Häxan

Häx Med Room

Häxan
aka Häxan - Witchcraft
Through The Ages
Sweden/Denmark 1922
Directed by Benjamin Christensen
Radiance Films
Blu Ray Zone B

I was very happy to receive, this Christmas, the new Radiance Films ‘bells and whistles’ limited edition of Benjamin Christensens’ 1922 masterpiece Häxan aka Witchcraft Through The Ages (as the cut down William Burroughs narrated version is often known as). Alongside the many interesting extras and a beautiful 80 page booklet of essays on the film and its legacy, the package also includes five ways to watch the movie, with different cuts and many different scores and optional narrative choices. I chose to watch, for this review, the fully restored, tinted original version (uncut, so it’s technically a fair bit longer than the original release in Sweden and other countries, where censor cuts were originally imposed) with a score by Matti Bye (which is in itself quite an extraordinary work, it turns out, I’ve just ordered one of the last CD copies of the soundtrack I could find on the internet).

It’s been a long time since I watched a print of Häxan and, I have to say, I think I appreciated it a lot more even than the last time I saw it. The film, which has the director pictured in the opening... he also plays the devil throughout in quite a jolly manner (and even Christ, very briefly)... poses itself as a seven part essay on the history of witchcraft, with dramatisations of events (many obviously bordering on fictional) and it takes you from a quick history of how the world perceived itself from the times of Ancient Egypt and into, for the most part, the middle ages. Showing things like the witches sabbath, various potion preparations and a full on witch trial conducted by the Inquisition with accusations coerced, under torture, to name other innocents around a village until even the young lady who first brought the ‘witch’ to the attention of the church is herself accused and burned for her troubles.

Other sections look at, for example, instruments of torture and, although there are certainly horrors which are still very powerful within the film, there’s also a strong sense of tongue-in-cheek humour detectable throughout. When the narrator’s intertitles talk of one of the actresses wanting to try out the thumbscrews for herself, for instance, the director dangles the idea of the confessions he got out of her in ten minutes. Another sequence in the movie depicts the devil’s corruption of a nun and how it infects the whole monastery of nuns who are subsequently caught up in the hysteria (yeah, the director claims all of the film is derived from scholarly and historical accounts and, I’m pretty sure the incident with the nuns was based on a real life case). So, in a way, I guess that makes Häxan one of the early (if not the earliest?) nunsploitation movies.

As the film pushes its agenda with superimpositions and some genuinely wonderful (and often quite intentionally funny) special effects scenarios... some of which may make you think of the early cinema of pioneering film maker Georges Méliès... it also counterpoints the modern form of reacting to witchcraft, showing how women of today (aka 1922) may be diagnosed with hysteria. The thing is, though, when you start looking at all the things that the director/writer is showing and looking at the common agendas between, say, the monks of the Inquisition and doctors contemporary to the release of the film in their medical rooms, it becomes very clear that this film is very much about the way the female has been subjugated, controlled and disposed of in various different ways throughout history. So, the film can have its exploitation cake and eat it at the same time but it’s nonetheless, as far as I’m concerned, a feminist text first and foremost.

One of a few notable things found in the movie would be when two priests are trying to obtain a confession from a suspected witch (aka, already condemned woman) and the scenario of the woman between a kindly, coaxing monk and an angry one must honestly be one of the best depictions of the old ‘good cop/bad cop’ interrogation scene I have seen depicted on film. Another sequence of interest is the mechanical automaton, presumably clockwork, with its richly layered depiction of hell, obviously based on one of the woodcuts the director highlights a little earlier in the picture.

And that Matti Bye score is great, mixing traditional instruments with weird sonics and atonal, unsettling sounds and I really thought it was a first class accompaniment to the film. There’s even a scene, where a monk is scourging another monk, where Bye borrows a time honoured page from Bernard Herrmann’s playbook for Hitchcock’s Psycho, with slightly slower, high pitched notes mickey mousing the movements of the scourge.

All in all, then, the recent Radiance Films Blu Ray set of Häxan - Witchcraft Through The Ages is pretty spectacular and the most thorough coverage of the film I’ve seen to date. An easy recommendation from me and one which lovers of silent cinema should relish.

Running Up That Hill - 50 Visions Of Kate Bush

Cuppy Tea And
A Book Sat
In Your Lap

Running Up That Hill -
50 Visions Of Kate Bush
by Tom Doyle
Nine Eight Books
ISBN 9781788707794

Well this was a nice surprise, spotted on a shelf at the somewhat disappointing, ‘not a patch on the old incarnation’, rebirth version of HMV at it’s old flagship location in London. I noticed this biographical work called Running Up That Hill - 50 Visions Of Kate Bush and knew it had to go on my Christmas list. I duly received said desired item from Santa’s sack and, I have to say, it’s a very well written tome with lots of good information.

I first discovered Kate Bush back in 1985. Even as a kid and into my teens I mostly only listened to instrumental music but, in the mid 1980s I also started listening to some of that ‘popular music’ too and, though I still mostly only listen to movie soundtracks these days, some of those much loved artists I latched onto never left me. So I got into Simon and Garfunkel first, then progressed onto The Beatles, Donovan, Blondie, The Who... and then I somehow heard a single from a new album, Running Up That Hill. With money from a part-time job I had through 8 years of ‘Saturday working’ my way through school and then college, I bought the album and then, over a space of a few weeks, bought the other four in her (then) back catalogue... and admittedly got pretty obsessed with her music the way a teenager can. Especially when it came to The Dreaming, which became my favourite of her albums. So, as the years have rolled by (and rolled on some more, I am now officially in my late 50s) I’ve always been there for each of her new albums (alas, I wasn’t able to procure a ticket for her concert... such a shame).

It’s nice to read a book by an interviewer who had, at one stage, a lot of access to her time over a four or five hour session at her home, augmented with other first hand and second hand commenters. Now, if you are thinking this book is going to be an exhaustive ‘making of’ tour of her music (nice as that would possibly be... or possibly not, it might get a bit plodding) then you might consider yourself out of luck. Similarly, if you think this book will bring you closer to knowing the mindset of the real Kate Bush... think again, why would it? Although I suspect it does have a fair stab at getting a closer look at her in a few places.

It does, however, give a whirlwind tour of her early life (stifling catholic school, the real learning and artistic growth to be found on the grounds of her own home) and chapters devoted to each of her albums and musical triumphs. Not to mention collected wanderings through contemporary reactions to her beautiful sonic creations and even some of her promotional appearances.

There were lots of things I didn’t know about before going past the dustcovers of this book... such as her wardrobe malfunction in front of Prince Charles and asking for an autograph on meeting the Queen... and there’s lots of fun stuff captured in here. It also charts stuff which even a casual listener would maybe pick up on after pouring over those sleeve notes and record credits as each album came out... such as when she starts to really take control and produces her own recordings and eventually builds her own studio for herself. There’s even a handy guide to the hidden KT symbol on her various album artworks.

And this is one of my shorter reviews so I’ll just say that the book is a breeze as written by Tom Doyle... he’s obviously someone who understands music but, more than that, he writes about his subject matter in a very entertaining manner. Just by the nature of the writing it’s a pacey affair, the fifty chapters giving insight and taking a common sense approach when, on occasion, it drifts into suggesting judgement calls on things observed (and heard, I guess). I don’t know if this biography is authorised by Kate herself (there are no photos in it, for example, other than the one used on the cover design) but I can’t imagine the lady herself being disagreeable to it as it’s very much a love letter to her music and personae as anything I’ve read. It’s certainly the easiest book about a musical artist I’ve personally rocketed through too so, it you are a fan or admirer of Kate Bush and want to read a joyous celebration of her career then, yeah, Running Up That Hill - 50 Visions Of Kate Bush is certainly a book I’d recommend to anyone wishing for an impression or sketch of that world, for sure. Definitely worth a read.

