Movie Review: Lucky Bastard (2014)

By Keri O’Shea

Well, it’s fair to say we’ve been offered found footage movies which cover a multitude of themes and genres over the past few years at Brutal as Hell, but a porno found footage movie? Yep, this is indeed the frame for Lucky Bastard, and when we got an offer to review it, I have to admit I tentatively raised my hand, not because I wanted to ogle the porn aspects (apparently there are already websites for that) but instead out of sheer curiosity about how found footage would work in this case…if nothing else, I thought, here was something the likes of which I hadn’t reviewed before. Would novelty be enough, though? Having sat through an incredibly banal found footage movie just a few days before, my hopes were admittedly not high that my faith would be restored in this particular format. Happily, however, what we get here is not just some thinly-veiled excuse to make a cheap piece of shit and sprinkle it with ass shots. In fact I was more than pleasantly surprised by just how entertaining and yeah, clever Lucky Bastard was.

For found footage, the initial scenes are pretty standard, but the movie gets these almost-obligatory crime scene set-ups out of the way and then quickly moves onto something altogether more engaging, though not before reminding us that we’re definitely in porno territory when a waiver appears on screen, telling us that the participants have given their permission to be featured…hmmm. And so, with that understood, we wind back in time by a week, and learn that Lucky Bastard is actually a feature which runs on a successful porn site run by the gruff but definitively worldly Mike (Don McManus) – and credit to the movie for playing with possible expectations from the get-go, initially seeming to set a couple of women up for the expected porn-torture-porn before revealing it’s all part of a shoot and – whoah – showing us that porn can even be consensual. Mike does a lot of different types of porn on his site, see, and he’s something of an entrepreneur: one of his most popular gimmicks is to invite subscribers to submit video blogs, explaining why they should get to be the ‘lucky bastard’ who gets to fuck one of the site’s hottest porn stars. For a new edition of Lucky Bastard, he has managed to persuade one of the girls, the legendary Ashley Saint (Betsy Rue) to do the deed, even though it breaks her ‘no amateurs’ rule. They select a guy from the submitted videos, book a plush house in San Fernando, and go pick up their guy, Dave (Jay Paulson).

He seems okay, although terrified, and evidently uncomfortable with the Lucky Bastard shtick whereby the lucky winner is filmed from the time of pick up to the scene itself – but Mike has a business to run, won’t be dissuaded from doing just that, and insists that the show goes on. The show does go on, and things go wrong, of course, in a series of ways which thankfully managed to carry some genuine tension along with them; some of the developments I could see, err, coming, and some I couldn’t – but overall, I at least cared about what was going on in a way which can be quickly lost (if it’s in there at all) in a shooting format which all too often threatens to degrade into an annoying dizzy spell.

For starters, one of the reasons that Lucky Bastard holds together so well is that it has a uniquely believable reason for everyone to be holding cameras, looking at footage, or for it all to be taking place in locations which are choc-ful of cameras. In fact, screw the mockumentary thing, porn allows this to work so much better; we seem to have at least one experienced cameraman and some tripods too. Then we have people who are eminently comfortable being on film in the first place, because it’s their living, and they understand how to appear in camera shots. Also, the movie happily dodges what I’d expected it to do, and that’s to fall into line and represent its characters, as per common consensus when it comes to porn as either ogres or exploited women, nothing more than the proverbial cannon fodder for something protractedly nasty and yet predictable to follow. Instead, we have real characters here. Particularly in the case of Mike and Ashley (where Rue’s performance was so believable that I looked to see if she was a genuine porn actress sidestepping into non-porn a la Jenna Jameson) there’s a real sense that they give a shit about one another. That’s refreshing. All the people in this film are by turns wry, sardonic and believable, and whilst not perfect, they have an element of charm.

Then, Lucky Bastard seems to work on two different levels altogether, again surpassing what I thought I’d be seeing here. On one level, to be clear, it’s a film which doesn’t take itself 100% seriously (which also helps in some of the scenes which can’t quite hold together as serious). You may snigger at, for instance, a dildo being left in the foreground of a supposedly menacing scene, or at Mike wondering aloud if ‘endangered species porn’ could be the next big thing. The script is slick enough to make you laugh. I like that. It also makes it clear that porn films like these are a product, so even though it shows pretty graphic sex on-screen (not hardcore scenes, but sometimes only for the love of pixellation) it also shows what happens after cut-scenes, and shows things going laughably wrong too, although sex is far more important for the context of Lucky Bastard – and that’s where the film shows it can be more interesting still.

Ultimately, I think what I liked about the film so much was how deftly it handled some pretty important modern-day issues. Yes, in a film about porn going wrong – I know, I know, I heard me too, but hear me out. It’s a film which doesn’t parade its bigger ideas, but by its very nature it’s asking questions about the intersection between the internet and real life. Identity, fantasy, and the relationship between the two are brought into a pretty neat focus during the film: when is a person acting, and when are they themselves? When a person becomes used to being filmed so much, does spontaneous speech begin to disappear – with a camera on a person, are they always going to talk differently, speak in some semi-scripted way because they know how they might appear (and is that why Dave is so resistant to it)? What control do we have or should we have once we’ve been filmed and that footage moves out of our control? To go back to basics – what’s in a name, even? I don’t want to represent this film as some great, lofty treatise on the nature of existence – it ain’t, it knows it ain’t – but it has ideas, and it uses a clever framework to hint at what might, just might be behind these. Sharp and watchable, Lucky Bastard has something about it, and even where it begins to falter slightly towards the end, I stayed grateful for this. As I usually have to add, though, watch the trailer at your own risk…

DVD Review: Muirhouse (2012)

By Keri O’Shea

As a fan and as a reviewer, I can usually find plenty to say about the pre-release movies I get sent. It’s what we do here, after all. Whether I love a film or I hate it, I can – I hope – explain my response to it in a fairly detailed way, a way which might allow others to make a decision on whether or not to take a chance on the film in question. That’s my hope, anyway. However, Muirhouse has me at a complete loss. Muirhouse has been a transcendent experience unlike any other.

Allow me to explain that I am not giving the film the slightest scrap of praise in saying that. I mean simply that my initial indifference to yet another found footage movie altered as the film progressed. I moved from boredom, into confusion. From confusion, I became irate, and then angry. Eventually I overcame my anger, but to try and enunciate all of those emotions in a review? Forget it. You know how in Martyrs, Anna is tormented and tormented until she surpasses the physical plane, leaving her agonies behind? That’s pretty much what Muirhouse has done to my reviewing mojo.

