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Xtro (1982)

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We might say that the lasting legacy of all the great horror movies can be measured by the number of imitators they spawn. However, while the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween and The Blair Witch Project presented a format that opportunistic filmmakers could easily duplicate on a limited budget, one influential horror title which presents the cash-strapped with a rather more significant challenge is Ridley Scott’s Alien. The success of the 1979 space shocker naturally left others eager to cash in on audience appetite for evil extra-terrestrials, but this was of course a rather trickier proposition than just dumping some kids in a house with a guy in a mask, and required a bit more imagination. As a result, the first Alien imitators tend to be among the strangest films you’ll find from the early 1980s, such as Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination, and this film, Xtro, from second-time director Harry Bromley Davenport.

This low budget 1982 UK production is one of those select titles of the era whose name has been tarnished – or, dependent on your point of view, immortalised – by association with the notorious Video Nasty panic; although, unlike Contamination, Xtro was never officially blacklisted by the Video Recordings Act. It did, however, wind up an unexpectedly big hit in the US, thanks largely to the involvement of New Line Cinema and executive producer Robert Shaye, who were just a couple of years shy of really hitting the big time with the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Looking at the film today (it’s one I personally hadn’t seen until now), I find it fascinating that Xtro enjoyed such commercial success stateside, as quite apart from it having a pointedly British personality, it really is one of the oddest films of its sort that I’ve ever seen, drifting from standard B-movie banality to jaw-dropping weirdness and perversity in what proves to be a quite hypnotic manner.

 It all starts out simply enough, as doting dad Sam Philips (Philip Sayer, who died seven years after the film’s release) plays in the garden with his young son Tony (Simon Nash), only to mysteriously vanish when the sky suddenly goes black and an otherworldly light comes flashing over them. Three years later, Tony’s mum Rachel (Bernice Stegers) has moved them both to a city apartment where they live with her new boyfriend Joe (Danny Brainin) and their French au pair Analise (future Bond girl Maryam D’Abo), all of whom assure Tony that his father simply up and left them, and any other ideas are just in his head. However, Sam is about to return to their world, as the alien vessel returns, dropping off an ugly little monster in the backwoods not far from the old Philips homestead. Some grisly encounters with a couple of locals ensue, until Sam re-emerges by means that I’m not about to spoil (if you don’t know what’s coming, as I didn’t, you’re very likely to be taken by surprise). Disoriented but seemingly well-meaning, Sam manages to locate his family, telling them he has no memory of what happened or where he’s been the past three years. Naturally, this leads to major suspicions and tensions, but Tony seems delighted to be reunited with his father – and his father seems a little too pleased to be reunited with his son, as it slowly becomes apparent that he has returned for a reason.

It may all seem like pretty standard alien abduction movie stuff, but the real ace up Xtro’s sleeve is how absolutely batshit insane it gets as things progress. In the accompanying documentary produced specifically for this Blu-ray by Nucleus Films, Alan Jones remarks that New Line’s Shaye, inspired by the success of Phantasm, felt the way to go with Xtro was to amp up the weirdness at every opportunity. As a result of Shaye’s input, what starts out looking like a fairly generic creature feature soon branches out into utterly nonsensical surrealism, with children’s toys coming to life, random cameos from wild animals, and more besides; again, I’m loathe to go into specifics for the benefit of first-time viewers. It’s also easy enough to see how the film almost fell afoul of the censors, as it does get very bloody at points, as well as piling on the sex appeal, with first time actress D’Abo sportingly baring all in scenes which naturally do bugger all to advance the plot. What makes the whole thing all the more compelling is that, in the midst of all this trashy grindhouse excess, there are elements of a serious family drama in here, with Sayer, Stegers and Brainin treating the relationship-based storyline more seriously than we might think the film really warrants.

Given that the 1980s is historically regarded as the decade in which the British film industry died, films like this (and other recent Blu-ray release Rawhead Rex) serve as an agreeable reminder that some weird and wonderful movies still managed to get made. It’s also nice to see the film get such an affectionate treatment as this limited edition from Second Sight, which on top of the aforementioned documentary also boasts an eye-opening four different viewing options for the film, incorporating an alternate ending and a new director’s cut, plus a number of extra featurettes about the film and its legacy. While the two Xtro sequels (which, by the director’s own admission, took almost nothing but the title) are not gone into in much detail, we get rather more on the plans for a fourth film, with some rough test footage revealed.

Xtro is available now on limited edition Blu-ray from Second Sight.

Iron Monkey (1993)

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Donnie Yen may have been a relatively obscure figure to the wider western audience until his role in Star Wars: Rogue One, but he’s long been revered among Kung Fu movie aficionados as one of the best in the business; and while 1993’s Iron Monkey wasn’t necessarily where it all began, it was without a doubt a high point of Yen’s early career. It’s also notable as a career highlight of its director, the esteemed fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping, who went on to have a major impact on how Hollywood staged its action sequences in the years ahead.

On top of all this, Iron Monkey is also one of the key films to centre on Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-Hung, a real-life figure whose exploits have been portrayed – to, we can safely assume, somewhat exaggerated effect – by Jackie Chan in the Drunken Master movies (also directed by Yuen Woo-Ping) , and Jet Li in the Once Upon A Time In China series (the work of Tsui Hark, also the producer of Iron Monkey). However, things are a little different here, as Donnie Yen portrays not Fei-Hung but his father, Wong Kei-Ying, himself a hugely significant figure in Kung Fu – yet even he is not the title character, although beyond the first act he does become the ostensible lead.

It is a time of gross inequality, in which corrupt officials hoard the wealth while the poor struggle to survive. Yet there is one person who the impoverished can count on to have their back: a mysterious masked martial arts master known only as Iron Monkey (Rongguang Yu), who by day works as a physician, tending to the grave medical needs of those who cannot afford to pay for treatment. Into this environment comes Yen’s Wong Kei-Ying and his young son Wong Fei-Hung (actually portrayed by female martial artist Sze-Man Tsang AKA Angie Tsang). After displaying his martial arts prowess on the rough streets, Kei-Ying is taken into custody on suspicion of being Iron Monkey. Protesting his innocence, and under fear for his son’s life, Kei-Ying agrees to find and arrest the real Iron Monkey himself. However, his struggle to identify the local hero leads him to understand who the real enemy is.

