Posts Tagged ‘Thriller’


Étoile

January 13th, 2012 | article by | 2 Comments »
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dir. Peter Del Monte
1989 / Gruppo Bema / Reteitalia / 101′
written by Peter Del Monte, Franco Ferrini and Sandro Petraglia
cienmatography by Acácio de Almeida
original music by Jürgen Knieper
starring Jennifer Connelly, Gary McCleery, Laurent Terzieff, Charles Durning and Olimpia Carlisi

American ballerina Claire (Jennifer Connelly) travels to Budapest for an audition for either a role in “Swan Lake” or a place in a ballet academy (as about other things, Étoile is decidedly unclear about it, but it really doesn’t matter in the long run). When her time to audition comes, though, Claire has a sudden case of nerves and flees, getting lost in the belly of the theatre the audition takes place in, until she comes to a stage where she, of course, begins to dance.

Claire is witnessed by the ballet troupe’s director (Laurent Terzieff), who for some reason that will become clear later on calls her by the name of Nathalie. Which, of course, again drives Claire to flight.

Later, our heroine, in an understandably bad mood about her own behaviour, tries to distract herself by talking a walk through Budapest. She meets fellow American Jason (Gary McCleery) – with whom she had already met-cute before – and proceeds to do some of that earnest falling in love in minutes young people in movies are so fond of; though it has to be said that Jason seems much more smitten with Claire than she is with him, for Claire has after all already found the love of her life in form of dancing, as she explains to him. Not one to be discouraged by that sort of thing, Jason promises to return to the theatre with Claire the next day to try and get her a second chance for her audition.

That very night, though, Claire is so disturbed by a nightmare about characters from “Swan Lake” the audience also already knows as part of the dance troupe she decides to just pack her things and fly back to the USA at once. Before she can escape whatever she’s fleeing from, though, Claire’s identity (and probably her reality, too) begins to shift. She signs a form with the name “Nathalie Horvath”, and follows a call for a person of that name to the airport’s information booth, from where she is directed to a car waiting for Nathalie/her. Not surprisingly, the car is driven by the dance troupe’s factotum who brings Claire/Nathalie to a rather dilapidated mansion she had already entered once while cavorting with Jason.

From that point on, Claire becomes Nathalie, the prima ballerina of the dance troupe, and spends her time staring at swans in the park, rehearsing for “Swan Lake”, and looking pretty zoned out.

On one of her outings to the park, Nathalie is observed by Jason, who had been pretty frustrated by her supposed return to the USA. When he tries to talk to her, Nathalie doesn’t recognize him. Jason is understandably confused by the whole affair, and begins obsessing about Claire/Nathalie, follows her, sneaks around, succeeds in a Library Use roll, and eventually stumbles on a peculiar and rather horrible truth about his beloved’s coming appearance in “Swan Lake”. If Jason can’t rescue Claire, a past tragedy will repeat itself.

  
  
  

To get the obvious question out of the way first, yes, there are clear parallels between Italian director Peter Del Monte’s Étoile and Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, but even though both films share certain thematic interests (loss or fluidity of identity of a young woman), and – obviously – “Swan Lake” (a ballet made to explore shifting identities if ever there was one), both directors have very different approaches to their material that can’t all be explained by the different eras their films were made in. Where Aronofsky’s idea of the irrational is grounded in very traditional psychological models (bringing the dreaded bane of “realism” even into a film about somebody losing touch with reality), Del Monte goes a more European way. The Italian is not very interested in realistic psychology, and instead aims for the archetypes found in fairy tales and myths, where symbols and the things symbols are supposed to signify are often one and the same.

It’s difficult to ignore the influence Hitchcock – especially Vertigo - seems to have had on Del Monte’s movie. Watching the film, I was frequently reminded of a less hysterical twin to Brian De Palma’s Hitchcock-influenced (some people would argue ripping off Hitchcock; these people are wrong) phase, an impression that certainly did not decrease through the themes and visual cues these films share. The clear parallels to Hitchcock and De Palma are a bit of a problem for Étoile from time to time, pushing me to comparisons that make it look worse than it deserves. To use an easy example, Gary McCleery sure is no James Stewart (not even a Cliff Robertson).

It would probably have been better to cast the leads five to ten years older, which probably would have made them too old for the fairy tale parallels, but could have improved one of the film’s weak spots to no end. Don’t misunderstand me, McCleery isn’t bad, and young Jennifer Connelly does dreamy, dream-like and beautiful very well indeed, but he is lacking the edge his more obsessive scenes need, and she is not at all convincing in the scenes when she takes on the role of the black swan, both things somewhat more experienced actors could have sold better.