Okay. The film starts with a shirtless man walking down a road holding a hammer, thence getting wrestled to the ground by some police. This is apparently Philip Muirhouse, an author, who has been at a haunted house making a documentary intended to accompany his upcoming book about …haunted houses. As you do. The rest of the film is his story, and I use the word ‘story’ in its loosest possible sense here. We are shown (and who the hell has edited this stuff together? When?) his preparations for said documentary, largely him doing take after take where he tries to introduce the damn thing and keeps making a mess of it (and are all of those attempts included here for posterity? You betcha!) before making plans to go to the notorious Monte Cristo house to continue filming. Oh, he’ll have to be there on his own. Oh. No reason not to carry on trying to make a documentary with no suitable equipment like a tripod or any perceivable point in mind. Bon chance, Mr Muirhouse!

That’s it. That’s the film. One man in a house. There is no character arc here, no beginning, middle or end, no increase in tension, no tension whatsoever, no plot, little dialogue, no resolution. No special effects. Nothing. If your taste runs to spending around an hour watching a man sitting in the dark doing fuck all except listening to the occasional thump from upstairs or occasionally running up and down stairs/in and out of the front door, camera in hand of course, then this might be for you. If you expect more from a film, then I guarantee you will be disappointed. Even within the lazy, derivative and nonsensical worst of this genre, this is a doozy. Whoever has put this footage together has made some baffling choices for inclusion (minute upon minute of a tape recorder operating? The botched intro over and over again? Stock footage of gardens!?) and call me a bluff old cynic, but it seems like a lot of the stuff here is simply padding to get the film up to its eighty minute total. There simply isn’t enough here for a film. NOTHING HAPPENS. And yet, even with all of the filler included here, there still manage to be ‘plot’ gaps.

Muirhouse is a lazy, aimless, pathetic excuse for a film. It has none of the elements you would expect, as a minimum, a film to contain. It uses a shooting style which has been done to death and somehow makes it simultaneously unbelievable and more tedious than other films of the same style. It lacks the courage of its convictions, giving the lie to its ‘supernatural’ theme by not bothering, or at least failing to include anything supernatural beyond things that go bump off-camera. It has no scares, and generates no interest in what happens to its by-and-large only character. When it has dragged itself along for an hour and twenty minutes, it just stops. It doesn’t even have the decency to tie things together at the end. It just stops. I cannot think of a single thing worthy of praise here. However, should anyone want an example of just what is wrong with a lot of modern horror cinema, Muirhouse could at least be held high.

And in the spirit of the film itself, here’s where I just stop.

Muirhouse will be released by Monster Pictures on 10th February 2014.

DVD Review: The Haunting in Connecticut 2 – Ghosts of Georgia (2013)

By Keri O’Shea

Much as I love supernatural horror, it has to be said that I’m one fussy bitch when it comes to the genre. Don’t get me wrong – it doesn’t stop me watching purportedly scary films – only frequently finding faults with what I do see. I guess, deep down, I’m always holding out for another Legend of Hell House or The Innocents, only to be reminded all too often that those who plump for supernatural yarns these days aren’t making films for the likes of me.

But, I mean, come on: look at the cover for The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia. Doesn’t fill one with confidence, does it? I know that the people who somehow get commissioned to do DVD artwork these days have two ideas; a woman getting dragged backwards across a floor, or a girl hanging backwards in a shape well, a bit like this. I know that the ‘based on true events’ tagline is more or less mandatory to the point of being meaningless. I also know that the possibility of a franchise is so important in these uncertain times that, apparently, a film set in fucking Georgia can still miraculously be ‘A Haunting in Connecticut 2’. And yet, to see all of these things condensed into one package…well, my heart can still sink, which is testament to something. It’s fair to say I approached this screener with caution, and what I got from it was more or less exactly what I expected.

The plot, as ‘re-imagined’ here, goes a little like this. A young family, mother Lisa (Abigail Spencer), husband Andy (Chad Michael Murray) and daughter Heidi (Emily Alyn Lind) move house to a historical old building in the boonies of, you’ve guessed it, Georgia. From the get-go we’re shown that mom is possibly a little unhinged and sees spooks, something which she deals with by popping anti-spook pills. However, the new place seems cool, and the arrival of free spirit/possible slut aunt Joyce on the scene spices things up a little. We’re soon shown that all the women of the family have a tendency to see spirits, even little Heidi, who begins to regale the others with tales of a Mr. Gordy, a character that the family are able to verify used to be the homeowner…although he died, back in 1979. Uh-oh. Nor is he the worst that the family has to deal with; other spirits rock up, and some of these seem decidedly less benign than Mr Gordy…

For those not in the know, it’s worth mentioning that the ‘based on true events’ line here has more clout than many. Back around ten years ago, there was a series of TV movies entitled ‘A Haunting In…’ and A Haunting in Georgia was one of the episodes; to be transformed into a movie, a great deal of the events reported by the real family featured in the earlier version have been significantly changed, and the presentation of their story has altered wildly, too. This is a real shame, because I’ll be honest: the original telling was incredibly creepy. Whatever you happen to think happened to the Wyrick family, their straightforward, earnest explanation of their experiences and the low-key dramatisation which accompanied it was effectively unsettling. It didn’t fit into a clear story arc and it had no neat Hollywood resolution; the most terrifying events which were recounted were often very minimal, and it was this unpredictable, nonsensical quality which made it work so well. Okay, so the 2013 version which starts with the Wyrick family story wears its heart on its sleeve, at least. The first frames clue you in to the style of horror which is to follow. But as a scary story, it is massively inferior. As in so many modern ghost stories, the filmmakers here seem to weigh the success of the horror against the number of jump-scares – a rookie error, I’m sorry, and one which places The Haunting in Connecticut 2 squarely in the middle of the sheer mob of films which all do this. When the film forgets that it has to be slicker, faster and louder than the previous version, it shows that it can achieve a few decently creepy moments. The less fanfare, the better – but reproducing the kind of tropes which are now so ubiquitous that they’re meaningless is a mistake. We don’t need spasmodic, long-haired girl ghosts in everything. We just don’t. It’s naff.

…And where the film does try to branch off, doing something novel, it elects to distort the first story in a series of head-scratching ways. In some respects, the introduction of The Bad Guy spook here where there’s a back story and a shock resolution makes the film less like a ghost story and more like a slasher; is there room for both elements in a movie? Maybe, maybe not, but the ways in which the film veers off into this territory felt awkward. Still, at all times it kept up a decent pace, and Emily Alin Lind’s performance as Heidi lends some well-enacted terror, which helped at least to imbue the film with some of the qualities it seemed to desire.