Now, while I may have spent a fair portion of my life watching martial arts movies, I’ll readily admit I’m about as far from an expert on the subject as you can be. Even so, it’s not hard to look at Iron Monkey and see some real progression into how the screen portrayal of martial arts evolved in the 1990s, primarily thanks to the use of wire work. We have a succession of remarkable action set pieces in which the fighters flagrantly disobey the laws of physics: changing direction in mid-air, balancing on objects which clearly can’t hold their weight, and so forth. Refreshingly though, these effects were realised in a time before CGI became commonplace, and while this means that here and there the wires hoisting up the actors are visible, it doesn’t make the spectacle any less palpable. The key thing is, the wires are not doing everything: the skill of the performers, and the attention to detail in the choreography is undeniable, and while obviously it demands a smidgen more suspension of disbelief than usual, you can’t not be impressed.

Another important thing to note is that, while the out-of-this-world action lends an air of fantasy to proceedings, Iron Monkey still handles the harsh realities of life in late 19th century China in a fairly blunt and uncompromising fashion. I must admit I’m a little surprised the BBFC have passed the film with a 12, given that it’s forthright in its portrayal of prostitution and violence against women and children, plus it sports a number of relatively gruesome deaths. This leads to a greater level of real emotional investment than we might necessarily anticipate from a standard Hong Kong beat-’em-up, aided significantly by the dramatic gravitas that Donnie Yen, Rongguang Yu and Jean Wang bring to the table. Still, this is no to suggest that Iron Monkey is totally serious; there’s still plenty of that distinctly Hong Kong brand of exaggerated comedy.

25 years on it’s not hard to see how Iron Monkey helped pave the way for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Matrix and the influx of wire-fu in Hollywood, but more importantly it stands up as a hugely entertaining film in its own right, which martial arts enthusiasts will doubtless find endlessly rewatchable. This handsome Blu-ray edition is packed with extras (many replicated from the earlier Hong Kong Legends DVD), including interviews with Donnie Yen, Tsui Hark and others, plus some behind the scenes featurettes, and footage of Angie Tsang and stuntwoman Li Fai competing in the 2003 Wu Shu Championships. The first print of the Blu-ray also has a limited edition collector’s card.

Iron Monkey is available now on Blu-ray in the UK, from Eureka Home Entertainment.

Mayhem (2017)

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I daresay that anyone who’s ever worked in an office building  – certainly any horror fan, at least – has idly fantasised about what might happen if, somehow, shit went south in that environment. It’s something I myself have imagined in years gone by, in my short story Paperwork (plug time: you can read that here). More recently, and a lot more prominently, writer-producer James Gunn and director Greg McLean explored that territory in The Belko Experiment – which, perhaps unfortunately, landed a wide release at roughly the same time that Mayhem, the latest film from director Joe Lynch, premiered at SXSW 2017. It’s always a bit tricky when two films based around very a similar premise arrive more or less back to back, and given that Lynch is a considerably smaller fish in the Hollywood pond than Gunn, Mayhem might easily have seemed doomed to be washed away in The Belko Experiment’s wake. However, if overall fan reaction is anything to go by, I don’t think the Mayhem crew has anything to worry about. The Belko Experiment is pretty entertaining (although played a lot straighter than I had anticipated, given Gunn’s pedigree), but Mayhem is an altogether more frenetic affair which takes a more outrageous, darkly humourous turn, and proves a lot more fun in so doing.

Steven Yeun is Derek, and – as an inventive elevator montage explains to us early on – not so long ago he was an ambitious, principled young law graduate hoping to make a real difference in the world. However, after several years of working for an elephantine law firm, almost all of this has been beaten of him by the harsh realities of his profession. Indeed, Derek has had a role to play in furthering his company’s unscrupulous ways, having successfully saved a client from a first-degree murder charge on the grounds that the man had no culpability for his own actions, having become infected with what has become known as the red-eye virus: a temporary condition which is not lethal, but strips away the inhibitions and social conditioning of the infected, causing them to act on their basest impulses, most notably bloodthirsty rage. (And, obviously, it leaves the infected red-eyed.)

Then one fateful morning, shortly after dismissing the pleas of soon-to-be homeless client Melanie (Samara Weaving), Derek discovers that the higher-ups in the firm are using him as a scapegoat for a case that someone else screwed up. Denied the chance to argue his side, Derek finds himself unceremoniously fired; but before he gets the chance to leave the building, the doors are sealed and SWAT teams are positioned outside, because – wouldn’t you know it – the red-eye virus has somehow broken out inside, leaving all those in the building trapped under a strictly enforced 8 hour quarantine. Soon enough, Derek and Melanie find themselves unwittingly reunited, and realise that the following 8 hours might just give them the time they need to get up to the top of the building, strictly off-limits to all lesser employees, and convince the board to both save Derek’s job and Melanie’s home. And given that, like everyone else in the building, Derek and Melanie are in the grip of the virus, they’re not going to have too many qualms about just how they make it up there.

While I don’t want to make this review nothing but a compare/contrast with The Belko Experiment, I’ll say this: where Belko was essentially Battle Royale in a corporate office building, Mayhem is more akin to The Raid and/or Dredd (another of those unfortunately similar set-up scenarios), in that it centres on two specific characters trapped in a building, fighting their way up to the big boss at the top. Mayhem also stands apart in that it plays much more with office politics, as the virus allows for old rivalries and resentments to come to the surface in an excessive fashion. This is part of what genre films, I feel, are really for: presenting anxieties we can relate to directly, then showing them dealt with in a way we never could, and obviously never should, in reality. It’s easy to identify both with Yeun’s disgruntled employee and Weaving’s enraged client, both of whom have been screwed over by the powers that be and want to get their payback. The fact that they’re both endearing, funny, charismatic actors who look good beating the shit out of people is an obvious plus.

The important thing is, Mayhem remains very tongue-in-cheek with this. The rage virus angle might make it sound like a zombie/28 Days Later deal, but that’s really not the case; the infected remain articulate and retain their standard personalities, it’s just that everything gets kicked up a good few notches. This is where much of the film’s humour comes from, particularly given it’s all set in a building full of lawyers, where verbal obfuscation is always the order of the day: one amusing moment sees Yeun’s Derek spiel off an overly wordy disclaimer about how he intends to annihilate everyone in his way.