These problems on the acting side aren’t what will make or break Étoile for most viewers though, I think. Basically, the potential audience of Étoile will encounter (or enjoy) the same problems-that-aren’t-actually-problems-but-parts-of-the-general-aesthetic many of my favourite European films of the fantastic show: the languid pacing and ambiguous working of space and time that have more to do with the structure of a dream than that of a textbook narrative; the characters that don’t pretend to function like real people; the emphasis on mood possibly to the detriment of believability and clearly to the detriment of realism. Of course, all these things belong in a movie with no interest in picturing reality, or being “believable” as a depiction of consensus reality.

Generally, Del Monte seems to have control over his film (not something I’d say about all movies in this style) until we come to the climax, that is, when trouble rears its head. Let’s just say that the scene of Jason fighting a giant black swan clearly oversteps the line between the dream-like and symbolic and the painfully ridiculous, and that a dramatic highpoint should probably not be a film’s worst scene.

For most of its running time, though, Étoile plays out like a dream, with all the symbolism and all the ambiguity of symbols that implies. I suspect most of the film’s viewers will either adore – like me – or hate that dream-like mood dominating it; I don’t feel neutrality to be an option.

The Horror!? is a regular cult cinema column by Denis Klotz, aficionado of the obscure and operator of the film blog of the same name.


A Scent of New-Mown Hay

January 6th, 2012 | article by | 2 Comments »
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I had never heard of John Blackburn until a very few days ago. Given his status as a prolific English genre author who emerged just on the heels of the two better-known Johns – Wyndham and Christopher – I couldn’t begin to think of why I’d never encountered any of his work in the past, aside from the bothersome inconvenience that comes with so much of it being out of print. Originally published in 1958 and intermittently re-printed from there, Blackburn’s freshman work A Scent of New-Mown Hay is a science fiction thriller with overtones of apocalyptic horror and in principle just the sort of book I should love. And though I devoured it in scarcely an afternoon, I found the expected love rather difficult to come by.

The basics of the premise are promising enough. Word emerges from the Soviet Union that the Russians have cordoned off a vast swath of their northern territory, hastily evacuating the sparse population and moving huge numbers of troops into defensive positions around it. Suspicions swirl in official circles as to what the Soviets are up to, and fears steadily mount that they’re using the forbidden area as a testing ground for some new space-age super weapon. But when an English cargo vessel is accidentally sunk by Soviet warships the men behind the iron curtain come clean to avoid an international incident. Rather than preparing for a global conquest the Soviet Union is actually under attack, from a confounding contagion that threatens to decimate the total female population of Earth. Their restricted zone expanding with each passing moment the Soviets admit that they are powerless to stop the plague, and look to the outside world for assistance.

Enter talented biologist Tony Heath, whose former ties to one of the government’s scientific think-tanks give him an in at the British Foreign Office. Put to work investigating the contagion, Tony soon discovers that the cause is not a disease, but a bizarre fungal mutation that takes over the biological functions of its female hosts and transforms them into inhuman spore-spouting monsters. With nothing like it to be found in evolutionary history Tony begins to wonder whether the mutation may have a more human origin…

There’s the potential for a great deal of existential dread in Blackburn’s A Scent of New-Mown Hay, and the civilization-crushing ramifications of its woman-hating fungal menace are indeed terrifying to contemplate. It’s all the more unfortunate, then, that Blackburn squanders that potential so completely, ignoring the larger potentialities of his concoction in favor of a decidedly small-scale hunt-for-the-bastards-responsible that plays like a poor precursor to Alistair MacLean’s The Satan Bug, a tale of super-germ thievery published four years later. In a series of contrived yet all too predictable developments Tony and his friends in the Foreign Office discover that the fungal aberration is actually the end result of an insidious Nazi plot (when aren’t they insidious?) set in motion by a goose-stepping savant near the end of the War. With said savant still at large, presumably with a cure to the problem in hand, the narrative quickly becomes encumbered with the frequently dim-witted quest to find them.

With the shift in focus towards finding the folks responsible any and all of A Scent of New-Mown Hay‘s apocalyptic potential is effectively dashed, and the horror of the situation greatly diminished. Blackburn’s specifics with regard to the subject do nothing to help matters. So long as the danger of the mutated spores is left relatively ambiguous it can work quite well, appearing a blight upon the fairer sex with the power to wipe out mankind in a single generation, but once the details of its effects are revealed it becomes little more than a catalyst for stock ’50s monsters, and silly ones at that. Blackburn avoids being too descriptive in terms of his creatures, but what we do get is pretty bland, indicating puffy amorphous things that smell of – well, you’ve no doubt already guessed. For being advertised as “a novel of action, horror and emotion” there’s precious little of the former and latter and a sad lack of the middle. Once Blackburn reveals what’s going on in the frozen Soviet north he mostly lets his fungus be, allowing only one infection and exactly one victim outside the iron curtain.

