Every now and then I'll come across a movie made by a director who has since vanished into cinema obscurity; a one-off of such outright lunacy that it may have just been pretty good had more money been in the pot, they employed actors who could act, or the screenplay was written by someone with the ability to string a few half-convincing scenes together. George Barry's Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977) comes immediately to mind. The experience is confusing and often laughable, but somewhere beyond the ropey special effects and wobbly sets, there's something interesting going on. Christopher Speeth's Malatesta's Carnival of Blood is one such movie, having recently emerged from decades in the basement.
The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around a run-down carnival operated by the creepy Mr. Blood (Jerome Dempsey). A young lady called Vena (Janine Carazo) and her family move into a trailer in town to run a shooting gallery at the carnival, and Vena quickly becomes close friends with the hunky guy who runs the tunnel of love. However, lurking beneath the fairground is the owner, another creepy guy called Malatesta (Daniel Dietrich), who looms over a family of weird zombie-cannibal types who stalk the grounds at night. As she awaits the arrival of her boyfriend, Vena and her family quickly discover that they are in danger, but will they escape Malatesta's grasp before they are devoured?
If you're a fan of acid-trip cinema, you just may enjoy Malatesta. There is a moment in the film when Vena, trying to escape the clutches of a hungry hoard, seems to experience a series of dream-like moments, caught up in weird devices and running down an abandoned road. It's a visually striking, mind-bending moment, but sadly the only aspect of the movie to be savoured. Along with the confusing plot (the father keeps talking about getting revenge for something that isn't made clear), the film also suffers from terrible dialogue, wooden acting, headache-inducing editing, shoddy make-up, and a distinct lack of action. I find carnivals a fascinating setting, especially for horror, but the park here is constantly empty and in darkness. See only for an early appearances by a near-inaudible Herve Villechaize.
Shot back-to-back with Critters 4, this third instalment of the relatively successful comedy-horror series featuring the oddly cute but deadly crites was the first to skip theatres and arrive straight to video. The movie starts as widowed father Clifford (John Calvin), his daughter Annie (Aimee Brooks) and son Johnny (Christian and Joseph Cousins) drive home from their family vacation. When they are forced to pull over due to a flat tire, Annie and Johnny head to a rest stop to play a bit of Frisbee, where they encounter Josh (Leonardo DiCaprio), a floppy-haired cool-kid with an arsehole of a stepfather (William Dennis Hunter), who just so happens to be the landlord of the family. While stationed there, they encounter alien bounty hunter Charlie (Don Keith Opper) who warns the children of another crite invasion.
After a summary of the previous two movies by the former Grover's Bend sheriff-turned-intergalactic alien killer, the family arrive at their apartment building where a collection of comedy archetypes reside. Some eggs hatch and the usual havoc ensues as the new collection of furry killers travel from floor to floor munching anything they can get their teeth into. The action stops at the apartment building once we arrive there and this is where the budget constraints become obvious. Not that the Critters franchise was ever blessed with innovative special effects or puppet-work, but things seem especially lazy and poorly done here.
With everything taking place in one location, we are forced to sit through set-piece after set-piece, as the crites do little but bounce or roll to the next attack and use their poisoned darts to varying degrees of success, usually depending on who they're shooting at. The attempts are humour are childish, with one of the few interesting characters - no-nonsense maintenance lady Marcia (Katherine Cortez) - left literally swinging from a wire for an extended amount of time in a running joke that quickly wears thin. Similar to Gremlins (1984), there is an attempt to give the critters some kind of personality, but they prove as indistinguishable from one another as they have previously. Worth watching only for the curiosity of seeing future A-lister Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his earliest appearances.
Although it took home the Best Picture gong last year and I personally found it an immersing and wonderfully bizarre experience, Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was far from the year's most satisfying movie. Still, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu demonstrated enough desire to take the movie-going experience to the next level (with unfathomably long takes masterminded by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) to have me excited about his next project, and the revelation that it was to be set in 1820's America around the legendary story of Hugh Glass had me foaming at the gills. While The Revenant is not the masterpiece I was hoping for, it is a gruelling, brutal and frequently breathtaking tale of survival.
Glass's story has been altered to fit a more conventional narrative, and the opening scenes introduce us, Terrence Malick-style, to his Pawnee wife (Grace Dove) and son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), in flashback. These floaty, dream-like moments quickly give way to the harshness of the Louisiana wilderness where Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his son are working as part of a fur-trapper party under the command of Captain Henry (Domhnall Glesson). While Glass hunts for pelts, the rest of the party are set upon by hostile Arikara Indians, who slaughter a third of the men before the ragged group, with Glass, escape down river. This opening scene, as teased in the trailer, is the film's Omaha Beach, and is captured by Lubezki's never-still camera, constantly swirling from one act of brutality to the next.
