Directed by John Carpenter
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis & Donald Pleasance
89 mins; R18+; Colour
Previewed Release: R4 Force Video
Tagline: The night he came home!
Country of Origin: USA
The Film:
Well, no self-respecting horror review site would be complete
without a review of one of the most seminal horror films of all time, John Carpenter’s outrageously successful tour-de-force Halloween. The thing is, with all the hype, one can’t help but feel the whole thing is but a little overrated.For those unfamiliar with the story, Halloween introduces one of horror cinema’s most enduring nemeses – the evil Michael Myers, a deeply disturbed psychopath who, armed with blank white mask and long steak knife, vows to slaughter every member of his family on Halloween Eve. We open on Michael, in his mask, brutally killing his big sister and the reveal at the end of this scene is fantastic: we find out that the killer is no more than seven or eight years of age, dressed in pyjamas and wielding a bloodied knife. Fast-forward fifteen years: Michael is safely incarcerated in a mental hospital and the sleepy town of Haddonfield, Illinois has rested easy. Until, as the tagline so deftly exhibits, now. Escaping from the hospital, Michael is armed and dangerous and the only one able to stop him is his doctor, the all-knowing Sam Loomis (Pleasance). With the assistance of a babysitter played by Jamie Lee Curtis, Loomis must race against time to save Michael’s next potential victims.
The Release:
Force have, going against their usual maxim, released a decent disc. A twenty-eight minute documentary is the best of the special features, and the single disc is padded out with trailers, TV and radio spots, cast and crew biographies, a still gallery and some pages of trivia. Nice animated menu screens and a generally excellent audio/visual transfer is the icing on the cake. Unfortunately, the fact that the DVD sleeve looks terrible and the Force logo, usually synonymous with releasing shithouse discs of excellent films, may lead some astray. However, seeing as this can be found for quite cheap, buy with confidence.
The Bottom Line:
There is no doubt that Halloween is one of the most influential horror films ever made. Not only was it, up until a few years ago, the most profitable independent picture ever, but it ignited the Americanised teen slasher subgenre, paving the way for films such as Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer and, to a lesser extent, A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film itself spawned seven sequels and a remake helmed by Rob Zombie of House of 1000 Corpses fame is slated for cinema release in August 2007. However, Halloween has a number of fundamental flaws. For one, the film is poorly pace – aside from the nasty but brief prologue, it takes Myers a little under an hour to claim his first victim. Too…fucking…long. However, credit where credit’s due: Carpenter did an exceptional job directing his third feature, Pleasance and Curtis’ acting is reasonably good and the music, also by Carpenter, is superb. A good film, and a wildly original one to be sure, but its relentless pumping by horror fans makes this an overrated picture.
City of the Living Dead (1980)
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Starring Christopher George & Catriona MacColl
90 mins; 18; Colour
Previewed Release: R2 Vipco Screamtime Collection
Tagline: Films that terrified audiences around the world!
Country of Origin: Italy
The Film:
One of my favourite exploitation directors of all time, Lucio Fulci is n
otorious for his ultra-violent set pieces in his films. The eyeball scene of Zombie, the nipple-slice of New York Ripper and the throat-ripping of House by the Cemetery rank as some of horror cinema’s most harrowing scenes. Because, with Fulci, you don’t know how far he will go: in the films of today, sly editing and framing makes you think you’re seeing something that is, in actual fact, entirely off screen. But Fulci goes hell for leather in all of his films and City of the Living Dead generates one of Fulci’s finest set-pieces – a young man, a jealous father and a very large drill bit. But this is only the beginning: Fulci then treats us to a woman vomiting her own intestines, a man being ripped apart and brains being single-handedly torn out of skulls. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is horror!
There isn’t much to City plot wise and in this respect, it is very similar to the third film in Fulci’s zombie quadrilogy The Beyond. A book, containing a chant, is used and opens one of the gates of hell, out of which the dead rise to eat the flesh of the living. That’s it. Thankfully, the grue begins early on, with the zombies getting down to their flesh-eating ways when the running time is still in single digits. How much you enjoy City entirely depends on your appreciation of exquisite trash – this is no masterpiece, but it is nevertheless a minor exploitation classic.