Ultimately, a good ghost story should make you feel as though you are standing on the precipice of something beyond your understanding, and it should make you realise your vulnerability as you do so. Although a decently-made film in terms of its cinematography and performances, The Haunting in Connecticut fails at this and so ultimately fails as a ghost story. There are some shocking missed opportunities here. Still, part-timers may enjoy the BOO! moments and be kinder about overlooking the somewhat schizophrenic approach to storytelling which got under my skin more than the horror.

The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia will be available on DVD and Blu-ray via Lionsgate UK on 3rd March 2014.

DVD Review: The Colony (2013)

By Keri O’Shea

When I sit down to watch modern post-apocalyptic movies, I always find it interesting to see what, from the point of view of the Zeitgeist, we’re afraid of these days. What do we think is waiting in the wings, ready to consume us? Whilst we do still get horror stories based around nuclear warfare – the disappointing Xavier Gens film The Divide (2011) as one example – it’s nothing like it was back in the mid-twentieth century, when death by nuke seemed to many to be a very real possibility and this found expression in multiple horror and science-fiction films of the day. Nope; now there’s a new kid on the block, because prophesying about climate change has provided us with another potential end to life as we know it. The Colony (2013) is one such film which weaves a decent, if at times oddly-familiar yarn out of the elements. (Do you see what I did there?)

The year is 2045 and an unending snow has decimated the world’s population, leaving only small groups of survivors quite literally holed up in underground bunkers, doing whatever they can to maintain their colonies by looking for ways to perpetuate their dwindling food supplies whilst ever looking for a break in the clouds, some way they could access the sun’s power to produce fresh food once again. Things aren’t going well: their animals are ailing in their unnatural confines (“You know you’re screwed when even the rabbits won’t fuck”) and these small communities live in fear of the spread of viruses like the ‘flu. As if this wasn’t all bad enough, they receive a distress signal from another nearby colony, Colony 5; as all of the colonies have a mutally-assured policy of altruism, a small party, led by head honcho Briggs (Laurence Fishburne) heads out to investigate… I hope I won’t be deemed guilty of spoilers if I say that what ensues is not a big catch-up with the neighbours after a false alarm.

There are many commendable aspects to this film; I must say, I’m quite surprised at how many reviews have overlooked these, and indeed at how vitriolic a lot of other reviews have been. Firstly, the aesthetics of the film are gorgeous. Although we’re back to the whole snow/nukes thing in terms of how each fictional world came to be the way it is, I couldn’t help but think of the Fallout games (particularly the uber-bleakness of Fallout 3) during several scenes in The Colony. The existence of small, self-contained communities living in bunkers is an obvious comparison, but many of the urban landscapes, with their ruined buildings dwarfing the travellers and the remnants of the world as-was looking oddly grating against the lifelessness of the surroundings could almost be interchangeable. And that is no bad thing, to my mind, as games and movies edge ever closer to one another, why not have this sort of crossover? One of The Colony’s key strengths is in these perilous, pleasing and immersive visuals.

I was also interested that in the initial set-up it’s the preservation of the population, not overpopulation, which is at issue. Sure, not all dystopian horrors hinge on the hell of burgeoning numbers, but I liked the more co-operative set-up that people were trying to maintain at the story’s beginning. Is the film any less bleak for it? Not at all; by starting out this way it’s able to set the benefits of altruistic behaviour against the selfish survival instinct, and I found this satisfying to watch. Performances are decent; I didn’t recognise Bill Paxton as the meglomaniacal Miller, but he does well with what he’s given, and of course Fishburne is an old hand at dystopia by now. Funnily, despite his youth the Jesse Pinkman-alike Kevin Zegers is a bit of an old hand in horror himself, and in his role as Sam he also provides an occasional narrative voiceover during The Colony; again, I didn’t find this an imposition.

So far, so good. It’d be patently untrue to suggest that this is a perfect movie, however, and The Colony does have issues. Although, for instance, the film balances tension and action very well in its first couple of acts, it does feel at later points that it’s not quite sure what it wants to be. Is it a brooding drama, or an action flick? It definitely swings more towards the ‘action’ side of things as it moves onwards towards its close, and in a few ways I feel that this weakens the film. It sacrifices a couple of enticing potential plot lines to throw in more explosions; there are some wasted opportunities here, as well as a few sequences for high action’s sake which had me scratching my head. Indeed, for the same action’s sake, a few plot lines are very difficult to accept whatsoever – again, this is a shame. The Colony also falls into the trap of adding a few clichés along the way: some proselytising here, some rushed exposition there; an obvious martyr here, an evident dickhead there…

Still, for all that, I was motivated to keep watching. The Colony after all does what films are still primarily meant to do: it entertained me, even if there were glitches at times. I was intrigued by The Threat in the film, curious about the protagonists and – essentially – I wanted to see how their story ended. Sure, it seems unlikely that The Colony will become anyone’s favourite film of all time. It’s not going to change cinema for ever, and it won’t change your life. But you could do a lot worse with ninety minutes of your life and if you’re a fan of the genre, you too may get something out of this one.

Oh, and…don’t watch the trailer. It spoilers the entire film. Do the people responsible for these things not want anyone to actually bother watching? Or are they simply stupid? Jeez…

The Colony will be released by Entertainment One on 20th January, 2014.

BAH at 5: The Rise and Rise of Crowdsourcing

By Keri O’Shea

As threatened, here I’ll be continuing my look back on the main developments in the horror world over the past few years, and here, I come to one it has been all but impossible to ignore…

I refer, of course, to the phenomenon of Kickstarter et al; I’d also suggest that crowd-sourcing couldn’t have got where it has without the parallel hike in influence of sites like Twitter, but however it’s come to pass, in any given week it’s highly likely that at least one new hopefully-crowd-sourced project creeps onto my radar. Of course this isn’t exclusive to horror – it’s occurred right across the rather broad horizon of the arts, as old funding sources dry up and as the option of getting others to chip in becomes more established as a done thing – but perhaps, with horror as a known starting point for a lot of careers in film, horror fans may get more of these requests than most.

Make no mistake: there have been several crowd-sourced projects in recent years which have caught my eye. For instance, when an assembly of filmmakers like Jörg Buttgereit, Andreas Marschall and Michal Kosakowski decide to join forces on a project, asking for some fan support along the way, it’s very easy to see how they manage to hit their respectable target. We do occasionally feature Kickstarter appeals here on Brutal As Hell – although, considering the collective number of appeals we as a team routinely hear about, we don’t tend to post about it often, even though it’d be an expedient, easy way of generating fresh content and keeping the site lively. I believe I can speak for my colleagues when I say that there are good reasons why we don’t do this, and I’d like to discuss them here.