Cryptic Movie Quiz 2024 Answers

 

Quizwoz 2024 - The Solution

Hi all. Thanks very much for playing this year. We have a few winners.

First up is... LEN SIMMONS from Cheshunt, who impressively got back all the correct answers to me within about four hours of this year’s quiz going up, so congratulations to him.

Also, taking a fair bit longer but getting there in the end, the collaborative pairing of ROSS JACKSON and CHRIS BURKE from Manchester, also coming up with top marks.

Here then, is how you work out the answers to get the movie titles...


THE ANSWERS

1. A place where the deities of armed conflict can go to build sandcastles.
Somewhere you can build a sandcastle is a beach. And armed conflict could be a war. Deities are Gods so... Beach Of The War Gods.

2. Two donkeys in this killer.
Another name for a donkey is an ass. Two donkeys in would be Ass Ass In so... The Assassin.

3. Taking a long and distinct period of history along for a surgical operation.
A distinct period of history could be an era. A surgical operation is often referred to as an Op. So we have Dario Argento’s awesome movie... Opera.

4. Arachnid dedicated to God.
Something dedicated to God could be said to be Holy. A spider is an arachnid. So we get the brilliant movie... Holy Spider.

5. New Musical Express but extracted from its initials.
So the New Musical Express magazine was always known by it’s initials...NME. Extract a word from those initials and you get... Enemy.

6. Assassins perilous to dark nylons everywhere.
Dark nylons are black tights. An assassin is a killer. If you are assassins going around with the intention of killing them, you must be... Black Tight Killers.

7. Kubrick’s black slabs metamorphose into frightening, imaginary creatures.
Each black slab found in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey is generally known as a monolith. Frightening, imaginary creatures are monsters. So classic Universal sci-fi/horror... The Monolith Monsters.

8. Jazz legend Fitzgerald goes to see a men’s hair stylist.
A men’s hair stylist is a barber. The jazz legend is Ella Fitzgerald so, put them together and you get... Barberella.

9. Red Cheeked, male offspring of Richard sends health care worker to the dark period following day.
Red cheeked could be Rosy. Another name for Richard is Dick. His son might be Dickson. A health care worker could be a nurse. A dark period following day is night. And so you get... Rosie Dixon Night Nurse.

10. Amorous untruths losing blood from the circulatory system.
Untruths would be lies. Amorous untruths would be love lies. if you are losing blood from your circulatory system then you are probably bleeding so... Love Lies Bleeding.

11. Whirled around like a spinning top to the left of the compass.
Left of the compass is West. Whirled around is literally whirled... so West whirled... or rather... Westworld.

12. Three kisses in King’s New England state of the US.
Stephen King usually sets his novels somewhere in the New England state of Maine. A sign for a card or letter to indicate a kiss would be an X. So three kisses would be XXX. So drop these into the word Maine and you get... MaXXXine.

13. Daniel on the bridge on the river.
That would be the Bridge On The River Kwai. Daniel can be shortened to Dan so... Kwaidan. 

14. An Englishman’s home is the fluid of his circulatory system.
The fluid in your circulatory system is blood. An Englishman’s home is his castle, or so the saying goes. So... Castle Of Blood.

Again, thanks all for playing and I’ll try and keep the tradition alive for December 2025.

The Lost Continent

Balloon Buddies

The Lost Continent
UK 1968 Directed by Michael Carreras
Shout Factory/Hammer
Blu Ray Zone A

The Lost Continent, not to be confused with the 1950s monster movie of the same name (which I rather suspect Hammer had the rights to use and remake at that time, if they wanted) is actually based on a novel by Dennis Wheatley called Uncharted Seas (I would imagine loosely, it’s not one of his I’ve read). These days and, certainly in my youth in the 1970s, Wheatley was perhaps best well known for a short string of supernatural based horror tales such as The Haunting Of Toby Jugg, The Devil Rides Out and To The Devil A Daughter (to name what are probably his three best known works) but he also wrote a load of adventure novels and mysteries over the years, which he is perhaps a little less remembered for these days (indeed, I seem to remember discovering from rummaging around second hand book stalls a couple of decades ago, that The Devil Rides Out was only the second of a string of Duke de Richleau novels, only a few of which were concerned with occult themes).

Anyway, Hammer did three adaptations of Wheatley’s works to varying success but, of the three they did, this one is probably the most interesting in terms of it being a very strange mix of elements blended together. Flashing back from a burial at sea sequence from the end of the film, the first hour of the movie, following a trippy opening credits accompanied by a completely out of place (and better for it) title song by The Peddlers, sees a group of passengers on a steam ship journey to foreign shores. As we meet the totally twisted characters who comprise crew and passengers, played by such actors as Eric Porter, Hildegard Knef, Suzanna Leigh, Nigel Stock, Jimmy Hanley, Victor Maddern and, seeing as it’s a Hammer movie, Michael Ripper... we learn various things as thier personal dramas play out, including a captain who is trying to save his career by smuggling an illegal cargo of volatile explosives (which, to paraphrase the title of an Esther Williams movie, get dangerous when wet) and ignoring a hurricane warning.

And if this wasn’t already a powder keg of a disasterous plot device, when things go awry and they all end up in that mythological area of the Sargasso Sea where old ships and seaweed float forever in uncharted waters (it’s been used as a plot device on a number of occasions, I first came across it in the Doc Savage novel The Sargasso Ogre), they are then tormented by a deadly grippy seaweed waiting to pull people to their doom, a giant octopuss, a giant crab, a giant scorpion (who, indeed, comes along to fight the giant crab) and, ultimately, two factions of people who have lived in this uncharted region for centuries as kind of ‘lost’ generations.... including a bunch of Spanish conquistadors ruled by a boy king/self proclaimed God, who feeds his enemies to the big chompy sea monster he keeps in his pit.

And yeah, it a mad mix, but somehow, when the crew team up with the tribal girl from one of the factions, played by Dana Gillespie, they manage to get free of the majority of the dangers and are ready to try and find their way back to civilisation by the end of the picture. Dana Gillespie is of special note here as she has one of the most amazing, eye catching costumes in Hammer film history, thrusting her not inconsiderable cleavage into the public eye in a way which distracts totally from the two helium balloons strapped onto her and a pair of pizza plate shoes... these being the costume accessories which allow her and the others to be able to walk on top of the seaweed without dropping below into the sea.

And it’s such a volatile mix of elements that, honestly, this is a hard film not to love. It starts off almost like a World War II drama on board the ship, where the various character back stories are trotted out... and ends in some kind of hallucinogenic trip where, in the Sargasso sections of the movie, all the shots are kind of lit or filtered so that they are almost completely made up out of dull orange and pink hues. The story, as way out as it gets, doesn’t deviate from its through line, however and, it all kind of makes sense... although some of those story elements obviously lack in realism. And all the way through we have Gerard Schurmann’s (and an uncredited Carlo Martelli’s) score trying to glue it all together in a kind of hodge podge of suitably tonally dissonant elements, as traditional orchestra pieces are mixed in with disquieting Hammond Organ, in sequences which stick out like a sore thumb but, because of the weird mix of story elements, seems almost like it’s totally appropriate to the on-screen craziness.