We jump on the back of the horse and off again, follow men as they kill and then be killed, under water and onto a boat, and then we are left to catch our breath. Combined with the eerie score, it makes for a delirious and awe-aspiring set-piece. As the group decide just how to get back to camp with their lives, they touch land again where Glass is set upon by a grizzly bear, in what is surely cinema's most convincing moment of man vs. nature. The attack has been compared to a rape, and as Glass screams for his life while being brutally and helplessly torn apart by the giant beast, it's hard to avoid the comparison. Found by his group, he is left in the care of the unhinged John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and youngster Jim Bridger (Will Pouler). Betrayed and left for dead, Glass must drag his broken body across 200 miles of wilderness for revenge.
The famously difficult shoot, in which the crew were given the task of shooting chronologically on location using natural lighting, all in the harshest of environments, certainly benefits the film. The exhaustion is etched on the character's faces, with DiCaprio in particular carrying the film on his shredded back as he sucks marrow from a long-dead animal carcass and snuggles up inside the body of a horse for warmth. The film doesn't so much celebrate the strength of human will when faced with impossible odds, but marvel at how much the human body can withstand in the most unwelcome of locations. Through Lubezki's lens, the wilderness has never been a more fearsome foe, but also rarely quite as beautiful. Both DiCaprio and Lubezki are surely odds on favourites come Oscar time - the former a talent deserving of Academy recognition and the latter looking for his third triumph in as many years.
However, the film is not without its flaws. The tweeks to Glass's real-life story (or what is known of it) mean that Inarritu has opted for a more conventional revenge flick that side-steps any deeper questions that may arise about America's dark history, and fails to add any real dimension to the other races caught up in the action. The Arikara's certainly have a reason for their relentless pursuit, but no explanation is given to why this group is so hostile. The same can be said for the team of French trappers, who appear briefly and serve as little more than a plot device. Near the end of its 150 minute running time, it ponders the purpose of revenge like a thousand movies before it but fails to say anything new. Yet, while it arguably fails thematically, The Revenant is at its best when its showing off, delivering a couple of key set-pieces that throw you head-first into the mayhem like nothing else I've seen, backed by impressive performances by DiCaprio and a mumbling Hardy.
For his eighth feature (as the film's introduction reminds us), film-maker and cinephile Quentin Tarantino capitalises on the critical and commercial success of Django Unchained (2012) and delivers another western set in the South, where racial tensions are high. Set post-Civil War, as opposed to in Django where the slave trade was very much in full swing, The Hateful Eight lumps eight characters of dubious moral fibre in the same shack while a raging blizzard whistles outside. Evoking memories of his breakthrough feature Reservoir Dogs (1992), Tarantino's latest ultimately suffers from stretching a wafer-thin plot over a three hour plus running-time.
Peppering the movie with chapter titles a la Inglorious Basterds (2009), the film begins with a magnificent long take as the credits flicker on screen to the sound of Italian legend Ennio Morrecone's beautiful score. Grizzled bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is transporting notorious criminal Daisy Domegue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the town of Red Rock to collect his reward and see her hang. Fellow bounty hunter and war veteran Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) hitches a ride, and they also pick up former Lost-Causer Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who is on his way to Red Rock to be sworn in as sheriff. The three men discuss their past and future, but find each other hard to trust.
As a wailing blizzard approaches, Ruth's stagecoach pulls up at Minnie's Haberdashery, a cosy rest-stop which has been apparently left in the temporary care of Mexican Bob (Demian Bichir). This instantly arouses Warren's suspicions, who has frequented the place before and knows the owners well. Also resting at the haberdashery is eccentric British hangman Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), the shady loner Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), and former Confederate general Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern). Locked up together with no hope of moving on until the storm passes, the eight naturally talk and size each other up, with the events of the Civil War still firmly in everyone's mind. This being a Tarantino movie, it isn't long until guns are fired and blood is shed.
The dialogue crackles in the way that only Tarantino can deliver during the opening half, but an absence of humour and some twists and revelations that hardly come as a surprise throughout the second act tests the patience. Similar to Django, conversations go on longer than required, and unnecessary narrative devices - such as the sudden introductions of a narrator that comes and goes without reason - distract from a central story that needs to be more complex and unpredictable to justify the lengthy running time. Still, there's much to savour. Tarantino has always made inspired casting choices, and the ensemble - Russell, Leigh and Goggins in particular - are sublime. Filmed in 70mm Panavision to Morrecone's score, the filmcaptures the glorious wide-wide screen beauty of the great westerns of the 50's and 60's. Sporadically thrilling but ultimately frustrating, The Hateful Eight ultimately fails to reward the audience for their time.