The Release:
Vipco is the British Umbrella, or Blue Underground. In other words, they release cult horror and exploitation films with gusto. However, they’re the inferior ones of the mob. Generally, audio/visuals are poor and the extras are paltry. However, its nice to see that Vipco have done well by this disc. There’s a commentary by MacColl, trailers, a photo gallery and filmographies. The film is also presented with good audio/visual transfer, if there a few detracting film artefacts. R4 have been given a bare-bones release of City by Siren Visual. The best bet for fans, however, is the US Blue Underground disc.
The Bottom Line:
Graphically violent and complete with the trademark poor acting and OTT directorial flourishes, City of the Living Dead is everything you’d ever want when you sit down for a slice of pure Italian cheese. Plus, it's hilarious to see Giovanni Lombardo Radice be drilled through the skull. Highly recommended.
Running Scared (2005)
Directed by Wayne Kramer
Starring Paul Walker, Vera Farmiga, Cameron Bright
117 mins; MA15+; Colour
Previewed Release: R4 Roadshow
Tagline: Every bullet leaves a trail.
Country of Origin: USA
The Film:
Wayne Kramer, director of the sub-par casino film The Cooler, always
had potential. While very flawed, The Cooler’s highlight was Kramer’s direction and it didn’t extend the fledgeling director nearly enough. He showed promise and, provided the right material would come along, he would be a formidable force in American cinema. Running Scared is that material. It would be easy to dismiss this on face value as dumb action fare, the cinematic equivalent of junk food. But in reality, Running Scared is one of the most hard-hitting films to grace Hollywood in a long time.
Beginning with an outrageously over-the-top shoot out between the Mob and a group of narcotic cops, two-bit Mafia soldier Joey Gazelle (Walker) is given one of the offending weapons to destroy. However, he doesn’t get rid of it right away, instead stashing it in his basement where it is found by Joey’s son and Oleg, the pre-pubescent child of Joey’s psychotic Russian next door neighbours. Oleg takes the gun and shoots his father in the shoulder, before running off. With the Italian and Russian Mob and a corrupt detective trailing him, Joey must race against time to both claim the gun and return Oleg in one piece before he is killed.
The Release:
By no means a special release (and, if the film becomes as successful as it should on DVD, then expect one) but meaty nonetheless. Feature commentary by Kramer, an eighteen minute making of, storyboards and a trailer should keep you occupied for a while. Excellent audio/visual transfer, with two Dolby English soundtracks in both 2.0 and 5.1, and presented in the original aspect ratio of 2:35:1.
The Bottom Line:
Running Scared is, quite simply, the best American action-thriller film since Scorsese’s The Departed. The frenetic pace, edgy direction, artificially coloured film stock and brilliant acting by Walker and Farmiga as Joey’s wife Teresa makes this an excellent example of how action cinema should be made. Chazz Palminteri also puts in a fantastic supporting turn as a corrupt cop, and the force in which he plays his role adds an entirely new dimension to the already-tense proceedings. This is a vastly different movie to The Cooler, or even the dumb action flicks Walker has been attached to in the past – writer/director Kramer has crafted an immensely disturbing film, most of all when Teresa discovers Oleg has been kidnapped by a duo of demented paedophiles. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly innocuous action film Running Scared promotes itself as – this is heavy going stuff from the opening frames to the end credits. Highly recommended.
Torso (1973)
Directed by Sergio Martino
Starring Suzy Kendall
90 mins; Not Rated; Colour
Previewed Release: R2 NSM Records
Tagline: One Day She Met a Man Who Loved Beautiful Women...But Not All in One Piece Country of Origin: Italy
The Film:
In the sixties and seventies, Italian horror cinema was dominated by
the giallo. Taking its name from the colour of pulp fiction paperbacks (giallo is Italian for yellow), gialli were distinguished by their labyrinthine plot twists, uber-stylish direction and camera angles and, in some cases, short, sharp and extreme bouts of bloody violence. Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and the legendary Dario Argento were masters of the giallo, helming internationally popular thrillers such as Deep Red, Don’t Torture A Duckling and Twitch of the Death Nerve. When Italian cinema became dominated by the zombie and cannibal cycles of the late seventies and early eighties, the giallo became a relic of a bygone era, and only occasionally would these films be greenlit. One of these latecomers was Sergio Martino’s Torso (sleazily retitled Carnal Violence for the Western market), which became incidentally one of the most famous and respected films of this subgenre.
Torso introduces us to a sadistic killer, whose identity is unknown, as he stalks and kills female victims of a college. His methods are particularly brutal – after strangling them with a distinctive red and black patterned scarf, he hacks them up and may or may not have sex with them in the process. It’s up to a group of young college girls (one of whom is played by Kendall) and a police detective to uncover the mystery, and save more women from the killer (or killers) clutches.
