Category: Reviews

Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave (1976)

Published on by Chris Scullion3 Comments

Director: Doo-yong Lee

Starring: Jun Chong, Deborah Dutch

WONG: “Your threats don’t frighten me one little bit.”
SUZUKI: “You should be.” 

Many martial arts films cash in on Bruce Lee’s name despite having little to do with the great man. Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave is obviously one such film, though you’ve got to applaud a movie that goes so far as making the outlandish claim that not only does Lee star in it, he actually does so after his untimely death.

Of course, this is complete bollocks. In reality the only thing this film has to do with Bruce Lee is a hastily cobbled-together intro showing a hilariously fake-looking gravestone with “BRUCE LEE” printed on it, which then explodes and is followed by some hideous fan art of Bruce Lee punching a dragon. Then the actual film, the one that has nothing to do with the legendary martial artist and was seemingly chosen at random to have this intro slapped onto it, properly begins.

Good to see the Hong Kong stonemasons have a love for the Impact font

The film tells the tale of Wong Han (played by Jun Chong – though the film credits him as “Bruce KL Lea”, no doubt to cover the filmmakers with a good “what? Oh you thought we meat THAT Bruce Lee” excuse). Wong is a Hong Kong man who comes to LA to meet his kung fu teacher friend who he hasn’t seen for three years. When he gets to his friend’s dojo, Wong finds that his chum’s been murdered by five men – “a Japanese, a white man, a black man, a Mexican and a cowboy”. Yes, a cowboy.

Wong vows revenge, and sets out on a Kill Bill-style mission to take down the five evil-doers. Don’t ask me how he goes about tracking them down, because this film is all over the place.

Some pictures are just too bizarre to caption. He's carrying his friend's bones in a sling. Nothing can top that

As he wanders around LA (while carrying his pal’s bones in a sling around his neck, naturally), Wong encounters a woman called Susan who’s being attacked. He saves her and gets talking to her, and as luck would have it she knows how to find all the men who killed his friend. What are the odds?

It’s difficult to put across how bad Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave is. The dubbing’s among the worst I’ve ever seen in a film, the fight scenes are laughably basic and poorly lit, and seriously – what the hell is the deal with the bones.

The final ten minutes, in which Wong encounters the “cowboy” shortly before finding out a horrible secret, try to provide a clever twist but in reality it just opens up far more questions. Such as “why did these actors never make the big time?”

"You're under arrest for impersonating a martial arts legend. How do you plead?" "With a horribly dubbed voice"

Despite the above you should still see this film, preferably with a group of like-minded cheese-lovers. You’ll chuckle at the scene where Wong is grilled by a police chief (“you’re gonna get the chair!” “and what kind of chair is that?”), guffaw at the pivotal car-buying scene, shake your head in amazement as Wong and Susan spend a needlessly long time looking for criminals at a racecourse only to leave and go “oh, there they are”, and watch dumbfounded as Wong, who has to meet Susan by a certain time, is distracted by the shittest-looking carnival (stock footage, of course) for literally two hours.

It may not be the Bruce Lee film it masquerades as, but Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave turns out to be so much more. It’s a love story, it’s a thrilling mystery, it’s an action-packed extravaganza and, most of all, it’s a load of old shite. Get it watched.

Oh, and be sure to check out the trailer below, which blatantly states over and over again that this is definitely Bruce Lee and the film’s all about him fighting the “black angel of death” to come back to life. Which is like saying I’m Freddie Mercury.

HOW CAN I GET IT?
Bruce Lee Fights Back From The Grave is only available on Region 1 (US) DVD. If you live in the UK and can play these discs, you can order it very cheaply by clicking here. If you live in the US and have a few bucks spare you can get it by clicking here.

Halloween (1978)

Published on by Chris Scullion17 Comments

Director: John Carpenter

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, PJ Soles, Nancy Loomis

“I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply evil.” (Dr Loomis, Halloween)

There are a sacred handful of films that will forever be considered horror classics, films that revolutionised the genre and influenced the creation of countless others that followed in its wake. Look inside the wallets of Night Of The Living Dead, Psycho, The Exorcist and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and you’ll find they’re all card-carrying members of this elite club, but John Carpenter’s Halloween was the one who went to the printing shop and had the cards designed. Shite metaphors aside, the influence Halloween had on horror is one that continues to this day, largely because it was the first film to successfully introduce the slasher genre to the mainstream public.

