By the look of this pic they should have called this film "Having plenty of rest, actually".

Release Date: 13 February 2012
2011 | 12  | 87 minutes | £12.99
Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Henry Hopper, Mia Wasikowska, Ryo Kase, Schuler Fisk, Jane Adams

Describing the plot of Restless makes it sound pretty twee. The main character is a death-obsessed teenage boy who meets a terminally ill girl at a funeral he’s crashed; they fall in love, and spend her final days bird-watching and playing board games with the (possibly imaginary) ghost of a World War II kamikaze pilot. Preposterous? Yes, but it works – just about.

Gus Van Sant’s portrayal of doomed teen romance is unashamedly quirky: it’s stylised and lightweight, but it’s that lightness that makes the inevitable conclusion seem so devastating. Ignoring the cold, hard realities of chemotherapy and hospital bills, Restless transports its tragic couple into a world of junk food and vintage clothing, where everything looks like the perfect Polaroid photo and there’s always a Sufjan Stevens song playing. Portland has never looked so beautiful, or so quintessentially American, as it does here.

Understated performances by the two leads makes their relationship believable, but it’s the addition of Hiroshi, the spectral soldier, that really makes things interesting. Is he a ghost? A manifestation of death? Or just wishful thinking? Whatever he is, he adds a welcome note of weirdness to this aggressively charming tearjerker. Better stock up on tissues.

Extras:

A silent version of the film, complete with decorative dialogue cards (each scene was shot twice, with and without dialogue, and an entire silent version was edited together); three deleted scenes; five featurettes (about 30 minutes’ worth, in total); the trailer.

Sarah Dobbs

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The mystery of who Pat Butcher willed her earrings to was finally solved.

Release Date: 13 February 2012
1995 * U * 70 minutes * £19.99
Distributor: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Director: Richard Williams
Cast: Vincent Price, Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Beals, Jonathan Winters, Clive Revill

The Thief And The Cobbler is a cartoon legend, a massively ambitious film decades in the making. Even in this butchered, cretinously dumbed-down version, its incredible hubris shines through.

It’s an Arabian Nights romp, set in a Baghdad protected from barbarians by three gold balls atop a tower. The Thief is a slinking, flea-bitten fall guy, a human Wile E Coyote, who goes through mad escapades to get the balls. The gentle Cobbler befriends a princess and ticks off an evil Vizier (voiced by Vincent Price on hammy, rhyming form).

The fantastically ornate animation and design are full of intricate movements and Escheresque backgrounds. The Thief and Cobbler race through abstract mosaics and rollercoaster down mathematical figures. The finale sees the Thief being hurled through the innards of a self-destructing steampunk war machine.

Originating in the late ‘60s, Thief was still being made in London until the ‘90s, its creator Richard Williams using generations of crack artists. Then his insurers took the film away from him, unfinished. In the subsequent hacking and hashing, sappy sub-Disney songs were added and crappy “comedy” voices overdubbed. As a last outrage, the DVD is in cropped 4:3 format.

And yet, the ruins of Thief are worth watching. There are wondrous and hilarious moments, and glimpses of a darker, wilder film. Take the lead barbarian; it’s a one-eyed Orc, its mouth bursting with teeth, who reclines on a mound of live women!

Extras:

None.

Andrew Osmond

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"Woody's a HUGE fan of Nicholas Lyndhurst, you know."

Release Date: 6 February 2012
2011 * 12 * 94 minutes * £19.99
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Michael Sheen, Marion Cotillard

Despite being promoted as a simple romantic comedy, as if the distributors feared the slightest hint of whimsy might alienate audiences, Woody Allen’s latest is a gloriously unapologetic fantasy. Owen Wilson plays would-be novelist Gil who, in a puff of pure wish-fulfilment, hitches a ride back to jazz-era Paris. There he quaffs champagne with legends like Ernest Hemingway, flirts with Picasso’s ex-girlfriend, and receives professional advice from Gertrude Stein.

It’s short and smart, at once both silly and pretentious, and it strides along with a delightful absence of subtlety. Gil’s journey is literal as well as literary: is there a cruder way to examine nostalgia than by actually visiting the hotspots of yesteryear? The film’s themes are openly articulated so you know precisely what to think (“I’m having an insight now!” Gil even exclaims at one pivotal moment). Wilson plays a more mellow, Californian version of Allen’s typical screen persona – less neurotic, but still with that nervous, eccentric wit – and his affable enthusiasm makes him a pleasant time-travelling companion.

It’s not flawless: farcical scenes in which Gil steals a pair of his fiancée’s earrings or banters with Surrealists feel forced. Nevertheless, it’s an utterly charming love letter, both to the French capital (indulgently celebrated in a long slideshow of gardens and boulevards) and to the greats of 20th century fiction. This is one of 2011′s hidden gems, a must-see movie for those seeking creative or romantic inspiration.

Extras:
Rien.

Dave Bradley

For an alternative perspective, read our cinema-release review of Midnight In Paris.

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The kids were shocked by the sights of Amsterdam.

Release Date: 6 February 2012
2011 * PG * 158 minutes * £14.99 (DVD)/£19.99 (Blu-ray)
Complete series one to five box set also available (DVD only, RRP £69.99).
Distributor: 2entertain
Directors: Ashley Way, Joss Agnew
Cast: Elisabeth Sladen, Daniel Anthony, Anjli Mohindra, Sinead Michael

So, it’s arrived: the last time we’ll have cause to review the CBBC Who spin-off. By now it’s surely unnecessary to restate how much Elisabeth Sladen is missed, so let’s focus instead on the sterling work of writers like Phil Ford and Gareth Roberts.

In these final three adventures, both gentlemen demonstrate a knack for imparting important life lessons to the kiddywinks by smuggling them in inside a great big bundle of fun. Series five’s opener preaches that you can be who you want to be, not what you’re expected to be, and sings the praises of pacifism. The second story encourages empathy for the homeless by reminding us how easily any one of us can suddenly fall from grace. The third briefly steps aside to remind us that slavery still exists.

The show’s remarkably versatile – almost as much as its parent series. Tapping into childhood fears of abandonment and broken friendships, “The Curse Of Clyde Langer” is liable to have you blinking back the tears, whilst “The Man Who Never Was”, with its cheeky “What if Steve Jobs was a hologram?” premise, is a laugh-a-minute romp which even manages to sneak in a nob joke.

This year’s major addition is Sky, another alien-made child for Sarah Jane to surrogate. Young Sinead Michael is cute as a button (if occasionally indecipherable), and it’s a shame we’ll never see her grow into the role. Heartbreaking as it is that we’ll never see Sarah Jane again, we’re gonna miss her young acolytes too.

Extras:

Have a hanky ready for “Goodbye Bannerman Road” (filmed on location at the street), in which Elisabeth Sladen’s co-stars (including Matt Smith) pay tribute to her.

Ian Berriman

Learn who was originally cast as Sarah Jane.

Read our review of Elisabeth Sladen’s autobiography, and discover 35 facts we learned from it.

Read our review of The Sarah Jane Adventures series four.

Release Date: 6 February 2012
1963-1964 * £26.19 (DVD)/£36.97 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Fremantle Home Entertainment
Creator: Rod Serling
Cast: Jack Klugman, William Shatner, Lee Marvin, James Coburn, Mickey Rooney, Telly Savalas

In his essential book The Twilight Zone Companion, expert Marc Scott Zicree says of the programme’s fifth season: “The thoughtfulness and innovation of the first three seasons was, for the most part, sadly lacking… The quality of the writing slipped badly.” He’s being a little harsh because, besides marking a welcome return to a half-hour format, the Zone’s final season is full of fine performances, memorable scenes and some truly excellent episodes.

Pick of the lot is probably “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet”, a suspenser worthy of Hitchcock featuring William Shatner’s best pre-Trek performance. Not far behind is “Living Doll”, the twisted tale of a little girl’s doll who says things like “My name is Tina and I’m going to kill you.” Also notable are Jacques Tourneur’s spooky “Night Call”, the Richard Matheson-scripted “Steel” (recently adapted by Disney as Real Steel), and “Number 12 Looks Just Like You”, according to Charlie Brooker a key inspiration for the “15 Million Merits” episode of Black Mirror.