The Release:
Excellent audio/visual quality, and one of the few versions that restores the film to its proper Italian theatrical version, complete with intact opening credits and death scenes. Therefore, some scenes are in Italian (with German subtitles, as this is a German disc) however these scenes don’t amount to more than a few minutes. The extras are okay, nothing special: an art gallery, trailers, US opening and closing credits (which snips a few frames of sex and shows the original title as Carnal Violence) and TV spots. This release, one of the best in the audio/visual department, is unfortunately out-of-print. An identical one has been released by Another World Entertainment under the header ‘Giallo Collection’ (pictured top left). Siren have released a heavily cut version for R4 under the title Carnal Violence, which should be avoided at all costs.
The Bottom Line:
Martino, like many Italian horror maestros, was a complete rip-off merchant, latching onto popular cinema trends and capitalising. His cannibal film Mountain of the Cannibal God and monster flick The Great Alligator is testament to this. However, unlike his plagiarising peers, Martino had an enormous amount of talent, and both Alligator and Mountain became among the most respected films of their respective subgenres. Torso is no different. Its blend of sleaze, bloody violence and red herrings makes this enjoyable for any horror fan, and the fact that Martino has style in spades also makes it one of the best gialli ever filmed.
Directed by Lucio Fulci
Starring Christopher George & Catriona MacColl
90 mins; 18; Colour
Previewed Release: R2 Vipco Screamtime Collection
Tagline: Films that terrified audiences around the world!
Country of Origin: Italy
The Film:
One of my favourite exploitation directors of all time, Lucio Fulci is n
otorious for his ultra-violent set pieces in his films. The eyeball scene of Zombie, the nipple-slice of New York Ripper and the throat-ripping of House by the Cemetery rank as some of horror cinema’s most harrowing scenes. Because, with Fulci, you don’t know how far he will go: in the films of today, sly editing and framing makes you think you’re seeing something that is, in actual fact, entirely off screen. But Fulci goes hell for leather in all of his films and City of the Living Dead generates one of Fulci’s finest set-pieces – a young man, a jealous father and a very large drill bit. But this is only the beginning: Fulci then treats us to a woman vomiting her own intestines, a man being ripped apart and brains being single-handedly torn out of skulls. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is horror!There isn’t much to City plot wise and in this respect, it is very similar to the third film in Fulci’s zombie quadrilogy The Beyond. A book, containing a chant, is used and opens one of the gates of hell, out of which the dead rise to eat the flesh of the living. That’s it. Thankfully, the grue begins early on, with the zombies getting down to their flesh-eating ways when the running time is still in single digits. How much you enjoy City entirely depends on your appreciation of exquisite trash – this is no masterpiece, but it is nevertheless a minor exploitation classic.
The Release:
Vipco is the British Umbrella, or Blue Underground. In other words, they release cult horror and exploitation films with gusto. However, they’re the inferior ones of the mob. Generally, audio/visuals are poor and the extras are paltry. However, its nice to see that Vipco have done well by this disc. There’s a commentary by MacColl, trailers, a photo gallery and filmographies. The film is also presented with good audio/visual transfer, if there a few detracting film artefacts. R4 have been given a bare-bones release of City by Siren Visual. The best bet for fans, however, is the US Blue Underground disc.
The Bottom Line:
Graphically violent and complete with the trademark poor acting and OTT directorial flourishes, City of the Living Dead is everything you’d ever want when you sit down for a slice of pure Italian cheese. Plus, it's hilarious to see Giovanni Lombardo Radice be drilled through the skull. Highly recommended.
Running Scared (2005)
Directed by Wayne Kramer
Starring Paul Walker, Vera Farmiga, Cameron Bright
117 mins; MA15+; Colour
Previewed Release: R4 Roadshow
Tagline: Every bullet leaves a trail.
