FILM REVIEW - STRAIGHTHEADS - 25/02/08

*This review contains spoilers**

A trendy London businesswoman called Alice Comfort (Gillian Anderson) invites a twenty-three year old lad called Adam (Danny Dyer) to accompany her to her boss's elaborate house warming party in the country. She has never seen him before in her life but has taken an immediate fancy to him. After a night of passionate sex in the woods, the pair drive home in Alice's car and narrowly avoid a collision with a slow moving Land Rover. A few minutes after they knock down a deer and as they stop to move it off of the road, the Land Rover pulls up and three men get out. They give Adam a severe beating before dragging Alice from her car and raping her. The ordeal leaves Alice traumatised and wanting revenge whilst Adam is left blind in one eye. A month later Alice returns to work only to recieve a phone call from a solicitor telling her about her father's death and that his house in the country has been left to her. She drives down there and incidentally it is near to where her rape took place. As she drives down a country lane in her car with her attention drawn away from the road briefly, she almost runs into a group of horse riders. One of them she recognises as her attacker and she asks one of the other riders for his name, which turns out to be Heffer (Anthony Calf). Having followed him she now knows where he lives and calls Adam telling him what she has learnt and that she is ready for them to get their revenge. Adam is reluctant saying "Why don't we just call the police?" "That will do no good" Alice replies adding that if Adam doesn't want to help her he should go and leave her to do what has to be done on her own. But Adam fancies her so much that he allows himself to be drawn in further. It transpires that Alice's father was a soldier and that she has found his sniper's rifle in a trunk upstairs. They head off through the woods to check out Heffer's house and we learn that he has a sixteen year old daughter called Sophie (Francesca Fowler) who clearly hates the life she leads with her loser of a father and her only joy is her dog, Crisis, whom Alice shoots dead so that they can later infiltrate the house and nail their man. Adam installs wireless security systems for a living and under the cover of darkness, he breaks into Heffer's house while he and the daughter are out so that he and Alice can spy on their target and choose the right moment to attack. Later on to their horror, Heffer tries to take his own life by attaching a hose pipe to the exhaust of his car whilst he sits inside being overcome by the fumes. Alice dashes off in time to drag him from the car and as he regains consciousness, he tells her the story of events that lead up to her rape. It transpires that Heffer owes money to some of his ex-army pals, Jamie (Ralph Brown) and Bill (Steve Robertson), both are cold and violent thugs. He tells her that one night they were driving home in the Land Rover after a night out and Bill and Jamie have been taking drugs and as they drive through the woods they come across Heffer's daughter wandering through the woods all alone in the early hours. Bill and Jamie offer her a lift in the car and Heffer knows that the two men have amorous desires on her. In order to divert their attentions away from his daughter, Heffer spotted Adam and Alice with their car off of the road and hence that's why Alice was attacked and Adam beaten up after Heffer sent his daughter. After he has finished his story, Heffer goes to attack Alice again but she pulls the gun she has brought on him and Adam arrives on the scene. They tie up and gag Heffer and after beating him with the rifle, Alice suddenly realises that she cannot go on with what she is doing. Adam, however, wants it to go on even though he was dead set against it before but ever since Alice made love to him and goaded him into doing what she wanted, he has under gone a complete transformation becoming ever more violent and determined to avenge himself. Adam picks up a knife and plunges it into Heffer's eye "an eye for an eye" he snarls pointing to the eye he lost as a result of the beating he took that night. Alice drives away leaving Adam alone and as she drives through the woods, she sees Sophie walking alone and she stops and takes the child away with her. "Where are we going?" asks the bewildered Sophie. "Somewhere safe" Alice replies. Meanwhile back at the house, Bill and Jamie show up and having retained the rifle Alice left behind, Adam shoots both of them dead with an almost psychotic look of triumph on his face...