Joe Lynch has had an eventful run thus far as a director, from the distinctly above average DTV sequel Wrong Turn 2, to the troubled fantasy comedy Knights of Badassdom, to the ambitious but deeply flawed Salma Hayek action thriller Everly. Mayhem certainly isn’t without its minor issues: it smacks of trying too hard to be cool at times, and in its editing and camerawork it’s riffing on Edgar Wright a little too blatantly (a curious pattern emerging for Samara Weaving, given her other recent horror comedy, McG’s The Babysitter, was also a clear-cut Wright rip-off). Even so, it’s safe to say Mayhem is easily Lynch’s best film to date, and one which it’s easy to see becoming a repeat viewing favourite in years to come.

Mayhem is available to download in the UK from 18th June, then comes to DVD on 16th July from Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment. It will be available on Shudder in the autumn.

Night of the Virgin (2016)

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Midnight movie horror often strikes a similar chord to the sex comedy genre – bawdy humour and titillation, deliberate distastefulness – and yet, I struggle to think of any movies which have combined the two formats in quite the same way as Night of the Virgin (AKA La Noche Del Virgen). The first feature from director Roberto San Sebastián, screenwriter Guillermo Guerrero and producer Kevin I. Rodríguez, the film could almost be a full-length play on how the dalliance between Finch and Stifler’s Mom in American Pie could have played out, had it transpired that the fabled MILF was in fact a worshipper of an obscure eastern deity seeking a male virgin for use in a black magic sex rite. As might be expected, this set-up leads to an abundance of gross-out gags and humiliation-based humour with all manner of bodily fluids involved; yet it also gets a lot darker and, at points, more genuinely disturbing than you might initially expect.

The virgin of the title is a young man named Nico (Javier Bódalo, who – bonus cool points – appeared as a child actor in Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone). We meet him in a nightclub on New Year’s Eve, where he’s horrendously overdressed in an ugly tuxedo, completely failing to get anything going with any of the many women around. However, just as midnight strikes, he finds himself approached by a glamorous-looking older woman named Medea (Miriam Martin). He promptly accepts an invitation to go home with her, and though the squalor of her run-down apartment – most notably its infestation of cockroaches – doesn’t necessarily inspire much confidence, he doesn’t want to let this opportunity pass him by. However, as time moves on things get ever weirder, and Nico soon finds himself anxious to leave – but this is something that fate, circumstance, or possibly an obscure Nepalese goddess will not allow.

Given how frequently young men in film are presented as irrepressible horn dogs whose brains are in their bell-ends, Night of the Virgin makes for a refreshing change, as it addresses the very real anxiety that many (dare I say most?) male adolescents face about losing their virginity. The sexual urge is of course very real and impossible to ignore, yet the act itself remains daunting, in part as it’s still shrouded in mystery, but also because – let’s face it – it’s all a bit gross when you really think about it. Bodily fluids; organs and orifices not generally known for their cleanliness; not to mention the risk of unwanted pregnancy or, possibly even worse, sexually transmitted diseases. Night of the Virgin explores these fears in a really interesting manner, Medea’s alluring ways and physical attractiveness presented in stark contrast with the repulsiveness of her surroundings. As events progress, we go more into areas of body horror with at least a dash of Cronenberg and Henenlotter about them, although in many respects – not least because the action is, for the most part, restricted to a single location and centred on two characters – the later scenes wind up being most reminiscent of Maury and Bustillo’s Inside. (Hell, it’s even set in the holiday season.)

It might be just a little overlong, but as boundary-pushing genre fare goes, Night of the Virgin is one of the most entertaining films of its kind that I’ve seen in some time. I’m happy to report that it’s a proper horror comedy, too; both elements treated equally seriously, without things ever lapsing into outright spoof territory (though they skirt that line pretty close at points). It’s handsomely shot and edited, with great make-up FX, and most crucially excellent central performances from Bódalo and Martin. Given its commentary on the sexual behaviour and mentality of today’s young straight males, and its clear addition to the Monstrous Feminine school of horror, it’s not hard to see the film attracting a lot of academic interest. Ultimately though, anyone who loves gore and bad taste humour should find plenty to enjoy, although – in case this wasn’t already obvious – those with a more delicate sensibility and/or weak stomach might want to steer clear.  

Night of the Virgin is available now on DVD in the UK. In North America, it will be available on VOD from June 12th followed by DVD on July 10th, from Cleopatra Entertainment.

The Debt Collector (2018)

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Scott Adkins holds a pretty unique status among 21st century action heroes. Since breaking through with a small part in 2001 Jackie Chan movie The Accidental Spy, the British martial artist and actor has been widely acclaimed as one of the best in the business, clocking up an impressive body of work with over 40 film roles to his name thus far. Yet while Adkins’ CV includes a number of major theatrical releases (among them The Bourne Ultimatum, Zero Dark Thirty and Doctor Strange), the bulk of his signature work has been in the low budget, direct to DVD market, where so much old school action seems trapped these days. The words ‘direct to DVD; might not always inspire confidence, but thanks to his undeniable skill and screen presence, and some strong collaborators on both sides of the camera, Adkins has proved that it’s still possible for an action star to make a serious impact even if their work largely bypasses cinemas.

Given that he seems to average three or four movies a year, I’m sure I can be forgiven for not knowing Adkins’ work back to front, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his Ninja movies, El Gringo, and above all Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, which has to be the best (and undoubtedly the most unorthodox) straight-to-DVD sequel I’ve ever seen. One area of action I haven’t seen Adkins venture into before, however, is the comedy-tinged buddy movie format. In making him a comparatively fresh-faced rookie alongside Louis Mandylor as a hardened, cynical veteran, The Debt Collector has a distinctly 48 Hours/Lethal Weapon kind of vibe about it, but with one notable difference; as the title might suggest, these guys are on the other side of the law.