Woody Allen wasn't very inconspicuous when he tried to be a ghost

While it’s often wrongly credited as the first ever slasher movie (the likes of Black Christmas, The Driller Killer and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre came before it), there’s no denying that Halloween was the first to nail it and the one that would inspire the endless stream of low-budget slashers that followed it (a stream that would flow right through to the present day). Its simple premise – a babysitter stalked by a faceless, unstoppable killer – made it easy for the viewer to relate and as such made it terrifying to the teenage audiences that came in their droves to see it. Simply put, Halloween changed horror cinema forever.

It tells the story of Michael Myers, a young boy who suddenly snaps one Halloween. Putting on a clown mask, Michael grabs a kitchen knife and goes upstairs, stabbing his older sister over and over. When his parents get home and find that young Mike’s turned his sister into a human colander, he’s sent to a mental asylum for the rest of his life.

That lamb vindaloo was coming back on young Michael. That's right, we make jokes about boys shitting themselves here

Naturally, someone sitting in a cell of 90 minutes would make for a fairly shit movie, so Michael (now aged 21 when we catch up with him) has the common courtesy to escape the asylum and head back to his home town of Haddonfield to raise some hell again.

Halloween is bloody impressive given its shoestring budget. Jamie Lee Curtis and the actresses playing her friends had to go to a charity shop to buy their own outfits, director John Carpenter also composed the music on a cheapo piano and synthesiser, the cast are complete unknowns (other than Donald Pleasance, who plays Michael’s doctor Sam Loomis) and there isn’t a special effect to be seen throughout. Yet despite (or perhaps because of) this, it’s one of those rarities – a horror film that remains genuinely scary more than 30 years later.

The awesome Donald Pleasance would appear in five Halloween movies in total

Michael Myers is the perfect bogeyman. With his expressionless white mask (a painted William Shatner mask, incidentally) it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. He doesn’t just kill like Jason or other slasher villains do, he stalks his prey, watching them and waiting for the right moment to attack, catching them off guard then studying how they react as they die. He’s chilling.

Even his mere presence in the background is enough to cause a fright, a fact taken advantage of by John Carpenter’s clever direction. During some indoor scenes there are occasional subtle glimpses of the white mask outside the window as he stands in the darkness. This keeps the audience on edge and puts them in the odd position of actually hoping to see complete darkness outside. What other film makes its viewers NOT afraid of the dark?

"I really need to get this wardrobe fixed"

Halloween may be near-perfect but there are one or two tiny elements that make it fall just short. While the young Jamie Lee Curtis is fantastically believable in the lead role of Laurie – giving a real girl-next-door feeling that greatly adds to the film’s authenticity – and PJ Soles is funny as her friend Lynda, the same can’t be said for the third member of the group, Annie (played by Nancy Loomis). She’s so wooden they might as well have put a charity shop skirt on a table and wheeled it alongside the other two, and while her character’s fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, she’s the sole reminder that we’re dealing with a low budget film here. Her stupidly hammy facial expressions during her strangulation scene are ridiculous, cheesy garbage and as a result she ruins what should have been a classic moment in horror cinema.

This is made up for by the amazing Donald Pleasance, who steals the show as Dr Sam Loomis. The only real star in the film, Pleasance only signed up for the movie because his daughter was a big fan of Carpenter’s previous movie, Assault On Precinct 13, but it’s a good job he did because it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role.

While it could be argued that the point of film reviews is to give opinions on – among other things – the likes of plot development, to say much more about Halloween would be to spoil it. It’s the sort of film where, if you’ve been lucky enough to come this far without finding out what happens, you should track it down as soon as possible and enjoy it. All you really need to know is that it’s a true horror classic and is essential viewing for any fan of the genre.

WHERE CAN I GET IT?
There are loads of ways to get Halloween so here are a bunch of links:
UK DVD

UK Blu-ray
UK DVD box set (Halloween 1-5 and H20)
US DVD
US Blu-ray

Child’s Play 3 (1991)

Published on by Chris Scullion4 Comments

Director: Jack Bender

Starring: Justin Whalin, Perrey Reeves, Jeremy Sylvers, voice of Brad Dourif

“You know what they say, you just can’t keep a Good Guy down.” (Chucky, Child’s Play 3)

It’s ironic that the worst film in the Child’s Play series was the one that gained the most notoriety. After the horrible killing of two-year-old James Bulger in1992, The Sun newspaper decided to pin the blame on Child’s Play 3, claiming that the young boys who murdered Bulger had seen the film numerous times. While police would later confirm that this was completely untrue and they had never even seen it once, the damage had been done – Child’s Play 3 and its predecessors were removed from video shelves all over theUK, never to be seen again for at least a decade. Incredibly, The Sun continues to blame Child’s Play for all manner of killings, while still maintaining (in the face of police statements reporting otherwise) that it was responsible for the Bulger killings.