And, yeah, I don’t have much more to add on The Lost Continent. I think this would be up there somewhere in my top ten Hammer movies and it’s a film I tend to come back to every five or ten years. The version issued by Shout Factory on their 2020 Blu Ray release is, apparently, an extended edition which is ten minutes longer than the theatrical edition, although I believe that’s more or less the same version that’s been on home video for a while in the UK. Having said that, it does also include the shorter, theatrical cut of the film finally, if anyone wants to see what the cut down version looks like. So, yeah, I still love The Lost Continent and, at time of writing, the Shout Factory release is probably the best way to see this one.

Terminal

End Of The Line

Terminal
Ireland/UK/Hong Kong/Hungary/USA 2018
Directed by Vaughn Stein
Arrow Films Blu Ray Zone B

Well this could have been a lot better... I’m just not sure how because it manages to press a lot of the right buttons while still seeming to be completely dull, somehow.

Terminal is a movie I saw trailered back in 2018 at my local cinema and the trailer looked pretty intriguing so... I waited and I waited and... it just didn’t arrive. Turns out... and I only just recently found this out... it only played for a limited engagement at the Prince Charles cinema in London. I don’t know why since it has lots of the kind of elements modern cinema audiences like to see, not least a star studded cast with such luminaries as Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg and Michael Myers. However, it wasn’t until I spotted it on the bargain bucket racks at Fopp for a fiver that I realised that it had ‘come and gone’, as it were.

So, I’ve remedied that situation now and, frankly, I wish I had seen it at the cinema so I would have known not to buy a copy. The problem I have with conveying just how disappointed with it I was, however, is that it’s one of those movies that has so many great things going for it and it still, somehow, manages to fail at holding the interest throughout. Trying to pin down just why that is, though, is something I can only take a less than educated guess on. Given the obvious talent in front of and behind the camera, it seems very hard to manage to make a film like this fail on some level.

Now, I’ve gone on record saying I don’t like gangster movies and it would be true to say that most of the characters that inhabit this bizarre underworld are not people I could ever sympathise with so... I dunno that could be it, I guess. That does seem too obvious an excuse though, especially since I quite like a lot of the main players performing in the film.

Okay... so let’s start with what you are going to realise as soon as you spin the film up. It’s honestly one of the most gorgeous looking films you are going to see... both in terms of the constantly contrasted, neon coloured lighting which should contradict but perpetuates the solid, film noir atmosphere from the picture. I knew I was going to be in for a good ride visually from very early on, where the director has a third of a shot on the left lit with a green alleyway and everything else black. Then a door opens on the right so that the frame is lit in the opposite third with a totally different colour with another character different to the one who was previously in the left hand third of the frame. So we have a frame split into three colours... if you count the middle, black section as a colour... and the effect is quite beautiful...

And the whole film is like this. It’s a visually rich feast for the eyes and, frankly, this in itself should be more than enough for me. Couple this with some nicely written dialogue involving some sharp and witty conversations performed by actors who really know what they are doing, well... by 20 minutes in my mind should have been well engaged with the content.

Alas, the convoluted story, while not exactly that surprising or unfathomable, doesn’t really hold the interest in its execution and, I have to wonder if this is because of some kind of pacing issue, perhaps with the way the film was edited, as to why I just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I mean, it’s an hour and a half movie but, honestly, it feels like three hours.

One of the problems I can put my finger on is the lack of surprise on certain of the many ‘twist reveals’ in the film. For instance, the identity of a Mr. Big villain character is so obvious that, when the person took some prosthetics and make-up off near the end, rather than be surprised I was thinking that, actually, with all the make up effects removed the actor looked less like what the actor usually looks like than when he was in disguise. So no real reveal there, then. Especially when, by the time that character reveal is seen on screen, pretty much all the other candidates viable as the identity of this key role are pretty much dead.

Similarly, when another main character is revealed to be playing... how can I put this... a dual role, it really is no surprise. There have been at least two very telling moments where this is kind of hinted at earlier in the film and the choices are... either the editing of the chronology of the movie is really bad and some stupid mistakes were made or... there’s more than one of that character, so to speak. So, yeah, no surprises there, either, I’m afraid.

What was surprising, actually, was the motivation behind the actions of this dual role, as revealed in the last twenty minutes or so of the film in a... it has to be said... thoroughly nasty revenge movie kind of denouement. The real reason for the main protagonist(s) actions throughout the film are not that easy to predict, I would have to say although, by this point in the film, it does seem to be a case of too little, too late. At least in terms of finally wringing out any kind of entertainment value from the script. It’s also, possibly, a little hard to watch for the more squeamish audience members, even though the final... shall we say ‘blow’... is actually off camera and implied.

And that’s me done with Terminal, I guess. A beautiful piece of eye candy with some cracking dialogue, smart performances and, in all honesty, not much going for it despite all of these factors. I know this is a short review but I really have nothing much more to say about this one. If you are a viewer who loves the visual aesthetics of cinema then... you probably need to check this out for just the shot design alone. I can’t say I’d recommend it to anyone else though because, somehow, it’s just plain dull and fails to hold the interest. Not one I’d happily sit through again.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms

Full Fathom Thrive

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
USA 1953 Directed by Eugène Lourié
Warner Brothers/HMV UK Exclusive
Blu Ray Zone B

I think I must have been four or five when I last watched The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms... which would have been a TV broadcast in the early 1970s. So it’s good to finally revisit this classic film on a nice Blu Ray edition because, frankly, I remembered absolutely nothing about it. At the time I first saw it, I certainly wouldn’t have been that aware of the pedigree of the movie. I may have associated the spectacular stop motion animation with the great Ray Harryhausen as something similar to what I might have seen in a Sinbad movie. This was only the second feature length film on which he’d worked, after his uncredited contributions to the great Mighty Joe Young. I’d certainly not yet quite heard of (I suspect) his friend on whose short story the film was cribbed as a starting point, the great writer Ray Bradbury. But I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed it at the time, although I might well have gotten it mixed up with Gorgo in my head, to some extent... which I’ve just myself found out was directed by the same guy.

Okay, so the plot is simple... a giant dinosaur is awakened from hibernation due to a test nuclear explosion overseen by some scientists in the arctic. Two of the people who go out onto the snow to bring back some post explosion readings, see the dinosaur but, one is killed and the other injured. That other being the film’s main male protagonist, Professor Tom Nesbitt, played by Swiss actor Paul Hubschmid. Everyone thinks he’s crazy... even his friend Col. Jack Evans, played by Kenneth Tobey, the star of 1951’s sci-fi/horror classic, The Thing From Another World (reviewed by me here). However, after meeting a paleontologist played by Cecil Kellaway (who you may remember from The Mummy’s Hand, reviewed by me here) and his gorgeous assistant Lee Hunter, he finds the dinosaur in some sketches and gets corroboration from a witness who has also seen the ‘sea serpent’. Hunter is played by Paula Raymond, who eventually ended up in Al Adamson’s movies Blood Of Dracula’s Castle (reviewed here) and Five Bloody Graves (reviewed here)... not to mention playing Margot Lane in an unsuccessful 1954 TV pilot of The Shadow.

Eventually, the creature makes its way to New York but the army have trouble dealing with it because, in a detail which is not usual with these kinds of movies (at least it seems that way to me), exposure to the blood and general vicinity of the monster leads to catching a debilitating virus. Luckily, Nesbitt is a nuclear physicist and suggests shooting the creature with a radioactive isotope into an open wound caused by a bazooka earlier in the film. I’m not very scientific myself but I can only assume this is a good cure for destroying both the creature and the virus... which is what they eventually do, killing the creature as it demolishes a rollercoaster in Long Island, standing in for Coney Island.