In recent times we have seen a number of films hitting our cinemas which deal with an issue that is a major concern within the society in which we live, violent crimes, such as rape, drugs, murder and yob culture. Almost invariably these pictures feature an individual or a group of people whom have been the victims of such crimes and who feel let down by the law so they decide to take the law into their own hands becoming vigilante like figures. In the better films of this type, the filmmakers ask us to question whether or not we can sympathise with these characters in their plight. But there have also been films where it has been sex and violence for sex and violence sake without much in the way of intelligent observation about its subject matter. Straightheads falls somewhere in between the two since the screenplay has an interesting concept about how Danny Dyer's character, a shy, young, weak and altogether inexperienced young lad falls for the older and more experienced woman and allows himself to be loved by her and goaded into doing what she wants him to, which is to help her get revenge on the guy who raped her. But in the end even though Alice said to him "you're so soft" when Adam begs her not to go through with it but in the end Adam undergoes a complete transformation from his former self and it is he to wants to go on with brutal revenge whereas Alice, his lover who originally goaded him into doing it later wants to end it after becoming more compassionate about the plight of Heffer's daughter, Sophie, who has been leading a pitiful existence with her loser of a father with only a dog for company. Incidentally it was Alice who shot the dog unknown to Sophie but later by a chance encounter in the woods she meets the child and she asks Alice if she has seen her dog adding "everything is shit without Crisis." This brings about the change in Alice who subsequently abandons Adam taking Sophie away to safety but now Adam the former shy and weak guy has gradually become a savage monster and in the closing scene after he has committed his bloodshed, he turns to the camera with an evil look of triumph which is almost saying to us "Come on then, who's next.?" A perfect example of how weak Adam was at the start was when he and Alice ran over the Dear in the woods whilst driving away from the party. He goes to beat it to death with a crowbar but cannot bear to do it but at the end of the film he tortures and murders three people in extremely brutal fashion, which reveals just how dramatically he changed during the course of the film. Here we have some engrossing character study in which two separate characters, one shy and placid and the other vengeful and angry swap themselves around as the events unfold. But at times the film seems to be going in the other direction for sensationalism which makes itself felt in its graphic violence, strong language and in its depiction of rape and thuggery. In addition, as there are so many films like this being made nowadays the whole genre is beginning to seem a little tired and as one watches this that comes to mind when it goes for violence for the sake of violence but its interesting character study and strong performances from Anderson and Dyer who were perfectly teamed for this project make Straightheads worth the trip.

SMALLVILLE {5th. Season} (DVD Review) - 25/2/08

Didn't realise I was so close to the end of Season 5 - Should have been obvious really when the last 3 episodes all had "to be continued" at the end? Slapping out the old flannel again they churn up the Lana Lang/Lex Luthor relationship to burn some more teenage adrenaline this Season. Further forays into the Superman mythos crop up with a pleasing journey to the Phantom Zone and it's renegades. Lionel shows his change of heart is for the better of all and Lex starts down his own real road to hell. With an everchanging mix of standalone stories and the progression of the story arc we also end with some bitter-sweet moments with certain reflections on various characters and their reasonings. Bung in the usual grab-bag of Special Features to this 6-disc set which will want you leaving more for Season 6 to follow up with.

AMERICAN GANGSTER Film Review - 25/2/08

With this latest film about ganglord Frank Lucas from Director Ridley Scott showing some nasty heroin needle action and"based on a true story" we get Denzel Washington & Russell Crowe beating the crap out of each other in the acting stakes as we get a vision of them rising through their respective ranks until they eventually meet up. Setting himself up as the latest drugs baron Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) fights against Det. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) in obtaining heroin direct from the source and using the US Army to do it. Unfortunately the film runs out of steam within the first 20 minutes or so as the dull plodding direction stretches out the events for what seems to be all of history and ends up with it's obvious denouement. Having seen the trailer I expected to be in for a quality 3-hour gangster drama and just came out feeling "Who cares?" So it seems that even the Great Ridley can occasionally turn out the odd pedestrian clunker.

Now also available on DVD...