Mick Hucknall tried to explain that his love child looked nothing like him

Regardless, let’s move on before I go off on a rant. I’ll discuss the Bulger incident further in the future (I wrote my university dissertation on it) but for now let’s look at the “offending” article itself. Child’s Play 3 is set eight years after the second movie (even though it was only released a year later). Now aged 16, Andy has been sent to a military training camp after failing to settle in any of the foster homes he’s been to. Meanwhile, the company responsible for the Good Guy dolls has decided enough time has passed to start the production of Good Guys again, so the toy factory is re-opened and Chucky’s corpse is disposed of – but not before some of his blood drips onto the production line, causing Chucky’s soul to pass into a brand new doll. D’oh, you pesky toy makers and your piss-poor security measures.

"What? You aged eight years in twelve months? Bollocks you did"

After finding out where Andy’s based, Chucky mails himself (somehow) to the military camp so he can finally do what he’s been trying to do for so long – take over Andy’s body. When he gets there though he’s first found by Tyler, a young boy also at the camp. Since the voodoo rules state that he can only take over the body of the first person he reveals himself to, Chucky decides to take over Tyler instead. As luck would have it though, Andy finds out about Chucky’s surprise appearance and so he tries to put an end to the killer doll once and for all.

"What do you mean you don't have jam? I can't eat my toast without it"

Rather than breathing new life into the series, the military camp setting is actually detrimental to Child’s Play 3’s quality. It’s packed with tired clichés – bossy drill sergeants, “yes” “yes what” “yes sir” chat and the old “drop and give me 20” bollocks – not to mention a few lines ripped completely from Full Metal Jacket. The result feels less like an original slasher film and more like an unoriginal war movie that happens to have a killer doll wandering around.

Well, that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "cut-throat razor"

Despite this, Child’s Play 3 is actually superior to its predecessors in one aspect – the inventiveness of its kills. Whether it’s the garbage truck scene, the part where Chucky substitutes paintball pellets for live rounds or the amusing moment when Chucky doesn’t even have to do anything to cause one chap’s death, it’s certainly the most creative film in the series to date in that respect.

Child’s Play 3 is an average sequel at best. While kudos have to go to the filmmakers for at least trying something different by placing the movie in a military camp and aging Andy eight years so it’s not following the same old “doll chases young boy” routine again, the film messes up by regurgitating tired boot camp clichés and, um, following the same old “doll chases young boy” routine again with the introduction of the Tyler character. It’s a reasonable way to pass an hour and half, but of the five Chucky films to date this is the weakest of the bunch.

WHERE CAN I GET IT?
Child’s Play 3 is fairly cheap on DVD. If you live in the UK you should be able to get it for a few quid by clicking here. If you live in the US, you can get the Region 1 DVD by clicking here or get it in a box set with Child’s Play 2, Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky by clicking here.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)

Published on by Chris Scullion5 Comments

Director: Fran Kuzul

Starring: Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Luke Perry, Paul Reubens

“I’m the chosen one. And I choose to be shopping.” (Buffy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer)

Long before Buffy The Vampire Slayer became one of the most popular television shows of recent times, there was the Buffy movie. With a different tone, different storyline and different characters, the only real connection was that both were about a teenager who discovers she’s been chosen to fight vampires who are trying to destroy the world. While the TV series is undeniably better than the movie, there’s still some fun to be had here.

The investor's request for a bigger stake in the movie was misunderstood slightly

Buffy (Swanson) is your typical popular high school kid. She’s head of the cheerleading squad, all the lads fancy her and she spends her weekends at the mall with her clique of Clueless-a-like friends. Buffy’s perfectly content in her little bubble until it’s burst by Merrick, a well-spoken gent played by the legendary Donald Sutherland. Merrick reckons Buffy is the chosen one, the one to save the world from the impending attack of Lothos, master of the vampires. At first she’s not having it, but after getting in a few scraps she ultimately accepts her destiny and sets about kicking some vampire arses in the hope of sorting things out in time for prom.