All of these things I could likely forgive in so short a read as this were the writing not so bad on its own terms. The following brief excerpt is indicative of the clunky, awkward qualities that mar Blackburn’s work here:

She didn’t just die. There was no time for dying. Her end had nothing to do with the conventional idea of death. She was just there one moment and then not there. There was simply nothing of her there. Nothing left of her. Nothing that could even be called a part of her there. There was just stuff on the floor and the walls, and that was all there was.

I was a bit shocked, to be quite honest. This is the sort of asinine stuff I expect from low-rung potboilers like The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles or The Second Atlantis, but from a novel of some genuine reputation (Hammer Films evidently once considered a film adaptation) I was expecting more. All that said I didn’t hate Blackburn’s first novel, but it was definitely a disappointment. Perhaps the best things about it are the enigmatic first-edition cover design from Frank Pagnato and the title, splayed as boldly as possible across the front. All the more’s the pity, then, that what’s beneath couldn’t have been more satisfying.

A Scent of New-Mown Hay is at present out of print, but used copies remain readily available.


The Incite Mill

November 4th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 2010  Runtime: 107′  Director: Hideo Nakata
Writer: Satoshi Suzuki   Cinematography: Junichiro Hayashi   Music: Kenji Kawai
Cast: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Haruka Ayase, Satomi Ishihara, Kinya Kitaoji, Nagisa Katahira, Takuro Ohno

Looking at the career of director Hideo Nakata, I can’t avoid the impression he had his difficulties recovering from the catastrophe that was the US The Ring 2, possibly because being responsible for that one is a shame someone with even a little bit of pride in his work would have a hard time living down.

In Nakata’s case, his decline isn’t as horrible as it could be. In fact, compared with Takashi Shimizu, the state of Nakata’s career is absolutely golden, seeing as he’s not making something called Rabbit Horror 3D, and doesn’t seem to have lost all his talent while slumming in Hollywood. The Incite Mill is a clear demonstration that he still has what made me fall in love with his earlier films.

The Incite Mill is a pretty typical entry into the sub-genre of the thriller that is occupied with putting a bunch of characters into an artificially locked down place, having them submit to peculiar and bizarre rules and observing them fastly starting to kill each other off, in part because People Ain’t No Good™, in part because the party responsible for their imprisonment does some subtle and some not so subtle things to, well, incite them to murder. In this variation, the characters have come to the place of their imprisonment out of their own volition, for the promise of a surprising amount of money for just seven days of work in a psychological experiment. Of course, they didn’t expect quite as much violence, nor that they’d be the stars in one of these popular Internet shows nobody in the cast has ever heard of you only encounter in movies.

As this is a Japanese movie, the rules element is quite heavily emphasised, riding one of the hobby horses of Japanese pop culture of the last ten years or so in what is probably a reaction to the country’s still heavily restrictive and regimented society and the resulting pressures to conform on the individual.

  
  
  

There are also many allusions to classic manor mysteries (ten little Indians ahoy), and the Cluedo-inspiring (or Clue-inspiring for you Americans) construction of that very mechanical sub-genre. In a sense, Nakata seems to want to escape the heavy artificiality of his set-up by pointing it out himself. To a degree, this works pretty well, though I couldn’t help but begin to question parts of the story’s basic set-up I would probably not have questioned in a movie less knowingly artificial. Just to take an obvious example: how come the police hasn’t gotten involved if this is not the first time this little show has been broadcast? I can believe in police laziness and incompetence, but I’m pretty sure this sort of thing would at least have been in every news show in the country, and therefore nothing the characters could notknow about. And while I’m thinking about logical problems, how is it that most of the characters actually believe anyone (especially people who never ever show their faces to them) would pay enormous amounts of money for them to take part in a simple psychological experiment? I find this sort of thing much harder to believe than the existence of ghosts, aliens, and vampires, but your mileage may very well vary.

The Incite Mill‘s best moments are interesting enough to let me forget these doubts, however. Besides taking cues from manor mysteries and the brethren in its own sub-genre, the film also does some things that are bound to help a guy like me forget little niggles like logic problems and a lack of coherent worldbuilding. Namely, there is a slight SF element in the form of one of these new-fangled ceiling-bound robots with impressive gripper arms (and some useful gadgets). Even though it isn’t talking or beeping melodically like a good robot should, it’s still there to throw people in jail, inefficiently patrol the Paranoia House’s (yes, that’s how the place of the experiment is named – surely no reason the get paranoid) corridors at night, and to delight my heart to no end. After all, everything is better with robots.