Adkins is French, a retired British soldier who now runs his own martial arts dojo in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, business isn’t great, his debts are building up, and he finds himself under increasing pressure to sell. Desperate for some additional income, French turns to his student Alex (Michael Paré of Streets of Fire fame), who he knows has connections to the criminal underworld. Disregarding Alex’s warnings about the nature of the business, French takes a meeting with mobster Tommy (Vladimir Kullich), and promptly finds himself teamed up with crumbling ex-boxer and one-time B-movie actor Sue (Mandylor). On paper, their job is simple: Tommy gives them a list of people who owe him, they find those people and collect. However, French quickly learns the hard way that the job is a bit rougher than he’d anticipated; but, of course, he’s more than up to taking on a few big guys in a fight.

From the first scenes, with Adkins taking on multiple assailants single-handed in a dojo, it all feels very much business as usual for the martial arts star; but as soon as he’s sitting side by side with Mandylor in a Coupe Deville, there’s much more of a Shane Black element at play, with as much emphasis on manly banter and trash talk as on brutal punch-ups. Mandylor, it’s worth noting, has a track record in both (I for one recognise him primarily for his role alongside Sammo Hung in late 90s TV series Martial Law, though he’s probably better known for My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its sequel), and like all the best action comedy buddy movies, The Debt Collector lives or dies on the chemistry between the two leading men. I doubt anyone’s about to declare French and Sue the new Riggs and Murtaugh, but nonetheless the duo are a lot of fun to watch, and the film has a good time putting them through their paces, from one colourful altercation to the next, until things inevitably get a bit closer to the bone in the final act – replete with a nice bad guy turn from Candyman legend Tony Todd.

The Debt Collector is the fourth film Adkins has made with director Jesse V Johnson in the past year alone (and there’s another on the way, Triple Threat, which is tantalisingly set to unite Adkins with Iko Uwais and Tiger Chen), so it’s hardly surprising that the action is pretty small scale, the plot’s a bit inconsequential, and it feels like it was all shot in a couple of weeks tops. But really, none of this warrants complaint; if we want large scale shoot-outs, helicopter crashes and collapsing buildings, we can get that at the multiplex any day of the week. There’s some real comfort to be taken from the knowledge that people are still making simple beat-’em-up flicks in which the greatest special effect is men throwing each other around, and if you enjoy movies like that, I see no reason you won’t have fun with this one.

The Debt Collector is currently screening in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Santa Monica theater, and is available now on DVD and VOD in the US from Sony Pictures. It will be released to UK DVD on 6th August.

Director’s Cut (2016)

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Horror has always been a heavily self-referential genre. It’s often suggested that Scream started this trend, but that’s patently untrue; go back decades and you can find no shortage of horror movies which openly point out and play with genre conventions, as well as directly addressing the audience in a fourth-wall breaking manner. The digital age has pushed this ever further, with the over-abundance of camcorder and or/phone-shot found footage movies – but (outside of Inside No. 9’s 2016 Christmas Special) we haven’t seen much horror that plays with the uniquely modern motif of the director’s commentary track, the reinsertion of previously deleted footage, or in some instances the addition of all-new footage shot specifically for a new edition of the movie.

This is the main schtick of Director’s Cut, a comparatively rare venture into screenwriting and acting from Penn Jillette, one half of esteemed stage magic duo Penn and Teller. Directed by Adam Rifkin, Director’s Cut is on the one hand a pastiche of the glossy, gore-strewn police procedural shockers of which we saw all too many in the Saw years; but at the same time, it’s a sinister take on that all-too real menace, the obsessive fan who can no longer tell fact from fiction. On top of all that, it’s a wry commentary on how crowd-sourcing has impacted contemporary filmmaking, and not always in a good way… but, just to make it all the more head-scratchingly meta, Director’s Cut was itself funded by crowd-sourcing. It’s an intriguing and promising concept, no doubt about it; but while it certainly isn’t low on self-reflective smarts, it’s a little lacking when it comes to laughs and scares.

As the film begins, it appears we’re sitting down to a standard Hollywood torture porn serial killer flick called Knocked Off, in which the murderer’s crimes are modelled on those of the most infamous real-life killers of them all. We get commentary from a man named Herbert Blount (Jillette), who claims to be the film’s true director, and promises that what we’re about to see is his never-before-seen director’s cut. However, it quickly becomes clear that Blount doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about most of the time, and that his primary interest in the film is its lead actress, Missi Pyle (herself), who stars as an FBI agent assigned to help LAPD detectives Harry Hamlin and Hayes MacArthur crack the case. As snippets of deleted and behind the scenes footage are spliced into the movie, it doesn’t take long to twig that Blount is no filmmaker; he’s an obsessive stalker, albeit one who has found a way to legitimise being close to his target by purchasing an executive producer credit via Knocked Off’s crowdsourcing campaign, thereby granting him official access to the set. Of course, as his ‘behind the scenes’ footage shows us, Blount’s efforts to get closer to Pyle do not go over well with the actress – and so, he decides to take a more direct approach, abducting the actress during production and forcing her to shoot new scenes with him, in which he becomes the new hero.

It’s a neat idea, for sure, and it’s pretty effective for a while, particularly in the early half of the film, in which Jillette/Blount’s commentary is mostly just thinly-veiled jabs at Hollywood, and in particular the film’s own cast (my personal favourite: “This is Gilbert Gottfried. He was in Problem Child 2”). In presenting Blount as someone who considers himself a well-meaning fan and genuinely doesn’t realise that he’s crossing a line, it’s a dark and eerily plausible reflection on the current state of fandom. Jillette is well-cast here: he may give the role a relatively non-threatening, oafish demeanour, yet there’s no avoiding the fact that he’s very imposing physically, and could easily turn on a dime from friendly clown to terrifying, evil clown. Unfortunately, Director’s Cut never quite takes this to its full potential. After a fairly sinister build-up, it feels like the final act is holding back from letting things get too dark and nasty. On top of which, it’s never quite as funny as one would hope either; it raises plenty of smirks, but there are no real gut-busters in store.

None of this is to suggest Director’s Cut doesn’t warrant a look. It’s an entertaining film for sure, and is likely to be held up in years to come as one of the better horror films to directly deal with filmmaking and fandom. Unfortunately, it falls a fair bit short of the great horror comedy we might have hoped for.

Director’s Cut is available on demand here.

