Hellboy (2019)

The Man Who Hell To Earth

Hellboy (2019)
2018 UK/USA
Directed by Neil Marshall
UK cinema release print.

You know, I thought a lot of the last two Hellboy movies, especially the second one so, frankly, the idea of doing a new, rebooted version of the character which didn’t involve the original dream team pairing of director Guillermo del Toro and actor Ron Perlman was pretty much anathema to me. I really wasn’t looking forward to this movie and even more so when I heard pretty much every critic weighing in with headlines saying it was one of the worst messes of a film out there. However, I thought I should witness the train wreck for myself and I had one slightly bright spark of a fact at my disposal which should have tipped me off that, maybe, this was worth a watch after all. That bright spark being director Neil Marshall, who made two of the best modern horror movies going... Dog Soldiers and The Descent.

I got lucky when I went and saw this because, honestly, this is an awesome film and I thoroughly enjoyed it... way more than I thought was possible. So I guess the bottom line from that is... don’t trust the professional critics, even if they all agree on something. This film is a great slice of exploitational horror which is not afraid to blend elements of epic, grandiose plotting with a true pulp/exploitation sensibility. In a way it felt a little like it had a kind of stylistic kinship with movies like Hansel And Gretel - Witch Hunters (reviewed by me here) and The Last Witch Hunter (reviewed here). Two movies which I think were less than enthusiastically received by audiences and which deserved more love.

As does this latest incarnation of Hellboy. I don’t think there were even ten people in the screening I went to and that’s a shame because it’s a solid and fun movie with some outstanding visual flourishes. There was even a jump scare moment which I didn’t see coming at one point.

Now, nobody can really fill the shoes of the mighty acting legend that is Ron Perlman in the role of Hellboy but David Harbour, who plays him here, actually does a really good job with the character and he manages to assuredly bypass the legacy of the role, giving us a nice interpretation of creator Mike Mignola’s comic book character. Both him and his ‘dad’, played by Ian McShane here (it was John Hurt in the last two movies), are totally brilliant and they are, pretty much, the only two regular characters carried over from the last two movies (which suits me fine as I never really got on with the Abe Sapien creature, although he is teased near the end). Instead with have a totally new support team who are working together for the first time here, played by Daniel Dae Kim and the truly beautiful Sasha Lane. They are also pretty awesome and, to round it off as the icing on the cake, we have Milla Jovovich playing the lead villain of the movie. And she does some pretty good work here too.

Now this movie is a complete reboot and is not associated with the del Toro movies. Which is a shame in a way because there was a definite direction for a third part which the director of that last one was clearly heading for. The question posed in Hellboy - The Golden Army was... just how was the title character going to bring about the apocalypse and, well, its a shame that never got resolved by del Toro. Except, it kinda does get resolved, somewhat, because I suspect, having not read the original comics, that this film is based, at least partially, on the same source material that would have gone into that third part that was never made. So, yeah, some of the questions posed by that last movie are, I think, answered here.

And the movie had me right from the start. Opening with a flashback and narrative provided by Mr. McShane which takes us back into Arthurian legend and upping the gore factor right from the outset, the film pulled me in very quickly. This is soon followed by a scene where Hellboy has to fight a masked luchador wrestler with vampire powers and, frankly, by this time I was already hooked on this movie, it has to be said. The action sequences are well put together, solid and, frankly, surrealistic, giant demons completely trashing London in the last reel really put a smile on my face. This is, as I said before, an epic piece of pulpy exploitation and it goes over the top in all the right places it needs to over the course of the story. And the special effects are handled really well too with my favourite being the ectoplasmic undead who are channeled physically from the mouth and into 3D representations via Sasha Lane’s truly epic character. I enjoyed her performance best, I think and her on-screen chemistry with David Harbour goes a long way towards selling this film and giving the emotional weight it requires at certain story beats.