I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the good ensemble cast, consisting – among others – of actual movie star Tatsuya Fujiwara (with whom Nakata has worked before on the Death Note spinoff L: Change the World), veteran actor Kinya Kitaoji, veteran TV actress Nagisa Katahira, and some other members of the TV actor and idol business (Haruka Ayase, Satomi Ishihara, Takura Ohno and others). All of them (yes, even the male idols) deliver performances that are generally convincing and often even quite intense. There’s never the feeling that you’re watching idols act. Rather, these are actors who also take part in the idol rat race, but do know about more than pushing their physical assets into the camera. There’s a certain degree of overacting on display, but overacting seems to fit the hysteria-inducing situation the characters are in quite well. Plus, I prefer conscious and artful overacting to the near-catatonic blandness that is so trendy in English language cinema right now. I understand, all that botox makes one’s face difficult to move, but still…

Hideo Nakata for his part has never been a flashy director, usually preferring a style that subtly influences an audience perception of a story and its characters to one that is always pointing at the director’s technical abilities, which usually works to the detriment of the narrative. Nakata is too self-assured a director to have much of a need for showing off. If you want to see his technical accomplishments, you will find them in the careful framing of scenes, in the precise rhythms his films’ editing creates, and in Nakata’s strong sense for iconic imagery that works as an actual, living part of his movies. In The Incite Mill, Nakata shows that all of these talents are still alive and well in him, serving him as well in his new genre of choice as they did when he was making the horror films which made me fall in love with Japanese horror.

The Horror!? is a weekly cult cinema column by Denis Klotz, an aficionado of the obscure and operator of the film blog of the same name.

Action Packed Double Feature (Dirty Mary Crazy Larry / Race With the Devil)

April 5th, 2011 | article by | 3 Comments »
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Dirty Mary Crazy Larry – Year: 1974   Company: 20th Century Fox   Runtime: 93′
Director: John Hough   Writers: Leigh Chapman, Antonio Santean, James H. Nicholson, Richard Unekis
Cast: Peter Fonda, Susan George, Adam Roarke, Vic Morror, Kenneth Tobey, Roddy McDowall, Eugene Daniels
Race With the Devil – Year: 1975   Company: 20th Century Fox   Runtime: 88′
Director: Jack Starrett   Writers: Lee Frost, Wes Bishop   Music: Leonard Rosenman
Cast: Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit, Lara Parker, R.G. Armstrong, Clay Tanner, Carol Blodgett
Disc company: Shout! Factory   Video: 480p (1.85:1)   Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 English (DMCL only),
Dolby Digital 2.0 English (DMCL and RWTD)   Subtitles: None   Disc: 2 x DVD 9   Release Date: 04/12/2011
Product link: Amazon.com Reviewed from a screener provided by Shout! Factory LLC.

Loosely adapted from the novel The Chase (also published under the titles Pursuit and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry) by Richard Unekis, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry follows the exploits of aspiring NASCAR driver Larry and mechanic Deke who, tired of killing time in the amateur racing circuit, decide to take an illegal shortcut to fame and fortune.  The plan is simple: hit a rural grocery store on the morning of their cash delivery and escape into a maze of road and exits to the south.  The robbery goes off with nary a hitch, with threats against the store manager’s family ensuring that the would-be racers have ample time to escape.

Deke and Larry think of everything – everything, that is, except Mary, Larry’s headstrong one night stand from the evening before the robbery.  Looking for a bit of excitement in her dull life, Mary insinuates herself into the duo’s escape, proving to be as much a challenge to the success of the operation as grizzled cop Vic Morrow and his army of highway patrolmen.

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Phenomena

March 2nd, 2011 | article by | 1 Comment »
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a.k.a.: Creepers
Year: 1985   Company: Dacfilm   Runtime: 115′
Director: Dario Argento   Writers: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini   Cinematography: Romano Albani
Music: Goblin, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Simon Boswell, Andi Sex Gang, Fabio Pignatelli
Cast: Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Donald Pleasance, Patrick Bauchau, Tanga the Chimpanzee
Disc company: Arrow Video   Video: 1080p 1.66:1    Audio: LPCM 2.0 English, LPCM 2.0 Italian
Subtitles: English x 2   Disc: BD50 (All Region)   Release Date: 03/07/2011   Product link: Amazon.co.uk
The Beyond is part of the Arrow Video collection, and is reviewed here from a screener provided by Arrow Films. Be sure to visit the Cult-Labs forums to have your say on this and future Arrow Video releases.