To return to the Buttgereit/Marschall/Kosakowski crowd-sourcing story, I thought this could be worthy of support because, in the case of each director, there is clear evidence of pedigree, as well as an openness about the project they have now completed. In some cases, the only sticking point is in wondering what in the hell we have come to, when even established (okay, cult) directors can no longer find the modest funding they need via other methods. Clearly, times have become difficult for filmmakers, and speaking particularly about the UK here, although it’s likely to be the case in other parts of the world, the (never frivolous when it came to horror) Film Councils are seemingly less likely than ever to cough up, as arts budgets are stripped back and a tenuous economy makes people in all walks of life more cautious about their expenditure. So far, so understood – and the crowd-sourcing phenomenon does at least afford an extra option to get shit done. However, one of the reasons that we don’t often get behind crowd-sourced projects on the site is that the sheer volume of them, and the nature of the beast makes it very tough indeed to sort the wheat from the chaff. Even attempting to do so can be an exhausting, even embittering experience. It is also a new system which is fraught with risk and flaws and, as more and more people hop on the bandwagon, there’s scope for things to get a hell of a lot worse.

One of the first flaws which comes to mind for me relates to the question of good grace. The Kickstarter charm school seems to have a lot of drop-outs, because surely, however keyed up you are by the film you want to make, when the first thing you say to a stranger is ‘give me your cash’, you’ve forgotten your manners. Social networking is a relatively new arena, sure, and the code of conduct there hasn’t been clearly established – but still. C’mon. It’s worth thinking about these things in real-life terms. Would you go around a party begging money from people, simply because you have enough in common to be at the same party? I’ve lost count of the number of tweets I’ve received doing just this, because I’m a horror fan. I look at the account, and the only tweets deriving from that account are the same, stock, ‘HEY! Support [unexciting zombie flick where someone’s friends wander around in bloodstained button-up shirts]’ – and a link to where we can do just that, if we have zero quality control.

That is a personal gripe, granted; there are more serious criticisms to make of the crowd-sourcing model though, and they relate to its fundamentals. When you pledge money to a scheme like this, there is absolutely no accountability whatsoever – and that, I am sure, appeals to just the wrong sorts of people, and will continue to do so until such time as any culpability is built into the model. At the time of writing, what you’re really doing with most of these schemes is betting on a horse where there’s no guarantee there’ll even be a race, let alone any possibility of you getting the returns you want. Even if there’s an end date by which time the requisite amount has to have been pledged, what happens next? If someone raises £10,000 for their vampire flick and decides at that point that they’d sooner make a comedy with the money, what can their funders do? If the film fails to materialise at all? Nothing, beyond complaining about it. We don’t even know where the cash is going to go – to a business account, or a personal one. Also, with the best will in the world, people’s circumstances change; the most earnest director in the world may find he can’t make the film after all. In all of these cases, paying people back is discretionary.

I am aware that the counter-argument here would be that people are offered the choice to pledge a little or a lot, and sure, most people can afford to give away £10 here or there, if they so wish. It’s just that the economic downturn has perhaps made us all a little bit more aware of what we’re doing with our money, just as it has with the usual funding bodies. It affects us all, and some more than most. We’re also being asked to speculatively pay for something before we have any idea of the quality of it, and as my recreational funds are limited, I’d prefer to know a little about the movie I’m paying to support, rather than hope and pray that my money pays for a film which a) gets completed and is b) to my tastes, and all the sweeteners in the world which I may get for stumping up don’t stop me noticing that crowd-sourcing takes a large amount of the financial risk away from the very people who stand to gain, if a film is successful. It’s a puzzler, and it’s unfair, although it masquerades as fair and fan-friendly. It’s not sticking it to The Man; it’s being The Man.

…And you certainly have to raise an eyebrow at some of the blatant misuses of Kickstarter in recent years. Some of the worst of these originate outside horror, thankfully, but we have had the likes of married-to-millionaire, singer Amanda Palmer getting huffy when asked why she wasn’t using any of the $1.2 million she raised on Kickstarter to pay any of her musicians; or why multi-millionaire perennial bellend and party to plagiarism Spike Lee was Crowdsourcing his movie, rather than pay for it himself. Hmm. Within horror, and without naming names, many Twitter users may have become aware of a certain ‘filmmaker’ who has been collecting money for years now for his film project via earnest, exclamation-mark laden 24 hour Twitterthons. Years later, there is still no film, plenty of outrage when questions are raised and, call me a pessimist, but I doubt that anyone will ever get their money back…

Well, it seems highly unlikely that this is a phenomenon that we will see the back of any time soon. Create a model like this which allows people to easily gather donations from those who show willing, without having to vouchsafe them anything for their cash, and it’ll roll and roll. As crowd-sourcing is here to stay, it’s also entirely likely that we’ll see more of the outrageous behaviour alluded to above; we should, though, probably try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There have been some positive outcomes, and there will probably be more. However, I for one would welcome a tad more jurisdiction from the crowd-sourcing model.

Whilst a system of reimbursement or (heaven forbid) rewards would be harder to moderate, it would encourage many people to participate. Offering the maximum accountability to those who are effectively throwing their money at something in blind hope of an entertaining, engaging – hell, a completed outcome, would be welcome. Those collecting cash this way would do well to be realistic, too: concentrate on small, realistic targets for close supporters who want to see what you can do next, rather than going cap in hand to people who will probably only remember you for being rude enough to do that. Don’t have close supporters because you haven’t made anything yet? Sorry – but perhaps you’ll have to pay for it yourself, as difficult as that may be. Don’t spam us; that’s rude too. And for those happy to contribute cash to Kickstarter, all I’d say is – be as prudent as you can be. We don’t need a gazillion more lazy, derivative horror movies, after all, however they get made…

Happy Birthday, Brutal As Hell! 5 Years in the Horror Scene, Part 1

By Keri O’Shea

Happy birthday, Brutal As Hell!

It’s hard to believe, but this week Brutal As Hell has just reached its fifth anniversary, and it’s a real privilege for me to say that I’m still around as we celebrate that little milestone. Whilst I haven’t been with the site since the very beginning, I’ve been hacking away here for most of that time, and I’ve seen the site go from strength to strength along the way; if you’ll excuse a bout of mutual back-slapping for a moment, we have an incredibly strong team, a group of writers who certainly don’t always agree with one another (which in my opinion is one of our biggest merits) but who are all equally passionate about horror and genre film, finding time around some very busy personal schedules to demonstrate that passion in a range of regular articles covering everything from widely-released cinema to underground comics, interviews to indie movies, editorials to irreverent transatlantic conversations. It’s all good. I could just hug you all. I’m not gonna, but I could.