So yeah, simple plot but an entertaining film... if not one you have to keep your brain turned on for. Other actors of note in the film are the wonderful King Vidor from such movies as Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (reviewed here) and Singin’ In The Rain (turning up as the psychiatrist asked to diagnose Nesbitt after his crazy dinosaur sighting) and the youngish, unknown actor portraying the army sharpshooter who is none other than the legendary Lee Van Cleef, who would go on to ‘appear’ in such westerns as High Noon (reviewed here) before finding his star in a variety of classic spaghetti westerns (For A Few Dollars More, The Big Gundown, Days Of Anger and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly... among many such oaters) and, of course, in his wonderful turn in John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.

And while the film is simple, it does have some nice touches to it, such as a wonderful shot of a whirlpool on which the title card is superimposed and, some pretty good and thoughtful animation by Harryhausen of the titular beast, it has to be said. Okay, so maybe on occasion the lines where the live action footage is matched up to the stop motion animation footage can be a little blurry at times but, it’s mostly pretty good stuff with a lot of attention to detail, I would say. I mentioned the inclusion of Kenneth Tobey from The Thing From Another World in the cast but, it’s interesting to note that when they first bring in Nesbitt to the arctic camp infirmary, they are reusing a set from that film. 

And like I said, the movie has a few things which you wouldn’t expect from a relatively formulaic monster movie, such as the inclusion of a virus subplot... not explored in detail but it’s certainly there and relevant to the plot mechanics, for sure. But another unusual thing it does is keep up the bluff of people not believing various eye witness reports (including that of Nesbitt) for a good deal of the way through the movie, focussing on the professor going to great lengths to get people to believe him, with odd punctuations of the dinosaur attacking more people who won’t be believed until the dinosaur finally pitches up in New York city.

One last thing though. If you are a lover of 1930s Hollywood Screwball comedies (and frankly, why wouldn’t you be?), you might want to take note that the big fake, prop dinosaur skeleton seen in Cecil Kellaway’s work area is actually the same model used in the truly great 1938 Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant movie Bringing Up Baby. So, yeah, now you know... a good prop not wasted.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms was made in response to the massive success of a re-release of the 1933 version of King Kong (reviewed here) from the year before (that must have been the slightly censored version of the film) and this movie was also a runaway success at the box office. So much so that Toho studios in Japan turned their gaze westward to come up with their own beast, which would of course materialise the very next year in the form of Godzilla (which I reviewed here). That being said, although the film is vastly entertaining and probably better written than many of the other 1950s behemoth movies, this isn’t up near the top of them for me. I prefer a whole host of others before I get to this one but, regardless, I would still recommend it to anyone who likes their giant monster movies and it would certainly be a great one to include in a marathon viewing session of such creature features for sure. Worth having a look at if you’ve not seen this one before.

Nosferatu (2024)

Nos Quite Feratu

Nosferatu (2024)
Directed by Robert Eggers
UK/USA/Hungary 2024
Focus Features
UK Cinema Release Print.

Wow, okay then. Robert Eggers’ new remake of Nosferatu is actually a pretty good movie. Alas, it’s doesn’t quite fall far into the great category for me due to one specific creative decision but, yeah, it’s a wonderful study in ‘gothic horror’ in all senses and people who are drawn to that certain kind of atmosphere should find much to enjoy in it. Alas, it falls just a little short of the first of the many versions of Nosferatu, specifically the 1922 W. F. Murnau film Nosferatu - A Symphony Of Horror but, as a powerful and somewhat feral piece of modern cinema, I think it’s nothing short of spectacular.

Now I’ll mention this in my reviews of both the original and other remakes/influenced works later on at this blog (hopefully this year... I’ve been post-Christmas sales shopping so I can revisit some of the key works) but, a quick and dirty history of the story behind the original goes something like this. Murnau wanted to make an adaptation of Dracula and Bram Stoker’s widow was against it. So he went and adapted the story anyway, changing all of the names and locations and still, I suspect, basing a lot of it on Stoker’s stage adaptation of his own work. When the film was finished and released, Stoker’s widow sued and a court ordered that all prints of the film be destroyed. However, at least one print must have escaped this fate otherwise we wouldn’t still know of this celebrated film now and the various works influenced by it wouldn’t obviously exist either.

This new version stars Nicholas Hoult as Thomas, the Jonathan Harker substitute for the story. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of Hoult, to be sure but, the kind of timidity in which he infuses most of the roles I’ve seen him in is certainly a good bit of casting because in the silent version he was a bit of a pasty, overacting milquetoast and so Hoult is able to do an incredible job here. Lily-Rose Depp (daughter of Johnny) plays his wife Ellen (the equivalent of Mina Harker in the book) and she is a very powerful force in the movie... although, is it me or is there a trend in actresses this last year or so to try and outdo Isabelle Adjani's performance in Zuawski's Possession (reviewed by me here)? However, she's almost, I would say, more powerful than Bill Skarsgård, who gives an absolutely amazing performance as Count Orlock, the Nosferatu of the title... I’ll come back to him though because, as good as he is, he’s also the problem here to some small degree.

Backing up these actors are Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney and the always brilliant Willem Dafoe (playing a wonderfully enthusiastic version of the Van Helsing equivalent character). The film has a somewhat haunting atmosphere with some beautiful framing (check out the last shot of the film with Dafoe’s head highlighted in the mirror by the side of him) and some very pacey editing which, combined with the excellent sound design and a wonderful score by Robin Carolan, really gives a kind of adrenalin rush to the precedings, for sure.

I find Egger’s cinema a bit hit and miss but this is certainly my second favourite of his films (trailing slightly behind The VVitch, reviewed by me here). This is almost, as I said, a truly great movie but it doesn’t quite make it. Or rather, it is a great movie but it’s not the best adaptation in terms of visual interpretation and, okay, no holding it off any longer, this is where I get to what is, for me, the bloody, risen from the grave, elephant in the room...

The problem with doing a movie based on Nosferatu is... you really should keep the iconic look of the central monster. I mean, that original creature make-up has had a heavy influence on countless visual works based on vampire lore, just think of things like the TV mini-series of ‘Salem’s Lot (reviewed by me here) or the fairly recent film The Last Voyage Of The Demeter (reviewed by me here). The bald head and the double pronged, exaggerated incisors coming down from the top of the mouth but much closer together than in a traditional vampire story make the Nosferatu vampire instantly recognisable. However, although Skarsgård absolutely nails the ferocity and power of the creature here, the filmmakers have chosen to give him a big moustache, a bit more hair on his bonce and completely taken away the double prongs protuding from below his upper lip.

In short, they’ve completely changed the look. Now, I know the look they’ve gone for here is way closer to the original Dracula as described by Bram Stoker in his original novel (so that’s possibly a mitigating factor here because it’s rare anyone even comes close) but it’s a huge loss to this particular film, I reckon.

Now, the film-makers have done their best to hide their creature behind shadow for about three quarters of the movie and kept him, more or less, in silhouette throughout and, to be fair to them, that obscured vision of the creature does at least invoke the original creature design in memory. Alas, it only helps to increase the disappointment when you get a clear look at the creature later and realise that they’ve reimagined him... what a shame.

So, yeah, that’s heavily influenced my verdict of the new Nosferatu movie, truth be told. It’s fantastically well acted, brings the Sturm und Drang of the cinematic and literary sources and is a genuinely entertaining piece of cinema... shame about that creature design though. It doesn’t quite make it.

Top Guns

Gunning To Glory

Top Gun
Directed by Tony Scott
USA 1986
Paramount Pictures Blu Ray Zone B

and

Top Gun: Maverick
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
USA 2022
Paramount Pictures Blu Ray Zone B

The first of an occasional series of double, triple and quadruple bills, mostly because I don’t have much to say about any of them as a single movie, truth be told.