Young Jennifer (Connelly) is sent to a prestigious Swiss boarding school by her single father, a famous American actor unaware that the surrounding Swiss countryside is being tormented by a beastly psychopath with a taste for adolescent girls.  Jennifer has a tough time fitting in amongst the brats of the academy and earns the ire of the headmistress there, but a bout of sleepwalking leads her into a friendship with handicapped Scottish entomologist McGregor (Pleasance) and his nursemaid, a trained female chimpanzee named Inga.

Here it is revealed that Jennifer has a strange, ambiguous power over insects, which seem to see her as one of their own.  With her odd abilities suddenly at his disposal, McGregor sends Jennifer out to find the girl killer, whom he suspects is responsible for the disappearance of an associate some time in the past…

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I Spit on Your Grave

February 15th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. Day of the Woman
Year: 1978   Company: Cinemagic Pictures   Runtime: 101′
Director: Meir Zarchi   Writer: Meir Zarchi   Cinematography: Nouri Haviv
Cast: Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols, Gunter Kleeman, Alexis Magnotti
 Disc company: Starz / Anchor Bay   Video: 1080p 1.78:1    Audio: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English
Subtitles: English SDH   Disc: BD50 (Region A)   Release Date: 2/08/2011   Product link: Amazon.com

A young female author from New York City takes a trip into the backwoods of Connecticut to clear her mind and aid in her writing.  Shortly after her arrival she is gang-raped by four local ne’er-do-wells and left for dead in her rented home.  She survives and, upon regaining her strength, exacts a lethal vengeance on her attackers.

I Spit on Your Grave received little attention in its country of origin when originally released as Day of the Woman in 1978 – a limited issue that failed to turn either heads or profit except in some parts of Europe (actress Camille Keaton was awarded for her performance in Spain).  It wasn’t until a wide 1980 re-release under the new I Spit… moniker that the film achieved its considerable notoriety, earning the ire of critics like Roger Ebert (who attended a troubling screening at a United Artist theatre) and being summarily banned in many countries for its graphic depictions of sexual violence.  It has since been derided as exploitative garbage and lauded as a misunderstood feminist masterpiece.  With such polarized opinions surrounding it, I suppose it’s no surprise that this reviewer finds the truth to lie somewhere between the two extremes.

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Psychout for Murder

January 28th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a.: Salvare la faccia
Year: 1969    Runtime: 89′   Director: Rossano Brazzi
Writers: Rossano Brazzi, Diana Crispo, Piero Regnoli    Cinematography: Luciano Trasatti    Music: Benedetto Ghiglia
Cast: Adrienne Larussa, Rossano Brazzi, Nino Castelnuovo, Paola Pitagora, Alberto De Mendoza

Licia (Adrienne Larussa, in the same year she also appeared in Fulci’s version of Beatrice Cenci), the daughter of a successful – and consequently highly corrupt – businessman (director Rossano Brazzi) is taken out for a nice bit of couple time in a bordello by her boyfriend Mario (Nino Castelnuovo). Alas, the cops are raiding the place and a whole lot of photographers are waiting in front of the door, too. Turns out Mario himself called them in a successful attempt to steer Licia into a compromising situation to get a blackmail handle on Daddy. Personally, I wouldn’t try to do my blackmailing with photos that are already in the hands of the yellow press, but what do I know?

Daddy is paying Mario anyway. He, the rest of the family and their equally disgusting friends in business and church decide that the best way to save his face in front of the public (here’s where the film’s original title comes in) is to declare Licia to be mentally imbalanced and put her into a mental institution for a time.

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Deep Red

January 19th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 1975   Company: Rizzoli Film, Seda Spettacoli   Runtime: 126′ / 104′
Director: Dario Argento   Writer: Dario Argento and Bernardino Zapponi
Cinematography: Luigi Kuveiller   Music: Goblin, Giorgio Gaslini  Cast: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi,
Gabriele Lavia, Macha Meril, Eros Pagni, Giuliana Calandra, Piero Mazzinghi, Glauco Mauri, Clara Calami,
Aldo Bonamano, Liana del Batzo, Vittorio Fanfoni, Dante Fioretti, Geraldine Hooper, Jacopo Mariani
Disc company: Arrow Video   Video: 1080p 2.36:1    Audio: DTS-HD Master 5.1 Italian, Dolby Digital 2.0 Italian,
Dolby Digital 2.0 English (Theatrical cut: Dolby Digital 2.0 English)   Subtitles: English  (Theatrical cut: None)
Discs: BD50 (All Region x1) BD25 (All Region x1)   Release Date: 01/03/2011   Product link: Amazon.co.uk
Deep Red is part of the Arrow Video collection, and is reviewed here from a screener provided by Arrow Films.
Be sure to visit the Cult-Labs forums to have your say on this and future Arrow Video releases.