We were wondering, though, how to mark this occasion at the site in a way which took into consideration the sheer range of films and developments in (for want of a better phrase) the horror scene since Brutal As Hell first kicked into gear at the beginning of 2009. We have a big team feature coming, as well as some individual pieces on some of the more notable trends and themes which we have noticed during this five-year period. This got me thinking about these notable trends and themes, and what – on a personal level – I consider most important out of these. I started noting a few things down. An hour later, I had a very tattered piece of A4 paper and more ideas than I could possibly fit into one overarching article. Best laid plans, and all that…

So, for starters, here are some of what I consider the most significant themes or issues in the horror genre today. I make no claim that this is an exclusive list; but, as a fan writer of some years’ standing, these are things which I believe are particularly of note since 2009 – because a lot has happened since then…

1) There is no ‘horror audience’…there are now two horror audiences…

Straight in with a sweeping statement? I think it’s justifiable in this case, because I feel that particularly in the past five years (although there is no date set in stone and elements of this have of course begun to occur earlier and later), the horror genre has changed to accommodate a new demographic, and in many ways there seems to be little overlap between this new demographic and what I would call ‘horror fans’. A tentative term for a large and varied group of people perhaps, but when it comes down to it I’d identify people like us who regularly watch a range of films within the genre and probably relate to the genre as fans, reading about the cinema itself, knowing a little about its directors or regular stars and so on as ‘horror fans’; our engagement with the genre ordinarily seems to reach beyond the ninety-minute experience of viewing itself. That would ordinarily be the definition of fandom; but things have changed.

The massive influence of a still-burgeoning horror franchise like Paranormal Activity seems to have heralded a new type of horror fan: we now have a demographic who want something very different from their encounters with the genre. As such, the films which cater to them have developed a particular kind of horror which is all about bodily endurance. Jump scares are king; the more times you are manipulated into leaping out of your seat, the more this new demographic seems to deem the horror a success. If the film isn’t causing the viewer to yelp and jump, then it’ll relax a little and concentrate on making them squirm; the funniest thing about this is that these films often seem to appeal to, and are targeted at, ordinary cinema-goers who might, here and there, perhaps at Halloween or at other points in the year, circumvent the latest Jennifer Aniston rom-com to steel their nerves against the latest most terrifying film you will ever see because the billboard promises them they may well shit themselves. These part-time, multiplex horror-goers have certain expectations, and many of the most lucrative horror movies are very happy to cater to them.

Whilst you could make the case that The Blair Witch Project kicked off this trend for low-budget, high-profit at the end of the Nineties, setting the bar very high in the process, and that the Saw franchise really cemented the ick factor in modern cinema, upping the ante once and for all, Paranormal Activity has to be the apex (or the nadir?) of the no-idea, no-skill, little story, maximum profit venture. It plumps for the cheapest format, almost giving itself permission to look bad and make mistakes whilst dispensing with pace, again excusing this through the whole ‘found footage’ get out of jail free card. As long as there enough yelp-out-loud moments, however, people seem to still go to see these films. It’s not the dedicated horror fans that keep these films coming out year upon year; we’re more likely to be bewailing the fact than excitedly supporting them – but if they’re not for us, then it doesn’t matter.

You can tell a great deal about the target audience and how they are perceived by the way in which the Paranormal Activity films and those like them are advertised: TV stints, which cost a fortune, after all, have now more or less given up on providing anything more than the barest idea of the film’s plot. These days, budgets are blown on night-view cameras which are trained on hyperbolic audience reactions; a few convincing seconds of this is usually followed by a quick vox-pop from a grinning part-timer describing how ‘scary’ the film is. Online campaigns, such as they are, ordinarily work against the films in question, making horror fans trying to read reviews and articles grind their gears as they desperately try to close down the fucking pop-up which keeps on appearing on all the major sites. Grrr.

Of course, in so many ways horror has always been a bang-for-buck genre, a convenient stepping-stone to a decent profit and a good place to start for any budding filmmaker. However, in decades gone by – and I’m sure this isn’t simply a case of nostalgia – a certain level of ingenuity seemed to be necessary, even if things were frequently cheap and nasty. There was more breadth, more variety; people wanted monsters and stories as well as exploitation or Herschell Gordon-Lewis nascent gore SFX. These days, in successful cinema monsters seem to be the province of Pixar; we have vampires, but in their most successful incarnations of late they’re now the nervous virgins. When horror ain’t a hit unless you jump out of your chair, this reduces the scope possible, and that is a real shame, especially when the rise of the multiplex horror consumer has meant this approach has gotten its tentacles into other films, too. For instance, a decent and promising film like The Woman In Black became something of a yelpfest, and all of the still-incoming horror remakes seem to hinge on an approach of ‘same – but louder and more’. Hey, it makes money, just like found footage always promises to. In each case, the chances of high turnover are just too damn good, too tempting.

This sounds as though I am painting a very bleak picture of horror as it has come to pass over the past few years, and in many ways, sure, I am. There’s a lot I’d like to see happening differently. It’s not all doom and gloom though. Not by any stretch. Writing this piece has, in a roundabout way, reminded me just why I ever wanted to write for a site like Brutal As Hell.

Marc, our site founder, asked us recently to come up with a list of our top 20 horror films which have come out during the site’s lifetime – in other words, a list of films from January 2009 to the present. There’ll be more on this anon, but as I sat down to write this list, once I got going I realised there was an absolute wealth of brilliant horror cinema during this relatively short period. Films which are innovative, clever enough to forge their own mythologies or to present interesting, courageous developments on existing mythology. Films with writing and direction so good that you get a clearer sense of characterisation and plot within twenty minutes than you do in many films over ninety minutes. Films which have in some way or another stayed with me. All of this, and – with one possible exception from the list, as it’s a movie which has been hastily remade – I would bet good money that your average Halloween shitfest filmgoer would never have heard of any of them, much less seen them.

This is, obviously, a crying shame, and indicative of just how difficult it is for the good stuff to get out there in these testing times, but the fact remains: if I’ve seen something I love, and as part of my hobby and my passion I get to talk about it, then maybe – just maybe – this can do a little for the filmmakers behind that project. If one person reads a favourable review and sees enough in it that they feel prepared to seek that film out, to take a chance on it, and maybe to recommend it to someone else, then in some small way that does good. Even one more viewer is another audience member, and this may even reach across the divide to someone who would never normally have given something different a go. Big business horror is here to stay; the last five years have shown us this, and things seem unlikely to shift dramatically. But, sites like Brutal As Hell will always be around to honestly champion good movies (and say so when we hate them, mind you) and I can authentically say that this makes me feel proud.

There’ll be plenty more to follow, and plenty more to say about horror in the current day. But for now, I’d like to wish our readers a very happy 2014, and let’s hope that BAH will be around in another five years doing more of what I’m proud we do today. Cheers!

