatedly stabbed in the feet. I think the fact that the film was made for such a low budget actually works to its benefit, meaning that the scares are often more a result of clever editing and well placed gore as opposed to being completely excessive and over the top.

Although known under many guises (including Communion) and re-released numerous times in attempts to cash in on Brooke Shields’ growing fame, most notable in its failure was a 1978 version sliced down to 96 minutes released as Holy Terror with Shields given top booking despite her demise within the first twenty minutes of the film. However, over the years it has garnered a substantial cult following, and rightly so too. Now it is being given its first ever uncut release on DVD in the UK which includes a few nice extras such as a commentary with director Alfred Sole and editor Edward Salier. A must own for any fans of giallo cinema and classic American slasher films.

Alice Sweet Alice is available now on Region 2 DVD from 88 Films.

Review by Quin

There’s a movie from 1977 called The Van. If you’re interested, it’s available on youtube in its entirety. It isn’t a horror movie. It’s just a silly movie about teenage guys cruising around in a van looking for chicks. It’s truly awful, but even under the cloud of 70s cheese, you know exactly what you are going to get if you choose to waste your time with it. When I chose to watch the 2012 movie Creep Van, I sort of expected a horror version of The Van, which may have been watchable. But what I got instead was a bad horror parody, and one that ultimately had very little to do with the van of the title. Creep Van has an incomprehensible script, horrendous acting, the parody isn’t funny and the horror isn’t scary. I wouldn’t be offended if you stopped reading here.

Attempting to explain the plot of Creep Van is an arduous task, almost as difficult as sitting through it. Campbell Jackson works at a car repair shop uncleverly called Muffy’s Mufflers. He doesn’t have a car to get to and from work. His boss is an idiot who keeps telling Campbell that he’s going places and then he sends him on errands that he can’t run because he doesn’t have a car. I bet I’ve already lost you. Campbell sees a van for sale and he spends half the movie trying to decide if he wants to buy it and then more time trying to find the owner. Then the owner of the van, who is also a deranged killer, starts looking for Campbell. He doesn’t have much luck either. Throughout all of this, we are subjected to the filmmakers idea of jokes. The film is full of puns and sight gags. Just when I couldn’t take it any more I said to myself out loud, “All this movie needs now is a Lloyd Kaufman cameo” and I swear to God, two seconds later he appeared on screen. This was the only laugh the movie got from me.

If you don’t know who Lloyd Kaufman is – and I’m probably only talking to three of you now – he co-founded Troma Entertainment, and he has got to be the most prolific producer since Roger Corman. Quite a few Troma films are now classics in the horror/comedy genre, but personally, I’d say a large percentage of what they churn out is garbage. But it’s all a matter of taste really. I respect Lloyd Kaufman and he’s actually a pretty good actor. He usually elevates every scene he appears in, but not even he can save Creep Van. Maybe if he had invested time and money into it, it may have been a little better. But we are only left with a Troma wannabe, with a misleading stamp of approval simply because Lloyd Kaufman graced it with his presence.

I guess some viewers will find some of the murders enjoyable to watch. It’s everything you would expect, like death by seatbelt. There is such a serious lack of imagination or substance in this movie. In the realm of ridiculous horror, I would recommend things like Troma’s The Toxic Avenger or Microwave Massacre. Even the endless parade of Puppet Master movies are infinitely better and funnier and even creepier than Creep Van.

Creep Van is everything I loathe about the mixing of horror and comedy. What’s worse is that they did it in sort of a sneaky way. They make you think you’re getting one thing and switch it for something completely different. If you are looking for movies about killer vehicles, you can do so much better with classics like Christine, Duel and The Hearse. And definitely don’t miss one of my personal favorites The Car, from 1977 starring Barbra Streisand’s future husband James Brolin. But please, for the love of evil motorists, do not see Creep Van. A tagline has never been so fitting: “Let the bad times roll!” Very, very bad times indeed.

Creep Van is available now on DVD and VOD in the US from Inception Media Group.

Review by Ben Bussey

There’s a great moment maybe twenty minutes into Hatchet 3. Paramedics have come to Victor Crowley’s swamp, done the obligatory gaping in shock and awe at the number of hideously mangled corpses here there and everywhere, and as clean-up operations commence, they bring Crowley’s ‘corpse’ onto their boat. At last! They’re going to take him back to New Orleans! Imagine that – Victor Crowley doing his crazy, limb-ripping thing amidst the hustle and bustle of Mardi Gras. That could be potentially be so large-scale, and so much fun, and it would really give this franchise the shot in the arm that it so desperately… oh, wait, he’s left the boat and gone back in the swamp. And now a bunch of people who talk too much are going into the swamp after him. In other words – it’s the exact same thing all over again. Again.