Warning: Some spoilers.

I’ve never watched any of the Top Gun films before now. I wasn’t a fan of the young Tom Cruise (and think he’s absolutely great in his later career) and I really didn’t want to watch what amounts to a dressed up Navy recruitment movie. Added to this, I used to work in a record store on Saturdays at the time of the first film, while I was going through college and, honestly, that rubbishy best selling songtrack album was horrible to have to endure week after week.

However, my mother accidentally caught the recent sequel on telly last year and liked it a lot and so, as one of her Christmas presents this year, I got her the double Blu Ray pack of both movies. So, yeah, guess what I had to watch over Christmas this year?

Okay, so both movies are pretty much the same but they are different in the way they do it. Of the two, I think the first one by uber director Tony Scott is the less interesting. It’s not a great movie but it’s not downright terrible either. Just a film about Tom Cruise playing Maverick, a best of the best trainee pilot at the Top Gun flight school in the Navy. His co-pilot is Goose, played by Anthony Edwards (and Goose’s wife is played by Meg Ryan) and Maverick’s high profile rival is Iceman (played by Val Kilmer). Maverick’s love interest is played by Kelly McGillis.

The story is just toned down Porkys humour coupled with fast flying, naval cadets not doing what they’re told, a tragic loss to add a dash of drama and the obvious combat scene at the end. I’m guessing it must have somehow caught a mood at that point in the 1980s which I just wasn’t a part of.

However, it is directed by Tony Scott so there is some great photography and a few moments when he goes ‘full Bava’ on the colour palette, such as when Maverick is cradling Goose’s head (who promptly dies) as they float in the sea waiting for rescue. Harold Faltermeyer’s score is okayish (not as brilliant as Beverly Hills Cop and Fletch) but it didn’t really make much of an impact on me until it was extensively re-used by Hans Zimmer in the sequel, to be honest. Or maybe the mix in the second one was just kinder to it.

Top Gun Maverick hits all the same beats more or less. A still arrogant Maverick is called in to teach a bunch of Top Gun graduates how to pull off an almost impossible mission in a limited timeline. Miles Teller is playing Rooster, son of Goose, so that Maverick has a dramatic arc of survivor’s guilt via the offspring of his old co-pilot. The always watchable Jennifer Connolly plays his new love interest but, yeah, it’s not too hard to pick up on the fact that this is an old and troublesome flame who is mentioned by name a few times in the first film (just never seen until now). Val Kilmer is back as Iceman, suffering from the same illness as the actor did in real life.

The sequel is pretty much the same thing but it seems more interesting and I suspect that’s more to do with the contemporary language and the attitudes in this one, even though they’re employed to tell a similar story. And not just a similar story to Top Gun either... you’ll recognise many aspects of the final mission they are working towards as being exactly the same as the Death Star run in the original Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope and reviewed by me here). They even have a Top Gun equivalent of Yoda’s “Do or do not, there is no try.” added into the mix.

Zimmer’s score, which highlights Faltermeyer’s old themes, seems much more epic and useful to the film as a whole (I liked it when I saw him do it in concert at one of his live shows too) and, all in all, Top Gun Maverick is a less bitter pill to swallow. I also trust the older version of Tom Cruise more and find him eminently more watchable than he was as a youngster.

All in all, then, I didn’t have a terrible time with either Top Gun or Top Gun Maverick... I can appreciate the second one more. Neither of them are great films but I can understand, I think, why people gravitate to them. You might well be one of those people so, yeah, please don’t take my word for it.

Happy New Year 2025

Happy New Year to you all!

Hope you have a good one.

Traditionally at this time of year I let you know what should be coming up on the blog but, every year I do that, it sometimes takes a few years for those reviews to materialise. So this is a shorter blog entry this year and I’ll only tell you what I know for sure.

Firstly, there will definitely be reviews of various 1980s Hong Kong Martial Arts movies very soon. There will also be review series devoted to Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry films and also some non-Bond secret agent movies, including five of the OSS117 movies, the two theatrical Flint movies, the four Matt Helm films and some Shaw Brothers spy yarns. In addition, a slew of Tom Selleck’s Jesse Stone TV specials will be reviewed, along with the Indiana Jones films plus some classic era Doctor Who.

I now have more Shaw Brothers kung fu movies than you can comfortably shake a nunchuck at and I would hope I get around to watching some of those over the next year too. I’m hoping also to finally finish off the first of Severin’s All The Haunts Be Ours sets and to get the reviews of that up (especially since volume 2 has now been released). And at some point soon I want to take a proper look at the Hammer Frankenstein movies too.

Anyway, hopefully at least some of this will materialise during 2025. Other than that though, have a better year than your last at the very least. Oh... and while I remember, it’s not too late to enter this year’s Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz... you have until the end of January 9th and can play here.

Top 30 Films of 2024

 

30 Favourite
Films Of 2024

Okay... let me start off this highly dubious list with a big apology to Sean Baker because I really wanted to see Anora and just didn’t get the opportunity to do so before 2024 came to a close. I have a strong feeling it may well have taken my number one spot, to be honest but... yeah, the timing was wrong (and it didn’t help my local Cineworld, quite disgracefully, only showed it for one week). Other films that I didn’t get the time to see but which might well have made the list are Strange Darling, Werewolves and Monkey Man. I feel I’ve let myself down somewhat by not getting out to see any of those ones but, as always, it’s been a busy year and I just couldn’t get there at the right time. So apologies to all those listed there.

Of the 30 films listed here, there seems to be a very trashy/exploitation vibe dominating the list. I make no apologies and it probably says as much about the current climate in cinema (where low budget horror films seem to be the only thing doing well right now because they can turn a quick buck) as it does about my own tastes. That’s my excuse anyway. And, yeah, you won’t find any Marvel or DC films anywhere on this list for 2024. I was at least expecting to put the new Deadpool and Venom movies on there but, nope, they were extremely disappointing, somewhat cynical concoctions which didn’t give me the kind of consistent joy I was expecting from them, to be honest. I also think those two particular titles were the worst of their respective series.

Now, as with these lists, some of them may date from a year earlier in some countries and others might not be getting a proper release here until 2025. For instance, my number 7 spot is something I saw at the London Film Festival ahead of time and, well, I’d dearly have loved to have seen the new version of Nosferatu by now but, alas, it doesn’t come out until tomorrow in the UK (if it’s any good, it’ll probably appear on next year’s equivalent list on this blog). Heck, I’m still waiting for one of my favourite films of the 2023 London Film Festival to get a general release in this country (which I’m told will be early 2025 now) so, yeah, I hate not having simultaneous releases of everything in cinema but, what can I do?

Anyway, I’m sure most people will disagree with this list but, if we all agreed in these things there’d be nothing to talk about. As usual, it’s listed in reverse order, ascending to the number one spot and, if you click on the titles, they will take you to the full review for that title (except in the case of number 21, which is a short capsule review bundled in with others at the same screening).

30. Paddington in Peru
My least favourite of the titular bear’s screen adventures but it still has a lot going for it, I think.

29. Joker Folie å Deux
Ten times better than the first Joker movie, this one has ironically dive bombed at the box office for some reason.

28. Beeteljuice Beeteljuice
I liked this sequel a little better than the first and it’s certainly a much needed return to form for the somewhat erratic Tim Burton.

27. Borderlands
Not being familiar with the computer game it’s based on probably helped me see this film through less compromised lenses as I recognised a nice throwback to mid-1980s movie making when I saw it.

26. Gladiator II (aka GladIIator)
Again, a much better and somewhat welcomingly schlocky sequel to the gravitas burdened first film in this unlikely franchise.