Sure, there are some weak instalments: “Black Leather Jackets” simply makes no sense; “The Long Morrow” is one of the episodes with a very silly pay-off; and the likes of “What’s In The Box” and “Sounds And Silences” substitute people shouting for subtlety. Maybe it was right for the show to call it a day, but the final season certainly didn’t disgrace itself.

Extras:

Extras: An astonishing amount of stuff – all the extras from the DVD releases have been ported over, and there are loads of new additions, including twenty more episode commentaries (mostly by expert Marc Scott Zicree), 22 radio adaptations, and vintage interviews.

Russell Lewin

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Perfect Sense: not actually a story about conjoined twins.

Release Date: 30 January 2012
2011 | 15 | 92 minutes * £12.99
Distributor: Arrow Films
Director: David Mackenzie
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Eva Green, Ewen Bremner, Stephen Dillane, Connie Nielson, Dennis Lawson

The problem with most modern apocalyptic blockbusters is that you care for the characters about as much as a fungal infection. There is, however, a proud tradition of more intimate apocalyptic dramas on the big screen, from Don McKellar’s criminally underseen gem Last Night to the superb Children Of Men, films just as concerned with human interactions as big bangs. Small budget Brit flick Perfect Sense has the good sense to shoot for a spot amongst the latter.

And it almost succeeds. By making its end of the world scenario far more subtle and sinister than an alien invasion or mumbo-jumbo Mayan prophecy it doesn’t overshadow the pivotal central relationship between Ewan McGregor’s chef, Michael, and Eva Green’s ludicrously glamorous epidemiologist, Susan. One by one the five human senses simply stop working, on a global scale. First smell (preceded by feelings of profound grief), second taste (terror and voracious hunger) and third hearing (rage). At first humanity attempts to carry on as normal, but as the body horror becomes something that can no longer be ignored and the world falls apart around them, Michael and Susan are drawn closer and closer together.

Sci-fi is a genre of ideas, and it’s in this respect that Perfect Sense soars. Its high concept is a deft means to explore something as fundamental as human relationships. There are ideas here that will stick in the mind long after the film has finished, such as a street artist performing a theatre of the senses, or the sight of dozens frantically scoffing anything they can get their hands on, from lumps of butter to sticks of lippy.

It’s beautifully shot, scored and edited too. Unfortunately it’s hobbled by the central performances, which feel too distant to allow the level of emotional investment required, while the use of an overbearing voiceover and dubious documentary footage give the film a slight whiff of pretentiousness – odd, given how silly the film gets on occasion.

Is it an ecological apocalypse? A biological attack? The questions are never answered because they’re not important. What is important is the bond between the two figures at the film’s heart. Unfortunately this isn’t enough to get your own senses fired up.

Extras:

A Q&A with McGregor and a Making Of.

Jordan Farley

For an alternative perspective, read our cinema-release review of Perfect Sense.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

Right about now, she started to regret her decision to hold the wedding reception on a yacht.

Release Date: 23 January 2012
2010 * 15 * 136 minutes * £15.99 (DVD)/£19.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Artificial Eye
Director: Lars Von Trier
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Udo Kier

Openings don’t come any more attention-grabbing than a depiction of the world’s utter obliteration.

Beginning with the absolute end is the first of Lars Von Trier’s typically leftfield decisions during his atypical apocalyptic drama. The event itself is almost peripheral, pushed to one side after the first five minutes, leaving the remainder of the film to focus on the polar emotional approaches of two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), to potential disaster.

As with most of Von Trier’s work, the film meanders along at a glacial pace. It’s split into two distinct halves: the first concentrating on Justine’s extravagant wedding reception – the film at its best when depicting the ugly cracks during scenes of seeming joy – and the second focusing on Claire’s gradual spiral into despair as the creeping fear of extinction becomes reality.

Dunst and Rampling are mesmerising in their respective roles, so much so that the rest of the cast barely register. The film looks and sounds beautiful, opening on a series of hyper real, near-motionless, scenes backed by Wagner. Von Trier still has a tin ear for dialogue and several characters act so far from the norm that they never convince as actual human beings, but despite this Melancholia is certainly Von Trier’s most mainstream film and though not exactly laugh-a-minute, easily his most entertaining too.

Extras:

The DVD (rated) has commentary from Von Trier, a four-part Making Of, and three short interviews. The Blu-ray adds a fantastic 54-minute doc on film studio Filmbyen.

Jordan Farley

For a (very) alternative perspective, read our review of the theatrical release of Melancholia.

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Release Date: 23 January 2012
1964 * PG * 149 minutes * £20.42
Distributor: 2Entertain
Directors: Mervyn Pinfield and Frank Cox
Cast: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Carole Ann Ford

Props to the editing genius behind the trailer for this First Doctor tale: suckered by rapidfire flash-cuts, a 21^st century audience could be forgiven for awaiting a tasty psychodrama that moves like billy-o and shreds your nerves like Norman Bates juggling with the steak knives.

The reality is somewhat different. The slowburn pace of studiobound ‘60s TV actually works in episode one’s favour – landing on the show’s first ever starship, the early TARDISnauts discover a 28^th century filled with a palpable sense of postwar dread. There’s a gorgeously eerie cliffhanger played in near-silence as a husk-faced Sensorite looms at the window, a space-goblin plucked from the storybooks of future Earth.

Then these whiskery, romper-suited, oversized foetuses are allowed to talk, and their chill-factor is gone. The next five episodes reveal them as bickering petty officials and silent, shadowy strangeness is traded for local council wrangling among the stars. Shame. But it’s a tale with ambition, at least, and another welcome glimpse of primal Who.

Extras:

The highlight is “Looking For Peter”, an initially whimsical but ultimately rather moving search for the truth behind the life of writer Peter R Newman, an elusive figure. A busy commentary features eight contributors, including two companions and the director. In “Vision On” Clive Doig reminisces about his days as a vision mixer, while “Secret Voices Of The Sense Sphere” discusses a mystery voice in episode six. Info text, a gallery and PDFs (Radio Times cuttings, design drawings) complete the package.

Nick Setchfield

Read more of our Doctor Who DVD reviews.

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"I think I've found one!"

Release Date: 9 January 2012
2010 | 15 | 99 minutes | £17.99 (DVD)/£19.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Momentum Pictures Home Entertainment
Director: Andre Ovredal
Cast: Knut Nærum, Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen

Troll Hunter really should be the last word in the found-footage genre. Not because it’s so derivative and trite it’s a sign that the genre has been bled dry, though. Quite the opposite’s true, in fact: it does do something new and fun with the format. No, the reason it should be the film to kill off the genre once and for all is that you’ll never be able to take found-footage films seriously again.

It achieves this with amazing subtlety and understatement. It’s a send-up, sure, but this is no Meet The Spartans-style throw-as-many-gags-on-screen-as-possible-and-hope-some-stick affair. Troll Hunter simply takes its ludicrous premise then plays it utterly, utterly straight.

That premise? Trolls exist, basically, but the Norwegian government wants them to be kept secret and employs a team of troll hunters to manage them. A group of student documentary makers stumble across this when a world-weary hunter, concerned with the government’s treatment of trollkind, decides to let the world know what’s been going on.

To be honest, the hand-held gimmick stretches credulity at times, and when the cameraman flees from trolls with the camera still running it’s unclear if they’re taking the mick or just falling into the usual trap.

But don’t concern yourself with these minor quibbles. Enjoy instead the deadpan approach which places impeccably-achieved CGI trolls straight out of fairytales into a grim, gritty present. You won’t laugh out loud but you will grin as troll hunter Hans explains ridiculous troll lore (why some have three heads; why Christians should avoid them) with growly conviction. Definitely worth hunting down.