Sequence Break (2017)

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It’s a curious twist of fate/scheduling that writer-director Graham Skipper’s arcade game-themed horror should land on streaming platform Shudder in the same week that David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ gets its UK Blu-ray release. The Canadian body horror pioneer’s 1999 film would seem a likely influence on Sequence Break, given the gaming angle and the emphasis on people merging with technology in a bizarre and explicitly sexual manner. Another film with which Sequence Break automatically draws comparisons is 2016’s Beyond The Gates: not only did this star both Skipper and leading man Chase Williamson, it also centred on an antediluvian place of business (in Beyond The Gates a mom & pop VHS rental store, here an arcade game restoration workshop) in which playing one particular game has very real consequences which seem to go against all laws of science.

Much as Beyond The Gates was an entertaining but ultimately somewhat lightweight horror that didn’t quite squeeze the full potential out of its premise, Sequence Break is also fun while it lasts, but not quite packing as much punch as we might like. Even so, it’s plenty enjoyable enough to warrant a viewing from anyone with a taste for body horror and/or arcade games.

Oz (Williamson) is one of those lovable loser types. A dedicated old-school video game enthusiast, he works in the workshop run by Jerry (Lyle Kanouse) fixing up vintage coin-op machines for interested buyers. But then, on a bit of a good-news bad-news day, Jerry tells Oz that business is so bad, he’s being forced to close up shop. However, that same day they’re visited by Tess (Fabianne Therese). She doesn’t buy a game, but she does take a shine to Oz, and soon thereafter romance is blossoming. At the same time, though, Oz is unwittingly entering into a perhaps even more intimate relationship of a considerably less healthy variety. On finding a circuit board mysteriously delivered to the shop in an unmarked envelope, Oz hooks it up to a vacant cabinet and discovers a game he’s never seen before (looks a bit like a cross between Tempest and Asteroids). As he begins to play, Oz finds the game somehow digging into his mind, blurring the line between dream and reality; and the deeper the bond gets, the more dangerous it becomes.

Fans of the contemporary US indie horror scene should immediately find plenty to appreciate in Sequence Break. On top of the Beyond The Gates connection, it’s also a John Dies At The End reunion, with Williamson and Therese once again playing new lovers. Both actors have stuck with the genre since Don Coscarelli’s 2012 David Wong adaptation, doing some nice work along way, and the chemistry between the two is one of Sequence Break’s greatest strengths. The film boasts a grand total of five characters: on top of Oz, Tess and Jerry, we have Audrey Wasilewski as a bartender (Bechdel Test advocates might not find her brief scenes with Therese agreeable), and John Dinan as a mysterious vagrant who knows things about the otherworldly video game. As such, the focus really is on the two leads for the bulk of the film, and if we didn’t grow to care about them or their relationship, it would be a pretty thankless venture. Happily, this is not the case, even if Tess comes dangerously close to Manic Pixie Dreamgirl status at times.

Hand-in-hand with effectively exploring a burgeoning romance, Sequence Break presents a portrait of struggling young adults with big dreams they have yet to realise – Oz as a games designer, Tess as a writer – which is easy to relate to. Questions might be asked, however, as to how well these elements balance out with what the audience is really paying to see: body horror. Given the arcade game theme, we might be forgiven for expecting the film to be drowning in 80s retro affectations in a Stranger Things/Turbo Kid style, but happily this isn’t the case, even if Skipper has opted for a very 80s colour scheme with lots of harsh red and green lighting, and abundant use of gooey practical FX work rather than CGI. The thing is, while there is a very Cronenbergian feel to these icky surrealist sequences, I’m not sure how well they gel with the otherwise more grounded storytelling. It doesn’t help that the final resolution of it all feels a bit insubstantial and sappy.

All this having been said, Sequence Break remains an entertaining piece of work, and a laudable addition to the body of work from all involved. I certainly hope it isn’t the last we’ll see from Skipper as writer-director.

 Sequence Break is available exclusive to Shudder from 24th May.

eXistenZ (1999)

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It’s odd to think that there was a time in which an abstract take on video game culture which features people entering a virtual reality by plugging an umbilical cord into a portal at the base of their spine might be considered a fairly safe, mainstream-friendly work of cinema. This, however, was pretty much the case for David Cronenberg in 1999. Of all the major directors to have emerged from the horror scene of the 1970s, Cronenberg had fared better in the 90s than most, mainly as he had moved beyond the splattery body horror films on which he made his name into a more high brow, critically approved arena – but crucially, without significantly altering his established directorial identity – via the likes of Dead Ringers and The Naked Lunch. Then in 1996, Cronenberg produced what proved to be one of the most controversial (i.e. tabloid-baiting) films of the decade in Crash, and all at once the Canadian filmmaker was hotter in his 50s than he’d even been.

So when Cronenberg opted to follow up Crash with eXistenZ, it was an intriguing proposition. For one, it would see the writer-director return to the distinctive body horror arena in which he made his name; for another, it would update his ideas about humanity’s increasingly close relationship with technology by exploring computer and video game culture, and notions about virtual reality which were all the rage at the time. The resulting film really wears its decade on its sleeve, but there’s absolutely no mistaking that it’s a David Cronenberg film – even if, at times, it feels more like it’s drawing on the director’s old motifs more because that’s what’s expected, as opposed to what’s entirely relevant.

eXistenZ (the spelling of the title alone screams 1990s) is an all-new video game from world-renowned designer Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh). After spending several years and tens of millions developing the game, Allegra is now ready to test it out, and to this end is hosting a small seminar for fans of her work to be among the first to plug in and play. However, just as the game begins, a member of the audience rises to his feet with a gun somehow constructed from bone and organic human tissue and fires on Allegra. It’s only a flesh wound, but it’s enough for game company representative Ted Pikul (Jude Law) to grab Allegra and high-tail it out of there. It soon comes to light that there is a price on Allegra’s head, as fanatical members of the Realist movement call for the so-called ‘game pod goddess’ to be put to death for crimes against reality. Pikul – a PR trainee who’s never gamed before – is naturally unnerved by this turn of events, yet Allegra seems relatively at ease, and just wants to be sure that her game pod containing the master copy of eXistenZ has not been damaged. To verify this, Allegra insists on getting Pikul fitted for a ‘bio-port,’ then as soon as they’re in a secure location, plugging into eXistenZ and exploring the game world within.