"I don't care if he does have a wealthy family, I'm not marrying Dead Jeff"

The most interesting thing about Buffy these days is the number of big names in its cast (many of whom weren’t big at the time, of course). Look! It’s a young Hilary Swank (pre-Oscar) in Buffy’s group of chums! Look really quickly! It’s an even younger Ben Affleck (pre-Oscar) in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo. Look once more! It’s David Arquette (pre-WCW Championship belt) getting bitten and turning into a shit vampire.

And that’s just the good guys. Among the vampires are cult legend Rutger Hauer who appears as Lothos, the head of the vampires, and proceeds to chew as much of the scenery as he can find in a fantastically over-the-top performance. Meanwhile, the ‘bizarre casting decision’ award goes to Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens as Lothos’ right-hand man. Seeing Pee Wee try to play it serious as a long-haired vampire is a very odd experience though he ultimately fails to play it straight right through to the end of the movie, leading to one of the most memorable death scenes in cinematic history. Sort of.

Dave Grohl wasn't a fan of Buffy's jacket

While it has a different feel, different cast and different plot to the TV series that followed it, Buffy does at least share one crucial element with its serialised sibling – Joss Whedon. As his first major writing credit before going on to do Firefly, Serenity and of course the Buffy TV series, Buffy’s dialogue is a little shaky at times these days but certainly fits the era it’s from, showcasing Whedon’s knack for capturing teenage sarcasm perfectly. In any other movie Buffy would be an irritating character but here it seems to work, primarily because of the entertaining words Whedon puts in her mouth.

Even if you’ve never seen the TV series, Buffy is an interesting little curio that’s worth a watch. It’s very much trapped in the early ’90s (except for Luke Perry, whose fashion sense was probably odd at the time but seems strangely stylish now 20 years later), but it’s a quirky film that deserves to stand on its own without the shadow of its far more successful offspring looming over it.

Scream (1996)

Published on by Chris Scullion17 Comments

Director: Wes Craven

Starring: Neve Campbell, Jamie Kennedy, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Drew Barrymore, David Arquette, Courteney Cox

“Never say ‘who’s there’. Don’t you watch scary movies? It’s a death wish. You might as well come out to investigate a strange noise or something. ” (Ghostface, Scream)

Scream is to modern horror films what the Beatles were to rock music. Look at it now and it’s easy to forget the impact it’s had on so many of the films we’ve seen since. Nowadays almost every slasher movie has some sort of “clever” post-modern fourth wall-breaking scene where the black guy says he knows he’s going to die first, a hysterical teen screams that their situation’s “like something out of a Jason film” or someone says “we shouldn’t split up, that’s how people die in the movies”. Scream did it first, and while it’s been imitated countless times since it’s somewhat telling that Scream still does it better than most, 15 years since its release.

Mary-Kate Olsen was looking a bit rough

The film centres around Sydney Prescott (Campbell), a teenager still trying to come to terms with the murder of her mother a year ago. Her boyfriend is trying to pressure her into having sex, which doesn’t help matters, and if that wasn’t bad enough some or her fellow classmates have started turning up dead. Sydney soon realises she’s the killer’s next target, and that her mother’s murder may in some way have something to do with it. She has to find out who’s committing the murders and stop them before she ends up giving the local gravedigger overtime work.

Randy didn't realise his cushion wouldn't adequately shield him from knives

The real genius of Scream lies in the character of Randy (played by the otherwise irritating Jamie Kennedy). A die-hard slasher film fan, Randy knows all the “rules” to surviving a horror film – if you have sex you die, if you say “I’ll be right back” you won’t be – and spends a good part of the film discussing with other characters who the killer may be if they were going by horror convention. While primarily paying tribute to the countless slashers that paved the way for Scream, these horror “rules” are also in a way mocking the genre for its lack of originality.

It’s perhaps no surprise then that Scream sets about breaking a lot of these rules. The girl who has sex doesn’t always die, the villain doesn’t necessarily come back to life for one final showdown and the identity of who’s doing the killings can’t really be worked out due to the numerous red herrings and double-bluffs the film chucks at the viewer throughout. While making fun of the predictability of the slasher genre, in the same breath Scream provides something truly unpredictable.

The latest Gillette advert was a tad strong

There’s no way of guessing who’s killing everyone or what their motive is, and with the death of top star Drew Barrymore right at the start of the film (a nod to Hitchcock’s Psycho, which also killed off its star early on to throw audiences) it’s difficult to know for a fact who’s going to survive either.