DVD Review: John Dies At The End

By Keri O’Shea

I’ve long been a fan of Cracked writer David Wong, and when I originally heard that his novel, John Dies At The End, was being made into a film, I was…optimistic, for sure, but cautiously optimistic. John Dies At The End was always going to be a challenge; film every element, and it would probably be four hours long at least. Miss lots out, and risk losing some of the best elements of the plot. Well, I needn’t have worried. Director Don Coscarelli – who has past form in translating batshit insane storylines to the big screen, it’s fair to say – did a sterling job here. This is a film which sticks close to the book in many ways, but one which wouldn’t necessarily alienate anyone who hadn’t read it either. More to the point, its blend of charm and innovation make it one of the strongest proto-cult classics we’ve seen in years.

So here’s the difficult bit, summarising the basic shape of the plot without giving too much away; if this is usually an issue when reviewing, then it’s doubly so here for a few reasons. Well, here goes nothing: David Wong (Chase Williamson) has a story to tell, something he really has to get out of his system, so he contacts a journalist by the name of Arnie (Paul Giamatti) and they arrange to meet up. Armed with a tape recorder, Arnie listens as Dave recounts the events of the past few months. These events start off improbable and move quickly into unbelievable, but one thing seems clear – at the hub of it all is a strange new drug nicknamed ‘soy sauce’. Dave’s best friend, John, was the first to try the sauce; Dave isn’t far behind, and it seems like this stuff ‘opens doors’. Doors to parallel dimensions, as well as to heightened awareness of certain visitors from these dimensions. And it seems that these visitors have plans…

None of that really does the film justice, and traipsing out a linear plot synopsis somehow misrepresents the film anyway. As a movie which deals with the possibilities of parallel worlds, however, rest assured that Wong really picks this up and runs with it, creating a hugely-entertaining yarn which translates really well to the screen, in a film that’s fast-paced and covers a great deal in an economical ninety minutes. The film does re-jig the structure of the novel to an extent, and misses a few things out (I was slightly sad that no wig monsters were present, but it’s a minor disappointment) but to Coscarelli’s credit, he has filmed a lot of things I assumed would never make it. Such as the meat creature…and, erm, the unorthodox door knob. I loved the book, and I had (and still have) very specific mental images of what certain characters and scenes look like, but Coscarelli seems to ‘get’ the book enough that his own take on things looks great.

Because this is a film which opts not to plough on for hours, it covers a tremendous amount of ground and because of this, I would say it’s a film which could be a challenge to follow for some viewers. It has to be, really; everything, from the source material to the screenplay, is ambitious. However the framing technique which is established early on – the interview with Arnie – does allow for a few moments of explication, and holds things together somewhat. The believable, charming bewilderment on behalf of our two chief protagonists makes you feel like you’re on their level too; everything here is deeply funny and well-observed, with a well-suited cast throughout. Essentially, John Dies At The End in either form is the perfect blend of a child’s imagination with an adult’s development, a ‘What if…’ matched by a ‘Well, if, then this…’ It really is something else, and it may present a lot to take in, but holy fuck we need this sort of originality and innovation in modern film.

It’s a crying shame that the release on this great movie has been held back for so long (it originally made it onto my Top 10 list in 2012) and Ben has already spoken for us all when he expressed surprise that, for all the things that happen in this film, the cover art has gone for something which doesn’t, but now that it’s becoming available, it’s a highly-recommended purchase. There are a host of extras on the Blu ray disc too, including a cast & crew commentary (I wouldn’t usually care about this feature to be perfectly honest, but here’s one which would be worth listening to!), deleted scenes, an interview with Paul Giamatti, featurettes on the making of the film and the SFX involved, casting sessions and the film’s trailer.

John Dies At The End will be coming to DVD and Blu-ray via Eureka Entertainment on 17th February 2014.

Horror in Short Double Bill: The Beast (2012) and Little Reaper (2013)

By Keri O’Shea

Well, I could go in for a big mea culpa about the sad lack of Horror in Short features here at Brutal as Hell lately, but I think it’d be best all round if I just got on with it, yes? Happily, today you can take a look at two very stylistically different but both engaging short films by director Peter Dukes. So far sticking to the short movie format, I understand that Dukes is currently working on his first feature-length film, also going by the same title – though not an extension of the same plot – as our first short, The Beast.

I have to say, I was genuinely very pleasantly surprised here; The Beast knows it doesn’t have the time or the space to reinvent the werewolf genre, but it is a very worthy addition to this genre nonetheless. It obviously knows where it fits in, too, with its very clear nods to the werewolf folklore created by Universal, and a set of opening credits which for all the world would fit well at the beginning of a Universal feature (and the same could be said for the film’s score, too, which works brilliantly here). The plot is straightforward enough: two men, Desmond (Peter Le Bas) and Michael (genre film regular Bill Oberst Jr) discuss the fate of Michael’s teenage son, Jacob (Alexander Le Bas), whom we understand very early on has been afflicted with lycanthropy. Initially, and in fear of the full moon, they tie the boy up but, well, a father’s preferential treatment makes Michael take pity on the boy, untying him so that he can answer a more mundane call of nature. Of course, this decision brings the situation to a close…

The film works brilliantly as a short, and again as a short on the topic of werewolves, because it wisely avoids two things. Firstly, it doesn’t feel the need to cram a feature’s worth of back-story into its twelve minutes, instead allowing the emotions and the precise situation in which these people find themselves to speak for itself. Secondly – with a few seconds’ exception which nearly derails things, but thankfully does not – it knows that werewolf creature effects are the easiest to get wrong so it dispenses with them. The budget has been far better-spent on the other elements: developing the theme of family and friendships, ensuring solid performances, finding a great location and shooting a film which looks both lavish, but subtle, with a pleasing palate and a real eye for scene-setting. Hell, it even has a punchline, albeit an equally subtle one. The Beast is a very strong short film.

Little Reaper, made earlier this year, is a very different entity, although it too teases out some ideas about family relationships in a strange, horror-styled setting. This time we get this via the medium of horror-comedy, and a style of comedy which I’d best describe as ‘quirky’.

Our premise here is that the Grim Reaper has a teenage daughter; apart from the skull face, she’s your standard stereotypical teenage girl, glued to her phone and apparently pathologically unable to do what she is asked to do. Hence, she is grounded, and the only way her dear old dad will un-ground her is if she adds a day of doing his job to her chores list.

Again, Dukes shows that he knows his genre by adding in a few horror references to the script here. There are also plenty of ideas at play, although perhaps there are rather more threads here than there need to be (I felt that the finale didn’t quite hang together, for instance). As a skit, it is however watchable and diverting, although because it lacks the economy of The Beast, accepting that these are different types of film, it felt less accomplished to me. Still, Buffy did pretty well by combining horror, folklore and high school, so there’s no reason that fans of that style wouldn’t like this one too.