Extras:

Sadly, considering the opportunistic look of some of the scenes (there’s a moment where the camera shoots some cattle out of a car window and Hans says, “Troll food,” which you assume was improvised on the spot) there isn’t a decent Making Of, just a short promotional behind-the-scenes feature. You also get about four minutes of deleted, extended and improvised scenes, a couple of bloopers, a brief and random selection of half-finished FX shots and a gallery. This all makes for a frustratingly brief glimpse at what was clearly an interesting shoot. You also have the choice of subtitles or a dub. Choose subtitles – the dub kinda destroys the verisimilitude of the exercise.

Dave Golder
For an alternative perspective, read our theatrical review of Troll Hunter.

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"Hello, Evil Scientist's lab? Sorry, the Evil Scientist isn't here right now. Can I take a message?"

Release Date: 9 January 2011
1974/1975 | PG | 244 minutes | £29.99
Distributor: 2entertain
Directors: Paddy Russell, Barry Letts
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin, Milton Johns

While not as desperately tenuous as last summer’s Earth Story, the umbrella title of this latest two-tale Who box set does seem a tad random: UNIT features in both, but neither story is one you’d pick out to showcase the organisation at its best.

There are other connections, too. They could have called this the Sarah* And The Doctor Wander Around Mysteriously Deserted Bits Of England And Encounter Some Bonkers Schemes (With UNIT) box set. Although they’d probably have had to squeeze the font size down a fair bit.

In “Invasion Of The Dinosaurs” the Third Doctor and Sarah land in a Mysteriously Deserted London menaced by the titular prehistoric beasts, which keep popping out of thin air before vanishing just as quickly. It all turns out to be part of a bewildering scheme by a bunch of unlikely eco-warriors. Malcolm Hulke’s script provides a different slant on the ecological concerns of earlier Pertwee tales such as “The Green Death”, imagining where the nostalgic desire to return to a “golden age” could lead blinkered extremists, and leaving you terribly glad that no-one at the Daily Mail has access to time-tampering technology.

The story’s crammed with unlikely plot turns (for one thing, the conspiracy seems to involve absolutely everyone, including one of UNIT’s finest) – but that just makes it all the more entertaining. Only the diabolical dinosaur effects let the side down. Most are tolerably crude, but the T Rex looks like it was constructed from egg boxes by a seven-year-old, which is particularly problematic since several cliffhangers are reliant on its “terrifying” sudden appearance.

Still, who cares about some wonky puppetry when you have Elisabeth Sladen? In the extras, the actress asserts that by this, her second story, Sarah had already become a generic ask-the-questions type, but she’s quite wrong. Over the course of six episodes, Sarah leaps on the back of a knife-wielding maniac, has to be physically restrained from chasing after a sawn-off toting looter, comes up with the vital lead, and forges on with solo investigations when she’s met with a wall of male patronisation. You go, girl!

“The Android Invasion” (written by Dalek creator Terry Nation) involves an equally unlikely and unnecessarily convoluted scheme, and kicks off in similar fashion, with the Fourth Doctor and Sarah materialising in a Mysteriously Deserted English Village and getting caught up in the machinations of the Kraals. These walnut-headed aliens have a penchant for booming Shakespearean delivery; peeping out from behind pointless hatches, Madame Kovarian style; and leaving their victims to die unobserved and unguarded (Haven’t they seen Goldfinger? That never works out).

Some of Nation’s plot points make Hulke’s look perfectly reasonable. Our favourite concerns treacherous astronaut Guy Crawford (a supremely slimy Milton Johns), whom the Kraals have somehow duped into believing he’s lost an eye. It’s difficult not to dwell on this detail, imagining Crayford climbing into bed every night still wearing his eyepatch, waking with it fortuitously still in position, then getting into the shower and carefully flanneling around it.

Although UNIT appeared again later in the year, this story, which features the return of former companion Harry and Sergeant Benton is effectively their swansong, and the absence of Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier makes it a somewhat unsatisfying farewell. Still, once again, it’s as enjoyable as it is unlikely, particularly the moody first episode, which piles on mystery after fascinating mystery – well, if you can will yourself into a temporary amnesia regarding the story’s title.

Two solid examples, then of regular Who writers producing yarns which, although not their best work, demonstrate their firm grasp of how to write for the series.

Extras:

On “Dinosaurs”, the key thing of interest is a recovered-colour version of episode one (which previously only existed in the BBC archives in black and white). You can choose to watch the monochrome version if you prefer, but we’d stick with the colour – the quality is pretty ropey, but fans of a certain vintage who used to depend on fifth-generation VHS copies will have seen much, much worse. A Making Of fronted by Matthew Sweet (33 minutes) manfully strives to steer discussion away from the effects to thoughtful discussion of the story’s themes. Meanwhile, the coup of getting little-seen director Paddy Russell to do commentary on parts one and five proves to be rather a blood-out-of-a-stone exercise, though she warms up eventually; the script editor, designer and three actors feature on the other episodes. You also get a “Now And Then” locations featurette (14 minutes) (in which the phrase, “has since been demolished…” occurs with comedic regularity); a 14-minute interview with Lis Sladen (dating from 2003, and originally shot for documentary The Story Of Doctor Who) on her Pertwee adventures; deleted/extended scenes; ten minutes of John “Benton” Levene chuntering over the beginning of episode five (and being unduly proud about his ability to fall on the floor convincingly…); and a rather baffling clip of Jon Pertwee cameoing at a performance of Billy Smart’s Circus (a slide providing context would have been welcome).

On “The Android Invasion”, Making Of “The Village That Came To Life” (31 minutes) sees voice-of-the-Daleks Nick Briggs returning to the story’s locations and, in one charming (if not particularly revealing) sequence, quizzing some of the locals about their memories of filming; elsewhere there’s much guffawing at the Kraals and that eyepatch from the actors concerned. More tangential is a half-hour “Life After Who” piece on producer Philip Hinchcliffe, who’s interviewed (again, rather charmingly) by his own daughter about his subsequent career. Anyone with a general interest in the history of British TV will be interested to discover quite how small a part of his CV those three years on Who form. Hinchcliffe also provides commentary, along with the production manager and Milton Johns. You also get a short Weetabix ad.

Both stories also come with a text commentary, picture gallery and Radio Times PDFs, and there are Easter Eggs to hunt out too.

Ian Berriman

Read our review of Elisabeth Sladen’s autobiography, and 35 things we learnt from it.

Read more of our Doctor Who DVD reviews.

Our second-favourite hooker, after TJ.

Release Date: 2 January 2012
1990 | 15 | 81 minutes | £24.99
Distributor: Arrow Video
Director: Frank Henenlotter
Cast: James Lorinz, Patty Mullen, Charlotte Helmkamp

Gender studies students seeking clips to illustrate your presentation on objectification: here’s a good place to start. Frankenhooker’s deranged protagonist quite literally sees women as an accumulation of rateable parts (“This lactiferous gland is almost perfect!”).

Set in a sleazoid pre-Giuliani NYC, it’s an all-in-the-worst-possible-taste riff on Frankenstein. The mad scientist of the piece is called Franken, and the beloved he pieces a new body together for is called Elizabeth. However, Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic didn’t feature a room full of topless hookers exploding like fireworks after smoking a new form of super-crack. Or feature a protagonist who sees his darling mown down by a remote-control lawnmower, sticks a drill in his skull to stimulate ideas, or makes self-aware declarations like “I’m becoming dangerously amoral!”

In director Frank Henenlotter’s defence, those working girls’ body parts do eventually wreak revenge on their pimp (not the ideal mode of female empowerment, but still…) And the movie’s offensiveness is so exuberantly OTT, with tongue placed firmly in (someone else’s) cheek, that it seems almost absurd to subject it to any serious analysis.

It’s not Henenlotter’s best work (watch Basket Case and Brain Damage first), some of the effects are crude, and much of the acting’s pure plywood, but if you’re the kind of exploitation-loving deviant who finds Re-Animator overly sober, you’ll be one satisfied John.

Extras:

Henenlotter and star James Lorinz contribute to a commentary and a Making Of; the latter also features effects guy Gabe Bartalos. There’s also a tour of Bartalos’s lab, interviews with actresses Patty Mullen and Jennifer Delora, an effects featurette, and the trailer. The package comes with a reversible sleeve, fold-out poster and booklet.