Adam Green may have relinquished directorial duties to BJ McConnell, but Hatchet 3 remains a clear case of SS,DD: same shit, different director. An early scene sees Green (also returning screenwriter) reprise his cameo as the Mardi Gras drunk, and he pulls a face when Sherriff Zach Galligan summarises the plot of the first two films and dismisses it as atrocious storytelling. However, just because you tell a lazy, repetitive story with a nod and a wink doesn’t somehow change the fact that it’s a lazy, repetitive story. Likewise, just because you cast a few old horror fan favourites and throw in a ridiculously OTT kill every so often doesn’t mean we can overlook everything else. It’s really quite disheartening to see how a franchise which was founded on a pledge to break from the norms of the early 2000s (lest we forget, Hatchet was “not a sequel, not a remake, and not based on a Japanese one”) has wound up sticking so rigidly to its own formula; a formula which, frankly, wasn’t exactly flawless in the first place.

Funny thing is – I say this as one of the few who didn’t seem to hate Hatchet 2. I saw that at its world premiere back at Frightfest 2010,* and while I didn’t fall head over heels in love with it, I thought it was fine for what it was. It probably helped that this was exactly how I felt about the original Hatchet; didn’t hate it, didn’t love it, thought it was okay-ish. But okay-ish can only stretch so far. Eventually it reaches a point where you need to pull your damn finger out and advance, or otherwise just piss off. Now, Hatchet has officially reached the point where it needs to piss off.

Much as was the case in Hatchet 2, the first scene of Hatchet 3 commences barely a second after the final shot of the previous film, with Marybeth (the returning Danielle Harris) standing over the eviscerated remains of Victor Crowley – and, of course, about a minute later it’s clear that he’s not dead after all. Struggling her way back to town, she heads straight to the police station to tell her story and endure the obligatory/gratuitous shower scene, tastefully done of course (i.e. we don’t see her tits – and curiously, that’s the nearest this instalment comes to showing nudity, which is about the only deviation from the Hatchet formula). Naturally, Zach Galligan (who still barely looks a day older than he did in Gremlins) doesn’t believe a word about the supernatural killing machine Crowley, but he does suspect Marybeth herself of mass murder, and subsequently heads out to the swamp to investigate; but in his absence, his scheming journalist ex-wife Caroline Williams (yes, fans of fan-pleasing casting, that’s Stretch from TCM2) smells a juicy story in waiting, and pumps Marybeth for information. Cue a lot of talking, a lot more embellishment of the Victor Crowley legend, and a grand plan for just how they can finish him off once and for all… you know, just like the one Tony Todd came up with in Hatchet 2. Once again: SS,DD.

Yes, it’s got a bit of novelty casting, which doesn’t end with Galligan and Williams as we have Derek Mears – AKA new Jason Voorhees – who, naturally, is there to do battle with Kane Hodder (no prizes whatsoever for guessing how that turns out). Yes, it throws in a few of the standard visual references (check out the Halloween homage from the first scene in the still above). And if anyone gives a shit, it has yet another role for Parry Shen, who starred in the first Hatchet then returned as his own twin in the second. I guess someone finds his continued reappearance funny, I don’t know. I guess there might also be some people who find Cody Blue Snider’s blabbermouthed shit-scared deputy funny too, whereas I just wanted him to shut the fuck up the second he started speaking. Maybe if Green had also let someone else write this one it might have worked out better, because yet again we just have a slew of intensely unlikeable characters who spout way too much contrived, unnatural dialogue with an obligatory ‘fuck’ every two or three words, all of whom take way too long to meet their inevitable grisly demise.

Any slasher movie is invariably going to have a hint of ‘been-there, done-that’ about it. That’s fine. But when a movie series simply repeats itself as brazenly as the Hatchet movies have, it’s just taking the piss. It will come as no surprise that the big final showdown still leaves things just that bit open enough for a fourth movie, which I’ve no doubt will materialise at some point – but I have to wonder who’s going to care by then, beyond the ‘Hatchet Army’ diehards. And even if the potential might remain for a more entertaining follow-up should Green and company finally decide to change the fucking record, I seriously doubt that’s going to happen, and I’m certainly not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

(Oh, and if it matters, the DVD has no extras whatsoever.)

Hatchet 3 comes to Region 2 DVD on 31st March 2014, from Metrodome.