Country of Origin: USA
The Film:
Wayne Kramer, director of the sub-par casino film The Cooler, always
had potential. While very flawed, The Cooler’s highlight was Kramer’s direction and it didn’t extend the fledgeling director nearly enough. He showed promise and, provided the right material would come along, he would be a formidable force in American cinema. Running Scared is that material. It would be easy to dismiss this on face value as dumb action fare, the cinematic equivalent of junk food. But in reality, Running Scared is one of the most hard-hitting films to grace Hollywood in a long time.Beginning with an outrageously over-the-top shoot out between the Mob and a group of narcotic cops, two-bit Mafia soldier Joey Gazelle (Walker) is given one of the offending weapons to destroy. However, he doesn’t get rid of it right away, instead stashing it in his basement where it is found by Joey’s son and Oleg, the pre-pubescent child of Joey’s psychotic Russian next door neighbours. Oleg takes the gun and shoots his father in the shoulder, before running off. With the Italian and Russian Mob and a corrupt detective trailing him, Joey must race against time to both claim the gun and return Oleg in one piece before he is killed.
The Release:
By no means a special release (and, if the film becomes as successful as it should on DVD, then expect one) but meaty nonetheless. Feature commentary by Kramer, an eighteen minute making of, storyboards and a trailer should keep you occupied for a while. Excellent audio/visual transfer, with two Dolby English soundtracks in both 2.0 and 5.1, and presented in the original aspect ratio of 2:35:1.
The Bottom Line:
Running Scared is, quite simply, the best American action-thriller film since Scorsese’s The Departed. The frenetic pace, edgy direction, artificially coloured film stock and brilliant acting by Walker and Farmiga as Joey’s wife Teresa makes this an excellent example of how action cinema should be made. Chazz Palminteri also puts in a fantastic supporting turn as a corrupt cop, and the force in which he plays his role adds an entirely new dimension to the already-tense proceedings. This is a vastly different movie to The Cooler, or even the dumb action flicks Walker has been attached to in the past – writer/director Kramer has crafted an immensely disturbing film, most of all when Teresa discovers Oleg has been kidnapped by a duo of demented paedophiles. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly innocuous action film Running Scared promotes itself as – this is heavy going stuff from the opening frames to the end credits. Highly recommended.
Torso (1973)
Directed by Sergio Martino
Starring Suzy Kendall
90 mins; Not Rated; Colour
Previewed Release: R2 NSM Records
Tagline: One Day She Met a Man Who Loved Beautiful Women...But Not All in One Piece Country of Origin: Italy
The Film:
In the sixties and seventies, Italian horror cinema was dominated by
the giallo. Taking its name from the colour of pulp fiction paperbacks (giallo is Italian for yellow), gialli were distinguished by their labyrinthine plot twists, uber-stylish direction and camera angles and, in some cases, short, sharp and extreme bouts of bloody violence. Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci and the legendary Dario Argento were masters of the giallo, helming internationally popular thrillers such as Deep Red, Don’t Torture A Duckling and Twitch of the Death Nerve. When Italian cinema became dominated by the zombie and cannibal cycles of the late seventies and early eighties, the giallo became a relic of a bygone era, and only occasionally would these films be greenlit. One of these latecomers was Sergio Martino’s Torso (sleazily retitled Carnal Violence for the Western market), which became incidentally one of the most famous and respected films of this subgenre.Torso introduces us to a sadistic killer, whose identity is unknown, as he stalks and kills female victims of a college. His methods are particularly brutal – after strangling them with a distinctive red and black patterned scarf, he hacks them up and may or may not have sex with them in the process. It’s up to a group of young college girls (one of whom is played by Kendall) and a police detective to uncover the mystery, and save more women from the killer (or killers) clutches.
The Release:
Excellent audio/visual quality, and one of the few versions that restores the film to its proper Italian theatrical version, complete with intact opening credits and death scenes. Therefore, some scenes are in Italian (with German subtitles, as this is a German disc) however these scenes don’t amount to more than a few minutes. The extras are okay, nothing special: an art gallery, trailers, US opening and closing credits (which snips a few frames of sex and shows the original title as Carnal Violence) and TV spots. This release, one of the best in the audio/visual department, is unfortunately out-of-print. An identical one has been released by Another World Entertainment under the header ‘Giallo Collection’ (pictured top left). Siren have released a heavily cut version for R4 under the title Carnal Violence, which should be avoided at all costs.
The Bottom Line:
Martino, like many Italian horror maestros, was a complete rip-off merchant, latching onto popular cinema trends and capitalising. His cannibal film Mountain of the Cannibal God and monster flick The Great Alligator is testament to this. However, unlike his plagiarising peers, Martino had an enormous amount of talent, and both Alligator and Mountain became among the most respected films of their respective subgenres. Torso is no different. Its blend of sleaze, bloody violence and red herrings makes this enjoyable for any horror fan, and the fact that Martino has style in spades also makes it one of the best gialli ever filmed.