Calvin Baxter

Read more of our DVD reviews.

Read our review of Brain Damage, another film by Frank Henenlotter.

Hey! Stop looking at the boobs, you big perv.

Release Date: 26 December 2011
2011 | 15 | 117 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Pathé
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet

As one of the world’s truly unique directors, Pedro Almodóvar can usually be relied on to spin an unusual and gripping yarn. Which is exactly what he does here, with what’s effectively a mad doctor horror film, but that includes his regular themes of gender, identity and twisted sexual mores.

To reveal too much of the story would be unwise, and it only just veers into SFX territory, but it concerns a doctor (Antonio Banderas at his smoothest) who keeps a young woman imprisoned in his house (Elena Anaya, surely one of the world’s most beautiful actresses). She is forced to wear a skin-tight body suit and the only communication she has with the world is with the housekeeper Marilia (Marisa Paredes) over an intercom. Why is she there? Who is she? What is the housekeeper’s dark secret? Who’s the fella that turns up dressed like a cat?! All these questions, and more, are eventually answered in a back-and-forth narrative that makes an unconventional story even more unconventional.

It’s all so deliciously different and unpredictable – it really isn’t for everyone – that you can’t help but go along with the madness, with either a huge grin or an “I can’t believe they just did that” look on your face. It more than justifies the usual Almodóvar adjectives: “dark”,“unusual”, “erotic” and “twisted”.

Extras:

Just 15 minutes of behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Russell Lewin

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Release Date: 26 December 2011
2010 | 12 | 270 minutes | £24.99 (DVD)/£34.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Creators: Matt Groening, David X Cohen
Cast: Billy West, Katey Sagal, John Di Maggio, Tress MacNeille, Phil LaMarr, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom

Good news, everyone! Futurama’s back, like a robophoenix from the flames, eight years after cancellation and four middling, straight-to-DVD movies. The bad news? This fifth season doesn’t quite reach the highs of the show’s first four years.

The best of this season’s 13 episodes do come close though. Emmy-award-winning “The Late Philip J Fry”, for example – where Fry, the Professor and Bender use a machine that can only travel forward through time – is a brilliant hard SF concept full of pathos, humour and staggeringly dense design. Unfortunately these episodes are diamonds in the rough. “The Futurama Holiday Spectacular” is a particular let down given the quality of previous holiday specials, and “Attack Of The Killer App” – a staggeringly unfunny spoof of the iPhone phenomenon – proves Groening and company will never match South Park for satire.

The laughs don’t come as thick and fast as they once did, but this is a step-up from the movies, and feels like Futurama of old. Cancellation could yet prove to be the best thing for The Simpsons’ sci-fi sibling.

Extras:

Ten minutes of deleted scenes, superb audio commentaries and a full-length table read are the best of the bunch. A somewhat pointless music video, a making of the “Shut Up And Love Me” song and a round-up of the “previously on Futurama” recap rounds out the package.

Jordan Farley

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"Would you like me to press the red button?"

Release Date: 26 December 2011
1983 | 18 | 89 minutes * £17.99
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: James Woods, Deborah Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky, Les Carlson

Nearly three decades since its release, owning a copy of David Cronenberg’s transgressive magnum opus still feels faintly illicit, as if it should be kept in a plain brown wrapper and stored out of sight.

It’s a film that plays out the moral majority’s fear of the desensitising effects of screen violence. James Woods walks through it with the hollow, square-eyed glare of a man suffering from porn-related sleep-deprivation as Max Renn, head of a cable channel that’s carved a niche from extreme fare. When Max stumbles upon underground broadcasts of torture scenes, he thinks he’s found the next ratings banker. But Videodrome is snuff TV with a mind-control chaser, and Max is about to become its pawn: soon he’s slipping deeper and deeper into Videodrome-induced hallucinations.

Simultaneously sleazy and cerebral, it’s a film whose surrealist setpieces burn a brand on the brain: once you’ve seen Woods have a palpating, fleshy videotape thrust into a vaginal slit in his chest, or stroke a veiny TV to tumescent arousal, it can never be forgotten. Other scenes disturb on a more everyday level, such as when Max’s squeeze, the aptly-named Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry), calmly stubs out a cigarette on her breast. Harry’s blank-generation delivery would usually rank as non-acting, but is appropriately enervated in this context.

It’s a movie with a sense of humour too (albeit one that’s often jet-black): can you think of another movie where the sinister conspiracy hides beneath the prosaic façade of a chain of opticians, or where the bad guy excuses himself from a scene on the grounds that he “can’t cope with freaky stuff”? As Marshall McLuhan-esque “TV prophet” Brian O’Blivion, Jack Creley spits out a stream of quotable epigrams (“The television screen has become the retina of the mind’s eye”), and Howard Shore’s funereal, organ-heavy score remains some of his finest work.

The Blu-ray format is an odd home for Videodrome: like Ring, it’s a movie that feels like it belongs on VHS. Technology’s moved on, of course. Nowadays, a Hollywood simulacra of torture-porn is mainstream entertainment, and snuff footage is only a google away. But with its Philip K-Dickian focus on the subjective nature of reality, typically Cronenbergian fascination with bodily mutation, and unflinching gaze into the murky depths of human desire, Videodrome remains as potent and thought-provoking as ever.

Extras: Ironically for such a kinky film, it’s a vanilla disc! That’s hugely disappointing, considering that the US Criterion Collection release has a host of goodies – including two commentaries.

Ian Berriman

Read more of our DVD reviews.

Daniel Craig pays Universal exec Ron Meyer a little visit.

Release Date: 26 December 2011
2011 | 12 | 130 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£27.99 (triple-play Blu-ray)
Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
Director: Jon Favreau
Cast: Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde

It doesn’t matter whether you’re making a film, writing a novel or starting a business, titles are important. For example, Incest And Patricide In Space sounds like a pretty ropey proposition, but Star Wars? That’s a winner. With that in mind, let’s consider the implications of a title like Cowboys & Aliens for a second.

In the context of the recent glut of genre mash-up movies that have sprung up all over the place like a particularly virulent strain of herpes, it’s one of the better ones. It’s outrageous, especially for a huge Hollywood blockbuster, goofy and intriguing. Plus, it sounds like a whole lot of fun. In the wake of the magnificent True Grit, cowboys are once more the cool and compelling tough guys of Hollywood legend, and aliens – well, we all love aliens. They’re from space. We can conclude then, that Cowboys & Aliens is a splendid title.

Unfortunately, it’s a godawful film. Waking up in the middle of the brush alone, injured and with an unbreakable metal bracelet strapped to his wrist, a nameless amnesiac (Daniel Craig) makes his way to the small town of Absolution, where his wounds are patched up by the local preacher (Clancy Brown). Making an enemy of local rich boy Percy (Paul Dano) and recognised by the sheriff (Keith Carradine) as notorious outlaw Jake Lonergan, he’s apprehended by mystery lady Ella (Olivia Wilde) and arrested. Percy’s father, well-heeled civil war veteran Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), returns to town and also recognises Lonergan as the thief who recently robbed him. Before he can take him, alien fighters appear out of the sky, bombarding the town and kidnapping various locals, including Percy and the wife of local barkeep Doc (Sam Rockwell). When the mysterious bracelet turns out to be a futuristic weapon and Lonergan downs an alien craft, he and Dolarhyde put together a posse to track down their kin.

Reading that, you’re probably thinking Cowboys & Aliens is essentially Han Solo and James Bond dressed as cowboys and shooting at aliens, but neither Ford nor Craig can do anything about the inherent problems with the movie. The first third attempts to create a rich and detailed frontier town, but misses the mark by several miles. The Wild West created here is a cliché-riddled shell, populated with stock characters who spout hackneyed and uninspired dialogue. The characterisation is half-arsed at best, making it impossible to care about the kidnapped townsfolk or the cardboard cut-outs who are chasing them. It’s horrible, turgid viewing, made worse by the frustrating fact that the cast is packed with genuine talent. It’s like watching a master chef being forced to serve up a Big Mac and smile while he does it. It shouldn’t be allowed.