The one image eXistenZ has always been synonymous with is the poster/cover art shot of Jude Law holding up a weird bio-organic handgun, thereby immediately relating the film to Cronenberg’s earlier fan favourite Videodrome. The film cements this link further, with would-be assassins declaring “death to the demoness Allegra Geller,” practically inviting the audience to reply, “long live the new flesh.” This seems to be Cronenberg’s way of making clear that he’s applying the same big picture analysis to 90s cyber culture as he did to 80s video/cable TV culture. The mechanics behind this are explored more heavily in eXistenZ, as we are shown that the game pods which players plug into their central nervous systems are literally living creatures, built from mutated amphibian parts.

All this is fascinating enough, and extremely Cronenbergian – yet in a way, that could be a problem. The whole enterprise feels more to do with Cronenberg’s own perceptions about what gaming could become, as opposed to in any way reflecting what gamer culture really is, or at least was in 1999. This feels particularly pointed watching the film in 2018, as in the opening scene Christopher Eccleston introduces Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Allegra as the greatest game designer in the world, and a largely male audience applauds in agreement: not a scene anyone would expect in the “actually it’s about ethics wah wah why don’t girls like me” game culture of today. Another slight issue, perhaps, is that the game world which eXistenZ offers up doesn’t really seem especially inviting, by contrast with, say, the OASIS of the recent Ready Player One. To a degree this makes sense, as the whole point is that we reach a stage by which the players are unable to distinguish the real world from the game, but it might raise questions as to just what makes the gameplay so pleasurable.

That having been said, this being Cronenberg, the film rests heavily on a sexual overtone to the gamer-game pod relationship; while it’s milder than the sexual elements of his early body horror films (and certainly much less provocative than Crash), there’s a thick streak of eroticism running through the film, with its many lingering close-ups of cords being inserted into welcoming orifices. The sex appeal of the two lead actors is clearly a big factor there: Jude Law is at the peak of his Cool Britannia pin-up boy good looks, and while Jennifer Jason Leigh doesn’t seem too widely celebrated as a sex symbol, she is extremely sexy here, though that may at least in part be my weakness for 90s indie girl hair and dress sense speaking.

It’s liable to leave you scratching your head for most of its running time, and then the twisty-turny final act might leave you feeling ever so slightly cheated, but eXistenZ remains an entertaining and intriguing film. It doesn’t really hold a candle to Cronenberg’s original body horror films, but as more or less his last venture in that direction it’s definitely one fans of the director should be aware of; and regardless of how true it is to video game culture, it’s definitely one of the better films to explore that subject. Even if the physical details are all very much of the director’s own imagination, it’s fair to say he’s got a pretty firm grasp on the philosophical and psychological overtones of it all. He’s a pretty smart guy, don’t you know.

This edition from 101 Films’ newly launched Black Label imprint is the first Blu-ray edition of eXistenZ released in the UK, and features a good range of both existing DVD extra material and new extras including an interview with Christopher Eccleston and a commentary track from British critics Kim Newman and Ryan Lambie. The first 3,000 copies also come with an exclusive limited edition booklet.

eXistenZ is out now on Blu-ray from 101 Films.

Deadpool 2 (2018)

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It feels a bit weird and inherently dishonest to discuss any studio-backed superhero movie in terms of being a ‘surprise hit,’ yet this is how 2016’s Deadpool is generally regarded. Though being officially part of the X-Men franchise and sporting a whopping budget ($58 million may be low by modern blockbuster standards, but it’s still a fuck-ton of money), the big screen take on one of the most idiosyncratic and non-family friendly Marvel Comics characters had endured an uphill struggle to the screen, and was thought to be a bit of a risk for 20th Century Fox. In addition, it was something of a make-or-break moment for leading man Ryan Reynolds, who – in the wake of many high profile misfires, which he himself is usually the first to take pot-shots at (and does again in Deadpool 2) – surely wouldn’t have survived professionally with yet another box office bomb. Of course, this wasn’t how things turned out, and after going down a storm with audiences and critics alike, Deadpool exceeded all expectations by becoming the highest-earning film in the entire X-Men franchise to date; an even more eye-opening feat given that it’s R/15-rated, which by studio logic typically means lower box office returns.

So, by contrast with its predecessor, Deadpool 2 arrives with some significant expectations on its shoulders. This isn’t always a great starting point for a sequel, and as we’ve seen from the Kick-Ass and Kingsman follow-ups, it’s all too easy to try to follow the same rock-em-shock-em routine a second time and come out smelling of manure instead of roses. Deadpool 2 has also had some pretty significant behind the scenes scandals to recover, first with original director Tim Miller walking over the old ‘creative differences,’ then rather more significantly with the on-set death of stunt performer SJ Harris, under reported conditions which don’t reflect well on the production. On top of all that, the #MeToo movement has seen some unsavoury allegations made about co-star TJ Miller, leading some to question his involvement in the sequel.

Happily, Deadpool 2 proves to be a more than worthy successor. It may slip ever so slightly into the Iron Man 2 trap of concentrating too much of its energy into setting up further films – nor is this the only standard sequel pitfall it stumbles into (which we’ll touch on later in the spoilery final paragraphs) – but it also does what all the best sequels do: that which ain’t broken doesn’t get fixed, and everything else gets cranked up a few notches. It won’t convert anyone who didn’t like the first film, but somehow I doubt that was ever too great a concern.

We join our red-clad, indestructible anti-hero Deadpool/Wade Wilson (Reynolds, duh) at something of a personal crossroads. Circumstances see him somewhat unwillingly drafted into the X-Men; although once again, this primarily means him teaming up with Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand). His first X-assignment involves a troubled 14-year old mutant named Russell (Julian Dennison), who sports that ever-potent combination of pyrokinesis and severe emotional issues. Deadpool being Deadpool, things don’t go as smoothly as hoped, but soon enough there’s an even bigger and deadlier spanner in the works in the form of Cable (Josh Brolin), a bad-tempered, partially cybernetic mutant from a few decades in the future, who has come back in time Terminator-style to kill Russell before future atrocities can occur. Unwilling to play the goody two-shoes, but realising he can’t let the kid die, Deadpool sets out to form a team of his own which he casually dubs X-Force; super-powered mutants who’ll fight evil just like the X-Men, but will be prepared to leave more bodies and/or body parts in their wake.