Peter Dukes is evidently a hard-working filmmaker and he has a whole host of short movies in his filmography: if you have enjoyed what you’ve seen, then you could stop by his website and take a look at some of his other projects.

BAH Celebrates 2013 – Keri’s Top 5

By Keri O’Shea

It’s a funny thing: whenever people are asked, or take it upon themselves to generate a ‘Best Of’ list like this one, the default response seems to be disappointment. This year doesn’t seem as good as last year, this year’s films have been disappointing, and so on and so forth – except that this reaction seems to occur every year, and good films are of course still being made all the time. Dig a little deeper, and it seems to me that each year is indeed much like the year which came before it, in that there are a always a range of movies, some good, some bad and some indifferent. Importantly, there’s always plenty to love. My issue this year hasn’t been so much with a dearth of films to enjoy, but with severe limitations on what I’ve been able to get to see. In fact, I’m fairly confident that a few films missing from my list would have made it on there, had circumstances been different.

But still – there has been much that I have enjoyed, so here’s five of my favourites from 2013.

5) The Purge

As someone all too familiar with getting to see brilliant, innovative indies which seem to sink without trace, let alone decent distribution, I’m often slightly suspicious of horrors which arrive on the scene as loud and proud as The Purge did, and I can only grasp at the politics which render one film the smash hit of the summer whilst another gets nowhere. That said, I liked The Purge. Whilst in its execution it wasn’t perfect, it had ideas and it wasn’t afraid to run with them, painting a picture of a deeply flawed, superficial America which could boast of plummeting crime rates because of the phenomenon of ‘the purge’, a period of one day per year where any criminality is not only legal, but encouraged. It’s an idea which has been examined elsewhere, sure, but The Purge had a good balance of plausibility and violent fantasy, doing what good dystopian films do; taking an element or elements which we recognise and allowing this to flourish into something unsettling through its possible proximity.

4) The Battery

Not everyone was sold on The Battery, and it’s entirely possible that seeing the film with a very enthusiastic festival audience may have coloured my reception to an extent (hey, nothing happens in a vacuum), but to me this is a real gem. The zombie has become the most ubiquitous horror archetype of our times, and when we live in a world which has seen its first zombie blockbuster in World War Z, it’s evident that there’s no stopping the shambling (or possible sprinting) dead in their tracks. However, The battery uses zombies more or less as a contextualising factor. They provide the pressure cooker which keeps two unlikely travelling companions together under duress, creating some brilliant, naturalistic, highly funny content along the way, and yeah, there’s even a dash of pathos before the end. Real-life friends Jeremy Gardner (playing Ben) and Adam Cronheim (Mickey) created this film from the ground up, with Gardner directing and writing the project too; it’s testament to the sort of commitment which the smaller players have to show, in order to get original content made, and it’s to their credit. You can check out my full review here.

3) The Seasoning House

On paper, The Seasoning House is everything I’d typically avoid in a film. Young girls being trafficked into prostitution? Torture, torment, human misery? These aren’t plot devices I’d seek out, least of all if this necessarily includes people being tied to chairs. However, I was dead wrong about The Seasoning House. Yes, it’s the darkest entry on this list, but as well as strong performances and the distinct, decidedly welcome impression that this topic was not chosen to be played out for exploitative or shocking reasons (though shocking it undoubtedly is), The Seasoning House is ultimately redemptive without being saccharin. It also tempers its viciousness with a certain dreamlike quality, as Deaf inmate of the ‘seasoning house’, Angel (the brilliant Rosie Day) moves between the crawlspaces and walls of the eponymous house, surpassing its capabilities as a prison, and ultimately surpassing the cruelties of its keepers as the loss of a friend causes her to take redemptive action. You can check out my full review here.

2) Mon Ami

There have been some truly brilliant horror-comedies in recent years – Some Guy Who Kills People and Tucker and Dale Vs Evil, to name just two – so much so, that it’s made me reconsider my standard opinion that horror-comedies typically fail both as horrors, then again as comedies. Still, it’s nice to be proved wrong sometimes, isn’t it? Mon Ami is one of those films which is sadly lacking the attention it so richly deserves, and I hope that more people get to see it, as it is note-perfect; ostensibly a buddy movie, this comedy of grisly errors moves from the sublime to the ridiculous as friends Teddy and Cal design the world’s stupidest get-rich-quick scheme, deciding in their wisdom to kidnap their boss’s daughter for a ransom. Yep. So that goes well. As their day goes from bad to worse, Teddy and Cal’s friendship is put through the wringer in a series of excruciating, laugh-out-loud ways. You can check out my full review here.

1) Jug Face

Last but certainly not least, we have a slab of Deep Southern Gothic in the form of Jug Face; Jug Face is, for me, the finest horror movie of 2013 bar none. Here we have a film which has the nous to develop, in a series of deft moves, its own horrific mythos. Although there are some Lovecraftian hints at play, HPL doesn’t quite have the monopoly on the unfathomable, unseeable and unknowable, and the entity or entities of ‘the pit’ function in a series of interesting ways; village elder, moral compass, and executioner, ‘the pit’ protects the tiny, isolated community which lives near to it, but at a price – and when a young girl named Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter) decides to try and cheat its will, she precipitates a disaster for herself and for her people. With stellar performances from the likes of Sean Bridgers, Larry Fessenden and Sean Young (devastating as the matriarchal monster Loriss), a palpable sense of dread matched only by the sense of stifling heat emanating from the screen and – finally – the courage to go out as bleakly as it came in, Jug Face is a superb piece of work. You can read my full review here. And just remember – the pit wants what it wants…

BAH Celebrates 2013: Tristan’s Top 5 Films

By Tristan Bishop

Editor’s note: as we come to the close of the year, keep an eye on Brutal As Hell for a run-down of our favourite movies of 2013. First up is Tristan, seeing the year out with a range of movies that feature parallel universes, human trafficking and some old school creepiness along the way…


1. John Dies At The End

Well, end of year lists can be a tricky business – I first saw John Dies… back in November 2012, but it’s only now coming out in the UK, and since it’s easily the most original and entertaining film I’ve seen in a few years then it’s very much worthy of top place here. Coming on like a collaboration between HP Lovecraft, Monty Python and a bathtub of potent LSD, JDATE is psychedelic, constantly inventive, and incredibly funny. Although the plot is heavily cut down from that of David Wong’s novel, the essence is perfectly captured, and the characters look and act exactly as many a reader has pictured them. Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Bubba Ho-Tep) has yet again pulled off miracles on a low budget. Do the film world a favour and go out and buy this – Then maybe Don can adapt the (even better) sequel, This Book Is Full Of Spiders. (See Ben’s review and Marc’s review.)