25. The Well
Of the two 1980s style Italian exploitation films on this list, this is the one of the two which actually is Italian in origin and it’s a nice throwback to directors like Lamberto Bava (see number 4 for the other obvious throwback to this period of Italian cinema).

24. Hellboy - The Crooked Man
Much as I love Del Toro, I still loved the previous film in the franchise and this one above and beyond those first two. This one has no substance but is a nicely self contained horror fantasy, suitable for a Saturday night.

23. Trap
The latest movie from M. Night Shyamalan is a nicely executed ‘reverse serial killer thriller’, told through the eyes of the central antagonist. Can’t help but think this may turn out, later on down the line, to be part of the series of films which started with Unbreakable.

22. Beverly Hills Cop - Axel F
Eddie Murphy returns to the role that he was born to play... and it’s just almost as good as the first movie. This one really did need to get a cinema release rather than the shabby treatment it ended up with.

21. Animale
I’m hoping this wonderful ‘lady were-bull’ movie gets a release in the UK or the USA sometime in the next year or two, so I can pick up a nice Blu Ray.

20. Wallace And Gromit - Vengeance Most Fowl
Better than the last two TV shorts in the series at any rate and, that’s all it really needed to be. Not as good as the first two shorts, nor indeed the first cinema feature but, yeah, it’s an entertaining diversion for sure.

19. Dune Part Two
A nice continuation of the first of the recent Dune movies. A nice score on it.

18. The Beekeeper
Nice Jason Statham action movie. Why the heck this hasn’t got a proper domestic Blu Ray release is a puzzle. I’ll wait a little while longer and if nothing is forthcoming I’ll just get a Korean bootleg.

17. The Substance
Perhaps a little generic and a little less cutting edge than it thinks it is, this is still a nicely done and somewhat superior version of some of the 1980s films from which it seems to be taking its inspiration.

16. Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes
We didn’t need yet another apes movie but this quite obvious set up for the start of a new trilogy goes down pretty well. Glad the franchise is not dead in the water.

15. Abigail
Such as shame that the trailer for this film, which is what got people into the cinemas to see it, necessarily gives away the film’s conceptual twist (much like Audition did when that film came out). A nice ‘kidnapping goes wrong’ movie which you are much better off going into with no idea of what is about to come.

14. Smile 2
A much better film than the original Smile and, if it suffers from hitting all the same beats as the first installment, at least it does it better and more competently, I feel.

13. Starve Acre
British folk horror which is actually a lot more watchable than many British folk horrors have been.

12. Blink Twice
Nicely directed take on the recent ‘me too’ phenomenon. Lovely colours and framing on this one.

11. A Quiet Place Day One
This prequel is nowhere near as interesting as the first two movies but still manages to pack a punch, along with a great central performance.

10. The First Omen
I liked this prequel much more than any of the sequels to the great original first entry, even though the film at my number four spot came out a couple of weeks earlier and has pretty much the exact same plot. Loved this too though.

9. Argylle
Not quite sure why the box office audience didn’t recognise that this is one of the great modern action movies of recent years but, well, I guess some movies are just ahead of their time. A nice Blu Ray release would be welcome please. And soon!

8.  Alien Romulus
Easily twenty times better than Ridley Scott’s own prequels, this movie, set 20 years after the very first film in the franchise (in terms of release date rather than chronologically) is what audiences were craving, despite the bad taste of a digitised performance from a long dead actor.

7. Santosh 
This police procedural showing the corruption rife in the Indian police force is something I think will get a release in the UK in 2025.

6. Cuckoo
Brilliant, quirky and surreal horror film. Not sure how anyone was persuaded to give the director the cash to make this but I’m glad they did.

5. Late Night With The Devil
Australia’s somewhat belated answer to the UK’s infamous Ghost Watch, this one takes place in real time and has a nice 1970s period feel to it.

4. Immaculate
Sydney Sweeney stars in and produces what I think must be the closest thing we’ve had to a 1980s Italian video nasty in this country for quite some time. I have a lot of love for this film.

3. Love Lies Bleeding
The second feature by Rose Glass is quirky, stylish and has a lot of good stuff going on for it. Lesbian film noir that goes into places you might not see coming at first.

2. Civil War
Easily Alex Garland’s best movie and one which should provide a lot of debate. It may be a little too close to real life at some point soon though.

1. Hundreds Of Beavers
A nicely put together throwback to the days of silent movie comedies with some clever ideas and brilliant sequences that you just don’t expect. Plus that pole dancing moment!

Identity Unknown

The Long Goodbye
Yellow Brick Road

Identity Unknown
by Patricia Cornwell
Little Brown
ISBN 9781408732618

Warning: Very small spoilers.

So, my annual Christmas ritual of receiving and reading the latest Patricia Cornwell novel is once again complete. This time it’s the latest entry into her long running Dr. Kay Scarpetta books, who is such a popular character that Nicole Kidman will soon apparently be playing her on our TV screens (although, honestly, the more I hear about the production the less I’m liking it, particularly in terms of casting and also time settings... I’ll try not to mention it again in this review and stow it until the proper time to talk about such things).

Identity Unknown is set in the springtime and utilises all the usual suspects of Cornwell’s growing list of regular characters... so her husband Benton, her old partner Marino, her sister Dorothy, her niece Lucy and her newest regular, Lucy’s special agent colleague Tron. And I’m pleased to say Lucy... my favourite character in the series of books, who I’ve read growing up over the novels from being a teenage computer nerd into someone who invents the software and systems that are used on a daily basis in the shadowy underworld of the world’s top security organisations... takes a much more active role, or is at least present most of the time, throughout the course of the novel.

Like a fair few of Cornwell’s most recent, gripping mysteries, this one takes place in a very small timeframe. Not as short as some of the novels but, if my calculations are correct and not including the final ‘Ten Days Later’ section, I’d say the action of this one takes place around two and a half days from the opening of the story, when Kay is called away from her autopsy rooms to go and recover the body of a former lover who has been dumped from a UAP onto the yellow brick road. Specifically, UAP stands for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon and it’s what the kids are calling UFOs these days. Could this case link to the murder of a child she is currently investigating? And could the fact that the body has been dumped on the yellow brick road of an abandoned theme park based on The Wizard Of Oz mean the case is even more closely connected to Kay than she initially thinks?

Shenanigans ensue as the obvious suspect is Kay and Lucy’s old arch enemy Carrie Grethen, who seems to have taken herself off the government radar again. Is she responsible or is there some other threat masterminding the series of brutal coincidences as the case unfolds and another death happens? Kay is yo-yo’d around from the crime scene to Langley to NASA (although she doesn’t, alas, meet Callie Chase from one of Cornwell's other series of novels there) and even to an underwater body retrieval as she and her friends work the case.

The thing I like about Cornwell is that, along with the healthy dose of imagination required to write, she always researches her stuff throroughly (as indicated by the photos she shares during her research on Twitter) and I tend to think of her as someone on the cutting edge of things which, I suspect, often bleeds into her novels. So when, as expected, the UFO does not turn out to be of extra-terrestrial origin, she also throws in a little incident of Kay’s distant history which tends to throw some positive confirmation that something alien in origin did, in fact, happen during the famous Roswell Incident. So that’s kind of interesting and of note, I think.

Other than that, a short review because, well, Cornwell is undoubtedly the queen of the mystery thriller and they don’t come any better than this. Scarpetta’s first person narrative flows along at a rate of knots, as usual and, there’s also a section when, once the villain in this book (and I won’t tell you who it actually is) is caught, there is still more action to be had as wheels turn and a side character tries to come along and take out Kay and Marino. And I’m not telling you how that goes either.