Drew’s death isn’t the only knowing wink to the horror classics. John Carpenter’s Halloween constantly plays on a TV in one house during the film’s final half-hour, with many of the goings-on in the house mirroring the action on the telly.

"Miss Olsen, we're taking you to rehab. Eyyy"

More subtle moments include a brief cameo from director Wes Craven as Fred, the school janitor with a striped sweater that’s oddly familiar. Another short scene sees Sydney getting hassle from a news reporter played by none other than Linda Blair (Regan from The Exorcist), complete with huge crucifix earrings. They’re cheeky little moments that, while unnoticed by mainstream audiences, reassure horror fans that Scream is really a love letter to their favourite genre.

While it may not necessarily be the case nowadays thanks to its many imitators, at the time of its release Scream was a breath of fresh air in a genre suffocating itself with a plastic bag of predictability. It may have lost some of that impact 15 years later but it’s still a great slasher film that should entertain from start to finish.

WHERE CAN I BUY IT?
If you live in the UK you can get Scream on DVD here or on Blu-ray here, or if you want to go the whole hog you can get the Scream trilogy on DVD here or on Blu-ray here. Americans, you can get the DVD here, the Blu-ray here, the DVD boxset here and the Blu-ray boxset here. Phew.

Child’s Play 2 (1990)

Published on by Chris Scullion1 Comment

Director: John Lafia

Starring: Alex Vincent, Jenny Agutter, Christine Elise, voice of Brad Dourif

“Why fight it, Andy? We’re going to be very close. In fact, we’re gonna be fucking inseparable. ” (Chucky, Child’s Play 2)

You just can’t keep a bad doll down. Even though it seemed fairly clear Chucky was dead at the end of the original Child’s Play, it turns out while the body was weak the spirit was still willing. So when the company responsible for Good Guy dolls gets hold of Chucky’s remains and sets about cleaning the doll up as a publicity stunt to show it wasn’t cursed, Chucky’s soul awakens again and shit goes down. He then sets about finding Andy, the kid from the first film (who’s now staying with a foster family after his mum was deemed… well, a bit mental), to finally take over his body.

Mick Hucknall resorted to extreme measures to get youngsters to attend his gigs

In a way, Child’s Play 2 is faced with the same dilemma as Jaws 2 – when you know who the killer is and you’ve already had a good look at them at the end of the previous film you can’t spend another 50 minutes playing it all mysterious. Half the original Child’s Play was spent trying to guess if Andy’s doll really was the one doing the killings, or whether it was just Andy using the doll as an excuse. Now we all know it’s Chucky, that whodunit angle goes right out the window for the sequel, which is why this time Chucky springs into life and starts the bodycount before your arse has even started to warm the seat.

"Of course you're winning, you've got Mr Blue reading my cards, you fucking crook"

Andy’s foster home provides a refreshing change of scenery while still keeping the story grounded in reality a little – his foster parents understandably think all the events from the first film were in Andy’s head and so they aren’t having any of it when Chucky finally tracks him down and he tries to convince them to kill it. Instead they think it’s Tommy, a different Good Guy doll they bought which, unknown to them, Chucky has already buried in the back garden. Having Andy trapped in an unfamiliar house with his would-be killer with no way of convincing anyone to help him creates an interesting tension which at least brings back the whodunit angle in some form, even though we’re all in on it this time.

"This head scratcher is marvellous"

A few unconvincing kills later (it’s hard to imagine a small doll can effectively beat someone to death with a ruler or be strong enough to suffocate someone with a plastic bag) the film finds itself in its final location, a huge toy factory where the Good Guys are manufactured. It’s a fun setting for the typical fifteen minutes of “killer stalking the heroes” shenanigans you’d expect from an early ‘90s slasher, with loads of conveyor belts and dangerous equipment lying around to keep things lively.

It all has to end eventually though, and Chucky’s demise this time is even more decisive than it was in the first movie, leaving absolutely no chance that they could put him together for a third film… or could they?

Although its predecessor was a stronger film when it was first released, now we all know Chucky is the killer these days Child’s Play 2 is the more entertaining movie. It’s got more action, more tension and more Chucky quips. It’s still not exactly a classic, but if you’re looking for one Chucky film to watch from the pre-comedy trilogy this is the one to go for.

WHERE CAN I BUY IT?
Brits can get the UK DVD version here fairly cheap. Americans, meanwhile, can get either the the US DVD here or get it as part of the Chucky Killer DVD Collection, which contains Child’s Play 2, Child’s Play 3,  Bride Of Chucky and Seed Of Chucky.