* In all honesty, that Hatchet 2 review is probably a little too kind; as tends to be the norm at festivals, I posted the review within hours of seeing the movie, which isn’t always the best approach.

Review by Tristan Bishop

You hear that sound? That’s the remake klaxon sounding. But no need to man the barricades and head for the hills just yet, as this isn’t (for once) a remake of a 70’s/80’s classic designed purely to cash in on a name – this is a remake of a recent foreign-language film remade in English to tap into a different market – much like Hammer’s remake of Let The Right One In, in fact. But unlike Let Me In, this one doesn’t blunt the edges of the original by removing the darker material.

The original We Are What We Are was made in Mexico way back in the mists of time circa 2010AD. It played various film festivals and then seemed to sink without a trace, with the opinion of most people who saw it being ‘it was alright’. Damning with faint praise indeed. So can this rework from director Jim Mickle (whose previous film Stake Land proved rather popular with horror fans, even making it into the prestigious Brutal As Hell top 20 we ran a few weeks back) make much of an impact with an English-language audience?

Our story concerns a religious family in small-town America – their neighbours tolerate them but all find them ‘a bit odd’. One day when the mother is out shopping tragedy strikes; she keels over and dies from an undisclosed illness, leaving the father (an impressively-bearded turn by Bill Sage) to care for the two teenage girls and young boy. However, the Parker family have religious traditions that move beyond praying, fasting and living a Spartan life, and as the girls start to question the rather gruesome rituals they are forced to carry out, a wedge is driven between the generations of the Parker family.

The film doesn’t really attempt to hide the nature of the Parker’s rituals, so I’ll allow myself a mild spoiler here: they kidnap, kill and eat young girls. Mickle avoids going for a big reveal here, instead making it pretty obvious from the outset as to what their secret is, and hence the tension comes from the father’s loosening hold on his brood, and whether the local police, aided by Doc Barrow (the brilliant Michael Parks), a man searching for clues to his own daughter’s whereabouts, can solve the puzzle in time. Mickle has stated his influences here were J-horror and the films of Michael Haneke, and this certainly shows in the slow, deliberate pacing of the film; the first hour goes by very slowly, building character and atmosphere, until things wind up frantically and ever more horrifically towards the climax. Thankfully this never becomes too boring as we’re treated to some luscious camerawork from Ryan Samul (who shot Mickle’s previous features) and, rather surprisingly, truly excellent performances from all involved – it’s a real pleasure to see such a great ensemble cast in a modestly-budgeted genre piece, and Parks, Sage, Kelly McGillis as a nosy neighbour, and the two girls (Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers) all pull off fantastic work here.

I do however have one gripe about the film: the ending seems a touch out of place and is at odds with the characterisation that has come before. It does work as a visual metaphor for the main themes that have been presented, but still leaves a slightly odd taste in the mouth (pun very much intended). In all fairness, however, if the rest of the film hadn’t hung together quite so well, it wouldn’t have seemed quite so out of place. If, however, you’re willing to overlook this (and the deliberately slow pace of the first half), there is an awful lot to enjoy in We Are What We Are, so tuck in at the first opportunity. Bon appetite!

We Are What We Are is out on Region 2 DVD on 3rd March 2014 from Entertainment One.

Review by Nia Edwards-Behi

Sometimes different things you love come together with a promise of something great. When I read the words ‘Tom Hiddleston’ and ‘vampires’ I very much knew that Only Lovers Left Alive was going to be *my* film. Throw in the names Jim Jarmusch, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, and heck even Mia Wasikowska and Anton Yelchin, and by god there’s a film that has a great deal of expectation to live up to. Sometimes, when I really look forward to a film, I build it up and build it up until I’m so excited about it I might burst – often, those expectations are met (I know what I like, after all), but sometimes, they’re not. Sometimes, however, a film can seem to be so perfect in synopsis that I start not to look forward to it at all, for fear of the reality of the film not quite meeting the expectation of it. This sort of apprehensive anticipation is exactly how I’ve felt about Only Lovers Left Alive for some time now. I’m pleased to say, then, that the film took my breath away, despite not being entirely what I expected.