Given the introduction of all these new characters – and I haven’t even touched on Zazie Beetz as Domino yet – it’s feasible that those who are only casually familiar with the Marvel pantheon might feel daunted going in, with a not unreasonable fear of forgetting who’s who and struggling to keep track of it all, as has no doubt been the case for a sizeable portion of those flocking into Avengers: Infinity War (which I recommend, incidentally). Happily, Deadpool 2 carries over that other key element from the first film: major self-awareness, and a tendency to break the fourth wall. Once again, if you didn’t like that approach in the first Deadpool you probably won’t like it here, as it’s arguably even more prominent. Intriguingly, and by contrast with the original, Deadpool 2 sees Ryan Reynolds credited as co-writer alongside returning scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick; one does have to wonder if this is just to account for the doubtless hours of ad-libs the actor threw into the mix. Most of the reference points are very on the nose for 2018, with more than a few pointed nods to both contemporary superhero cinema and the current political climate. No doubt some viewers will find this alienating – there’s a running joke relating to a specific form of music, and I’m enough of an old geezer to admit I really don’t know what they’re talking about – yet when the gags are landing this thick and fast, it doesn’t seem to matter too much if a few go over your head.

The loss of Tim Miller as director doesn’t seem to have hurt the film in any significant way. Unsurprisingly, given that Miller was replaced with David Leitch (John Wick/Atomic Blonde, lined up to direct Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham’s Fast & Furious spin-off movie next), the action sequences here are of an even higher calibre. Yet for the most part, the human element doesn’t suffer; it’s all still very much driven by Reynolds’ performance, with plenty of space found for emotional content alongside the glib witticisms. New co-stars Brolin and Beetz prove highly agreeable additions to the Deadpool universe, both packing plenty of swagger and charisma, and more than up to the challenge with both the action and the comedy. Happily, we also spend a lot more time with Julian Dennison than I was expecting; if you haven’t seen his breakthrough turn in Taika Waititi’s Hunt For The Wilderpeople, please make amends post-haste, as Dennison’s performance as Russell is very much an amped-up, R-rated variation on that same persona.

All in all, then, Deadpool 2 is a great sequel, and anyone who enjoyed the first should be like a pig in shit with it. That having been said, I do have some relatively minor issues with the film, which – while they don’t sour it completely – do impede my enjoyment just a tad, and I imagine some readers may feel similarly. However, I can’t address these without getting into spoilers, so unless you’ve already seen the movie, or you can live with knowing too much going in, please do not read on beyond this point.

You might notice I haven’t mentioned one of the other key returning actors from Deadpool – Morena Baccarin, who plays Wade’s one true love, Vanessa. There’s a simple and sadly familiar reason for this: she’s killed off early on, her death serving to send Deadpool on the necessary downward spiral from which he must seek redemption by forming X-Force and saving Russell. In so doing, Deadpool 2 joins the already significant list of movie sequels which dump formerly pivotal female characters in the fridge (google ‘women in refrigerators’ if you’re unfamiliar). Historically, this over-familiar and usually lazy trope tends to come down to writers not knowing what to do with female characters, and even with the significant push for stronger female characters in modern films, it’s surprising just how frequently this still occurs, other recent offenders including Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Fast & Furious 8, and most recently Pacific Rim Uprising.

While this move does leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth, Vanessa’s fate in Deadpool 2 certainly isn’t the worst example of a woman getting fridged on film (I know, that sentence seems riddled with euphemisms, but for once that honestly wasn’t my intention). So many times when sequels do away with returning female characters, it’s unceremonious and goes almost entirely unremarked; Kingsman 2 I found particularly irksome there. That definitely isn’t the case in Deadpool 2, though, as Vanessa’s loss really resonates through the entire film; Baccarin even makes a few appearances beyond her early exit, in some potentially sappy yet surprisingly effective dream/afterlife(?) sequences. Even so, I do feel there was a bit of a wasted opportunity there; given what a common trope the dead girlfriend is in sequels, and given Deadpool’s self-referential, fourth-wall breaking nature, if they were insistent on following that familiar path they might have been good enough to directly address the issue. I mean, Wade and Vanessa are planning to have a kid immediately before she’s killed; as clear a signpost as you could ever hope for, and yet they let it pass unremarked.

While I’m in full-on SJW/feminist ally mode, I might also note that the progressive points Deadpool 2 gets for giving Negasonic Teenage Warhead a girlfriend in Shioli Kutsuna’s Yukio doesn’t make up for how under-utilised both characters are, beyond that one simple recurring gag with Kutsuna which for some reason cracked me up every time. But then, significant hints are dropped that they’ll both be back in the X-Force movie, so all being well they’ll get more time to shine.

Deadpool 2 is in cinemas now.

Dark Blue (2002)

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For many of us, Kurt Russell will always be associated first and foremost with his run of cult classics in cahoots with director John Carpenter. Even so, in 2018 he remains an equally familiar face for contemporary audiences thanks to his high profile roles in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, the last two Fast & Furious movies, and his collaborations with Quentin Tarantino (of which there’s another on the way, as Russell was recently reported to be in talks for Tarantino’s upcoming Once Upon A Time In Hollywood). However, Russell – truly a lifelong professional, having started out as a child actor in the 60s, with almost 100 screen credits to his name – has done a slew of other largely overlooked roles in the interim between his 80s/90s heyday and his recent elder statesman resurgence. Some of these, admittedly, might be best forgotten (i.e. Soldier), but some of them might be well worth dusting off and giving another chance – and 2002’s Dark Blue definitely ranks among the latter.

At a glance, Dark Blue looks to be a fairly standard cop thriller. Russell is Eldon Perry, a seasoned LAPD detective partnered with fresh-faced youngster Bobby Keough (Scott Speedman), and as we meet the pair of them they’re facing a review board over the fatal shooting of a suspect. While the board ultimately rules in their favour, the vote is not unanimous, with deputy chief Arthur Holland (Ving Rhames) believing the duo have distorted the truth and acted with unnecessary force. The audience soon learns that Holland is entirely correct, and that Perry – under command of reigning LAPD chief, Jack Van Meter (Brendan Gleeson) – has been using unnecessary force and distorting the truth for his entire career, and is now initiating an uneasy Keough into that same school of law enforcement. Soon enough, Perry and Keough are on the case investigating what seems to be a motiveless massacre in a convenience store, and the case will serve to push their already fragile partnership to breaking point in an increasingly pressured environment. Oh, and one key reason for that pressure: their investigation kicks off in late April 1992, in the last days of the Rodney King trial, whose verdict resulted in the infamous LA riots.