Add into what is an already seductive mix, Benjamin Wallfisch’s score, which is a real corker and gives the movie a solid backbone. Can’t wait to hear this one as a stand alone listen when the CD is released in a few weeks.

And that’s really all I’ve got to say about Hellboy 2019 other than... some of the little reveals are a bit too obviously telegraphed but the frenetic pacing and post-modernistic tone more than make up for the lack of subtlety in the writing. This is a fun and entertaining movie and I would expect that, if you liked the last two Hellboy movies, you should have a good time with this one. And no one is more surprised than me that I would be delivering such a positive review of this movie but, there you have it. A little masterpiece of bloody excess and another winner, as far as I’m concerned, from director Neil Marshall.

Sense and Censorbility

Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide - incorporating

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape

2010 UK Directed by Jake West Nucleus Films Region 0

Warning: If you find any of my views about the ridiculous practices of organised censorship and bully boy harassment to get opinionated bills passed as law through government a bit too much like a common sense reaction to the way we live our lives... rather than a silly knee jerk reaction often used to kick start and push individual agendas through under the name of large corporations or governments, then keep telling yourself... it’s only a blog post... only a blog post... only a blog post... only a blog post...

Ok... I just came off watching a limited edition three disc set of a brilliant documentary by Jake West on the thoroughly despicable Video Nasties phenomenon which hit Great Britain in the early eighties. Now I’ve always had a soft spot for Jake West, ever since I saw his brilliant, over the top vampire movie Razor Blade Smile with Eileen Daly cast in the lead role of Lilith Silver (more Lilith Silver movies please... or maybe some comics?) but if I were to tell the truth, it isn’t Mr. West’s name on the credits as director of this that made me want to grab this one while it was still on the shelves... and thanks to my mate Big Jake (not the same Jake) for getting me this little gem for Christmas... the real reason I wanted this was very simple - this DVD has trailers for all 72 movies which made the Director of Public Prosecutions Video Nasties list on it and, since I knew next to nothing about the phenomenon which was playing out when I was at school in my mid teens (when kids in the playground where either swapping these very same films or some kind of bestiality porn on a daily basis) I thought I’d better educate myself on this little and, as it turns out quite shameful, period of uniquely British movie history.

As I said, I was unaware of most of the films on these lists at the time (I was more of a Star Wars, Star Trek and Doctor Who person when I was going to school) but as I watched the documentary I realised that I have a few of these titles in uncut form on my own shelves and a couple of them are films I admire quite a bit (Dario Argento’s two minor masterpieces Tenebrae and Inferno, for example). As one of the people interviewed for the extras on these discs said... a film like Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination, which made the list, is now available totally uncut in the UK and on the shelves of your local HMV as a BBFC rated 15 certificate film... and it’s really quite laughable, when you go through the list, that many of these films were ever picked up at all.

The fact is though... they were and people in video stores renting this product, even in cut form and even though some of them were already passed as X-rated theatrical cuts by the BBFC, were being fined, prosecuted and in some cases thrown in prison for renting out what were probably quite lucrative titles (and therefore just plain good business sense to stock). Peoples lives were being changed in terrible and negatively impacting ways just because, it seems from the documentary... one or two people took offence and had an agenda.

The documentary itself is brilliant and, although it’s mostly a bunch of talking heads with minor luminaries and frightphiles such as Alan Jones (Argento’s biographer and general Italian exploitation expert) and Kim Newman (film critic and novelist whose work includes the awesome Anno Dracula series), Jake West uses a necessarily limited but effective tool kit of visual tricks to hold your attention on the subject matter... such as cutting to a closer shot of someone in between movie clips to bring your attention in... or degrading the quality of his shots as the quality of the original first, second and third generation video cassettes is referenced in the main text... stuff like that, but very effective and you will find yourself never getting bored in this director’s skilled hands.