I’ve recently, repeatedly, expressed my adoration of Xan Cassavetes’s excellent vampire film Kiss of the Damned. I was expecting something of a similar tone of Only Lovers Left Alive – a brooding but sexy throwback to the time when all vampires were decadent, gorgeous, violent and filthy rich grown ups. That’s not quite what I got from the film. Instead, Only Lovers Left Alive is almost like a spiritual sequel – those decadent vampires have now been alive just a little bit too long, and are desperately trying to find the joy in their privileged lives again. The film tells the tale of Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton), vampires who have been together for centuries. The pair has spent time apart, not because of any argument or falling out, but due to Adam’s brooding desire to stay in one place and work on his music, while Eve desires a life of travel and exoticism. Eve leaves Morocco to rejoin Adam in Detroit, where he is despairing at the state of humankind. Their reunion is interrupted by the unwelcome arrival of Eve’s wild little sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), which eventually forces Adam and Eve to make rash decisions which lead them to an uncertain fate.

Only Lovers Left Alive is not a tidy film. Tonally it veers all over the place, from melodrama, to black humour, to total silliness, to distanced abstraction, to kitchen sink. I have no doubt that this will be massively off-putting for anyone who doesn’t otherwise find themselves immediately won over by the story-world and the characters. I enjoyed the uneven nature of the film, though, as the tonal instability somewhat matched the narrative. Jarmusch’s direction is languid, following Adam and Eve at the pace they themselves take: slow. They’re comfortable with their immortality and in no hurry at all with their day to day lives. Jarmusch’s vampires are decadent, in that they have seemingly unending funds, but their indulgences are as much artistic as they are material. The bohemian nature of these vampires results quite tellingly in their disconnect from the human society with whom they attempt to live peacefully, though hidden away from.

The cast was naturally the main draw of this film for me. I wondered for the first 15 minutes or so whether Hiddleston was somewhat miscast in the role of Adam, the tortured, Byronic rock musician whose dissatisfaction with the world around him seems to be impacting upon his music-making. It’s a strange role for Hiddleston, but ultimately he owns it completely. This is particularly marked once Adam is reunited with Eve. Swinton seems tailor-made to play a vampire (how has it taken this long?!) and she’s brilliant as the free-spirited Eve. Together, Swinton and Hiddleston have a wonderfully strange chemistry befitting the strangeness of the relationship. The supporting cast is equally strong. Anton Yelchin as Ian, Adam’s only direct contact with outside world, and John Hurt as Marlowe, a very old friend of Eve’s in Morocco, offer very interesting counter-points to each other. Ian is young, and fawns over Adam and his music, while Marlowe is very old, and a supportive but harsh friend to Eve. The fates of both also serve as interesting parallels, which I won’t divulge here. Highlight of the supporting cast is definitely Mia Wasikowska – I’ve enjoyed many of her roles, but she’s never really blown me away. Here, she is electric as the petulant, unsympathetic and downright annoying Ava, little sister to Eve. It’s a surprisingly brief role, but she owns the screen when she’s on it. Jeffrey Wright also appears in the film as the curiously-named Dr. Watson, a medical professional who supplies Adam with blood. The scenes between the two men are clinical, abstract, and yet laced with humour, standing out very much from the rest of the film’s style. They’re wonderful to watch, though, and some of my favourite moments from the film, though almost entirely removed from the main narrative thrust.

There is a lot that I loved about Only Lovers Left Alive, though I’ve no doubt that it’s not a film made to everyone’s taste. I might add that it’s barely a horror film, past the fact that it’s a story concerning vampires, but in some ways that’s apt. We’ve seen vampires done in many different ways and this might be as much a meditation on the vampire trope as it is a meditation on the ills of society and creative expression. All in all, it’s probably a film that gazes a little bit too much at its navel, but my, what an attractive navel it is.

Only Lovers Left Alive hits cinemas in the UK and Ireland on 21st February, via Soda Pictures.

Review by Ben Bussey

Alright! Back to the 90s! Roboteers, stand by – here comes enthusiastic commentary from Craig Charles, post-battle interviews with Philippa Forrester fraught with sexual tension, and… oh, wait, it’s not Robot Wars the TV show, beloved of all British tech-nerds for playing host to death matches between homemade, remote-controlled miniature killing machines, and immortalised on one of the best episodes of Spaced?* Well, shit. But wait – instead it’s a 1993 Full Moon production, and a semi-sequel to Stuart Gordon’s awesome mecha movie Robot Jox (and its own tepid follow-up Crash and Burn)? We needn’t put the Apple Hooch and Carling Premier back on ice after all…