Denis Villeneuve's previous films, 2010's Incendies and 2013's double-whammy of Prisoners and Enemy, delved into the darkness of the human psyche at its most primal level. Sicario, penned by actor-turned-writer Andrew Sheridan, continues the trend. While its setting demands something all the more high-octane to what we are used to from the Canadian director, Villeneuve makes sure to keep his primary focus on his lead trio, all who are suffering psychologically in some way from the extreme violence they witness on a regular basis. But Sicario delivers on the set-pieces too, sculpting a steady stream of intense set-pieces handled delicately and with a refreshing coherence.
During a SWAT raid of a house believed to be hiding wanted kidnappers, strong-willed agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) and her idealistic partner Reggie (Black Mirror's Daniel Kaluuya) make a gruesome discovery. Although the raid is a success, it doesn't come without casualties, and soon enough Kate and Reggie find themselves sitting outside an office where high-ranking officers from a variety of agencies are in deep discussion. Flip-flop wearing CIA agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) wants Kate along with him as he and his team head out to Juarez, Mexico, to find the men truly responsible for the carnage and bring down cartel boss Manuel Diaz (Bernardo P. Saracino), with the hope that it will lead to an illusive drug lord.
Just why Kate has been asked to tag along for the ride isn't made clear until near the very end, but Kate's stubbornness and natural curiosity means that she is determined to see it out, regardless of the questionable methods employed by Matt and another mysterious figure, the shadowy Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro). Sicario asks questions of whether bending the rules or using brutality can be justified when faced with an enemy willing to do anything to live another day. When the team first roll into the war-zone of Suarez, mutilated corpses dangle from a bridge to serve as a warning to anyone entering. How can you truly stay within the law when faced with an opponent so devoid of humanity? The psychological weight of these questions press down on Kate as the film progresses.
The film often paces briskly from one set-piece to another, without forgetting to amp up the tension beforehand. A stand-out scene takes place on the Bridge of the Americas as the team are transporting one of Diaz's top men back to the United States. Caught in a traffic jam, they immediately sense danger as vehicles stocked with tattooed men slowly pull up nearby. It's a nerve-jangling moment, one of many in the film, and the action is dealt with clinically, not allowing any of the characters to be forgotten or blurred within the frenzy. Towering above everybody else is Del Toro as the mysterious Alejandro, a man Kate cannot truly unravel. His background and ultimate purpose is left in the dark for the most part of the film, but it soon becomes clear that this is in fact his story. This is dark, visceral stuff, bolstered by an outstanding cast and an intriguing tale to tell.
Studio interference is certainly nothing new in the movie business, but it's sickening to think that, with all the disastrous films that have been the result of suits sticking their noses into an artists vision, an experienced and extremely successful studio head like Harvey Weinstein can demand edits on a finished product that had already tested well with audiences. And so, Snowpiercer limped onto the big screen in selected cinemas and performed well with the small audiences that were actually able to see it, and is still unreleased in many countries, including here in the UK.
The English-language debut of genre director Joon Ho Bong, Snowpiercer mixes post-apocalyptic spectacle with social and political commentary with equally mixed success. Set on board of the eponymous, self-sufficient train that navigates the globe once every 365 days in a world thrown into a new ice age by our attempts to halt global warming, our scruffy hero Curtis (a steely-eyed Chris Evans) has spent the last 17 years cramped inside of the lower-class carriage. Fed nothing but 'protein bars', which consist of questionable ingredients, and occasionally having their young children taken from them by armed guards, Curtis, along with leader Gilliam (John Hurt), plan a revolt.
The revolt will hopefully lead them to the front carriage, where the upper classes live in luxury and with plenty of space. Backed by his loyal second-in-command Edgar (Jamie Bell), Curtis plans to release security expert Namgoong (Kang-Ho Song) to aid his path through the many carriages, eventually gaining control of the engine held sacred to most. However, their progression is met with resistance by Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), a Margaret Thatcher-type who demands social order with a small army of masked men with an assortment of nasty weapons, and who answers only to the train's creator, Wilford (Ed Harris).
Snowpiercer is at its best when at its most ferocious. A carriage fight involving Mason's terrifying guards and Curtis's beaten-down group of peasants, played out mostly in darkness, is a moment of nightmarish horror. Evans, having done little of note since he became Captain America, gives it his all throughout, showing us the darker side of his persona now so synonymous with the clean-cut and morally righteous Steve Rogers. However, these injections of ferocity switch to outright comedy within the blink of an eye. Ho Bong has always been good at mood shifts - the swings from comedy to tragedy in his Memories of Murder (2003) is what made the film a masterpiece in my humble opinion - but Snowpiercer struggles to blend these moments together.