Not that there’s really anything to get bored about on this one... the absolute injustice of these unfair and alarming prosecutions represent my pet soapbox, “crimes against filmanity”, in a big way. The person responsible for running the bill must have been told that this documentary was in some way going to gloss over the actual facts of the matter and somehow come out on the side of the government on this one because, frankly, he’s looking pleased as punch and incriminating himself with every word he says, it seems here. A real schoolboy, “oh it was a bit of a larf” kind of mentality if you ask me. Really scary!

The real eye opener for me, though, was just how underhanded and blatantly criminal the people in question were in order to get their own agenda passed through as law as the infamous Video Recordings Act of 1984. The minister (or whatever he was) who organised the research team at Cambridge in order to prove the point that the videos which they (seemingly randomly it seems on the strength of this documentary and the DVD extras) picked out were actually harmful to people and being seen by very young children acted, it would seem, in the most despicable way possible. When the research was turning out to not only not hold water with what was wanted but, indeed, even seemed to point in the opposite direction than was required, he broke in to the Cambridge offices and stole the research, then fired all the researchers and then constructed his own “massaged” figures from the statistic available which basically lied about the whole thing and helped get the bill passed. These were not nice people, it would seem... well that’s “governments” for you I guess?

All this along with some, mostly, sound opinions from the talking heads about the fakeness of the gore effects, which were the most pounced on element by the police (who really had no clear idea of what they were necessarily looking for at the time... well, how could they?), gives a really clear condemnation on the people who conducted these VHS and BETAMAX witch hunts throughout these shores and makes you realise how unjust the whole thing was. I repeat... peoples lives were being changed by this! This is not how human beings are supposed to treat their fellow man!

One thing you must do if you watch this, sadly now out of print already, limited edition is make sure that when you look at the 72 trailers on discs 2 and 3, you watch these with the individual introductions for each film on (even though the whole package runs for over 13 hours). Various experts like the aforementioned and a couple of British genre directors like Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) and Christopher Smith (Triangle, Black Death) give some absolutely brilliant insight into the films in question and in the cases of some people (and from some of the clips shown) you can actually get a window into how “the nasties” informed and influenced their own work. The only real weakness to these intros is that half of the trailer in question tends to get played out as mini visual bites to illustrate the interviewee’s point... and then you see the trailer... again. Still, this is a minor quibble and in no way detracts from the quality of the product in this case.

Another brilliant thing about this particular documentary and DVD is that it also features genre actress and presenter Emily Booth who is always interesting to watch and listen to (does she write her own material for this stuff I wonder) and if you let the disc menus play out you’ll see her unleash total carnage on a whole bunch of video cassettes with various power tools and implements of destruction... if that’s your idea of a good time (and I have to say that since she’s such a good looking and genuinely witty person to watch and listen to... it probably is my idea of a good time actually).

You know I could write a very long and very relevant article about just why anything other than self-censorship for adults is an absolute waste of time and sometimes causes more problems than it pretends to cure... but this is already a long enough article without me going into one about it here. But be warned... that article will be coming.

So why am I standing on my soapbox now about something which has mostly (some of these films are still banned uncut over here guys and gals) become a scandalous footnote in the history of British film and government? Well, as a trusted and cherished lady friend of mine said to me very recently, this is the kind of thing that governments are getting away with all the time... and you know what, she’s 100% right. There are some laws which were passed less than two years ago, for example, which are also going to ruin a lot of peoples lives just for a personal preference and the laws in question appear to be even more totally outrageous than the Video Nasties phenomenon documented on this DVD. I won’t say which laws are problematic (I’m sure there are many) because I don’t want to make myself a target but I would advise that if any readers here with any kind of interest in how people’s freedom of expression and worse are being taken away on a daily basis in all different countries around the globe... then you could do a lot worse than to make http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk one of your “virtual” stops in your world wide webbery on a daily basis.

You Have Been Reading... NUTS4R2: Sense and Censorbility.