Regardless of whether or not you’ve seen Robot Jox and/or Crash and Burn (thoroughly recommend the former, not so much the latter), you know the drill anyway. It’s the future, America’s an irradiated wasteland bearing an uncanny resemblance to the deserts of California, and the principal mode of transport/source of military power/status symbol is a giant robot, such as the big mechanical spider piloted by Drake (Don Michael Paul – a man for whom one first name could never be enough). The powers that be are their usual selves, bullshitting the plebs that everything’s hunky dory, whilst behind closed doors doing their best to sell their wares to other nations – in this case the Eastern Alliance, represented by Danny Kamekona and Yuji Okumoto, who were also a villainous double act in The Karate Kid Part II (hey, it was the early 90s, that American paranoia about Japan hadn’t quite died down yet). But while Drake may be the best robo-pilot there is, he’s also a hot-shot, gung-ho, maverick, stick-it-to-the-man type who bucks authority, doesn’t take orders and doesn’t take any crap (okay, enough superlatives, you get the point), so he when he smells something is up he has to investigate. And happily he’s not alone, as archaeologist Leda (played by everyone’s heroine, Barbara Crampton) is also onto something.

Quite what the big conspiracy is… I’ve honestly forgotten. Look, Robot Wars is classic straight-to-video crap specifically designed to put your higher critical faculties to sleep, and it had just that effect on me. But hey – who cares about the plot so long as it means giant robots get to fight at the end, am I right?

Robot Wars is one of those movies which makes me feel like I’m really not doing my job properly as I can find so little to say about it beyond the old clichés: does exactly what it says on the tin/what you see is what you get etc. The new artwork used by 88 Films is obviously aimed at suckering less observant consumers looking for Pacific Rim, and as an early 90s Charles Band production it’s obviously nowhere near as lavish – but there’s no denying it’s in much the same spirit, with fairly two-dimensional characters and waffle-heavy exposition paving the way for some supersize smackdowns. Happily though, where Del Toro’s mecha/kaiju showdown blathered on for the best part of two and a half hours, Band’s movie (actually directed by his father Albert) is barely 75 minutes of undemanding cut-price fun. It’s stuffed with agreeably silly dialogue: at one point Drake is told “you’re so negative you’re a walking minus sign,” whilst Barbara Crampton is quietly complimented on her “sweater puppies” (though we might note the sweater stays on at all times; this is pretty family-friendly stuff).

Of course, the real draw of Robot Wars is the old school robot action, brought to life via a blend of close-up puppetry and stop-motion animation. As a 1993 production, Robot Wars is a product of the last era of filmmaking in which this approach was still the norm, before CGI took over. I don’t want to sound like a boring old fogey moaning about how things ain’t what they used to be (too late), but there’s such a charm to these traditional FX – particularly given that it’s utilised without the sense of irony which inevitably comes when low-budget movies use stop-motion nowadays.

It’s not a patch on Robot Jox (which I would say remains the greatest American giant robot movie), but Robot Wars is still a perfectly agreeable bite-size chunk of popcorn. And who knows, it’s legacy just might stretch beyond Pacific Rim: I can’t help noting that Danny Kamekona’s antagonist is named Wa-Lee…

Robot Wars is released to Region 2 DVD on 17th February 2014, from 88 Films.

*For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the episode in question…

Review by Quin

For the longest time, I was convinced that the posters I was seeing for Nurse 3D were just some art project for some fake horror movie. There seemed to be many variations of these photos featuring a combination of model/actress Paz de la Huerta in a bondage style nurses uniform, no uniform, blood, no blood and high heels – as well as one where she is riding a giant hypodermic needle. That last one may have come later, I really have no idea. All I know is that Nurse 3D has existed in my mind for at least three years, but why the hell was there no actual movie attached to these amazing works of art/brilliant marketing tools? Well the production of Nurse 3D has a long history, and like we’ve seen with so many other films, it really is a minor miracle that any movie ever gets made. Really.

From what I’ve been reading, my original suspicions about this not being a real film weren’t too far off at the time. It seems that the idea for the movie came from noirish nurse photos by Tim Palen, the chief marketing officer at Lionsgate. Why Lionsgate was not even attached to the film’s release for a couple years is still quite confusing to me. But it ultimately does not matter. Nurse 3D is here. It’s real, and it’s kind of great.

Abby Russell is the nurse of the title. She works at All Saints Hospital during the day, but at night she’s a Dexter Morgan-esque serial killer vigilante, seeking out men who deserve to die because they’ve been unfaithful to their significant others. Abby’s serial killing turns into obsessing and stalking when she falls for blonde co-worker Danni. Nothing and no one will stand in her way as she tries to split her and her boyfriend up. This really is the entire plot, but sometimes what makes a movie good isn’t what ultimately happens, it’s how you get there.