Jaws 2 (1978)

Published on by Chris Scullion6 Comments

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Starring: Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gray, Mark Gruner

“I’m telling you, and I’m telling everybody at this table that that’s a shark! And I know what a shark looks like, because I’ve seen one up close. And you’d better do something about this one, because I don’t intend to go through that hell again!” (Chief Brody, Jaws 2)

Poor Chief Brody. After dealing with a huge shark in the original Jaws and helping restore Amity Island to some sort of normality, weird things are starting to happen again. Surely there can’t be another shark in Amity? You bet your fins there is.

What made the original Jaws so gripping was the film’s refusal to show the shark until near the end of the movie. Until then you only saw people in the water reacting to attacks, screaming and writhing as the invisible killer underneath them turned the water blood red. It was the classic “what you don’t see is scarier than what you do see” technique and it worked a treat.

Sam was about to be cured of his hiccups

Jaws 2 starts off at a disadvantage, then, because it can’t use the same trick again. Hiding the shark is a pointless exercise because we all know what to expect and can’t be surprised a second time. As a result, it has a slightly different feel to its predecessor – we see a lot more of the shark and it gets involved a lot more this time around. At times it feels more like a slasher movie, a contrast to the original’s tense, slow pace.

Despite this, Jaws 2 is still fairly tame. The story goes that Universal were eager to get the film a PG rating to get as many ticket sales as possible, and so most of the shark attacks either happen off-camera or are cleverly shot so that the fatal bites are obscured by things in the way. This weakens the effect of the attacks and really takes some of the shock factor away.

Dunno about you, but I've got a tenner on the shark for this one

The film also lessens the impact by providing a final act with far too many characters in it. Whereas the first film had only three heroes, giving each enough screen time to let the viewer learn more about them and warm to them, this time the final showdown involves the shark, Brody, a helicopter pilot and around ten kids stranded in their boats. I couldn’t give an eighth of a shit if some kid who had two lines of dialogue gets his leg chomped, I have no idea who he is and it makes no difference to the movie whether he lives or dies.

Jaws 2 isn’t as bad as it could have been. It goes in the direction it should have gone, it just goes about executing it in slightly the wrong way. With too many characters and not enough shock value it’s just a diluted, less effective version of the original.

WHERE CAN I BUY IT?
Jaws 2 is available in a nifty special edition DVD set with extras, commentaries and the like, and it’s usually under a fiver these days. You can buy the UK version here from Amazon.co.uk, and get the US version here from Amazon.com if you live in America. Other than the region code, both versions are identical.

The Vault Of Horror (1973)

Published on by Chris Scullion4 Comments

Director: Roy Ward Baker

Starring: Daniel Massey, Terry-Thomas, Curd Jurgens, Michael Craig, Tom Baker

“That’s how it is, and how it always will be. Night after night we have to retell the evil things we did when we were alive. Night after night, for all eternity.” (Sebastian, The Vault Of Horror)

For those unfamiliar with Amicus Productions, it was a British film production company based at Shepperton Studios in Surrey where it was active during the ’60s and ’70s. Amicus specialised in horror films, in particular anthology ones that offered a handful of 20-minute stories instead of one long 90-minute one. The Vault Of Horror is one such anthology, featuring five tales based on stories from the popular EC Comics horror series of the ’40s and ’50s (which included such comics as Tales From The Crypt, Vault Of Horror and Shock SuspenStories). And it’s brilliant.

"I don't know why you're upset dear, I told you I was going out to get hammered tonight"

The film opens with five businessmen going into an elevator which takes them down to a room none of them pressed for. When they enter the room, which looks like a gentlemen’s club, the lift closes behind them, at which point they realise there are no buttons to open it again. They decide to sit at the table in the room and have a chat while they wait for the lift doors to open again.

The men start to share the dreams they’ve been having recently. Coincidentally, each dream tells a story in which each man does something immoral then dies as a result of their actions.

"It wasn't me mate, it was the painting. Listen, I was Doctor Who once, don't mess with me"

Tale one involves a chap called Harold (Massey), who plans on confronting his sister about their father’s inheritance. He takes things a little too far but gets his come-uppance when he heads to a nearby restaurant after his altercation.

Then there’s the story of Gritchit (Terry-Thomas). He’s recently been married to a lovely young lady but he constantly badmouths her for putting his things in the wrong place. We’re talking proper neat freak stuff here, with individual types of screw going in different labelled containers (not counting the ones loose in his head). Eventually wifey is driven to the edge and decides to give Gritchit a taste of his own medicine.