Almost immediately after the bloody battle, Curtis finds himself in a classroom teaching 'train babies', where we learn the history of the train and how they are being taught to worship the 'sacred engine'. It is filmed with a Terry Gilliam-esque absurdity, all bizarre angles and close-ups of an over-the-top Alison Pill as the violence turns into slapstick, jarring with the brutality that came before. For the most part, this is grim stuff, and Ho Bong is keen to keep reminding you. Along with the heavy violence throughout, we also get a monologue about eating babies that is too ridiculous to be taken with a straight face. There are some interesting comments regarding the use of fear and chaos to control a populace at the end, but the film doesn't seem to know when and how to finish. A very hit-and-miss experience.
Throughout the Stephen King adaptation boom of the 1980's and 90's, one aspect that kept writers and directors scratching their heads was how to stay faithful to the sprawling text, while condensing the story into one digestible sitting. While movies such as Carrie (1976) and The Shining (1990) were masterful, they had to stray away from the source in order to avoid becoming a rambling mess. With It, King's hugely successful novel about a shape-shifting entity who preys on young children, the story plays out over two made-for-TV 90 minute episodes. While this format allows the characters and dense plot to breathe, it also highlights a noticeable drop in quality come part two.
The first part takes place mainly in the cursed town of Derry, Maine, in 1960. The younger brother of Bill Denbrough (the late Jonathan Brandis) is approached by a clown named Pennywise (Tim Curry), who lures the little boy into a storm drain with promises of candy and balloons before attacking and killing him. Bill becomes the leader of the Losers Club, a small gang of sorts that consists of outcasts, most of whom have long been the target of a notorious bully. All the kids have problems of their own at school or at home, but they have all been approached by the sinister being who calls himself Pennywise, who terrifies them by feeding on their fears. As they learn the history of the monster who is terrorising their town, the Losers Club decide that it is down to them to end the horror once and for all.
The young cast portraying the Losers Club (along with Brandis, they consist of Brandon Crane, Adam Faraizl, Emily Perkins, Marlon Taylor, Seth Green and Ben Heller) surprisingly outshine their adult counterparts, forging a chemistry with each other strong enough to convince that these are real friends united by shared experience. The opening segment is expertly paced, juxtaposing the events in Derry 30 years ago with the group as adults, all leading their own lives apart from one another, who will find their fates intertwining once again as they learn of children going missing in their home town once again. As they prepare to return home to face an enemy they thought had been destroyed, they think back to their life as children and the bond they once shared.
While the first half brings to mind the heart-warming nostalgia of another King adaptation, Stand by Me (1986), and is genuinely terrifying at times, the second half sinks into strung-out melodrama. The adult cast, consisting of mainly of TV alumni (Richard Thomas, John Ritter, Dennis Christopher, Annette O'Toole, Tim Reid, Harry Anderson and Richard Masur), look like they're sleep-walking through their roles and, as well as sharing little in the way of physical resemblance to the kids playing them, they share little of their natural chemistry also. I haven't read the novel, but I cannot imagine the climax being quite as ridiculous and underwhelming as it is here. More than likely a victim of its TV budget, the three hour-plus running time ends on a whimper. If the quality had been maintained throughout, this could have been one of the most effective King adaptations to date. Instead, it lies somewhere in the middle. However, Curry deserves high praise of his portrayal of what is surely cinema's scariest clown.
For eight seasons, HBO's portrayal of movie star Vinnie Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his three loyal buddies from Queens frequently introduced hints of game-changing plots - busted for drugs, dealing with a huge financial flop, being screwed out of work by a disgruntled movie producer - that would gradually fizzle out and get wrapped out in one inconsequential scene. Entourage the movie, an event that surely only die-hard fans were asking for, does very much the same. Like the majority of TV-to-movie adaptations, it does little more than whittle its characters down to their primary personality traits, but with better cinematography than its small-screen predecessor.
Anyone who watched the show (as I did), will be all too familiar with the romantic adventures of manager 'E' (Kevin Connolly) and the glamorous Sloane (Emmanuelle Chriqui), a tedious sub-plot that somehow evolved into the main focus. Here, they have broken up for the umpteenth time but Sloane is pregnant, and E (for Eric) is torn between the love of his life and casual sex with the sexy strangers his best friend, client, and superstar Vinnie Chase attracts. That the film climaxes with the birth of the tiny sprog speaks volumes about the kind of ambition creator and director Doug Ellin has. This is a world of fast cars, pool parties and celebrity cameos, and bromances that play as a metaphor to some insincere themes of family, so there is no danger of having the fun spoilt by anything happening of any real consequence.