The cowboys, then, are a busted flush. Unfortunately, the aliens fare little better. Generic space beasties given the scantest of motivations, they’re bigger, faster, stronger and vastly more developed that our rootin’ tootin’ cowpokes, and yet in the end are simply six-shooter fodder. Far and away the most interesting thing they have going for them are their creepy chest-hands, but that’s about it. Most first-person shooters have more interesting alien antagonists than Cowboys & Aliens; we know nothing of their race, their culture, their motivations (apart from a gold-mining fetish) or their plans. And for such an advanced bunch, they’re beyond stupid, allowing a single human armed with one of their weapons (taken from a ship presumably stuffed with the things) to rip them apart.

The single biggest failing of Cowboys & Aliens is that it takes an excellent premise full of potential, and makes it dull. While both the action and the effects are dealt with efficiently, for the most part they’re like watching somebody else play a computer game, boring cut-scenes included. Jon Favreau somehow filmed a movie utterly devoid of the sort of zippy wit that made Iron Man so brilliant, and the whole thing is played so achingly straight that any sense of fun and adventure is drained from it. Ford gives a solid performance, as does Craig – who struggles manfully on, even though his hat makes him look a bit like a butch leprechaun – but even their combined star power can’t put things right. It’s no wonder that even the president of Universal disowned it. It should have been beautiful, but instead of racing through the stratosphere, Cowboys & Aliens barely makes it off the ground.

Extras:

The single-disc DVD (rated) includes two featurettes – “Finding The Story” and “The Scope Of The Spectacle” – and a Jon Favreau audio commentary. The triple-play, two-disc Blu-ray edition has all of the above, as well as interviews with Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Steven Spielberg, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof. Three extra featurettes, “A Call To Action”, “The Folks Of Absolution” and “Outer-Space Icon”, complete the package.

Rob Power

For an alternate take, read our theatrical review of Cowboys & Aliens.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

If we'd written The Fades we'd definitely be crowing about it.

Release Date: 26 December 2011
2011 | 15 | 339 minutes | £20.42
Distributor: 2entertain
Creator: Jack Thorne
Cast: Iain De Caestecker, Natalie Dormer, Tom Ellis, Johnny Harris, Daniel Kaluuya

Back in the day, TV for and about teens and twentysomethings was a cultural dead end of “issues” drama and try-hard coolness. Then, some time in the latter half of the Noughties, TV executives realised that people under 30 can possess more than one brain cell, and started to greenlight shows that had high-concept premises, engrossing story arcs and smart, snappy dialogue. Liberal lashings of sex, swearing and violence didn’t hurt either.

BBC Three’s The Fades (created and written by Skins and This Is England ’86 veteran Jack Thorne) is the latest show to follow where Being Human and Misfits blazed the trail. It’s not quite as accomplished as either, but the “Freaks And Geeks meets Ghostbusters” tale of an ordinary sixth former (De Caestecker) who starts seeing dead people still provides a gripping ride.

On the down side, the six-part series does take a little too long to get going, the first two episodes straining to establish numerous plotlines and a complex mythology about ghosts feeding on human flesh to regain corporeal form. Sticking with the show is soon rewarded, however, as it delivers edge-of-the-seat thrills, some brave and unexpected twists, and visceral horror imagery in spades – let’s just say it’s not shy with the gore.

But the biggest compliment you can pay The Fades is that it often plays like a British Buffy, populated by pop culture-literate teens (The Fades is genuinely geek-friendly) who are more worried about popularity and the opposite sex than they are about saving the world. The characters are so rounded and believable that you could take out the fantasy and still have a decent show. If BBC Three has any sense, it’ll greenlight a second series now.

Extras: Behind-the-scenes featurettes, cast interviews, outtakes and deleted scenes.

Richard Edwards

Read all our episode reviews of The Fades.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

Release Date: 26 December 2011
2011 | 15 | 373 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Channel 4 DVD
Creator: Howard Overman
Cast: Joseph Gilgun, Iwan Rheon, Lauren Socha, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Antonia Thomas

If it seems odd to award a show four stars and then say it’s a disappointment, that’s only because the first two series of Misfits set the bar so very high. It’s still hilarious, of course, and generally boasts more invention in a single hour than most shows can muster in an entire season, yet you can’t help feeling that E4’s community service drama isn’t quite as super as it used to be.

It would be easy to point the finger at the departure of Robert Sheehan’s motormouth Nathan, but new guy Rudy (This Is England’s Joseph Gilgun) turns out to be a near-perfect replacement. Sure, he fulfils a very similar role, saying the stuff that others might think but wouldn’t dare say, but his modus operandi is entirely different. Whereas Nathan had a mean streak, Rudy’s more of a potty-mouthed savant; his offensiveness is purely accidental as he bungles his way through sexual encounters, a Nazi occupation and the attack of the zombie cheerleaders.

Although the storylines are often inspired, however, this the first series of Misfits with episodes that feel like filler. And while giving the ASBO quintet new powers shakes things up a bit, some of them are so rarely used that they may as well not exist – even if Kelly’s new “rocket scientist” gift provides a steady stream of gags.

With Simon and Alisha rather shortchanged on the things-to-do front, it’s left to gender-swapping Curtis, and Kelly (in her surprisingly sweet romance with power dealer Seth) to carry ongoing storylines that – while fun – lack the urgency of series two’s “Superhoodie” arc. But come the heartbreaking series finale, even the fact that the show’s plausibility is starting to buckle under the weight of all those unsolved probation worker killings seems strangely inconsequential. Creator Howard Overman’s written the perfect ending to a superhero trilogy, and we’d have been quite happy had E4 decided to finish Misfits here, allowing one of this century’s best genre shows to go out on the high it deserves.

Extras:

The usual behind-the-scenes featurettes (including looks at the stunts and special effects) are bolstered by a couple of short films that first appeared online. “Vegas Baby” writes Nathan out of the show in appropriately idiotic style, while “Erazer” pits the gang against a graffiti artist whose tags come to life – it’s rather like ’80s cartoon Penny Crayon, but with a bit more swearing.

Richard Edwards

Read all of our Misfits series three reviews.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

"Don't worry, if we all hide behind this length of tape we'll be okay."

Release Date: 26 December 2011
2011 | 15 | 88 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (triple-play Blu-ray)/£29.99 (Blu-ray 3D)
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Director: Steven Quale
Cast: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, David Koechner, Tony Todd

You know the craic – a bunch of mildly attractive twentysomethings cheat death in an overblown near-disaster, only to fall foul of the Grim Reaper’s icy touch in a series of convoluted Mouse Trap deaths.

The format hasn’t evolved in over a decade. In fact, it’s stagnated. Personality-vacuum victims exist exclusively to be bumped off in humiliating/sadistic fashion, while an identikit plot plays on “repeat” in the background. Part five brings nothing new to the suspiciously wobbly table, but it does earn the franchise a stay of execution by returning a certain level of wit and invention to the series-defining deaths that was absent from its immediate predecessor.

The scale and spectacle of the opening suspension bridge collapse impresses, but annoys in equal measure for those not watching on a fancy-pants 3D TV, as all manner of pointy things try to poke you in the eye. A handful of deaths fall short, but the standouts rank among the series’ best – in particular a toe-curling gymnastics display and a wince-inducing visit to a laser eye surgery clinic.

It fails to breathe new life into a tired franchise, but Final Destination 5 should help the series cheat death for at least another year.

Extras:

On the DVD (rated), just five-minute featurette “Circle Of Death”. The Blu-ray adds dull visual effects comparisons and a pair of nastier alternate endings.

Jordan Farley

For an alternate take, read our theatrical review of Final Destination 5.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

"It looks like a Rubik's Cube!" "Er, what the hell is a Rubik's Cube?"