In the midst of a public demonstration a medium comes into contact with the mind of a murderous maniac.  His identity compromised, the killer stalks the medium back to her apartment and viciously attacks her.  Unfortunately there is a witness – an English jazz pianist named Marcus (Hemmings) who, haunted by memories of something glimpsed in a painting and a cloaked figure in the night, sets out to uncover the killer’s identity.

With newspaper reporter Gianna (Nicolodi) on his side Marcus begins a makeshift investigation, only to discover that the muderer always seems to be a step ahead of him.  As the bodies pile up and Marcus’ own life is put in danger, the musician’s compulsive sleuthing becomes a matter of survival.

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Battle Royale

January 13th, 2011 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 2000   Company: Toei Company, Ltd.   Runtime: 114′ / 122′
Director: Kinji Fukasaku   Writer: Kenta Fukasaku (from the novel by Koushun Takami)
Cinematography: Katsumi Yanagijima   Music: Masamichi Amano  Cast: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda,
Taro Yamamoto, Chiaki Kuriyama, Sosuke Takaoka, Takashi Tsukamoto, Yukihiro Kotani, Eri Ishikawa,
Sayaka Kamiya, Aki Inoue,  Takayo Mimura, Yutaka Shimada, Masanobo Ando, “Beat” Takeshi Kitano
 Disc company: Arrow Video   Video: 1080p 1.78:1    Audio: DTS-HD Master 5.1 Japanese,
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Japanese   Subtitles: English   Disc: BD50 (All Region x2) DVD5 (Region 0 PAL, x1)
Release Date: 12/13/2010   The Limited Edition 3-disc package, numbering only 10,000, has already sold out at most
retail locations, but can still be purchased (for now) through Arrow Video.  The Special Edition 3-disc Blu-ray
edition, in Arrow’s standard packaging (multiple covers, cardboard slipcase) is up for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk
Be sure to visit the Cult-Labs forums to have your say on this and future Arrow Video releases

Today's lesson is...Under the pretense of a leaving on a school trip, a class of forty-two 9th grade students is drafted into the Battle Royale program – the Japanese government’s response to an exploding youth crime rate in a time of recession and social unrest.  The children are forced to fight for their lives against their own desperate classmates, each of which has been given a survival kit complete with its own unique weapon (such varied items as axes, swords, machine guns and pot lids).  If a sole survivor has not emerged within three days then the battle is forfeit, and everyone dies.

At the center of the action are Shuya Nanahara (Fujiwara) and his crush, Noriko (Maeda), who form a shaky alliance with 18-year-old transfer student Kawada (Yamamoto) in a desperate bid for survival.  The winner of an earlier Battle Royale himself, Kawada claims to know a secret means of escaping the game alive – a secret he promises to share with Noriko and Nanahara should they be the last children standing…

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Genocide – War of the Insects (1968)

December 7th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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I know I’m one of the few who honestly appreciates director Kazui Nihonmatsu’s (The X From Outer Space) obscure find-the-bomb killer bug thriller, the unflinchingly nihilistic Konchu Daisenso – better known under its international title Genocide or translation War of the Insects.  The plot concerns an island hunt for a lost H-bomb that encounters a bizarre Commie project to train killer bugs and an even stranger effort by Holocaust survivor Kathy Horan (Goke: Body Snatcher From Hell) to destroy all humanity with them.  Turns out everyone is screwed anyway, as the bugs have a doomsday plot all their own…

No poster could ever effectively demonstrate the overarching oddity of this one, penned by Goke: Body Snatcher From Hell alums Kyuzo Kobayashi and Susumu Takaku, though this Mexican lobby card based on a variety of producer Shochiku Company’s own ad art certainly tries.  The artwork features giant bugs, explosions, a lecherous Caucasion and hottie Kathy Horan wielding a pistol while wearing a yellow bikini.  The outlandish text translates as follows:

More Exciting than The Naked Jungle! More Terrifying than Dracula and the Thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock!
The World is in peril… Humanity is on the verge of extermination in a last war… the Final War!
Huge Insects Invade the Earth!

The central still features Chico Lourant (the Wester Island native in Gamera vs. Jiger) as an American bomber pilot tied down and tortured by communist spies as vindictive Holocaust survivor Kathy Horan looks on.  It seems important to note that the giant insects promised by both this poster and Shochiku’s own trailer for the film never materialize, but the regularly-proportioned bees and wasps cause no end of mayhem all the same.

This is another Mexican lobby card I’m proud to have in my slowly growing collection, with ridiculous artwork and stunning colors.  Size: approximately 13″ x 16″  Title: La Invasion Destructora (roughly The Invasion of Destruction)  Company: Organizacion Apolo, S.A. and Centro Independiente de Peliculas, S.A.