The twist here is that Vinnie now wants to direct his next feature, and super-agent and newly appointed studio head Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven) has enough faith in his old friend to put up the cash for his first venture. When the budget inevitably spirals out of control and Vinnie asks for more money to finish the special effects, Ari must convince one of his primary financiers, Larsen McCredle (Billy Bob Thornton), that Hyde, Vinnie's (ridiculous) sci-fi spin on the Jekyll and Hyde story, is worth more investment. Curious at just what his money is paying for, Larsen sends his skirt-chasing son Travis (a barely recognisable Haley Joel Osment - possibly the best thing in the film) to see the movie. But with Vinnie refusing to give a viewing and Travis's unpredictable behaviour, the film is in danger of total collapse.
There are story-lines for driver Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and half-brother Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) too, with the former doting on Ronda Rousey and the latter still being laughed out of auditions. For fans of the show, there are returns for the likes of David Arquette, Gary Busey, Bob Saget and Andrew Dice Clay, and for newcomers the entire eight seasons are summarised in minutes by Piers Morgan, playing himself. But whether you've seen the show or not, it still builds up to a familiar anti-climax that fails to justify having to spend 90 minutes with these four douchebags. Even Ari's rants and homophobic abuse of his assistant Lloyd (Rex Lee), always the highlights of the show, have grown stale. The film also fails to answer the biggest question of all - just how is Vince a superstar when he possesses the charisma of a paper bag?
Starting almost immediately after the climax of the first movie, Hellbound: Hellraiser II catches up with Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Lawrence), now being held in a mental institution after the horrors she witnessed. Her stories of a magical puzzle box and the gateway to hell are dismissed as fairytales by her doctors and the police, all of whom believe her to be insane, apart from the shady Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham). Along with Channard's sympathetic assistant Kyle MacRae (William Hope), Kirsty discovers than Channard has be studying the world of the Cenobites for years, and is using a child in his institution with a skill for puzzles to open the Lament Configuration. Using the bloodied mattress stolen from the bloodbath at Kirsty's home, Channard inadvertently allows the re-birth of the demented Julia Cotton (Clare Higgins).
Hellbound is a collection of decent ideas clumped together without much thought for coherency. The first Hellraiser had a sketchy mythology and left many things unexplained, but it compensated for this by conjuring a gripping and nightmarish tone throughout. Instead, Hellbound moves along at a frantic pace from one set-piece to another, without offering any kind of insight into just how a bloody mattress could work as a gateway through which Julia could escape the confines of hell, or why a child prodigy is required to open a box solves easily by Kirsty the first time around. With little character development or time to reflect on the events that occur, the film is a bit of a mess.
Visually, it's quite stunning. We get to see more of the Cenobite world as Kirsty enters into hell and bumps into her old foe Uncle Frank (Sean Chapman), and although the sets occasionally appear a bit on the dodgy side, and with special effects and make-up encouraging more laughter than genuine terror, it manages to deliver some memorable imagery and wince-inducing gore when it is called for. Ultimately though, I found Hellbound to be a bit of a headache, and even the extended appearances of Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and his minions could not distract my attention enough to make me forgive the many narrative flaws. Perhaps it's because I love the first film so much, or maybe it's down to Clive Barker stepping out of the director's chair and being replaced by Tony Randel. Still, it's a damn masterpiece compared to the sequels that followed.
Originally intended to be the first 'TV movie', Don Siegel's brutally thrilling and ice-cool adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's story was deemed too violent for the small screen. With filming taking place as John F. Kennedy was assassinated and one key scene certainly bringing the incident in Dallas to mind, The Killers was tactically granted a cinema release instead. Such a talented and experienced cast, and a director who delivered at least one masterpiece throughout his career, The Killers was always going to be too good not to appear on the big screen. More of a re-make of Robert Siodmak's 1946 film than of Hemingway's text, Siegel drops the film noir tone in favour of bright and sunny exteriors, while somehow heightening the sense of pessimism throughout.
After a routine hit in which race-car driver-turned-teacher Johnny North (John Cassavetes) is gunned down at a school for the blind, hired killer Charlie (Lee Marvin) and his partner Lee (Clu Gulager) discuss the strange way Johnny allowed himself to be killed and offered no resistance. Deciding the circumstances are too strange not to warrant further investigation, and with the possibility of recovering a missing $1 million, the two thugs interview Johnny's former mechanic friend Earl (Claude Akins). He tells them of Sheila (Angie Dickinson), the femme fatale who stole Johnny's attention, and her lover, the fearsome mob boss Jack Browning (Ronald Reagan), who embroiled Johnny and his skills behind the wheel in a million-dollar heist.
Appearing in his final movie role before moving into politics and becoming one of America's most infamous presidents, Reagan steals the movie as the slimy gangster Browning. He apparently hated the role, and had always played the hero during his career, but he proves to be surprisingly apt at playing a loathsome criminal. The Killers is remarkably tough, emphasising the roles of Marvin and Gulager's heartless brutes, who both have no qualms about dangling a woman out of a high-rise window. Despite Marvin's hulking presence, its actually Gulager who steals their scenes, with his mix of all-American handsomeness, preening narcissism and emotional coldness giving dimension to his stock character. The sickly brightness of it all does little but highlight the film's budget constraints, but The Killers thrills thanks to Siegel's unfussy direction and terrific performances all round.