The look of Nurse 3D is nothing short of stunning. Some have said it reminds them of Russ Meyer, I’m going to say it’s more Tinto Brass. As much as I love horror, movies with a lot of blood tend to leave me feeling queasy. Nurse 3D has many gallons of blood, but it’s used in a way that is actually visually appealing. While I did see it on VOD in the comfort of my own home (Nurse 3D in 2D is what I’ve been calling it on twitter) the cinematography is stylized and effective. Even without the 3D, the blood spatter really sprays in a way I don’t think I’ve seen before.

I’ve seen quite a bit of criticism for Paz de la Huerta’s acting in this film. She does have this slow, breathy way of talking that makes her sound like she’s wasted. But the noir influence of the film should be enough for people to realize that it’s an acting choice. She delivers some hilariously bad lines that seem right out of a pulp novel, like “My schedule’s been murder.” But if you’ve seen her in Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void, her acting ability shouldn’t even be called into question. She absolutely knows what she’s doing and she’s very smart about it. The cast of Nurse 3D is filled with all kinds of actors that you’ve seen a million times before too, the most exciting being indie film favorite Martin Donovan as well as the great Kathleen Turner. During the film’s 84 minutes, we also see quick appearances by Corbin Bleu, Nicholas Turturro and Judd Nelson (who has a great scene with Paz near the end).

It should be fairly easy to tell if Nurse 3D is going to be the movie for you. Chances are this review will only be of use to those who haven’t seen the trailer or just don’t recognize sleazy campy silliness from a mile away. But I can assure you that I had a good time watching it. I should mention that if you are looking for a socially responsible tale, this isn’t it. There is no feminist allegory here like we saw in the brilliant 2007 film Teeth. Nurse 3D is mostly just fun trash. Abby Russell even says in her voice over near the beginning, “To all you nurses out there, lighten up. You do your job your way and I’ll do my job mine.”

Nurse 3D (in 3D and 2D) is in US theatres and on VOD now from Lionsgate.

Review by Nia Edwards-Behi

It just keeps happening. Jurassic Park turned twenty last year, as did The Nightmare Before Christmas. The year before that, Aladdin. Next year – whisper it – Toy Story. One of my most beloved films of childhood and, frankly, adulthood, The Lion King turns twenty this year. Those of us born in the mid-80s have reached the point where those favourite and formative childhood films are almost as old as we are, and it’s weird. I know, that’s how ‘time’ works and all, but just like how confusing it is twice every bloody year when the clocks change and the dark/light in the morning ruins everything, it’s still weird. I’ve taught classes of first year university students who now think Jurassic Park qualifies as an ‘old’ film and that is reason enough for irrational concern.

Now, before I completely lose you all with the Spielberg-Disney preamble, there is a point to my musing. This year is also the 20th anniversary of the release of Luc Besson’s Leon. Now, Leon isn’t a film I saw twenty years ago, so this anniversary is not quite so traumatic to my capacity to understand that time, you know, passes, but regardless, it was one of the first proper violent ‘grown-up’ films I saw. I can’t say exactly when, but I was definitely still at school, and so that feels like a long time ago. Perhaps further background is needed to properly contextualise what I mean. I’ve mentioned elsewhere recently that I came quite late to the horror genre, and was actually one of those rare children who watched age-appropriate films without sneaking off to watch films I wasn’t meant to (what a square). Leon – along with Blade, Alien and The Exorcist – was one of the first films I remember seeing which had proper blood and swearing and violence in it. And I thought it was blummin’ great.

Jean Reno stars as the titular Leon, the lonely, gracious and brutally effective hitman for hire, who inadvertently takes a 12 year old girl under his wing. Natalie Portman makes her screen debut as Mathilda, the girl desperate for revenge after her entire family – though she only really cares about her little brother – is massacred by crazed and corrupt police officer, played by Gary Oldman. Leon and Mathilda strike up the unlikeliest of friendships as they both struggle to navigate the harsh and violent nature of their lives.

The film itself is not the most complex of crime thrillers. While films that cover similar terrain might weave an intricate tale of drug dealers, corrupt police, families and gangsters, in Leon these tapestries of crime very much form the backdrop for what is a simple story of revenge, action and friendship. I was a little concerned, before viewing the film again, that re-watching the film might reveal a level of creepiness that I hadn’t previously detected in the film. Happily this hasn’t been the case, but I might add that I watched the theatrical cut of the film – allegedly, according to the internet, Besson’s preferred cut – rather than the so-called ‘director’s cut’ (the international cut, as it should be known), which contains sequences which may well have added that missing creepiness. Both versions of the film are contained on this special edition Blu-ray.