Battle Royale 3-disc Blu-ray on the way!

October 21st, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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*UPDATE 10/22/10* Due to the high volume of pre-orders for the release, Arrow Video has now doubled its production run for the 3-disc limited edition Battle Royale blu-ray to 10,000 (from the previously announced 5,000).  The production run for the DVD edition, which releases same day and date, has not been increased.  Details here.

Kinji Fukasaku fans rejoice – his final masterpiece is headed to region free special edition Blu-ray courtesy of cult video distributor Arrow Video.  The company has recently confirmed the release, with an initial limited edition run of 5000 copies, as all region capable and detailed its expansive specifications.  The basics are mind-blowing on their own – both the original theatrical and director’s cut of the film, newly translated and restored in full 1080p!

Here are the details, copied directly from Arrow Video:

3 DISC LIMITED EDITION SET FEATURES:
- BRAND NEW RESTORED TRANSFER IN GLORIOUS HIGH DEFINITION 1080P OF BOTH FILMS
- BRAND NEW SUBTITLE TRANSLATION ON BOTH FEATURES
- LIMITED EDITION PACKAGING NUMBERED #/5000 WITH CERTIFICATE
- LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL FEATURES
DISC 1 – THEATRICAL CUT: SPECIAL FEATURES
- ORIGINAL THEATRICAL TRAILER
- THE MAKING OF BATTLE ROYALE: THE EXPERIENCE OF 42 HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
- CONDUCTING BATTLE ROYALE WITH THE WARSAW NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
DISC 2 – SPECIAL EDITION [DIRECTOR’S CUT]: SPECIAL FEATURES
- SPECIAL EDITION TRAILER
- TV SPOT: TARANTINO VERSION
- SHOOTING THE SPECIAL EDITION
- TAKESHI KITANO INTERVIEW
- THE CORRECT WAY TO MAKE BATTLE ROYALE [BIRTHDAY VERION]
- TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTATION

DISC 3 – SPECIAL FEATURES
- OPENING DAY AT MARU NO UCHI TOEI MOVIE THEATRE
- THE SLAUGHTER OF 42 HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
- PREMIERE PRESS CONFERENCE
- THE CORRECT WAY TO FIGHT IN BATTLE ROYALE
- ROYALE REHEARSALS
- MASAMICHI AMANO CONDUCTS BATTLE ROYALE
- SPECIAL EFFECTS COMPARISON
- BEHIND THE SCENES FEATURETTE
- FILMING ON SET
- TV SPOTS, PROMOS AND COMMERCIALS
- KINJI FUKASAKU TRAILER REEL

32 PAGE COMIC

36 PAGE BOOKLET INCLUDING:
- ‘A BATTLE WITHOUT AN END’ BY TOM MES, AUTHOR OF ‘THE MIDNIGHT EYE GUIDE TO NEW JAPANESE FILM’
- PRINTED INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR KINJI FUKASAKU
- ‘TODAY’S LESSON IS… YOU KILL EACH OTHER’ BY JAY MCROY, AUTHOR OF ‘JAPANESE HORROR CINEMA’ [LE EXCLUSIVE]
- EXTRACT FROM KOUSHUN TAKAMI’S ORIGINAL NOVEL [LE EXCLUSIVE]
- ORIGINAL PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL INCLUDING DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT, CAST AND CREW BIOGS [LE EXCLUSIVE]

16 PAGE BOOKLET INCLUDING:
- CONCEPT ARTWORK AND DRAWINGS FOR THE LIMITED EDITION SET [LE EXCLUSIVE]

5X7” POSTCARDS OF STILLS FROM THE FILM [LE EXCLUSIVE]
FOLD-OUT REVERSIBLE POSTER OF ORIGINAL ARTWORK

The Battle Royale limited edition 3-disc blu-ray, with a street date of November 29th, has a suggested retail price tag of £29.99, and can currently be pre-ordered at a savings of 50% (!) through Amazon.co.uk.  For SD enthusiasts, a limited edition 3-disc DVD will be released on the same day and date.  Wtf-Film has already pre-ordered its copy, and will post a review as soon as it arrives.


Crucible of Terror

October 7th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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Year: 1971    Company: Scotia-Barber, Glendale   Runtime: 91′
Director: Ted Hooker   Writers: Ted Hooker, Tom Parkinson   Cinematography: Peter Newbrook
music: Paris Rutherford   Cast: Mike Raven, Mary Maude, James Bolam, Roland Lacey, Me Me Lai
Disc company: Severin Films   Video: 16:9 progressive 1.78:1    Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 English
Subtitles: None   Disc: Single Layer DVD5   Release Date: 10/12/2010   Product link: Amazon.com
Reviewed from a screener provided by Severin Films, LLC

Plot: An indebted purveyor of art heads into the English countryside to strike a deal with a reclusive artist with his girlfriend in tow. Once there they meet an assortment of odd characters and are witness to a bizarre family dynamic, and realize too late that the beauty-obsessed artist has taken a fierce liking to the latest female to cross his path.