Now the longest-running franchise in cinema history, Daniel Craig's James Bond is back for a fourth outing, and the British super-spy's 24th 'official' adventure overall. Also back is director Sam Mendes, who, after the phenomenal success of 2012's Skyfall, was always going to return to the franchise that brought him both critical and box-office embraces in equal measures. Now that Craig's Bond has been seen as a hot-headed maverick and evolved into the invincible agent with a license to kill as depicted by Connery, Moore et al, the re-boot that kicked off in 2006 is now up to speed and ready to relax into the formula that proved so successful these past 50 years.
Sadly, all Spectre seems to be is formula. It opens in Mexico during the Day of the Dead, where Bond is on a mission following a recorded tip-off from Q (Judi Dench) to assassinate three men who are plotting a terrorist attack. One man escapes, and Bond chases him through a crowd dressed in macabre costumes and into a helicopter. The opening set-piece is easily the most thrilling part of the movie, and Mexico City, beautifully captured by cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, proves to be an inspired location during one of its most visually illuminating festivals. Straight after the rather hypnotic opening credits, which plays over the sound of Sam Smith's mediocre theme, the plot kicks in and it turns out MI-5 is becoming a redundant outfit; old men in suits who seem like small potatoes in a world of drones and high-tech spy software.
Spectre's ultimate goal is seemingly to prove that this is far from the case, that old-fashioned heroes who can sip martini's and bed beautiful women between taking down criminal organisations are far from gone. Judging by the box-office takings, the film makes its point and then some. It's just a shame that the quality takes a rapid decline after the exciting opener, and insists on establishing itself as a serialised franchise, with all the films from Casino Royale onwards linking into one another. Bond finally finds himself face to face with his greatest foe of all, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), and it's revealed that previous villains Le Chaffre, Dominic Greene and Silva were no more than puppets under his control. The revelation is illogical, ridiculous and ultimately pointless, serving no purpose other than to cash in on the recent trend of having films take place across a shared universe (started by Marvel).
At two and a half hours, the thin plot is stretched out as far as it can go. Bond tracks the illusive terrorist organisation Spectre to Rome, Austria and Morocco, accompanied by the daughter of a former Quantum agent, Dr. Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux) and relentlessly pursued by hulking henchman Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista). By the time the quite bizarre extended climax comes, it feels as if the film should be wrapping itself up. Familiar cast members Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw are back in their respected roles and are given enough screen time to actually effect the plot, but Naomie Harris's Moneypenny is sadly underused, as are Bautista and Monica Bellucci. Still, with a budget of around $245 million - one of the most expensive ever - Spectre is one of the most handsome films I've seen and is why I can't be too hard on the film with my star rating. But with the hype that came with the film upon it's release, it's a bitterly underwhelming experience.
Long-time movie scribe and author Alex Garland has taken a surprising amount of time to get into the director's chair. After penning scripts for Danny Boyle with The Beach (2000), 28 Days Later (2002) and Sunshine (2007), in addition to the haunting and highly underrated sci-fi drama Never Let Me Go (2010) and 2012's slightly underwhelming but suitably bad-ass Dredd, Garland's creativity must have surely been simmering when watching other directors bring his visions to life. The wait was well worth it, as his debut Ex Machina is a complex and bleak study of humanity and identity in a world where technology is evolving at rapid speed.
Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a programmer at a Google-esque corporation called Bluebook, the world's most popular search engine. He wins a competition to spend a week with the company's founder, the reclusive yet enigmatic genius Nathan (a typically intense Oscar Isaac), and is whisked off to the multi-billionaire's home in the mountains. Nathan's attitude towards Caleb is in turns welcoming and passive aggressive, encouraging the wide-eyed young man to make himself at home yet quick to point out that certain areas of the house are strictly out-of-bounds. Caleb learns of his purpose when Nathan unveils his technological breakthrough - a robot with artificial intelligence named Ava (Alicia Vikander) - and is tasked with performing a Turing test to confirm Ava's ability to convince an assessor that she is human.
The tests are to be carried out in various stages, and consist of one-on-one conversations between Caleb and Ava between a glass window. Ava's beautiful and entirely human face betrays her hollow shell of a body, but she appears to be entirely human nonetheless, and her exchanges with Caleb bristle with a suppressed sexual tension. When she puts on a dress and a wig, he is reluctantly intrigued by her form, and she seems infinitely fascinated by him. Nathan clearly doesn't see anything wrong with such urges, as he made her with sexual organs capable of feeling pleasure after all. These themes of female identity and masculine desire play out against a backdrop of something more sinister. Frequent power cuts that befuddle Nathan and a fist-shaped crack in the glass allow the film to gather a momentum of building uncertainty.