While the film looks great, Besson’s exuberant style perfect for Blu-ray treatment, for me it’s the performances of the three central characters that make the film. Besson wonderfully shoots his characters, and they make the film as great as it is. Jean Reno plays Leon with such a subtle sense of child-like wonder and simple-mindedness that sympathy for the central character is guaranteed. Natalie Portman’s incredible screen debut withstands the test of time – though since Black Swan her ‘crying face’ has become something of an internet joke staple, it’s an element to her performance here that is entirely powerful. At once vulnerable and steely, Mathilda is perhaps the most complex character in the film and the incredibly young Portman does an astonishing job in portraying that complexity. At the other end of the scale Gary Oldman does his best ‘crazy Gary Oldman’ as Stansfield, the psychotic and crooked cop who slaughters Mathilda’s horrible family and seeks to do much the same to her and to Leon once they make their intentions clear. Oldman plays the role at just the right level – a few notches higher and he’d be pantomimic, but as he is, he’s terrifying. In particular, the scene in which he confronts Mathilda after she’s followed him into the DEA building to try to kill him is almost unbearable.

The Blu-ray package itself is a little bit disappointing, insofar as the only special features – aside from the two versions of the film – are a couple of interviews, one with Reno and one with composer Eric Serra. Really, I would have hoped for a little bit more for an anniversary release, but understandably there might also not be all that much material to draw from. It’s nice, however, to be reminded of just how great the film is, and the Blu-ray transfer itself is beautiful. Given Leon came about at a time when violent, grown-up cinema was arguably at its height, here’s hoping the next few years mean a lot more revisiting of these films and – please – a resurgence would be nice too.

Leon: 20th Anniversary Blu-Ray is available now from Studiocanal.

Review by Annie Riordan

Hands up, all who agree that the “cabin in the woods” genre has worn out its welcome.

Hands up now, who is sick to death of the “found footage” deluge?

Okay, good. Now I have one more to add to the list: the “sweet faced little girl who is actually evil incarnate” plague which has been mutating and growing ever more annoying since the terrible remake of Ringu hit screens back in 2002.

I really did want to like Dark Touch as I’d heard nothing but positive things about it and went in with absolutely zero expectations. But I was also one of the two people who did not care for director Marina de Van’s previous effort Don’t Look Back (2009). I also sat through and reviewed two other Irish tales of spooky little girls recently (the stunningly weaksauce Daisy Chain (2008) and the grimly lovely Wake Wood (2010)) so perhaps I should have skipped this one, being burned out and already slightly prejudiced. But I didn’t. And here we are.

Another small, quaint village in rural Ireland. Another cherubic child, with large Hummel-esque eyes and cheery pink cheeks. This time her name is Niamh (pronounced like Eve, only with an N at the front) and she’s suffered as much as any child can at the age of eleven. Her parents have been murdered in a most brutal fashion. Her baby brother, whom she tried so hard to save, has also expired. A solemn Neve is taken in by a sympathetic couple with two children of their own. They honestly believe they can make Niamh happy and return a semblance of normality to her shattered life. But her tragic loss is just the icing on the cake. Niamh shows all the signs of having been repeatedly and systematically abused, both physically and sexually, for years. But she won’t speak of it, and resists all attempts made to assure and comfort her. As her moods shift violently, her new foster family realizes they are ill equipped to deal with such a damaged child, and their thinning patience with Niamh seems to be leading right back into the cycle of violence from whence she came.

The film makes no secret of the fact that Neve is a powerful telekinetic, and that it is she who was responsible for the death of her parents. That much is revealed to us in the early scenes of the film, so I’m not ruining anything for you by telling you. But it is this early revelation that kind of ruins the rest of the film. WE know what’s going on, and waiting for everyone else to find out is tedious to the point of frustration. Instead, the film tries for another shocking reveal at films end, one which has absolutely no build up and comes off more as a “wtf?” moment rather than the “omg!” it really wanted to be. This sharp veer in the final 10 minutes or so is jarring to say the least, coming as it does without warning or sufficient time in which to adjust to the arc. Suddenly, it’s just there, and you’re supposed to accept it. I didn’t. 80 minutes of dramatic build up just sort of peters out, steamless and limp. I’ve had overboiled potstickers that were more palpable than this uninspired plot twist.