All I will say is, Identity Unknown is another highly addictive piece of storytelling in a series of novels which mostly all are as good as they get. If this one had its covers covered in glue it would not make the book any more ‘unputdownable’ than it already is. If you’re a fan of these novels then this is more of the same and is definitely worth your time. Now, I have the long waiting time to get through until I can get another Cornwell novel for next Christmas.

The Star Wars Holiday Special

Kashyyk And Carrie

The Star Wars Holiday Special
Airdate: November 1978
Directed by Steve Binder
and David Acomba
USA DVD-R
20th Century Fox

"If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every bootlegged copy of that program and smash it."
George Lucas

Well, this was a bit of a tick box for me... I finally got around to watching my bootleg of The Star Wars Holiday Special which I bought, well, a number of years ago but it’s still easy to find. This special is notorious as it aired only once and then George Lucas tried to buy and destroy all the master copies (somewhat unsuccessfully although, I don’t think more than a few minutes of high quality footage from those masters have ever made it into a quality transfer). I can absolutely see why he wanted to do that and, frankly, I’m surprised this film didn’t do more damage to the franchise, airing briefly, as it did, a couple of years before the release of the second film in the series, The Empire Strikes Back (reviewed by me here).

The film is mostly set on Chewbacca’s home planet of Kashyyk while his family of wookies and a human friend tune into different programmes on their various media equipment, trying to find out what has delayed his return home for Life Day (which is Star Wars Christmas... although not the same thing as the Star Wars Christmas In The Stars music album, for sure). They tune into various sketches, songs and dances set in the Star Wars universe and... there is a kind of narrative thread to the story too, when the Imperial forces raid Chewie’s home.

The show features Mark Hamill as Luke Skywallker (recovering from his car accident and heavily made up to account for his recent injuries), Harrison Ford as Han Solo, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca, Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, Anthony Daniels as C3PO and a remote controlled R2D2. Most of the cast tried to get out of it but it was originally George Lucas’ idea to do this show, to keep the franchise alive in people’s minds before the first sequel. Well, when he saw what had been made in his name, he realised straight away how terrible it was and, well, his comments at the start of this blog are pretty indicative of his stance on the special. Let me just iterate, the show aired only once in the US and not at all in most countries.

Now I was suckered in from the opening because... hey, that bit was pretty good. It involves Han and Chewie on board the Millennium Falcon, trying to get back to Chewie’s home world and, frankly, it’s just like watching a slice of the original Star Wars (with the effects footage from the first movie dropped in between their dialogue... if you kids these days want to get a taste of what the original special effects in the first Star Wars were like before all the CGI revisionism crap, this is one way to do it). Unfortunately, while Ford and Mayhew manage to enhance nearly all of their scenes and make them watchable, the same is not true for the whole show. Carrie Fisher even sings a song at the end and... yeah, it’s not good.

I think my biggest disappointment with this is, looking at it 46 years later, the show is failing at being both a good production and a bad production. I mean, it’s not good but, alas, it’s not so bad it's good either... it’s just dull and lifeless and the many comedy sketches, songs and dance routines are just drab and, not just unremarkable but deadly boring. Not to mention somewhat inappropriate... I mean, when Chewie’s mum hooks up to some kind of fantasy machine and we see a woman seductively singing and dancing in an erotic manner, it’s definitely a WTF? moment here (I didn’t know this when I was watching it but it was apparently trying to be as close to soft porn as the producers thought they could get away with on prime time television). And don’t get me started on the cooking programme ‘Bantha Surprise’ sequence... a lot of this thing is almost unwatchable.

It never really recovers from this. Now there are some weird things happening in terms of Star Wars continuity. For instance, cassette tapes to power the hologram machines and wookies using framed photos (always weirdly absent form the big screen Star Wars movies... not seen a flat, still used in that universe before, from what I can remember). Completely continuity busting stuff, for sure. But, here’s an interesting thing... a cartoon section, done in the style of the kind of thing you would see in the old Heavy Metal comics of the time, has the first official appearance as a character of Boba Fett. Now, it’s not stated he’s a bounty hunter, he’s just Darth Vader’s ‘right hand man’ but, he’s here all the same, looking pretty much like he would do in The Empire Strikes Back a couple of years later.

Now I watched a bonus version of The Star Wars Holiday Special with all the original American advertisements (plus a news bulletin) left in and, it’s sad to say that I was getting more entertainment value out of the trashy, 1970s American advertising than the actual special itself... which is, yeah... okay. But hey, due to this, at least I now know that the particular week in November in which this aired caused it to cancel episodes of both Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk... both of which I’m sure had more entertainment value than this. Honestly, it’s a wonder this show wasn’t a franchise killer in itself (as the recent Disney TV shows have somewhat become... they’re mostly not much better, I would say).

And I think that’s me about done with The Star Wars Holiday Special. It would be true to say that, while I would welcome an unlikely, official release of this on high definition Blu Ray at some point, part of me is relieved that this will probably never happen. Watching through this felt like a bit of an endurance test, to be honest and, I’ve really no interest in repeating the experience.

Inside

Here Comes
Scissor Claus!

Inside
aka À l'intérieur
France 2007
Directed by
Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury
Second Sight Films Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: I felt it necessary to have to include all the spoilers lurking inside this movie to make certain points. So please read or decline accordingly. Spoilers from the second sentence on, in fact.

I’d forgotten that Inside was a Christmas movie. Because nothing hammers home those yuletide tidings like a woman scissoring open a mother’s belly to steel her unborn child, obviously. This must be a French concept of a joyous noel, I guess.

It’s been a while since I first saw Inside... it must have been a year or two before I started writing this blog, I suspect. With the release (and subsequent out of print status on this particular edition, although I believe their standard edition is still around) of a new transfer in the UK presented by Second Sight Films, I thought I’d take a look at one of the more genuine and legitimate movies to find itself under the label of the New French Extremity movement. And looking at the movie a second time, I was able to see the tricks the writers/directors used to manipulate the audience, creating more tension and specifically strengthening the slight twist of a reveal at the end.

The film is essentially a two hander (with a fair few human and non-human victims along the way) between main protagonist Sarah, played by Alysson Paradis and the somewhat psychotic La Femme, played by Béatrice Dalle (who of course has par for the course at depicting disturbed individuals, such as her great performance as the title character of Betty Blue aka 37°2 le matin).

The pre-credits sequence of the movie depicts the relevant back story of both characters although, the directors manage to keep the audience blind to the fact that this sequence is about both of them. The way they cement the sleight of hand is with the depiction of a 3D CGI baby in a mothers womb. During the film, as various traumata are visited on Sarah, we occasionally cut to the baby inside her womb reacting to what’s going on. In this opening, the baby is traumatised as the car in which Sarah is on board crashes. She and her unborn child survive but her husband/boyfriend is dead. Now, the thing is, the directors use the way the human brain decodes and reads the visual language of film against the audience. When we see the baby in the womb, it’s looking towards the right hand side of the picture and when we see the car crash, we also see it from the angle that Sarah’s mangled car is on the left, having been driven towards the right. Remember that because I’ll come back to that point later in this review.

Four months later it’s Christmas Eve and it would be true to say that photojournalist Sarah is not particularly coping well to any impending joy of her situation. She goes home on Christmas Eve and the film is set between that evening and the small hours of Christmas Day, the day on which she is supposed to give birth (which she kind of does in the end, just not in the way she thinks). She is alone in the house but not for long, as she is being stalked by La Femme, who wants her to ‘let her inside’. The rest of the film is a violent and gruelling battle between the two and various other people who come between their quite visceral and explicitly gory battle. Sarah’s hand being nailed to a door with scissors is one of the least gory images in the film, for example.