FILM REVIEW - TOWER OF EVIL (1972)

Region 1 DVD cover

Region 2 DVD cover

** This review contains plot spoilers**

Four American teenagers called Mae (Seretta Wilson), Gary (John Hamil), Des (Robin Askwith) and Penny (Cadace Glendenning) decide to spend the weekend in an abandoned lighthouse on Snape Island. During the night Mae Gary and Des are brutally murdered by a homicidal maniac leaving Penny in a severe state of shock, which leads her to kill an elderly fisherman called John Gurney (George Coulouris) who stumbles across the bodies of her friends. Four archeologists, Adam (Mark Edwards), Rose (Jill Haworth), Dan (Derek Fowlds) and Nora (Anna Palk) become very interested in the island since one of the kids was killed by being impaled with a solid gold Phoenician spear, which leads them to believe that Snape Island's caves are filled with similar treasures. They are accompanied on their trip by an American private eye called Brent (Bryant Haliday) whom has been hired by Penny's parents to look for evidence that their daughter did not kill her three friends since the British police are convinced of her guilt. In addition, John Gurney's son, Hamp (Jack Watson), agrees to take them over on his boat since nobody else will due to the island's bad name and the latter's nephew, a young drifter called Brom (Gary Hamilton) also comes along for the ride. It becomes apparent that they are not alone on the island and after their boat and radio are destroyed in mysterious circumstances, they will have to face the fiend who butchered the kids alone!

A disappointingly tedious and trashy slasher flick which starts off in quite lively fashion with three particuarly grisly murders including being impaled with a spear. Despite the all too obvious fake gore (the kind of thing that the Hammer factory used to such profitable effect) , director Jim O' Connolly cranks up the suspense to a hair-raising level and one thinks that this looks set to be pretty good. Unfortunately, once the action shifts to the arrival of the four archeologists, it all falls apart pretty rapidly since none of these heroes and heroines are very likeable so it is extremely difficult to sympathise with their plight. The four are both married couples but both men are having affairs with their respective wives and all we get as they mill around the island looking for treasure and frequently looking over their shoulders fearing that some mad man is about to jump out of the rocks and carve em up is the two women exchanging bitchy insults whilst smoking pot and blithering on about their sex starved relationships. The script tries to engage our attention by the addition of a sub plot involving the fisherman Hamp's family, which has a skeleton in the closet - the madman stalking the island is his brother whose wife took him out to live on Snape so that the authorities would not put him into an institution. But ever since her death, he has been roaming around the island isolated and lonely. Alas, it has been so poorly developed and indifferently acted that one could not care less about that or anything else. Interestingly, George Coulouris who appears very briefly as an ill-fated fisherman was in Casablanca and ace-cameraman Desmond Dickinson shot Laurence Olivier's version of Hamlet, which makes one regret that some of the top talent here got involved with such a low grade movie like this.

BLADE THE SERIES (DVD Review) - 17/2/08

Having seen the extended version of "BLADE: House Of Cthon" and enjoying it; I had high expectations for the rest of the first and only Season, after it was cancelled after 13 episodes. One can see why with this taciturn version of Blade merely doing a re-run of the first Blade film stretched out over a series. Lacking in any style or substance this pale imitation of Blade falls badly by the wayside with little action and no real plot. An attempt to delve deeper into the 12 Houses Of The Great Vampires does not really go far enough; covering nothing of the original mythology or bringing anything new to the table, apart from a couple of standalone episodes that really scrape into the mediocre category at best. Ending on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved this can only be shoved into the archives and forgotten about. With the same Documentary & Commentaries from the House Of Cthon release and a DVD-ROM link to some additional material this is a very poor release to gain some cash from the programme's failure - Catch up with it on Satellite sometime if you must but it doesn't add anything much to the Blade canon.

Blade the Daywalker hunter of vampires extraordinaire continues his mission with the help of a couple of unlikely accomplices (One of them a turned vampire herself) and trundles around the world offing vampires here & there. Getting involved with a plot from one of the Great Houses "The House Of Cthon" Blade finds himself tracking down parts of a puzzle that may just help him in his own crusade.

SMALLVILLE {4th. Season} (DVD Review) - 15/2/08

Recently I was re-watching "Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines" and found out whilst watching that naughty old Warner Brothers has re-used footage from two scenes in the film and slapped them into an episode of "Smallville" a classic case of saving on CGI costs and hoping no one would notice. A bit like all the repetitive library footage we constantly get padding out various episodes with Clark's moonlight barn shot, Lex's outside fountain mansion shot and numerous shots of Smallville High which always seem to be in constant Summer from the look of the foliage outside. This Season we also get the highly laughable version of Smallville's "Crouching Tiger..." when they visit 'China' truly awful. In a duff stand-in Art Deco 'Chinese' Temple the naff fight scene (and it is bad!) between Clark and Lana get's more ridiculous as they go on. I had tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks. The premise of this Season took on a more poignant note with the real-life death of actor Christopher Reeve (Who had already made a couple of earlier appearances in "Smallville") so that the feel of this Season's run seemed to fill out with much stronger episodes apart from the silly Superdog one. The continuation of the back plot and story arc carries on with Lionel Luthor reformed or is he? [Playing a "Long Game"?] Plots thicken with the Teague family as everyone and everybody all seem to be hunting for the three Kryptonian stones of power. Ending with a fairly lack-lustre finale and the usual cliff-hanger (Because I really won't watch the programme again unless it has "To Be Continued" at the end of each Season - Yawn!) we await the dawn of the fifth Season. As with the previous three Season's the fourth also has DVD-ROM content plus Commentaries, Deleted Scenes and a Featurette on the 6-Discs in this Boxset.

DVD REVIEW - GIDEON'S WAY THE COMPLETE SERIES - 13/02/08

Mention ITC and cult action-adventure series of the sixties such as The Champions, Randall & Hopkirk Deceased and The Saint immediately come to mind. Gideon's Way seems to be one of their lesser known and underappreciated offerings but Network DVD have set out to put that right by issuing the entire series consisting of twenty-six episodes, which were originally aired during 1965 and 1966 as a seven-disc boxed set. For those who love their classic television or detective shows then this is well worth having.

Gideon's Way deals with the cases of Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, an old school London policeman, who was played by the solidly reliable British character actor John Gregson. The character was the creation of author John Creasey who sold a large number of successful books under the pen name of JJ Marric such as Gideon's Month, Gideon's Fire, Gideon's Vote and Gideon's Day - the latter was in fact made into a feature film in the mid-fifties starring Jack Hawkins as Gideon and it was directed by the legendary American director John Ford. For this TV series various themes from the novels were adapted into stand alone episodes.

Gideon's Way holds up remarkably well after more than forty years since it made its debut on television. It was shot on film rather than videotape which meant that the quality of the production was a lot better than some of the other cop shows around at that time. In addition, Gideon's Way was also one of the first TV programmes of its kind to go out and shoot on location on the streets of the Capital giving it a grittier edge. The plots dealt with everything from arsonists, murderers, horse race fixers, corrupt businessmen, drug dealers and protection rackets and petty criminals. Nowadays its references to drugs and its depiction of criminal violence seem rather mannered compared to the kind of crime dramas on our air waves today, which are more graphic in terms of violence and are allowed more freedom to depict things such as sex and drug addiction in more detail due to more lax censorship but for its time it was without doubt cutting edge stuff. Nevertheless, the quality of the scripts still seem a lot better than some of the other TV shows of the time and some of the wonderful British actors who turned up in guest roles are a joy to watch such as Desmond Lleweylan who played Q in the James Bond movies, Kay Walsh, George Sewell, George Cole and Eric Barker who all made appearances. The series also benefits from the direction of a number of interesting British directors such as Leslie Norman, George Pollock, John Gilling, James Hill and Cyril Frankel, the most prolific of all ITC directors, all of whom were film makers who brought the same feature film quality to the smaller screen and it feels like you are watching movies rather than TV.

Special Features include Stills galleries, three scripts in PDF's and an original ITC promotional brochure in PDF format as well as the US opening titles, the show was called Gideon CID in the States, on selected episodes.

FILM REVIEW - TORTURE GARDEN (1967) - 11/02/08

Region 2 DVD cover for Torture Garden.

*This review contains plot spoilers*

Four people visit a fairground attraction called The Torture Garden presided over by the sinister Dr Diabolo (Burgess Meredith) who offers each of them glimpses into the future by means of an ancient mystical figurine called Atropos (Clytie Jessop) who holds the Shears of Fate. The first, is a man called Colin Williams (Michael Bryant) who thinks that the world owes him a living so he kills his eccentric Uncle Roger for his money only to fall victim to his cat, which hypnotises him to kill people to satisfy its taste for human heads in return for gold. The second person is a wannabe actress called Carla Hayes (Beverley Adams) who has a relationship with matinee idol Bruce Benton (Robert Hutton) in order to advance her career in the film business. When she accidentally discovers that Bruce is a robot created by the sinister Dr Heim (Bernard Kay) to ensure his screen immortality, she finds herself being turned into one of the mad doctor's automations to keep her mouth shut thus she achieves her dreams of movie stardom but at a macabre price! The third person is a young journalist called Dorothy Endicott (Barbara Ewing) who falls madly in love with Leo (John Standing), a world famous concert pianist. But his grand piano is possessed by the spirit of his wildly possessive dead mother who cannot bear to see his career in music ruined by any girl so the piano finally drives Dorothy to her death by pushing her out of a top floor window. The fourth and final person to encounter Atropos is a fanatical collector of Edgar Allan Poe memoribillia called Ronald Wyatt (Jack Palance) who is invited to the home of fellow Poe fanatic, Lancelot Canning (Peter Cushing). But Wyatt discovers that Canning's father was a bodysnatcher who opened Poe's grave and collected his mortal remains and by using his knowledge of the occult, Canning has brought Poe back to life to write new stories. In shock Wyatt kills Canning and finds the author locked in the cellar and begs him to release his soul, which he does by setting fire to the cellar. However, as the flames engulf the room Poe tells Wyatt that because he has liberated the soul of a man who has made a pact with the Devil, his soul will have to replace his meaning that Wyatt is doomed to serve Satan forever.

Torture Garden was the second of Amicus' portmanteau horror films made to follow up the success of Dr Terror's House Of Horrors (1965: reviewed on this blog). It also stands as one of the best featuring a largely excellent script from Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho who selected four of his macabre short stories to bring to the screen, which as one would normally expect of anthologies vary in quality. The best segments are without doubt the second with Beverley Adams as the aspiring young actress longing for eternal fame and fortune, which she achieves but at a macabre price. "To become one of us you must have a certain hunger" Benton tells her after she has discovered his terrifying secret. "You have to have a hunger for stardom, fame and fortune and you can't eat, drink or make love" he adds. "I think I'd rather die" replies a shocked Carla but it is too late as Dr Heim arrives on the scene preparing her to become one of the immortals. In a way this story reveals that fame and fortune isn't always as wonderful as it seems, which has quite often revealed itself to be true in real life as our fledging young actress learns and becomes trapped for all eternity for being over ambitious and not caring who she upsets to get what she wants. Obviously this tale is pure fantasy but I really liked the way Bloch took a realistic aspect of life and spun a terrifying macabre yarn out of it. The Man Who Collected Poe episode is also a standout because it boasts dreamlike sets designed by the ever reliable Bill Constable and camerawork from Norman Warwick. Jack Palance is on top form here as the fanatical Poe collector who finally becomes unstuck in his quest for forbidden knowledge and as they say, "curiosity killed the cat" as he gets Canning drunk at his home to loosen his tongue and reveal more than he would have liked to have done. The killer cat and piano segments are the weakest in terms of story but they are effective thanks to Freddie Francis' inventive direction whose visual style is evident throughout the movie . For instance, in the killer piano story couldn't be more absurd in its basic plot but John Standing offers a captivating performance as the tortured musician under pressure from the spirit of his mother and his demanding manager in the form of Ursula Howels to concentrate solely on his music but he longs to break away and be with the girl he loves but ultimately cannot. Francis heightens the emotional and tragic aspect of the story by having a romantic yet melancholic piano forte play over the soundtrack as Dorothy falls to her doom and afterwards as crowds gather around her body, Leo is sitting at the piano playing in a trance and totally unaware of the tragedy which has just occured. Burgess Meredith does excellent work as Dr Diablo who convincingly plies his trade as a fairground charleton before revealing himself to be somebody far more sinister in the excellent twist ending.

Overall, Torture Garden emerges as a mixture of strong and weak stories but Francis' inventive direction succeeds in papering over some of the more absurd aspects of the plot aided by some excellent performances, art direction, music and camerawork lending it more intelligence than one may expect of what essentially is a low budget production.