Release Date: 12 December 2011
2011 * 12 * 111 minutes * £19.99 (DVD)/ £27.99 (Triple Play Blu-ray)
Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
Director: JJ Abrams
Cast: Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso, Zach Mills

It’s not often a director announces his manifesto within the movie, but JJ Abrams does just that in the early stages of Super 8, as young filmmaker Charles explains why he’s written in a wife for the protagonist of his home-made zombie flick. Once you know someone loves him, Charles argues, you’ll care about what happens to him.

You can go too far with these things, though. About an hour into this tale of an ET on the lam from the Air Force in 1979 Ohio, you may find yourself wondering if the alien action is ever going to kick in. Eventually it does, but Super 8’s focus on the domestic means that the audience will divide neatly into two camps: those who lap up its loving homage to Spielberg, and those who wish JJ Abrams would startle us with something fresh.

Fortunately, young Joel Courtney (Joe Lamb) has the acting chops to carry the heavy weight loaded on his shoulders – his budding relationship with Elle Fanning’s Alice is both charming and authentic. Elsewhere, we could do with less yack and a bit more attack, attack, attack! Joe’s troubled relationship with his Deputy dad isn’t particularly involving, and the climactic moment where he symbolically “lets go” of his late mother is dreadfully corny. Still, at least Abrams never wades knee-deep into Blue-Fairy-from-AI levels of syrup.

Other gripes? Abrams’s grasp on period detail seems shaky (the Rubik’s Cube and the Walkman existed in 1979, but neither were a phenomenon – and noone was saying “Bogus!” like Bill and Ted either). Noah Emmerich’s Air Force Colonel makes for a disappointingly low-wattage villain. And the misunderstood monster, an indistinct blur of faun, spider and gnarled tree, feels like a rejected concept for Cloverfield – the most impressive thing about it is its stealth ability to pinch microwave ovens.

Of course, whether Super 8 impresses jaded, seen-it-all-types like us doesn’t really matter. What’ll be interesting is whether a future generation of geeks namecheck it as responsible for turning them onto the genre. Fingers crossed it does. Otherwise, this is just a wallow in nostalgia for a bunch of thirty- and forty-somethings.

Extras:

The single-disc DVD (rated) has a commentary by Abrams, a producer and the DoP, and two featurettes (27 minutes). The Blu-ray comes with a DVD and a digital copy, and adds six more featurettes (65 minutes), 14 deleted scenes, a deconstruction of the train crash sequence, and two Easter Eggs.

Ian Berriman

For an alternative view on Super 8, read our review of the theatrical release.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

"Hey, what does a guy have to do round here to get a banana? If I don't have a banana in my hand in 20 seconds, none of you schmucks ARE GONNA WORK IN THIS TOWN AGAIN. YOU HEAR ME?"

Release Date: 12 December 2011
2011 | 12 | 101 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Cast: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox

So who was left looking like a monkey? Certainly not Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. Led by an unnerving mo-cap performance from Andy Serkis, this summer’s “least-anticipated” wrong-footed the cynics expecting it to skid on a banana peel. A short, sharp, enjoyably slick action-blockbuster full of clever, canny touches and the odd nod to the originals, this is very much a POTA for 2011… and all that entails.

The view from the sofa re-confirms that Serkis and the animation team behind Caesar – the chemically altered ape at the heart of the simian revolution – can rest on their laurels. In a seamless performance that ought to give Oscar-guideline writers a headache, the intellectually enhanced Caesar leaps from cheery apelet to stroppy teen-rager to brooding chimp Che. His steep emotional journey powers the plot towards the Golden Gate Bridge – the movie’s brutal forward momentum gleefully steamrolling the audience through assorted “Oh no they didn’t” moments.

The niggling flea in Rise’s fur is the jettisoning of the near-oppressive heft that defined the original POTA franchise – an earnest plea for humanity amid the Cold War paranoia. Despite a calculated sequel set-up, Wyatt makes sure the only bitter aftertaste left in your mouth once the “contagious” credits roll is from the popcorn.

Ultimately Rise is as focused, ruthless and muscular as its hero, and it deserves to proudly beat its chest at the rest of the knuckle draggers.

Extras:

The DVD (rated) has two deleted scenes and featurettes on Andy Serkis and the “Mythology Of The Apes”; the Blu-ray adds 10 more deleted scenes, two commentaries, “ape facts”, a character concept art gallery and several featurettes

Tom Hawker

For an alternate view, read our theatrical review of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

"Thank goodness I took my new shirt off before eating that jammy doughnut."

Release Date: 12 December 2011
2011 | 15 | 112 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Lionsgate
Director: Marcus Nispel
Cast: Jason Momoa, Ron Perlman, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan

For all the gnarly sorcerers, sand demon warriors and thrashing krakens unleashed on our hero, it’s the inescapable shadow of Schwarzenegger that looms darkest over this big screen reboot of the Conan chronicles.

Young pretender Jason Momoa packs the requisite alpha male credentials, but while Arnold looked as though he was carved by centuries of howling wind-storms this incarnation is more Conan The Metrosexual; armed with eyebrows locked in a permanent expression of irony, he’s the only barbarian who looks as though he may be familiar with grooming rituals.

And despite copious swordslashings and severed heads this film also feels like Conan-lite, missing the grand, doomy heart of Howard’s fiction. It’s a standard quest plot mixed with a perfunctory origin tale (Ron Perlman brings some soul as Conan’s father), filled with choppy fight scenes and driven by the occult machinations of Stephen Lang and his gothdominatrix daughter (a splendidly creepy turn by Rose McGowan).

A climax in a skull-littered temple belatedly captures a little of the sinister beauty of Frank Frazetta’s paintings but it’s too little, too late. Sheath your blade, Cimmerian, and await the next reboot.

Extras:

Two commentaries, featurettes on The Conan Legacy and creator Robert E Howard, the trailer and behind-the-scenes documentaries.

Nick Setchfield

For an alternate view on Conan The Barbarian, read our theatrical review.

Read more of our DVD reviews.

Chris Evans once told us that the strangest place he'd had sex was in a restaurant toilet, you know. That isn't strictly relevant to this picture, but who cares?

2011 * 12 * 119 minutes * £19.99 (DVD)/£27.99 (Triple-Play Blu-ray)/£29.99 (Triple-Play Blu-ray 3D)
Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
Director: Joe Johnston
Cast: Chris Evans, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper

If there’s one thing that Americans know, it’s how to put on a show. A well-choreographed bit of the old razzle dazzle performed with vigour by the shiny of tooth and buffed of muscle can lighten even the darkest of hearts. Yes, the nation that invented showbiz knows more than any other the value of spectacle, and as a result Captain America: The First Avenger is the perfect marriage of classic comic-book caper to explosive Hollywood bombast.

It’s 1942, and the USA is at war. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a Brooklyn native with a heart of gold but the body of a prepubescent girl, is determined to try and sign up for the fight, no matter how many times the US Army rejects him. Chosen to take part in a super-soldier program run by cuddly German ex-pat Dr Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), Rogers is injected with a serum that transforms him into six-and-a-half strapping feet of prime beefcake, and Captain America is born.

Cap’s origins are well known to even the most casual of comic-book fans, and The First Avenger’s opening works beautifully mainly because it subverts many of those expectations. Director Joe Johnston takes his time to get to know Steve Rogers in his scrawny earlier incarnation, hammering home the idea that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the fight in the dog that counts. The CGI alone is enough to make these early scenes fascinating – whichever dark arts were used to shrink Chris Evans’s entire body are uncanny – and when Rogers is transformed, you never completely shake the image of the skinny guy.

Post-super-soldier injection, Cap is sent off on a morale-boosting tour of the States, gaining his gaudy stars and stripes costume in the process. A brilliant period piece complete with high-kicking showgirls, it’s a neat trick that allows Johnston to tie in comics history as Cap bitch-slaps Hitler night after night to delighted fans and has his own comic published. All the fun and games comes to an end when the show winds its way to an actual war zone though, and it’s here that Captain America really lives up to its all-action billing.