2. The Seasoning House

Paul Hyett’s film was quite the surprise – A dark, brutal fairy tale based around the trafficking of girls during the 90s Balkan conflict, The Seasoning House does sympathetic justice to the real life horrors it portrays whilst working as a thrilling ride too – a balancing act that few directors would be able to manage. That it is a first feature makes it even more impressive, although Hyett has been the go-to FX and make-up guy for pretty much every decent British genre piece from the past 15 years and has obviously been studying the directors’ craft with a keen eye. The visuals, and especially the sound design are absolutely first rate, and young British actress Rosie Day gives a revelatory performance as the deaf-mute heroine Angel. A must-see film for those who can stomach it. (See my review and Keri’s review.)

3. Kiss Of The Damned

Time for a bit of controversy – This film seems to divide horror fans something chronic, with one camp dismissive of the script and acting (many of the actors speak English as a second language), and others lapping up the old-school 70s Euro horror angle. As a fan of Jean Rollin and his ilk, I was overjoyed to find a modern vampire flick which took elements of recent vampire mythology (specifically True Blood with the themes of ‘mainstreaming’) and laced it with style and sex straight out of 1973. Xan Cassavetes (daughter of the legendary John Cassavetes and his muse Gena Rowlands) directs with an obvious love for the material, but the film is really stolen by Roxane Mesquida as a sexy, mischievous and downright dangerous vampire. If you’re into Rollin pictures you’ll dig this film’s languorous style and sexual tension. If not, you’ll likely find it a tiny bit dull. (Review soon.)

4. The Station/Blood Glacier

You may have seen the news last week that the Austrian creature feature which has been doing the festival rounds as The Station is to go under the much shlockier title of Blood Glacier. To be fair, the original title made me think of worthy Hungarian drama, but it’s preferable to the SyFy Original style of the new one, especially as the film behind it is such a delightful romp. Basically a re-imagining of The Thing, but with a wonderful creature conceit, it also gets major props for a decent script and interesting characters. It’s so rare to find a straight-up horror sci-fi film with genuine humour and human interest these days that this comes across as a real breath of fresh air. Make sure you see it. (Again, review soon.)

5. Dark Skies

I really wasn’t expecting much other than a diverting 97 minutes from this fairly mainstream sci-fi horror film. Yes, it’s highly derivative of Insidious and Poltergeist, but it’s also one of the most efficient horror films I’ve seen In recent years. Dispensing with gore and, surprisingly for the theme, laying off the CGI-overload button (even more surprising given director Scott Stewart’s previous work), it instead gives us slow-burn creepiness and a palpable sense of threat, plus one of the best endings to a film I have in recent memory. Dark Skies will probably come to be regarded as one of the best of the current haunted house cycle – even if it’s not ghosts you have to worry about…

 

 

DVD Review: Megaforce (1982)


By Tristan Bishop

Hal Needham, who sadly passed away at the age of 82 earlier this year, was quite the force in modern cinema. Starting his career as a stuntman way back in 1956, he eventually became the highest-paid professional in his field, and was responsible for countless innovations in stunt technique and technology. He quit the stunt business in the late 70s and moved into directing, becoming the man behind critically mauled but massively successful series like Smokey And The Bandit (1977) and Cannonball Run (1981) – as well as the fascinating feminist TV movie Death Car On The Freeway (1979). Megaforce is undoubtedly his strangest turn, however – a $20 million dollar (pretty big budget for 1982) US/Hong Kong sci-fi action co-production. Raymond Chow’s Golden Harvest invested heavily in Cannonball Run (hence the early Hollywood role for Jackie Chan in that film), and were so pleased with its runaway success that they stumped up the cash again here. Such was the expected success of Megaforce that there were even car toy ranges and an Atari video game developed and released. Unfortunately, what resulted was not a massive hit, hence why it seems to have vanished from popular memory. As is wont to happen, though, the cult of the film has grown over the years – for instance, Trey Parker and Matt Stone referenced it in a South Park episode, and even swiped the set-up for their Team America: World Police.

Megaforce begins in the fictional country of Sardun, which are at war with their neighbours Gamibia. General Byrne-White (Edward Mulhare) and Major Zara (Former Miss India Persis Khambatta, who died at the tragically young age of 49) are sent into the middle of the desert to enlist the help of Megaforce – an internationally funded team of mercenaries, who are armed to the teeth with cutting-edge, experimental weapons. Megaforce are headed by the wonderfully named Commander Ace Hunter (Barry Bostwick of Rocky Horror and Some Guy Who Kills People fame), who rocks the ‘Bee Gees down the space disco’ look like no other man can. Hunter is interested in the mission because his old friend Duke Guerra (the wonderful Henry Silva) is the leader of the Gamibian Bad Guys, and he’s looking to settle a score – Because that dastardly Duke once stole Hunter’s favourite lighter! Along the way we get lots of training and planning, and a love story between Zara and Hunter, before the mission itself gets under way. But even the best laid plans never run smoothly…

It’s not hard to see why Megaforce was a flop on release – the tone is utterly bizarre. All the military technology and explosive stunt work is offset with a jokey script that would have worked fine with a good-ol’-boy car chase film like Smokey And The Bandit, but here seems wildly out of place. None of the actors wink at the camera, but you can just tell they were itching to at any given moment. There’s some annoyingly lax plot development too, and a whole section which has Zara in training to join Megaforce, showing she’s just as bad-ass as any of the guys, but this is put a stop to when Hunter falls in love with her and forbids her going on the mission. Lame. Also, this was a PG movie at the time, and any violent action remains strictly on a A-Team level of explicitness.

So what’s the cult appeal of Megaforce? Well, partially that which made it such a flop in the first place. Time has certainly been kind to it – The entire production virtually reeks of 1982. The utterly bizarre script now raises smiles both intentional and otherwise, and there’s some wonderful references to the social conscience of the 1970s giving way to the rampant capitalism of the 1980s. There’s copious excellent stunt work (naturally, given Needham’s pedigree) mixed with some wonderfully hokey cereal-packet-painted-black technology that make it utterly irresistible to fans of pre-CGI sci-fi, but most of all, it’s the cast. Bostwick is perfect as the Greek-God-made-human Hunter, obviously relishing the experience. Khambatta looks stunning and mysterious, and Silva chews up the scenery a treat as the baddie Duke, snarling through his teeth and looking like a cross between a Mexican revolutionary and a rabid boy scout. There’s also great, catchy electro-rock music from Jerrold Immel. Add some rocket-firing motorcycles into the mix and you’ve got a film perfect for the eight year old child in everyone.

Megaforce is out on Region 2 DVD on 25th November, from Mediumrare.