Add your own "farting in a lift" joke here

Next up is Sebastian (Jurgens), a magician travelling the world with his wife in search of the next big trick to confound people with back home. Leaving his wife at a hotel, Sebastian wanders the streets of Egypt where he finds a women in an alleyway. As she plays her flute a long rope raises out of a vase. She then grabs the rigid rope and climbs up it, right to the top. A stunned Sebastian offers to pay her a fortune for the secret but she refuses, so he makes a plan to take it from her in a less than sociable manner. There’s more to the trick than Sebastian realises though, as his wife eventually finds out.

The fourth tale is the weak link in the anthology, with some hokey bullshit about a man (Craig) faking his death to gain insurance money and things not going quite as planned, but thankfully the final tale rounds things off nicely with the clever story of an artist (Baker) who visits a voodoo priest to get revenge on three men who wronged him. After receiving a blessing from the priest the artist realises that everything he paints happens in real life, so he sets about painting portraits of his three enemies then messing them up to kill them. Foolishly though, he fails to properly protect his own self-portrait…

"I really think it's time you cut your ponytail, Margaret"

Of the five tales (none of which, incidentally, are actually from the Vault Of Horror comic series – four are from Tales From The Crypt and the other is from Shock SuspenStories), the first and fifth are the most entertaining. The ending – explaining where the five men actually are – can be spotted a mile off, but the main story was always just a basic shell to contain the five shorter stories, which are clearly where the real entertainment value lasts.

If you can find it, it’s worth getting hold of the full uncut version of The Vault Of Horror. The American DVD releases of the film cut the endings of the first two stories, which is a shame because the final shot in the first story in particular is an incredibly effective, chilling moment and probably the best shot in the whole film. UK channel Film4 often shows a restored version of the film – this is the full uncut version and the one I recommend checking out.

The Vault Of Horror is a hidden gem, a great little British horror anthology where the five stories (while varied in quality) are all entertaining enough. Although the uncut version is really the best way to watch it you should still really see it in any form you can.

WHERE CAN I BUY IT?
You can get the uncut UK version here from Amazon.co.uk though the quality’s not the best.
If you live in the US you can either import the UK version if you can play Region 2 DVDs, or alternatively buy the cut version here in a double-bill with Tales From The Crypt.

Bless The Child (2000)

Published on by Chris Scullion2 Comments

Director: Chuck Russell

Starring: Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Christina Ricci, Angela Bettis, Rufus Sewell

“The devil’s greatest achievement is that people don’t believe he exists. Nowadays, the concept of evil is politically incorrect. ” (Reverend, Bless The Child)

I had Bless The Child on my DVD shelf for years and never really felt the need to watch it. The front cover made it look like a cheap Exorcist rip-off and the only thing that really appealed to me was Christina Ricci (what can I say, I went through a Ricci phase at Uni). On at least five or six separate occasions I actually put it in my DVD player then changed my mind as it loaded and took it out. Finally, one night I thought “better get this over with”, slammed the bastard in and refused to turn it off no matter how bad it was going to be. I wasn’t exactly pleasantly surprised, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d expected.

There's nothing like the odd dodgy CGI demon shot to keep things interesting

Maggie O’Connor (Basinger) is a bit pissed off when her sister Jenna (Bettis) suddenly turns up at her door one day with her newborn baby, dumps the baby in her house then fucks off. With Jenna eventually presumed dead, Maggie reluctantly decides to become baby Cody’s unofficial mother. It soon becomes apparent that Cody’s autistic but what isn’t so noticeable is the fact that she has special powers – she can make things spin, light candles with her mind and the like.

Well, what do you expect? That's what you get when you live in Hull

Maggie copes for a few years until the very much not-dead Jenna comes back for her daughter with her new man, Eric Stark (Sewell). Not quite the killer catch, Stark is a devil worshipper who’s been killing children left, right and centre trying to find the one with the power to save mankind, or (by joining Stark and the devil) destroy it. Guess who that is then? No, I mean the girl.

Bless The Child is not a very scary film. With the exception of one scene in a subway this is a plot-driven horror film rather than one that relies heavily on ‘boo’ scares or moments of lengthy tension. As a result it never really has you on the edge of your seat but that’s not necessarily a bad thing because it was never trying to in the first place.