From the moment Cap jumps out of Howard Stark’s spectacularly shiny plane to single-handedly rescue half the US Army from a hidden Hydra fortress, setpiece after setpiece is thrown at the screen – with varying levels of success. Some, like that initial exhilirating jail break, pull you into the action completely, but a forest bike chase ends up more Epping than Endor, somehow lacking energy no matter how many bullets Cap deflects. Ultimately the good outweighs the bad though, with the final assault on Hydra and a mid-air scrap with the Red Skull right at the close particular stand-outs.

The Red Skull, playing with relish by Hugo Weaving, is a devilish adversary, utilising the destructive power of Asgardian Macguffin the Tesseract to further his evil schemes. But both the schemes themselves and his Hydra organisation are a little more troubling. From then on, the Hydra henchmen act as Nazi substitutes, faceless black goons with amazing weaponry but the feeble aim of imperial stormtroopers. They must be twice as evil as the Nazis because they use two arms to salute instead of one, but they’re such useless soldiers that they never seem like a real threat. Similarly, the Red Skull’s key aim appears to be “kill everyone in the world”. While it’s good to have ambition, it’s a weirdly formless threat that doesn’t really make sense.

Crucially, for a film stuffed full of computerised effects and outlandish weaponry, Captain America has plenty of heart and is refreshingly free of cynicism. Chris Evans’s Cap is a principled underdog, a dogged scrapper who remains humble even when he’s turned into a running, jumping, bad-guy-busting Adonis. Hayley Atwell kicks ass as Peggy Carter (even though she’s made to do so under roughly four tons of make-up), and her romance with Rogers is sweet rather than sexy, which is totally fitting in a ’40s context.

Full of knowing nods for fans and stunningly designed – the retro-futuristic forties look good enough to eat – with a mouth-watering ending, Captain America might not be perfect but it is an awful lot of fun. The wait for The Avengers just got even tougher for True Believers everywhere.

Extras: There’s a sliding scale of extras available, depending on which combination of discs you decide to splash your cash on. The  DVD release (rated) includes a commentary from Joe Johnston, director of photography Shelly Johnson and editor Jeff Ford; two featurettes, in the form of costume design docu “Outfitting A Hero” (10 minutes) and “The Assembly Begins” (a minute-long tease for next year’s Avengers movie); plus trailers for the Cap videogame and The Avengers Animated. The Blu-ray and 3D editions beef things up a bit with “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Thor’s Hammer” (a minute-long short in which a kick-ass Agent Coulson finds himself caught up in an armed robbery), five more featurettes, seven deleted scenes and trailers.

Rob Power

Read more of our Captain America/The Avengers features.

Robert De Niro spent five years fixing malfunctioning toilet cisterns in Stoke On Trent in preparation for this role.

Release Date: 5 December 2011
1985 | 15 | 143 minutes | £15.99
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Director: Terry Gilliam
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Robert De Niro, Bob Hoskins

The idea of a Terry Gilliam movie is often better than how they turn out on screen. Like Twelve Monkeys and The Fisher King, however, Brazil is a place where his unique mix of eye-catching visuals and anarchic storytelling cohere into a wonderful – if occasionally incoherent – whole.

It’s George Orwell filtered through Monty Python, set in a 1984-ish parallel world where the thought police come with the smiling face of Michael Palin, and bureaucracy runs amok – a dystopia spawned from the British class system. And as dystopias go, it’s been nearly as influential as Blade Runner, its wonderfully inventive retro-future chic making sure that it exists both in every bit of the 20th century and none of it.

It barely matters that the journey of idealistic civil servant Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) from downtrodden office drone to freedom fighter (via superhero dream sequences) makes barely a jot of sense. Or that Robert De Niro’s fugitive plumber Harry Tuttle never feels like he’s in the same movie as everyone else. Or even that Lowry’s love interest Kim Greist is a personality vacuum. Brazil is Gilliam at his incomparable best – a glorious, elegant mess.

Extras:

Just a trailer and the same old “What Is Brazil?” documentary that’s been rolled out before. Where’s the Gilliam commentary and alternative cut from the US Criterion edition? Or the story of the movie’s difficult journey to the cinema? Poor.

Richard Edwards

Read more of our DVD reviews.

Daniel just couldn't resist splashing in dirty puddles in-between takes.

Release date: 2 December 2011
2011 * 12 * 130 minutes * £24.99 (DVD)/£28.99 (Triple-Play Blu-ray)/£32.99 (Blu-ray 3D)
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham-Carter, Alan Rickman

For many Potter fans, the eight films that brought JK Rowling’s boy wizard to the big screen have been every bit as emotional and resonant as the books ever were. As the PR machine took great pains to remind us, we’ve watched Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint grow up in front of our eyes. We’re so familiar with the trio, who began as wide-eyed innocents and are now awfully down-to-earth multi-millionaires, that it seems only right that the focus of this final instalment is their friendship, their bond, their journey.

Except, of course, it isn’t; while the Harry-Hermione-Ron story is central to the series, it’s not the whole story. Deathly Hallows Part Two is an entirely fitting bookend to the franchise, in that it encapsulates everything that’s great – and grating – about the series. It gets a lot of things right: from the first frame, it has a sense of urgency that was lacking in Part One; the break-in and subsequent dragon-back escape from Gringotts is spectacular; and as Hogwarts prepares for battle the hairs on the back of your neck will rise. It nails the ominous, end-of-days feel perfectly, looks stunning and wraps up Harry’s story with a flourish.

Yet while the cash lavished on production is much in evidence, in the end the climactic Battle Of Hogwarts is nowhere near as exhilarating as Rowling’s written take on it. The deaths that make Harry’s ultimate victory such a bitter and believable one barely register. Key moments are rushed or brushed aside, in favour of keeping the focus squarely on Harry and his two besties. Is Deathly Hallows Part Two entertaining? Yes, undoubtedly, but it falls some way short of perfect. Lacking the feeling of satisfying closure that came with turning the final pages of the book, it proves once and for all that it’s not the size of the wand but how you wave it that counts.

Extras:

The DVD (rated) includes three documentaries: end-of-an-era piece “When Harry Left Hogwarts” (46 minutes), the lady-lionising “Women Of Harry Potter” (21 minutes), and make-up Making Of “The Goblins Of Gringotts” (10 minutes), plus eight deleted scenes and a promo for the studio tour. The Blu-ray adds a Maximum Movie Mode hosted by Matthew Long (Neville Longbottom) and a 50-minute conversation between Rowling and Radcliffe.

Rob Power

Read more of our DVD reviews.

Release Date: 28 November 2011
2011 • 12 • 150 minutes • £11.99 (DVD)/£14.99 (triple-play Blu-ray)/£24.99 (Blu-ray 3D)
Distributor: Paramount
Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, John Turturro, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, Frances McDormand

Michael Bay rightly took a beating for the previous Transformers film, the messy, slapstick, arrogant Rise Of The Fallen. Has he learnt his lesson? Well, apparently yes, because Dark Of The Moon is essentially another crack at the same story but more coherently told – and with no stupid Transformer testicles.

The opening 10 minutes are thrilling. Interspersed with genuine ’60s footage and featuring cameos from the likes of Buzz Aldrin himself, the story takes us from the whizz-bang battle for Cybertron to an Autobot crash on the moon, the recovery of which was (allegedly) the real reason for the Space Race. But as soon as Sam Witwicky and his unconvincing new girlfriend Carly (the leggy but wooden Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) are introduced the saga is back on familiar ground, with giant robots squabbling over lost technology for two long hours while Shia LaBeouf sweats and shouts.

The fight scenes aren’t as headache-inducing as in previous instalments and Bay at least uses actors for the comedy scenes this time around – including a manic, sweary performance by John Malkovich – rather than dwelling on unfunny Auto-banter. There are chucklesome Star Trek in-jokes (Sentinel Prime is voiced by Leonard Nimoy, y’see) and outstanding setpieces such as a battle inside a toppling skyscraper. This is Michael Bay back on form… although, alas, that’s a phrase destined to make more sensitive cinephiles gag.

Extras: Absolutely nowt, shockingly.