Between the two of them, they manage to dispatch a few victims in the course of their traumatic and traumatising battleground. Sarah inadvertently kills her mother, mistaking her for La Femme, by stabbing her through the neck with a knitting needle and watching her bleed out, ostentatiously painting the upstairs corridor in her blood (although, to be fair, there’s already a lot of blood on the walls and carpets by this point in the film). And as for La Femme... through the course of the movie she manages to kill Sarah’s boss (after scissoring him in the groin she continues to stab in various places with her trusty scissors), Sarah’s cat, three police officers and also the prisoner they had in tow. Plus one final victim, who I’ll get to in a minute, too. One of her victims has had her pair of scissors plunged into his head and she lights a cigarette to watch him bleed out and die... in a kind of shortened scene homage (I would guess), both reminiscent but also the exact opposite in intent of the scene in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly where Clint Eastwood watches the soldier die.

The film is brilliantly shot in a kind of neutral, dreary pastel pallete (presumably to highlight the amount of red viscera in contrast to the colours and lighting) and is somewhat sparsely scored for long sections, the pulsing electronic score kicking in as and when needed (alas, not available on CD still at time of writing). The film weaves a kind of dream state midst the carnage beginning with Sarah’s initial dream sequence of vomiting up milk before giving birth to her child through her mouth and continuing to various gory set pieces. Another neat trick used is to cut out frames and presumably different takes in a scene concentrating on Béatrice Dalle’s face, to underline the unhinged mental state of this character... which is quite effective, it has to be said.

The directors further enhance the way the audience experiences the drama/trauma by giving them hope by having Sarah first perform a tracheostomy on her own throat with a knitting needle to help her breathe again and then by having her fashion a spear with which to go on the offensive with, after already having burned half of La Femme’s face off. It’s all just to rug pull from under the audience again though...

Sarah stays her hand when La Femme reveals her identity to both Sarah and the audience. It turns out the directors’ broke the 180 degree rule of filming somewhat, by having the baby in the opening sequence pointing towards the right. We rewatch the sequence from the point of view of the other car and find that it was a similarly pregnant La Femme who was driving the other car, which we now see from the opposite angle as to the initial version of the car crash in the pre-credits sequence. La Femme lost her child to the accident and now has come to Sarah on the eve of her child’s birth, to cut it from her womb and raise it as her own.  

Then we have the final punchline of the movie... La Femme gets exactly what she wants. We watch as she slowly scissors open Sarah’s belly, her blood and other fluids waterfalling down the stairs they are on and into the hallway, before reaching inside her and pulling the baby from her womb, taking it downstairs and rocking with it in one of Sarah’s rocking chairs... the final image of the movie.

And it’s all brilliant. I liked this one when I saw it years ago but it takes a second watch to realise the brilliance of the directors’ misdirection to keep La Femme’s true identity a secret until the end. Knowing who she is makes certain things in the film make more sense and it all just gels together nicely.  

Inside is one of those masterpieces which slipped under the radar in a lot of countries (as far as I know it’s still banned in Germany) and so I’m glad companies like Second Sight Films are making it more readily available to see in English speaking countries (I think my previous DVD was a US region copy). Their presentation, transfer and extras are great although, much as I admired the visual essay given by a woman relating it to her two Cesarean section births, I think she missed a trick by including in her theory of dual/shared motherhood a drawing on the wall of two pregnant mothers because, if you look at the art they show, it’s quite easily decipherable as a depiction of the faces in profile of Janus the two headed God so, yeah, maybe not. But I would say that this is a nice package to have and it’s an excellent, if somewhat ferocious film. cinephiles would miss this one at their peril, I think. Oh... and don’t go mistaking this for the 2016 Spanish/American remake, which I’m told totally misses the point and sanitises the whole thing down to disappointingly ridiculous levels. Best to avoid that version, I’m told.

Wallace And Gromit - Vengeance Most Fowl

Gnome With The Wind

Wallace And Gromit -
Vengeance Most Fowl
Directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham
UK/France 2024
BBC/Aardman Animation
Airdate: 25th December 2024

Warning: Very minor spoiler.

Wallace And Gromit - Vengeance Most Fowl is, by my reckoning, the sixth proper entry into the series of the two titular characters and, although not especially themed for Christmas (it turns out) it is brand new for Christmas and that’s why I’ve included it in my series of Christmas reviews this year. And, I have to say, I thought this one was mostly okay, easily taking my ‘fourth favourite’ spot of the sixth films in the franchise.

This one follows Wallace and Gromit’s further misadventures after Wallace, known for his Heath-Robinson style inventions, invents a robotic garden Gnome called Norbot (voiced by Reece Shearsmith), originally to help out with Gromit in his garden duties but, once he and the general public sees how successful it is... as an invention he can hire to people for Gnome Improvements, so to speak (yep, the film is once again filled with elabourate verbal and visual puns... no wonder this franchise is such a big hit with the British viewers). And what could be more British than Peter Kay reprising his role as Chief Inspector Macintosh from the Wallace and Gromit feature film, The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit?

Meanwhile, however, we have the return of the awesome super-villain from The Wrong Trousers, Feathers McGraw who, using his ingenuity from within his zoo-prison (following on from events in that second Wallace And Gromit short), manages to hack the Norbot robot and change its setting to evil, to help both discredit Wallace and also so he can make good on his escape and return to where he has hidden the blue diamond he stole in the first film. Evil Norbot builds a whole army of evil gnomes and it’s not long before Wallace and Gromit, under suspicion, are chasing after the crafty penguin and coming a cropper of the evil Norbots.

Now let me address the elephant in the room right away... Peter Sallis. Who died in 2017. Now I’ve been watching Peter Sallis in things since I was a kid, my first remembrance of him being from when I was a nipper and seeing him killed in a gory manner in Taste The Blood Of Dracula (reviewed here). And, of course, he was probably the longest serving actor in the long running BBC situation comedy Last Of The Summer Wine for a fair few decades. He was always the beloved voice of Wallace since the very first short film, so I was somewhat trepidatious of some guy called Ben Whitehead stepping into his vocal shoes. But you know what? He does it really well. I wouldn’t have known, if he hadn’t died, that this wasn’t Peter Sallis. My guess here is... and I’m not in any way detracting from the mimicry skills of Mr. Whitehead... that Sallis had such a distinctive voice that it’s slightly easier to get away with parodying his speech, perhaps. That’s my best guess anyway and well done to the new guy for getting it so right.

And it’s all pretty nicely done. From the Cape Fear style scenes of Feathers McGraw preparing himself for his escape from prison (using a close parody of the mighty Bernard Herrmann’s original score for that film) to the smashing denouement featuring a chase on two narrowboats and a villain who escapes to return another day, it’s all pretty good. And talking of the score, regular composer Julian Knott’s themes have been used to full effect by another composer this time around... which seems a shame but the score on this one is by the always excellent Lorne Balfe, so I shall forgive them. And it works a treat, with Knott’s themes referenced in various guises throughout the musical highlights.

A downside perhaps... and it maybe stems from my not realising this wasn’t a 25 minute short when I started watching it... is that for all the wonderful punning, beautful animation and comic timing... it seems a little long for the subject matter, coming in at a walloping, feature length 1 hour and 19 minutes. It doesn’t exactly drag but I did find myself looking at my watch on occasion.

And I think that’s me done with Wallace And Gromit - Vengeance Most Fowl... the ending seems to leave the gate open for another Feathers McGraw led sequel and, since the problem around the voice of Sallis seems to have been surprisingly solved... well... why not? Bring it on, I say.