Ultimately, this is a film confused. It wants to be Carrie, Scanners and The Fury, with a little bit of 2005’s The Dark (oh hey, look it that – I thought of another British movie about a spooky little girl!) smeared over the top. But it never really tries to be a horror film. It insists upon being a psychological drama, in which the supernatural elements are treated – rather glaringly, and not unlike the proverbial Elephant in the Room – as an afterthought. It’s not scary, or sympathetic, nor are any of its characters particularly likable, with the exception of a pregnant social worker who is dropped about halfway through the film, never to be seen again.

Please, can we put the “creepy little girl” genre to bed now? I mean, really – both Daveigh Chase and Jodelle Ferland, the original CLG’s, if you will – have entered their twenties. They’ve grown up. Time for this tired genre to do the same.

Dark Touch is out now in the US from MPI Home Video.

Review by Ben Bussey

Oh, the temptation to write a spiteful one sentence review. It would be so easy to do with a little perfunctory wordplay on the title. Bloody Hell. Bloody Waste of Time. What Was The Bloody Point of That, Then?

When a film is promoted to you as “an unusually effective homage to the golden age of American slasher movies” (a quote attributed to FrightFest, no less), I’m sure I can be excused for going in with relatively high expectations. If there’s one kind of film I always have time for, it’s an old school slasher. When done right, they’re just a joy, in all their crude, formulaic, two-dimensional splendour, and even when (more often than not) they fall short on a creative or aesthetic level, they at least have the basic exploitation elements to fall back on, with ample gore and titilation to distract from the absence of decent acting, storytelling or filmmaking technique.

So when a slasher movie comes along that not only fails to deliver something well-structured and well-executed, but which doesn’t even provide the requisite boobs and blood – once again, it’s a case of Bloody Hell, Bloody Waste of Time, What Was The Bloody Point of That Then?

The plot, for all that’s worth, is fairly standard slasher stuff: a bunch of high school kids, failing to get into their homecoming dance, sneak into a school drama building to start a little party of their own – but when a young Prince Charming type reveals himself to be not such a nice guy after all, shit goes south, resulting in his accidental death in a fire. Fast forward three years, and the survivors of that night are in their senior year preparing for Homecoming once again – but someone clad in a firefighter suit is out to ensure they don’t all get to go to the dance. I know, I didn’t see that coming either.

Of course, the premise isn’t the problem; ingenuity has never been essential to the success of a slasher. The real problem is that Bloody Homecoming seems so utterly at odds with itself, so in denial about the sort of film it really is. It’s a microbudget movie hoping to pass itself off as a mainstream production, trying to convey size while clearly not having the means to do so: hence we have high school dance scenes in which there are clearly about 20 kids there at most, and football games shot from a distance with a ton of overdubbed sound effects trying to fool us that something big and loud is occurring. There’s a reason horror filmmakers with no money tend to avoid scenes like this: if you can’t get the number of people you need, it’s just not going to work.

Also – if you’re making a slasher movie, it’s pretty helpful if you can get some decent special make up effects. Cutting away a second before the blade goes in, then cutting back to show it sticking out of the victim’s mouth, or a few trickles of blood running down the chair/through whatever they were leaning against – once or twice might be acceptable, but when you pull that same trick on every single kill, the audience can only feel cheated. Likewise, when the gym teacher utters the obligatory (and much anticipated) “hit the showers!” only for us to cut to one naked girl who we’ve never seen before and will never see again; again, there’s that cheated feeling. Let’s not play coy about what these films are like. Fair enough, not all actors and actresses want to do scenes of this nature, and who can blame them; I doubt any of them were making much money, if they were getting paid at all. But much as how you probably shouldn’t attempt to shoot football games and high school dances if you don’t have the means to do so, maybe you shouldn’t bother writing nude scenes into your film if you can’t find actors willing to do them. Maybe you shouldn’t put kills in your film if you can’t get decent gore FX. Maybe you just shouldn’t, full stop.

Believe it or not, I’m trying not to be too mean here… but what can I say, Bloody Homecoming is the sort of the microbudget horror movie that just makes you feel bad for everyone involved. They’re so clearly trying to make something that transcends its clearly humble circumstances. The cast are all doing their utmost with a script which is anxious to give everyone plenty to do, but it’s almost as if the harder they try the more amateurish it all seems. It’s by no means the most incompetent film of its kind you’ll ever see, but there’s absolutely nothing to recommend it either.

Oh, and this kind of goes without saying these days, but what a horrendous Photoshop job on that cover art…

Bloody Homecoming comes to Region 2 DVD on 10th March 2014, from Image Entertainment.