"What that child needs is a bloody good blessing"

Despite how far-fetched the plot is, the film is played well enough to suspend the audience’s beliefs for a while and accept the goings-on as real possibilities. Holliston Coleman is excellent as little Cody, and the way she portrays her character’s power can make the viewer feel slightly uneasy whenever she’s on-screen. Basinger plays it as you would expect, with plenty of “I WANT THE GIRL BACK” screamfests and ample helpings of tears throughout, while Jimmy Smits does the job as the detective (even if he does seem to accept the many odd and paranormal occurrences far too easily, essentially believing anything Basinger tells him no matter how out there it seems).

In all though, my concern about this being a load of old arse were unfounded. Bless The Child isn’t the greatest film ever made and the special effects are pretty poor (with the exception of one decapitation scene), but it’s enjoyable enough. It takes itself very seriously but not enough to be considered boring or pretentious, and it should manage to keep your attention for an hour and a half.

WHERE CAN I BUY IT?
You can buy the UK DVD off Amazon.co.uk here
Or, you can Get the US DVD from Amazon.com here

Sharktopus (2010)

Published on by Chris Scullion10 Comments

Director: Declan O’Brien

Starring: Eric Roberts, Kerem Bursin, Sara Lane

“There is a way we can stop this thing. Virgin sacrifices. Yes, the Mexican Fish & Game Commission assures me the only way to appease this beast is to offer it a beautiful virgin, preferably 18-25 years old. I repeat: Sharktopus wants our virgins. ” (Captain Jack, Sharktopus)

For those who don’t know, the slew of “mutated animal” creature features that have been doing the rounds for the past few years is partly thanks to the folks at SyFy (formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel), who help fund them in return for exclusive premiere rights. That’s why many of them seem very similar.

What happens when the Sharktopus meets a normal shark? He fucks him up, basically

Take Sharktopus, for example, and compare it with Dinoshark, which I reviewed recently. Both films feature mutated sharks, both films have atrocious CGI scenes where the shark in question attacks and both films, for some reason, take place in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. I’d like to think money’s probably exchanged hands between the filmmakers and the Puerto Vallarta tourism board, but considering the films are essentially saying Puerto Vallarta is packed with killer mutant sharks I’m not so sure.

Anyway then, Sharktopus. As you may be able to deduce with your keen mind, it’s about a half-shark half-octopus monster. Rather than hatching from ice like Dinoshark did, Sharktopus is the result of a dodgy biological experiment to create the ultimate killing machine. Naturally, it breaks free and heads to Mexico– where the women are hot and the budget is cheap – meaning it’s up to the scientists who created it to stop it.

Not a good time to lose your head! AHAHAHAHA! Oh dear, I may actually be the most original writer in history

The big boss of the scientists (played by made-for-TV maestro Eric Roberts) wants Sharktopus kept alive because he’ll lose his contract with the military if it dies, so he hires Andy Flynn (Bursin), an ex-Iraq War veteran, and offers him a whole heap of money to catch it without killing it. And if you think he’s not going to change his mind later and instead blow it to smithereens when it gets out of control then I appreciate your optimism but you’re obviously delirious.

Some of the deaths in Sharktopus are actually fairly impressive, especially given the sort of off-camera rubbish we’ve been “treated” to in other movies of its ilk in the past. Expect to see some decapitations, tentacle impalement, and of course the odd chomp or twelve to keep things moving along. There are even times where the Sharktopus leaves the sea, using its tentacles to waddle along the coast in a big up yours to the snarky “well, why don’t you just stay out of the water” argument people often use during shark movies.

Let's be honest, this is cool as fuck

The most curious moment for me is the scene with the two ship painters sitting on scaffolding above the water, painting the side of a boat. The Sharktopus attacks them both, but as the second one dies he yells “Nooooo, not like this”. Are you kidding me? Being killed by a Sharktopus is clearly one of the most awesome ways to go. Imagine your wife at your funeral talking to people:

“I’m sorry to hear about Jake, ma’am. You have my deepest condolences.”
“Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say.”
“If you don’t mind me asking ma’am, how exactly did Jake leave us? Was it a heart attack? In his sleep?”
“No, he was pulled into the sea and eaten whole by a Sharktopus.”
“If you don’t mind me saying, ma’am, that is fucking epic.”

Of the countless killer animal films currently doing the rounds, Sharktopus is one of the better ones… not that that’s saying much. The CGI effects and story are still hokey garbage but at least there are some clever death scenes in there, which is more or less what these otherwise mindless films are all about.