As longtime readers of this site will be well aware, we’ve long been big fans of Arrow Video thanks to their sterling treatment of old cult favourites, primarily genre-based. Given their history, Dark Blue does initially seem an odd choice for the label, as it’s a comparatively recent film, and hasn’t necessarily developed much of a cult reputation since it flew under the radar on release in early 2003. Still, the film serves as an interesting indicator of where the cop thriller format stood at the time. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the gun-crazy action that dominated the 80s and 90s no longer seemed particularly tasteful, and as such movies based around the police or the military opted for a more grounded approach with deeper political and psychological nuances. Russell’s Eldon Perry is a fine representation of this brief era of (if you’ll pardon the expression) post-action heroes, as on the one hand he’s everything we expect a movie cop to be – tough, tenacious, street-smart, and inclined to bend or break the rules – but on the other hand, he’s a flagrantly bigoted, racist, alcoholic thug who cares more about his own pride than the rule of law. This makes for an interesting contrast with Scott Speedman’s much younger, more sheepish detective. Let’s face it, the fact that Speedman’s in it is the key thing that marks out Dark Blue as a film of the early 2000s, but on this evidence it’s apparent that the Underworld actor may have been capable of more, and it seems a shame that his career dried up. Then there’s solid support from Brendan Gleeson as the tyrannical police chief, and an unusually low key turn from Ving Rhames as the principled cop anxious to expose the corruption.

Still, all things considered it wouldn’t be fair to declare Dark Blue some kind of forgotten masterpiece. Director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump) isn’t necessarily known for pushing the envelope dramatically or aesthetically, and his work here is no exception. The balance between traditional cop thriller and socially conscious drama is uneasy, and while the Rodney King trial is never anything more than a background element, we might be forgiven for doubting whether the film would pack much punch at all without it. Perhaps even more notably, the central dynamic of dirty older cop and more principled younger cop is immediately evocative of a more prominent early 2000s cop thriller, Training Day: small wonder, given that the script for Dark Blue is from the same screenwriter, David Ayer (working here from a story by James Ellroy). Even so, this is definitely a film that fans of Kurt Russell will want to see, even if just the once, as it has to rank among his most complex and sophisticated performances.

On top of being an unusual choice for Arrow Video, it’s also an unusually bare-bones release from the label; the extras are all reproduced from the original DVD release with no new material.

Dark Blue is available on Blu-ray now from Arrow Video.

Attack of the Adult Babies (2017)

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There are times when you sit down with a low budget indie horror film knowing exactly what you’re going to get from the moment it begins, with no real surprises along the way to the end of the tedious hour and a half. Then, on the other hand, there are times when you sit down to a film like Attack of the Adult Babies. Actually, I should retract that last statement: I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film quite like Attack of the Adult Babies. Imagine Brian Yuzna’s Society as a 1970s British sex comedy, and you may get some vague sense of the gleeful weirdness director Dominic Brunt and company have in store here. While it hits on various familiar tropes from low-brow horror and exploitation, it all adds up to something surprisingly unique, and unmistakably British – and, in the tradition of the best low culture these fair isles have ever produced, it’s all done in the worst possible taste.

At a remote country manor house, a group of women who we can only assume to be the 2017 graduating class of the Mary Millington School of Nursing are preparing for a slightly unorthodox weekend assignment. Drilled with military precision by head nurse Margaret (Sally Dexter), the nurses are under strict instructions to stay by the side of their charges and attend to their every need for the entire day ahead, with discretion and secrecy paramount. The clients in question are grown men, high-ranking members of local society, undergoing a bizarre ritual which temporarily reverts them to state of intellectual infancy. Naturally, not all the nurses are entirely at ease with the job, but it’s made clear that the consequences will be severe should they not fulfil their duties. However, things are complicated further when, under somewhat convoluted circumstances, suburban mother Sandra (Kate Coogan) shows up at the house along with her son Tim (Kurtis Lowe) and stepdaughter Kim (Mica Proctor). So begins a very strange ordeal that will only get stranger, and bloodier, as the time rolls on.

It scarcely needs underlining at this point, but Attack of the Adult Babies is of course a very, very silly film indeed. By extension, it should be screamingly obvious that it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea; many viewers will doubtless find it too puerile, too random, too lacking in traditional neat & tidy, logical plot-driven storytelling. Yet it is of course this very puerility, randomness and messiness that gives the film its charm. Almost nothing about it makes sense, and at every turn there’s some new oddity to keep things from getting dull, be it theatrical Eastern European gangsters, a quasi-incestuous subplot, or a surplus of toilet humour at its most joyfully crass. Again, no doubt it will leave many viewers bemused, but I’m hard pressed to see anyone being bored.

Even so, as might be apparent from my earlier nod to Society, there is a element of social satire here. Like Yuzna’s film, Attack of the Adult Babies portrays the rich and powerful at their most grotesque, and the ultimate explanation for their behaviour may be absolutely batshit crazy (hard to believe, I know), but it’s rooted in familiar anxieties about the abuse of power, and how the laws of the land tend not to apply to those at the top of the ladder. Of course, none of this would amount to much were the viewer not to be amused by the sight of grown men with pig noses in nappies. And there are some familiar faces on big baby duty: contemporary genre fans will be pleased to see Laurence R Harvey of  The Human Centipede II infamy, whilst some of the slightly older ones among us are liable to cheer heartily at the presence of Charlie Chuck, AKA Uncle Pete from The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer. (He never says “donkey,” but otherwise his characterisation here is much the same.)

This is the third feature from director Dominic Brunt and producer Joanne Mitchell (who also gives a very funny performance as one of the nurses), and it’s fair to say they’re one of the most exciting teams working in UK indie horror in recent years. More of it, please!

Attack of the Adult Babies is released to DVD, VOD and limited edition Blu-ray on 11th June, from Nucleus Films; pre-order here.