As Nathan, Isaac is subtly intimidating. The type of man who walks around his spotless house in bare feet and shakes off hangovers by working out and chugging fruit juice, he is also unpredictable, arrogant, careless, and way more intelligent than anybody else. He may be small in stature, but Isaac's charisma chokes the screen. He also rocks an impressive beard and knows how to dance (as seen in one of the film's most bizarrely brilliant moments). Gleeson too is proving himself to be one of the most reliable young actors, holding the screen opposite the luminous Vikander is some of the film's most gripping scenes. Ex Machina depicts a dark future where the danger lies not with the seemingly limitless technological possibilities of today, but man's ability to exploit it. One of the most intelligent works of science-fiction in recent memory, Garland may just go on to do great things.
Upon its release in 1987, Stephen King was quoted as saying, about Hellraiser, "I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Clive Barker." The backing of such an icon of horror is high praise indeed, and the fact that Hellraiser still holds up today, 28 years after its release, is a testament to the quality of Clive Barker's hellish vision, based on his own novella, The Hellbound Heart. In an era full of horror movies fronted by broad, almost comic villains, and audiences preferences leaning towards bland American slashers, Hellraiser took a stance as a serious piece of work - rich in atmosphere, disturbing in tone and visually arresting - the foundations on which horror classics are built.
Contrary to popular belief (and his over-exposure in the - currently - 8 sequels), Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and his entourage of grotesque Cenobites remain in the background for the majority of the first instalment. The plot instead focuses the grisly fate and gradual re-birth of thrill-seeking scumbag Frank (Sean Chapman), who, in seeking the ultimate sexual enlightenment, purchases a mysterious puzzle box from a Chinese man which opens the gates of Hell when solved. Frank manages to do so, and is impaled by hooks and dragged into a world of torture, mutilation and degradation. Some time later, Frank's brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and his second wife Julia (Clare Higgins) move into the home previously inhabited by Frank. While moving furniture, Larry cuts his hand on a protruding nail, inadvertently bringing Frank back from Hell and igniting his gruesome re-birth.
The plot treads carefully between being mysterious and plain confusing. There are no attempts made to explain just why Larry's blood brings Frank back into the real world and what exactly Frank was hoping to achieve by experiencing Hell, but these small details become insignificant in the wake of such visual splendour and immersing atmosphere. It can also be forgiven for some soap-opera dramatics as Julia's previous infidelity with Frank is exposed, and her manipulation into bringing Frank bodies to feed on while her suspicious step-daughter Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) keep her a watchful eye. Hellraiser employs a slow, careful build-up, so when the true horror springs into life near the end and the Cenobites rear their ugly heads, it is all the more effective for it.
Now a fully-fledged horror icon, Pinhead and his cronies are a strange manifestation of deformed monsters and bondage fetishism. They arrive with skin pinned back in various abominable positions, parts of their face and torso pierced with all manners of tools and devices, and all twisted beyond the point of no return by their experiences searching for the ultimate pleasures of the flesh. Part BDSM nightmare and part body horror, Hellraiser's climax is still one of the most disturbing things ever filmed without being particularly scary. Despite its narrative flaws and wobbly plot explanations, Clive Barker's film stands out as one of the finest of its era, spinning a complex and dark mythology around a low-key plot, with the uncanny ability to creep under your skin and stay there for a significant amount of time afterwards.
When the news broke that Edgar Wright, the visionary writer-director who had been working on adapting Ant-Man for Marvel since before Iron Man (2008) and the development of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, dropped out citing creative differences with the studio, things didn't look promising for the miniature hero. Still, Wright and co-writer Joe Cornish's story remained in tact and the directorial reigns were passed to Peyton Reed, director of such routine genre fare as The Break-Up (2006) and Yes Man (2008). Although we can lament the loss of Wright's take on the character - a version we will now never see - Ant-Man turned out better than anyone could have expected.
One of the Marvel's biggest problems is constantly setting up their heroes to face a big bad with a plan to destroy the world in one shape or another, leading to a special effects-laden showdown in which all is saved (bringing down a building or ten in the process). The motivation for strapping on the suit for cat burglar Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is not to prevent global destruction, but to redeem himself in the eyes of his young daughter, whose growing-up he has missed the bulk of due to a stretch in San Quentin. Following his release, Lang tries to go straight and gets a demeaning job, which he soon loses when they discover his criminal past. Unable to pay child support to his ex-wife (Judy Greer) and her new cop hubby (Bobby Cannavale), he takes a big job suggested to him by old criminal acquaintance Luis (the scene-stealing Michael Pena).