The Sopranos Season Three (2001)
Created by David Chase
Starring James Gandolfini, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco
754 mins; MA15+; Colour
Previewed Release: R4 Warner Bros
Tagline: Some suburban households have two cars. Some have two houses. But Tony Soprano has two families.
Country of Origin: USA
The Show:
***For a basic Sopranos synopsis, please refer to our review of Season 1.
SPOILERS HEREIN
I’m a very, very big Sopranos fan. So big, in fact, that I firmly believe w
atching Tony and his two ‘families’ for just under an hour is eons more wholesome than ninety-five percent of feature films released. As I have said in past reviews, the acting is spectacular, the direction taut and the writing sensational. And, like all television shows, The Sopranos has made a natural progression – season 3 is bigger, better and showcases these good points far better than its two predecessors.
The number of sheer bombshells dropped in Season 3 are fantastic. In the season debut episode Mr Ruggiero’s Neigbourhood, we follow the FBI as they desperately try to bug Tony’s house. By the second episode (Proshai Livushka), Tony’s mortally sick mother dies, an event which almost sparks a war between the New Jersey Mob and the Russian Mafia, not least because of Tony’s meddling sister Janice. Christopher (Michael Imperioli, typically fantastic) is promoted in episode 3 (Fortunate Son), and discovers made life is not all is cranked up to be. And this is merely the first quarter of the season.
There are some notable newcomers introduced in Season 3, both in the cast and crew. Joe Pantoliano (best known as the manic lieutenant of Bad Boys and its sequel) stars as the psychotic mobster Ralphie, who manages to dangerously cross his superiors at every turn. Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski) directs Pine Barrens (episode 11) and has a significant supporting role in front of the camera in Season 5.
The Release:
Slightly better than the first and second seasons, but still paltry. The sum total are two featurettes (that, exploiting their –ette suffix, run for three minutes apiece) and, most notably, commentaries for three episodes, particularly by Buscemi for Pine Barrens.
The Bottom Line:
Created by David Chase
Starring James Gandolfini, Lorraine Bracco, Edie Falco
754 mins; MA15+; Colour
Previewed Release: R4 Warner Bros
Tagline: Some suburban households have two cars. Some have two houses. But Tony Soprano has two families.
Country of Origin: USA
The Show:
***For a basic Sopranos synopsis, please refer to our review of Season 1.
SPOILERS HEREIN
I’m a very, very big Sopranos fan. So big, in fact, that I firmly believe w
atching Tony and his two ‘families’ for just under an hour is eons more wholesome than ninety-five percent of feature films released. As I have said in past reviews, the acting is spectacular, the direction taut and the writing sensational. And, like all television shows, The Sopranos has made a natural progression – season 3 is bigger, better and showcases these good points far better than its two predecessors.The number of sheer bombshells dropped in Season 3 are fantastic. In the season debut episode Mr Ruggiero’s Neigbourhood, we follow the FBI as they desperately try to bug Tony’s house. By the second episode (Proshai Livushka), Tony’s mortally sick mother dies, an event which almost sparks a war between the New Jersey Mob and the Russian Mafia, not least because of Tony’s meddling sister Janice. Christopher (Michael Imperioli, typically fantastic) is promoted in episode 3 (Fortunate Son), and discovers made life is not all is cranked up to be. And this is merely the first quarter of the season.
There are some notable newcomers introduced in Season 3, both in the cast and crew. Joe Pantoliano (best known as the manic lieutenant of Bad Boys and its sequel) stars as the psychotic mobster Ralphie, who manages to dangerously cross his superiors at every turn. Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski) directs Pine Barrens (episode 11) and has a significant supporting role in front of the camera in Season 5.
The Release:
Slightly better than the first and second seasons, but still paltry. The sum total are two featurettes (that, exploiting their –ette suffix, run for three minutes apiece) and, most notably, commentaries for three episodes, particularly by Buscemi for Pine Barrens.
The Bottom Line:
Still the best show on television, Season 3 of the seminal hit series amps everything up – the sleaze factor, the violence, the profanity and, most of all, the tension and clash between and among Tony’s Mob family and biological family. Being a highly chronological series though, you’d be best starting off at Season 1, though this instalment contains some of the best episodes thus far and, indeed, some of the biggest bombshells. This is where things get really crazy and, for the Sopranos, that’s saying a lot. Highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment