19 Reviews (1 New)
A Dark and Scary Place
Selby Wall (Christina Ricci) is a kind but shy and reserved young woman who lives with overly strict parents. She has no friends but takes to visiting bars desperate to make a connection. Against all the odds, she strikes up a friendship with Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron), a wayward and luckless ex-sex worker who is determined to put her life back on track. When they become more than friends, Aileen persuades Selby to leave home with the promise of fun and excitement. However, the money soon runs out and, feeling pressure to look after Selby, Aileen returns to prostitution. She is overpowered and brutally raped, finally managing to shoot the man dead with his own gun. This would undoubtedly be considered self-defence; it begins a cycle of robbery and death, most of which Selby is blissfully unaware of. But where will the killing end and what will it do to their uneasy relationship...?
This film is from 2004. Based on a true story, in reality Aileen Wuornos was America’s first female serial killer. Director Patty Jenkins – who helmed Wonder Woman (2017) – conveys the story with both distaste and heartfelt gravitas. The two women are poles apart in terms of background, temperament and attitude and yet come together, both looking for something new in their life. The performances are strong, particularly that of Charlize Theron. You can’t help feeling both horrified and touched by her portrayal. Wuornos was thrown-out on the streets at the age of thirteen to fend for herself. Her profession was a necessary means to an end. The sympathy is gradually mitigated and then overbalanced with violence and murder. It comes across as actions she felt obliged to carry out to keep them together. So, the balance is maintained in the film to suck you in and drag you along like a Bonnie and Clyde-type experience.
Almost 20 years on from the film’s initial outing, Monster gets a brand-new release on Blu-ray in a Limited-Edition Box Set. It incorporates a rigid slipcase, original artwork by Daniel Benneworth-Gray, a Soft Cover Book with new essays by Anton Bitel, Hannah Strong & Shelagh Rowan-Legg, Six Collector’s Art Cards and Special Features – including: an Audio Commentary with writer/director Patty Jenkins, actor/producer Charlize Theron & producer Clark Peterson; Making a Murderer: a new interview with Patty Jenkins; Producing a Monster: a new interview with Brad Wyman; Light From Within: a new interview with director of photography Steven Bernstein; Monster: The Vision and Journey; Based on a True Story: The Making of Monster; Deleted and Extended Scenes with director commentary; and the Original Trailer.
I noticed a few cameo appearances throughout the film, including Jason Voorhees himself Kane Hodder. The ending is inevitable, although very nicely handled. Personally, the enjoyment came through the strength of the characters and the heart portrayed, rather than any violence. The soundtrack is also nicely balanced by events in the movie.
At a family reading of a will Herman Munster is delighted to learn he has inherited an English estate from an uncle. Now the new Lord Munster, he leaves his job at Gateman, Goodbury & Graves Morticians and moves his family from 1313 Mockingbird Lane to Munster Hall. The three remaining members of the previous Lord’s family are less than enamoured with the decision and when scaring them away fails, they resort to more desperate measures. This involves roping Herman into a dangerous two-family dispute – to be resolved in a sports car race. The other driver has been replaced and is out to kill Herman and wreck his Drag-u-la special. But Herman is more resourceful than expected and also uncovers a counterfeit ring...
The original black and white series of The Munsters ran for 70 episodes between 1964 and 1966, when it began to lose viewers to the Adam West Batman series. This was the first film outing for the show, and the first in technicolor. It was made straight after the series came to an end in 1966, screening at the end of the year as a support movie for Norman Wisdom’s Press for Time. The series creators Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher also produced and co-wrote this one. The full family is intact (Fred Gwynne playing Herman, Yvonne De Carlo as Lily, Al Lewis depicting Grandpa, and Butch Patrick as Eddie), aside from Marilyn (Pat Priest replaced by Debbie Watson). British comedian Terry Thomas is somewhat annoying, portraying a grown man acting like a little spoilt child, but John Carradine pulls off an intriguing butler somewhere between sinister and quirky.
Although this childish slapstick humour is not for me, the script is well-handled for a nonsense run-around. All of the characters are given something to do, rather than aimlessly following others around. Additional plot strands tie-up probably too well together, allowing Grandpa and Herman to embark on a spooky and dangerous snoop around to uncover the counterfeit money, and Marilyn to meet up with a gentleman who turns out to be part of the feuding family – the Munster’s long-time rivals. The car race itself is pretty zany, but an enjoyable romp reminiscent of Genervieve. It’s intriguing to see the Munster family’s horror cosmetics; on the whole they hold up pretty well.
All of those who enjoyed the series re-runs will undoubtedly love this one, but for newcomers it will perhaps appeal more to a younger audience. The only extra is a theatrical trailer.
Avian flu wipes out a little village in the Northern Philippines, and appears to spread to a poultry farm just outside Tokyo, Japan, when one of the residents travels to a wedding with a chicken as a gift. The authorities move in to contain the new outbreak, but many more people fall seriously ill, and it is spreading at an uncontrollable rate. As the public panics and natural order quickly dissolves, stripping Japan of its normality, a woman scientist arrives at the central Tokyo hospital with the directive to identify the virus. However, the pressure is on, with deaths now rising into the millions...
Let me begin by stating that, generally speaking, I’m not a big follower of natural disaster movies. It’s normally all about the spectacle rather than the inherent story (in other words, how other people are affected by events). The prospect of sitting through well over two hours of this scenario did not fill me with enthusiasm. I was, however, intrigued with how a Japanese director (in this case, Takahisa Zeze) might approach the depiction of a virus which could effectively break down a stable society.
The first part of the movie is somewhat slow to start, but that is probably due in part to too many characters being forced on the viewer practically simultaneously, and the fact that the initial inferred plot of avian influenza appears completely uninteresting (even if it does seem to spread from the Philippines to Tokyo and the rest of Japan).
Then a strange thing happens. The moment the virus is discovered to be something completely new, and not bird flu after all, events become much more personal as, conversely, the pandemic spreads. The handful of key characters emerge from the seeming cast of thousands, and suddenly we’re given realistic fictional people to identify with and care about.
The idea of the female scientist who is brought in to a hospital to help identify the virus having a past with one of the major doctors might conceivably be seen as being contrived (especially as neither of them look old enough to have much of a past), but it works, giving the isolated human events a central point.
Miraculously, the film turns into something very special, The vast majority of the actors are top notch and highly convincing in their reactions to a multitude of emotional traumas. You never at any point feel that a character is safe; many writers and directors are too protective of their main players, therefore inducing an involuntary predictability, but you never know here who is going to survive and who will perish.
Some people will need a box of tissues, as Pandemic cleverly tugs at the heart strings, and the film concludes on a thought-provoking touch of poignancy. Highly recommended, and worth sticking with though the first half hour of so when I wavered and very nearly prematurely wrote it off.
Lt. Ethan Bishop is assigned to Precinct 13 in Anderson, which is being systematically shut-down and moved elsewhere. Only a skeleton crew of the captain, a desk sergeant and two administration women are in place. Bishop is understandably expecting a quiet night, but chaos is about to descend in a manner he could never have predicted. A handful of dangerous prisoners (including the notorious Napoleon "Got a Smoke" Wilson) are being transported by bus to another location, but when one of their number falls seriously ill they are obliged to divert to the nearest police station - namely, Precinct 13. Meanwhile, a man is driving through the district with a little girl. As he stops to make a phone call, the girl goes to get an ice-cream... just as a street gang member is confronting the driver of the van. Consequentially, she is gunned-down. The distraught man drives after the gunman and kills him, but when the rest of the gang appears he is forced to flee for his life to Precinct 13. What follows is all-night assault on the station. If Bishop and the others are to survive, they will need the help of Napoleon Wilson. But can they trust him...?
This is much more than a straightforward street gang shoot-em-up. Carpenter ideally wanted to make a western in the vein of his hero Howard Hawks, but westerns were beginning to become outdated, and he couldn't afford the sets and costumes. So, he elected to do something rather clever; he wrote a then contemporary reworking of Hawks' Rio Bravo, with a siege situation on a police precinct. It's important for the sake of the story that there is only a handful of people holding out in an essentially disused station. The telephone lines are dead so there's no contact with the outside world, and no back-up support from other units. There is also a limited supply of ammunition for the few guns they have. The gang uses silencers so that their gunshots cannot be heard and attract unwanted attention. The Street Thunder gang created by Carpenter is interracial, raising its status to pure retaliation against the police for its surprise shoot-to-kill attack on the gang at the start of the film.
Assault on Precinct 13 was the first of a number of films he would make with a siege theme. He also incorporated a strong woman character (Leigh, named after Leigh Brackett - the writer of Rio Bravo) which he always felt was very important. Carpenter edited the movie under the pseudonym John T. Chance, which was the name of the sheriff in Rio Bravo. There's an element of wry humour present, especially in the scene when the hot potato game is played to decide who goes into the sewer through a manhole cover to seek escape. This is also John Carpenter's first full music score, and he produces a memorable theme said to be influenced slightly by Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song' and the music from the Dirty Harry film.
Remembering what happened on Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13 was the first film he had total control over; something he would insist on from this point onward. The film was released to a muted response in America. The MPAA made Carpenter cut out the scene wherein the little girl is shot dead. This he did, but only in the version sent to the MPAA, thereby sneaking the film out intact. He obviously knew that the entire plot pivoted on this moment, because the avenging man is followed to the precinct. It was its release in Europe which proved momentous, particularly its successful presentation at the 1977 London Film Festival. Irwin Yablans of Compass International saw the film and asked Carpenter to make a movie of his idea for babysitter murders set on Halloween. A classic and timeless movie was about to take the industry by storm.
Extras on this disc consist of a Q&A with John Carpenter & Austin 'Bishop' Stoker, a Carpenter Commentary (always worth listening to, believe me), a Photo Gallery, Trailers and the Music Score.
Everyone's favourite fictional Chinese tyrant is back (I think I can safely say 'favourite' because there isn't any more, is there?), and once again he has plans of world domination. Can't he just read a book when he's bored like normal people! Believe me when I say his new scheme is completely diabolical. In The Blood of Fu Manchu, he of the droopy moustache plans to poison all his enemies and anyone who has dared to criticise his dodgy accent (sirry iriot!). To achieve this aim he has kidnapped several attractive young women - all in the cause of science, of course (ahem) - and keeps them chained on the walls in skimpy underwear (sounds reasonable to me). A particular small snake from the Brazilian jungle has a poison which will kill a man but not a woman. Once bitten the woman becomes a carrier and can kill a man with a deadly kiss. The women are hypnotised into understanding the plot (or at least the paycheque) and sent to all the major capitals of the world. Top of the list is London, home of the stiff upper lip and tea on the terrace, and in particular the thorn in our bad guy's side Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard...
In Castle of Fu Manchu, an extract of opium and a lot of bubbling chemicals and equipment with huge levers allows our cheeky Chinese chappy to manipulate the oceans. As a demonstration of his power and all-round nastiness he sinks a (blue-tinted) liner. However, his glorified radiogram blows a valve, overloads and sends his installation to kingdom come. Moving his operation to the inconspicuous location of a huge Istanbul castle, he gives the world two weeks to comply with his (unspecified) ultimatums - probably "Watch my DVDs or I'll make more sequels!" By a happy coincidence two weeks is just long enough for our eminently civilised hero Nayland Smith to return from holiday, trace the fiend and put a stop to his shenanigans.
Richard Greene (looking for all the world like Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady) takes on the mantle of Assistant Commissioner Nayland Smith for these two adaptations, worn by Douglas Wilmer in the first three films. Reprising his role from those films is Howard Marion Crawford as every woman's favourite dish, Doctor Petrie (that's a joke, by the way!). Thankfully he's not such a bumbling fool this time, just very British as he complains about lack of tea and his aversion to going abroad.
If these films are supposed to be tongue-in-cheek it makes them easier to accept, if not they're too bad for words... but bad in a way that you can have fun criticising them. For example: the curved blades carried by Fu Manchu's men flap about like cardboard and they don't even make contact when someone is killed; a heart transplant is carried out on a sick professor with no life-support (so why doesn't he die when his old heart is removed, and why is it only a fraction of the size it should be?); and the dialogue is funny or cringe-worthy in several places. The once which really make me chuckle was "He's dead." "What completely?"
This is a single two-sided disc. In my review for Vengeance of Fu Manchu I said the films don't make for an attractive release singularly but they might prove more popular as two films packaged together. So here we are with just that, a two-sided single disc with Blood on one side (that would have been a nice marketing idea) and Castle on the other. Was someone listening? Nah.
A spate of kidnappings of young women take place in various countries, after which their fathers travel abroad for weeks at a time. It seems the men are all scientists or engineers skilled in the transmission of radio waves, being forced to work under threat of harm to their daughters. The villain of the piece plans to have constructed for him a piece of apparatus compact and powerful enough to direct masses of energy from one point to another. In doing so, he will possess a weapon with which to hold the world to ransom. And who should be behind this dastardly wicked and evil scheme? Why none other than Fu Manchu. What do you mean, you guessed that from the title?...
On the case is Assistant Commissioner Nayland Smith (Douglas Wilmer) of Scotland Yard, with his regular companion Doctor Petrie (Howard Marion-Crawford), an eminent pathologist. In all but name they are Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson; Smith is too perfect for his own good, and Petrie is an educated but bumbling fool, prompting recall of the Basil Rathbone portrayal of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character. For no other reason than it appears logical, Smith suspects his arch nemesis of the kidnappings. Can it be true? Could Fu Manchu (Christopher Lee) still be alive? You betcha stick-on-moustache he is! After two attempts at abduction are foiled in London (right outside the Tower!), the third succeeds, and it is then up to Smith to find the underground lair of Fu Manchu before terrible devastation is wreaked in the name of power.
The first demonstration of power is to be the destruction of the Winsor Castle (obviously, they only succeeded in setting it ablaze 25 years or so after the fact!). However, the Winsor Castle turns out to be a ship. The next main target is to be the international peace conference taking place in London. "Quick, men, on to the roof. Destroy that aerial before it picks up EastEnders."
The villain's underground headquarters is reminiscent of a Chinese temple, and the characters within this setting play very much like an episode of Thunderbirds in which Fu Manchu could so easily be The Hood. There's even a pit of peril, in this case containing snakes.
"Mister Tr...acy. I th...think we're g...going to need p...pod five."
"Okay, Brains. Off you go, Virgil. Be careful, son, he has a radio and he's not afraid to use it."
Watch it in glorious SuperOrientNation.
At the end of the last film he said the world would hear again from Fu Manchu and, unfortunately, it was no idle threat. So what could possibly be the latest wicked and abominable scheme to originate from the Chinese mastermind we all love to hate? Apparently, he plans to bore the world into submission by subjecting the masses to an inane and pretty much pointless sequel. Only joking... I think. No, really the Chinese chappy embarks on a quest for the lost plot! At the beginning of the film Fu Manchu is beheaded for his crimes to humanity, in front of his arch enemy and all-round good egg, Nayland Smith. But if you can keep your head when all around you lose theirs, you'll discover that the executed man was only an impostor. And there I was hoping for the shortest film in the series yet!
This time he means to cultivate the Blackhill poppy for use as a weapon. To achieve this Fu Manchu continues his fetish for kidnapping professors and their daughters by taking Professor Muller to work on a secret serum previously known only to a religious order of the Himalayas. There's a bust-up at a museum when the Chinaman's henchmen arrive through the sewers to steal the papers which contain the required formula; it's going badly for the meagre security until the stiff upper lip of Assistant Commissioner Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard gives those Chinese a good piece of his mind. Nevertheless, Fu Manchu gets his claws on the papers and forces the professor to produce the dangerous liquid. A single pint of the extract of Blackhill poppy is enough to kill thousands of people. Above freezing it is harmless, but below freezing it proves lethal. That's a happy coincidence for our evil perpetrator whose demonstration of power, the town of Fleetwick, is suffering from a particularly cold spell. As a result, 3000 inhabitants and soldiers are killed. Fu Manchu then turns his attention further afield, and only Nayland Smith can stop him. Someone fetch that man a cape.
The main four or five characters return yet again for more set piece shenanigans. This is at best mediocre stuff. I think the oriental's masterplan is about to be revealed: he means to wear down us hardworking reviewers. After only three of these films, I'm hoping the world will see rather less of Fu Manchu.
Our dastardly Chinese master criminal returns to the seat of his ancestors (and a very comfy seat it is too) in a province two days from Shanghai. He fakes an earthquake to seal off access to outsiders, before kidnapping a missionary doctor and his daughter, bringing them in across the mountains. Threatening the daughter, he persuades the doctor to surgically change a person to look like his enemy Assistant Commissioner Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard. Miraculously, 48 hours later the facial paint by numbers is completed, and Fu Manchu arranges a switch whilst Smith is holidaying in Ireland. The real Smith is transported as a prisoner to the Chinese province; meanwhile the impostor returns to London, commits murder and is promptly sentenced to death. The Chinaman intends to do the same to prominent law enforcement officers around the world as a demonstration of his power to the underworld. In this manner he will group all the world's main criminal organisations together under his leadership. But has the Fu Man bitten off more than he can chu? (sorry, I couldn't resist that one)...
Here we have another film based on Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories. All of the main characters return (Douglas Wilmer as the bogus Smith spending half the movie looking like a corpse freshly pulled from the grave), and the format is pretty much the same. Although this is set around the same period as the Sherlock Holmes tales, there is an element of overacting amidst the formal properness of the educated professional characters which reminded me of The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee and particularly the camp sixties Batman series, but without the fun. The many fight sequences are comical without intending to be so. Large curved blades look to be cut from tin and have painted on bloodstains. Each fighter waits until his opponent is ready before attacking, and Fu Manchu's assassin henchmen go down like a ton of bricks under a good old British bunch-of-fives.
Surely this was money for old rope for our very own master of horror, Christopher Lee. He has very little to do, the main requirements for the part apparently being to look evil and occasionally tweak his moustache. Granted, his villainous part is a thinker rather than a doer, but it seems an incredible waste for such an accomplished actor. I'm sorry to say that the best thing about this film is the scenery which at times is stunning. With no extras apart from the trailer, these films do not appear an attractive purchase. Perhaps two films packaged together as a single release might have been worth a tenner of somebody's money.
According to the conclusion of this film, "The World will hear again from Fu Manchu." I feel another review coming on..
In 1954 a pregnant woman is the only survivor of a terrible plane crash. Although she later dies at hospital, the baby miraculously survives. She is healthy in every way except she won't wake up. Seven years later a little boy is in hospital with asthma. Against orders he wanders the corridors, and finds a sleeping girl in a secluded room. A nurse tells him the girl has never woken up since being born, and that she is a Sleeping Beauty. The boy looks up the fable in a book and then returns to her bedside, saying, "Wake up. I am a prince," and kissing her. This becomes a daily ritual, even after he is released from hospital. He returns regularly on the bus, bringing her wild flowers and a kiss. In 1972, as a teenage schoolboy he sees a flashback news report of the aircrash and is disgusted with himself that he could ever have forgotten. The ritual begins again. When she eventually does wake up she develops staggeringly quickly from a baby to a normal late teenager. They become very close, but then she drops the bombshell that she was told by someone in her sleep she would be awake for only five days...
What can I say about Sleeping Bride except that it's an unsung masterpiece. It isn't horror or fantasy, but it does have a thoroughly magical quality.
I thought this film from 2000 by Hideo Nakata had simply been thrown in to The Ring Trilogy - Collector's Edition to make the package look better, but this is without doubt the jewel in the crown of the 4-disc set. The balance and pacing couldn't be bettered; we are expertly taken though the emotions of sadness, melancholia, happiness, anger and pain with a gentle manipulation of the viewer. These are characters you really care about.
I enjoyed this one so much that I watched it again only two days later, and I can happily report that the effect was not diminished. Like Mary Poppins: "Perfect in every way."
Copyright © 2017 - 2024 A Dark and Scary Place - All Rights Reserved.