When Lang successfully breaks into the high-tech safe, all he finds is an old suit and some jars containing various coloured liquids. Curious, he tries on the suit (kudos to costume designer Sammy Sheldon for the steampunk creation) which shrinks him down to the size of a pencil tip. Guided by a strange voice in his ear, he escapes a bath filling with water, a packed dance-floor and a hungry rat, eventually working out how to grow to normal size again. It turns out that the voice belongs to Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who perfected the ability to shrink down the size between atoms while maximising speed and strength, but who hid his formula from the world in the hope of preventing its misuse. Pym hopes to employ Lang, with the help of his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), to break into his own company's headquarters and steal a similar suit developed by his mentally unstable former protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll). Or, as he puts it, "break into a place and steal some shit."
One of the key reasons that led to the abdication of Edgar Wright was Marvel (and Disney's) desire to see Ant-Man woven into the bigger Universe. While I have no doubt Wright's version would have been a stand-alone treat full of the visual splendour seen in the likes of Hot Fuzz (2007) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), the final product of Ant-Man in no way suffers from referencing events of Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) and the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, and manages to maintain a low-key feel. Anyone who knows anything about the comics will know what a huge character Hank Pym is, so leaving him out of the bigger picture would have certainly been a missed opportunity. It also leaves room for one the film's funniest scenes, in which Lang inadvertently arrives at the new Avengers base to steal a piece of technology, and finds himself up against the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) in the process.
Rudd works those puppy-dog eyes overtime and gains abs to rival Chris Pratt's recent transformation for Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy, helping make Lang one of the most loveable reluctant heroes of all of Marvel's 'Phases'. He is one of the most effortlessly endearing comedians working at the moment, but its Michael Pena who stands out the most as his fast-talking criminal sidekick. Douglas also brings experience and emotional weight as the complex Pym, and Lilly demonstrates some untapped physical prowess while rocking a bob. It isn't perfect of course - Cross isn't a particularly interesting villain although Stoll performs well, and perhaps the script tries to tell one joke too many at times. But any film that successfully convinces you that its protagonist can talk to ants without drawing immediate laughter (even getting us to care for Lang's winged favourite Anthony) is doing something right. Roll on the recently-announced sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Cult director Frank Henenlotter's particularly offensive sense of humour is given free reign in Frankenhooker, his extremely loose adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel. Any hints of misogyny during the bulk of the film's build-up can be forgiven thanks to an enjoyably daft climax, during which a female creature made up of various prostitutes body parts and the head of its mad creators wife runs rampant around New York taking vengeance on the various scum-bags encountered earlier in the film and any sleazy perverts who fancy a bit of the stitched-together would-be centrefold model (she is played by Penthouse model Patty Mullen).
Medical school drop-out and whiny-voiced genius Jeffrey (James Lorinz) is about to marry the woman he loves, Elizabeth, when she is accidentally killed by a lawnmower he built. The grisly incident leaves he scattered around the garden, but Jeffrey manages to steal a few body parts and preserve them in a solution of his own making before the authorities arrive to clean up the mess. Distraught at losing his fiancée, he plans to re-build her using the body of a beautiful prostitute, gifting the plump Elizabeth the body she always desired. However, executing his plan proves harder than he realised thanks to a psychopathic pimp named Zorro (Joseph Gonzalez), and so develops a dangerously potent form of crack to lure his potential victims.
Despite being a loathsome and extremely disturbed central character, Jeffrey remains oddly likeable thanks to a lively performance by Lorinz, who delivers monologues to himself in a thick New Jersey twang and maintains an infectiously high energy level throughout. Jeffrey's acts represent the darkest of male fantasies, and the film may have come off as repugnant had Henenlotter not soaked every scene with a knowing absurdity. The scene in which a group of prostitutes explode into pieces one-by-one after smoking Jeffrey's powerful crack particularly treads a fine line between offensive and hilarious. Despite the few laughs to be had, Frankenhooker is still poorly acted (Lorinz aside) and some special effects, which mainly consist of stiff mannequin limbs, leave a lot to be desired. Depending on your exploitation experience, it may go too far or not far enough, but there's plenty of giddy fun to be had along the way.
The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around a run-down carnival operated by the creepy Mr. Blood (Jerome Dempsey). A young lady called Vena (Janine Carazo) and her family move into a trailer in town to run a shooting gallery at the carnival, and Vena quickly becomes close friends with the hunky guy who runs the tunnel of love. However, lurking beneath the fairground is the owner, another creepy guy called Malatesta (Daniel Dietrich), who looms over a family of weird zombie-cannibal types who stalk the grounds at night. As she awaits the arrival of her boyfriend, Vena and her family quickly discover that they are in danger, but will they escape Malatesta's grasp before they are devoured?