I should really expect nothing less from Severin Films by now, but what an odd little picture! Generally labelled as horror, 1971’s Crucible of Terror defies categorization, fluctuating between murderous A Bucket of Blood-type thrills, oddball family drama and acts of supernatural revenge with manic frequency. I can’t imagine much of anyone ever defending it as a good film, but one can hardly fault the filmmakers for trying something a little different.

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Devil

September 30th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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film rating:
company: Universal Pictures,
Media Rights Council and
Night Chronicles
year: 2010
runtime: 80′
director: John Erick Dowdle
cast: Chris Messina, Logan Marshall-Green,
Jenny O’Hara, Bojana Novakovic,
Bokine Woodbine, Geoffrey Arend,
Jacob Vargas, Matt Craven
writers: Brian Nelson
and M. Night Shyamalan
cinematography: Tak Fujimoto
music: Fernando Valazquez
Devil is currently out in wide release

After a long string of missteps and abject failures, much maligned writer and director M. Night Shyamalan (The Happening, Lady in the Water) may well have found new worth in the film community with Devil, a concept spook picture that sees him taking on the role of producer. Though Shyamalan contributed the original story, writing and directing were dutifully handed over to others for Devil – Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night, Hard Candy) and John Erick Dowdle (the Twin Cities-born co-director of Quarantine) respectively. The result is Shyamalan’s best work in years, a tightly paced slice of claustrophobic horror that puts the honest-to-Pete supernatural back into the genre.

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The Slumber Party Massacre

September 17th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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film rating:
disc rating:
company: New World Pictures
year: 1982
runtime: 77′
director: Amy Holden Jones
cast: Michele Michaels, Robin Stille,
Michael Villella, Debra Deliso,
Andree Honore, Jennifer Meyers,
Joseph Alan Johnson, Brinke Stevens
writer: Rita Mae Brown
cinematography: Stephen Posey
music: Ralph Jones
Reviewed from a screener provided
by Shout! Factory, LLC.
Pre-order this film from Amazon.com

The Slumber Party Massacre Collection double disc DVD set is due out from Shout! Factory on October 5th, in plenty of time for Halloween get togethers, and can currently be pre-ordered through Amazon.com and other online retailers.

The first installment in Roger Corman’s original slasher franchise is a wonderful mostly serious and self-aware addition to a sub-genre saturated with mindless knockoffs of past successes and cheap, irredeemable crap. That’s not to say that The Slumber Party Massacre doesn’t show its roots – quite the contrary, in fact. The basics of the narrative are par for the course, with a group of young women mercilessly stalked by an escaped serial killer while free of parental supervision.

The difference here, as well as with the two sequels, is the director, another in a long line of arguments for producer Corman’s affinity for strong women in film (both before and behind the camera). Indeed, I’m hard pressed to think of any other series of horror films that was helmed exclusively by women. Though far from masterworks on feminism (each takes time out for that all important Corman necessity – gratuitous nudity), the Slumber Party Massacre films do approach the sub-genre from a perspective atypical for the slasher sub-genre.

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King of Snake

September 4th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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film rating:
a.k.a. Daai Yi Wong, Daai Se Wong
(lit. Big Snake King)
company: ??
year: 1982
runtime: 88′
director: Chui Yuk-Lung
cast: Tarcy Su, Leung Sau-Geun,
Ng Fung, Danny Lee,
Paul Chang Chung, Chow Shui-Fong,
David Tong Wai, Unknown Taiwanese Actor (1)
writers: Yiu Hing-Hong
and Ng Man-Leung
special effects director: Chujio Shintaro
cinematographer: Liao Wan-Wen
Not available on home video

Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more.  Next week things will be different – honest! But every misguided quest must have an end, and the finale to my impromptu monster-palooza is a real snooze.

1982’s grammatically impaired King of Snake is perhaps best known for being purchased by Joseph Lai’s IFD Film and Arts and manipulated by Hong Kong schlock extraordinaire Godfrey Ho into the 1988 oddity Thunder of Gigantic Serpent. That film follows French super-soldier Ted Fast as he hunts down balding white villain Solomon while a girl’s giant pet snake runs amok. King of Snake doesn’t gain much from the exclusion of Ho’s material, and instead offers viewers twice the boring story stuff and half the absurd fun.

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