Roman' Around The Scottish Countryside

Centurion 2010 UK

Directed by Neil Marshall

Screening at Cinemas now

I’m beginning to think that British writer/director Neil Marshall is beginning to lead a bit of a charmed life... at least in respect to his amazing cinematic track record. Centurion is his fourth feature film following on the heels of his previous box office successes: Dog Soldiers (a really great werewolves VS the military movie), The Descent (a group of women trapped in an unexplored cave system trying not to be slaughtered and eaten by cave dwelling monsters movie... and one of the greatest horror movies of modern times... the cobbled together throwaway sequel did not live up to Marshall’s original) and Doomsday (a pretty good blend of Escape from New York cross pollinated with Mad Max 2 set in Scotland - a pretty solid movie with some nice, underused ideas amidst all of the familiar cliches which, perhaps, deserved to be a little better known over this side of the pond than it currently is).

His films have all done “quite well” in the UK and, apparently, quite phenomenally well in the US... making him one of our more successful exports I reckon.

Centurion is his first real stab at a non-sci-fi/non-horror movie, being as it is set in, where else, Scotland at the time nearing the end of the Roman occupation of Britain. It’s basically the story of seven Roman soldiers stuck behind enemy lines, trying to survive being hunted by ferocious Picts as they try to make their way to what turns out to be a fairly dubious definition of safety.

The film is headlined by Michael Fassbender (so good in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds), ably supported by a handful of Marshall regulars (such as the solid bear of a man, Liam Cunningham) and also... is it... yes it is... it’s Mickey from Doctor Who. Mickey Mick Mickey! Hello Mickey! Um... sorry, just had a moment there... the film also features successful writer/director Noel (alright there Mickey!) Clark as one of the Roman soldiers and as usual he does a good job... would have liked to see him used a bit more prominently but whatever. You can’t headline everybody. I’ll go and see his new film he’s written and directed in a few weeks time... he’s probably got more of a role in that one.

So anyway... where was I before somebody slipped me a Mickey (typecast muchly?)... oh yeah... Centurion is not what one might call a “woman’s movie”. There is basically not much plot (although there is a quick stab at love interest in the last half an hour of the movie to square things with the American box office) and it’s basically a movie which features lots of bloodthirsty, goriness of Romans and Picts slaughtering each other... and the occasional bit of Romans fighting amongst themselves when there’s no Picts around.

So... big on slicing and dicing, not bad on quick character sketches that let you know where you are... not so hot on story development but it’s not that kind of movie.

Couple of minor grumbles though...

Now don’t get me wrong, the handling of the “lads” in Dog Soldiers is more than enough to show that this director can write and direct perfect dialogue scenes... he’s a genius at it. Right up there with Tarantino for really connecting with his audience. However, it is my belief that Neil Marshall is, basically, a great director of silent cinema. Lots of sequences with no dialogue, beautifully handled to move the action along and no speech necessary at all. A very visual director in his approach to his craft. Which is why I was a bit miffed that he has a Michael Fassbender voice-over going on through the movie, more often than not telling you what is happening when there’s absolutely no need of any explanation whatsoever for anyone with an IQ greater than that of a lemon. It was really quite annoyingly unnecessary at times and it seemed to me that it might well have been a producers fear of leaving dialogue off for long sequences of film that we have to thank for that. Only guessing mind you. Would be interesting to know if the voice-over narrative was in the original script.

The other thing is... there were a couple of disorienting jumps in the narrative when you weren’t quite sure what was what. Little revelations like... “Oh. They obviously didn’t all run off in the same direction then because there’s only three of the in this scene” might actually have been better served with some of that annoying narrative which was strangely absent when it was needed most. In spite of what I said about Marshall’s visual genius, I feel like some of the scene transitions could have been handled a little better.

These are really minor gripes though... I thought Centurion was a great little movie which I suspect will be rediscovered (along with all of Marshall’s previous moments of cinematic genius) in a nice, big, healthy retrospective of his work some twenty years from now.

Neil Marshall...Veni, vidi, vici.