SMALLVILLE {3rd. Season} (DVD Review) - 10/2/08

Alas in the great scheme of things "Smallville" as Mr. Periwinkle has told me takes a heck of a long time to actually develop anything remotely 'Super' as it is just too damn slow! Still it is mildly diverting and has it's moments particularly in this Season 3 with a juggling act between black and white where everything that falls through the gaps is anything but grey. Lionel Luthor finally reveals the major reason for most of his shenanigans and the betrayals continue from one character to the next. The storyline does flit from place to place and still has enough to shed an idle tear from some of the standalone stories in this current arc. The twists carry on as the Season winds up with Clark vanishing into a rift in time and space? Again the 6-disc boxset has a selection of Special Features with Commentaries, Deleted Scenes, Featurettes and the obligatory Gag Reel.

Film Review - The Challenge (a.k.a It Takes A Thief - 1960)

Region 1 DVD cover

Jim (Anthony Quayle) falls fall a lady gangster called Billy (Jayne Mansfield) who persuades him into helping her and a gang led by Kristy (Carl Mohner) into pulling a £50,000 raid on an armoured vehicle. They pull off the job and Jim is handed the task of driving the get away van and stashing the loot, which he does at an unoccupied farm in the country. However, Kristy double crosses Jim and he is sent down for five years whilst Billy and the gang continue to pull off various raids and eluding the police. On Jim's release, the police decide to use him as they believe that he will lead them to Christy and his gang. Meanwhile, Christy and the gang abduct Jim's six-year-old son Joey and threaten to kill him unless Jim reveals where he stashed the loot. Billy always saw herself as the leader of the gang but she finds herself getting in way above her head since now, Christy has assumed control and is making sure that everybody knows who's boss. Jim was planning to double cross Billy and Christy and use the stolen money to buy a farm and start a new life with his son . Jim must now race against time to find out where Christy and the gang are holding his son before it is too late.

There is nothing wrong with the basic plot of this crime melodrama although this type of thing has been done before and better we might add. The main problems are the general handling in which the producers were clearly trying to make a crime film in the American mould and ultimately fail miserably. In the typical b-pic tradition, a US star in the form of Jayne Mansfield was imported to try and bolster the movie's chances in the States but sadly she looks uncomfortable in the part of the lady gang boss dressed in her mink coat, jewellery and driving one of those fuel guzzling American saloon cars as she mingles with London's underground made up of British b-movie veterans such as Peter Reynolds and Patrick Holt who look equally lost in their American styled suits and gangster hats. The screenplay by Writer-Director John Gilling attempts to portray the Mansfield character as somebody who starts out all tough making out that she is the boss of the gang but finally gets way out of her depth as the ruthless thug, Christy, ultimately assumes control and she can do nothing about it. But the film is so lost in its determination to come across as American that any good intentions on the part of the script to add some character study are swept away. The best performance in the film comes from Anthony Quayle as the anguished father racing against the clock to save his young son from Christy's machinations but finds himself being betrayed by both the law and the crooks. Director Gilling would go on to do better things for the Hammer studio during the sixties with such films as The Plague Of The Zombies and The Reptile.

SMALLVILLE {2nd. Season} (DVD Review) - 3/2/08

Like a little lost puppy blundering through a load of toilet paper we have the further adventures of Clark Kent (Tom Welling) as the camera pans back on him slowly; usually lingering at the end of a school corridor, hospital corridor and so on with a look of dejection on his ickle face. Faced with the sheer stupidity of the way some of these characters react is astonishingly mind-boggling. Chloe betrays Clark with Lionel Luthor and all is forgiven within a couple of months? The same old "will they won't they" ramble between Lana & Clark - Oh please! Total brain mush in a kind of "fast forward" on the TV remote when you get to the crap bits kind of way.

Lex is stitched up by his wife, Lionel Luthor's machinations behind the scenes continue and he has managed to drag Chloe into his web. More teenage angst from Clark after his rebellious streak fades. All in all still fairly entertaining with a slice of Special Features to round out the package plus an amusing Gag Reel.