Dave Bradley

Release Date: 21 November 2011
2011 • 12 • 655 minutes • £51.05 (DVD)/£61.27 (Blu-ray)

Showrunner: Steven Moffat
Cast: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston

Remember when watching Doctor Who was fun? Space rhinos on the moon? Baby aliens made of human fat? Well, let’s not create a false dichotomy – the series is still, frequently, huge amounts of fun (as well as beautifully made and wittily written), but nowadays the viewing experience is also increasingly like trying to unknot a tangled headphone lead.

Okay, a fairer analogy might be “solving a cryptic crossword”, because there are millions who revel in that challenge, just like there are those who enjoy prog rock’s unnecessarily baroque ornamentation. It’s a matter of taste, not IQ, and while, for some of us, the knottiness of Who’s arc has become an irritant, the show remains a huge popular success. Clearly, for every viewer turned off by the more brain-taxing new modus operandi, a new one is drawn in. Hurrah! So it’s just those of us who care about River Song and The Silence as little as we did The X-Files’ bees and black oil left feeling alienated.

We could quibble with a million details, and you’d write in to quote the answers: Steven Moffat is meticulous at crossing the “t”s, cramming in one-line explanations where his predecessor would have left enigmatic lacunae. Trouble is, the answers don’t always feel like they make sense. Why bother training River Song as an assassin if her moonsuit’s in control? Why would the universe think the Doctor’s dead when the only witnesses were his friends, and future Doctors are out there in time and space having adventures? After all that, the solution is “robot double”? Really?

None of this would matter one jot if the arc story had greater emotional impact. In former times, we could overlook all manner of credulity-defying plot twists because we were too busy dabbing our eyes with a hanky, but not any more. Amy and Rory are robbed of their daughter’s childhood. A storyline like that should, by rights, have the audience in bits, but until Amy takes her cold-blooded revenge on Madame Kovarian, it seems to have slipped her mind.

Arc plot migraines aside, it’s a hit-and-miss run, whose weakest link is the piratical caper. The Ganger two-parter feels predictably trad for those steeped in SF lore. “The Girl Who Waited” is clever, but reboots the newly likeable Amy to scowly crosspatch mode. “Night Terrors” and “The God Complex” are supremely creepy, destined to haunt a generation of children’s nightmares, but both founded on a highly indigestible premise. “Closing Time” isn’t as sublime as last year’s “The Lodger”.

The highlights? Neil Gaiman’s love letter to the TARDIS, “The Doctor’s Wife”, and “Let’s Kill Hitler”. Yes, it may be an arc-plot episode, but it’s also a joyous romp which can be enjoyed without the aid of a series of flowcharts. Who’s Mekon-brained genius of a showrunner can do “fun” alright; if only he’d lower himself to the level of ordinary mortals more often.

Extras:

The chief bonus (if you don’t count “A Christmas Carol”, also included) is “Night And The Doctor”, a series of “mini-episodes” (all written by Steven Moffat, and totalling 15 minutes) which reveal that the Doctor sneaks off on nocturnal adventures with River while Amy and Rory are kipping. Though by their nature slight, these are both amusing and touching.

Five episodes come with commentaries: Moffat’s only on one; a Neil Gaiman solo outing is the choice track. Four “Monster Files” featurettes (43 minutes), five short episode prequels, cut-down edits of Doctor Who Confidential and trailers complete a package that’s slightly underwhelming when you remember previous box sets, with their video diaries and commentaries for every episode. And why are there still no deleted scenes on Who box sets?

Ian Berriman

Read a more detailed review of the five new mini-episodes.

Release Date: 14 November 2011
2011 * 15 * 528 minutes * £24.46 (DVD)/£29.35 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: 2entertain
Creator: Russell T Davies
Cast: John Barrowman, Eve Myles, Mekhi Phifer, Alexa Havins, Kai Owen, Bill Pullman, Lauren Ambrose

Torchwood’s ongoing identity crisis continues with a series that’s both a small step forward and a giant leap back from the majestic Children Of Earth. The show’s first transatlantic outing certainly ups the ante, going global as the entire world stops dying (genius!) and telling a single story across 10 episodes, yet emerges less focused, considerably less plausible and nowhere near as gripping as its predecessor.

Miracle Day’s missteps can’t be blamed on its move to the US. The ability to evolve has always been one of Torchwood’s strengths, and putting Jack and Gwen on new turf with American colleagues immediately makes things feel fresh. Ironically, it’s the remnants of the old Torchwood that cause more trouble. Jack and Gwen are nowhere near as likeable as they were in the old days (when was Gwen ever that shouty?), and the team have rediscovered their series one habit of doing really stupid things.

Where Miracle Day really comes unstuck is in its pacing. There are some wonderful jaw-hits-the-floor moments and truly visceral images, but it lacks the steady dripfeed of revelations that can make episodic TV so compelling. Those sins would be easy to forgive if they were building towards the mother of all finales, but the “is that it?” denouement makes the hours invested feel like a waste. Time for another evolution.

Extras:

Extras: Bookending commentaries on the first and last episodes by Russell T Davies and executive producer Julie Gardner; a half-hour Making Of; an effects featurette (16 minutes); short episode intros by Barrowman and Davies; Eliza Dushku-starring motion comic Web Of Lies (28 minutes); deleted Scenes (7.44); ten minutes of talking-heads “character profiles”.

Richard Edwards

"You might very well think I look a prat - I couldn't possibly comment."

Release Date: 7 November 2011
1998 | PG | 83 minutes | £12.99
Distributor: Channel 4
Director: John Henderson
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Ian Holm, Steve Coogan, Penelope Wilton, Marc Warren

Surrealism, hilarity and insanity – all qualities at the heart of Lewis Carroll’s writing and this fantastic Channel Four adaptation. Fuelled by haunting choral, whimsical instrumental and even a segment of experimental experimental rock music, Alice Through The Looking Glass is a children’s storybook on LSD, and then some.

The story relishes randomness; our heroine journeys across a giant chessboard encountering flies with Cornish pasty bodies, a shop-owning talking goat and a lot of poems concerning fish. Ultimately, the moral is to do what the film does: have childish fun and enjoy yourself without restraint.

Kate Beckinsale is a quietly charming Alice, but the host of characters she meets on her journey are fabulous; Ian Holm’s endearing White Knight, Penelope Wilton’s brilliantly befuddled White Queen and Steve Coogan’s amusing gnat are highlights, while Marc Warren plays Tweedle-Dee as a rather threatening combination of petulant toddler and Alex from A Clockwork Orange.

Carroll’s poems are given refreshing attention in a series of quirky episodes, each in a different style. “The Walrus And The Carpenter” is a hallucinatory, part-stopmotion music video, while Ian Holm narrates a sweet black-and-white film-inspired segment for “The Aged Aged Man”.

Especially in comparison with other recent Carroll adaptations, this is a treasure. Children will love its colourful characters and slapstick humour, while adults can revel in wonderful performances and its faithfulness to the magnificent madness of Lewis Carroll.

Extras: None.

Genevieve Taylor

Hey, you'd be a bit narked too if someone had stolen your left arm.

Release date: 31 October 2011
2011 | 12 | 131 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Triple Play Blu-ray)
Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Kevin Bacon

X-Men: First Class was released to critical acclaim and fan worship. For those first few days, it seemed, everybody loved it. But as the weeks went by, the truth became clear. Everybody loved it except the blockbuster-loving multiplex crowd who mattered when it came to the box office. Oh, they didn’t hate it. Nobody could actively hate X-Men: First Class, could they? They just didn’t love it enough to tell their mates, “You must see it.”

In retrospect, it’s easy to see why. And no, it has nothing to do with the X-continuity cock-ups, which worried Mr and Mrs Multiplex considerably less than the price of their popcorn. It’s basically because the film tries too hard. It tries to do too much, to cover too much ground. We were told in pre-publicity that it was a film about how the “legendary” friendship between Professor X and Magneto went bad. Well, it is. Sort of. But it’s also about the formation of the X-Men, the training of the first intake, the beginnings of the Cold War between humanity and mutants and the formation of the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants.
Tossed in amongst that lot, the “legendary” friendship comes across more like a marriage of convenience that lasted a couple of weeks, tops.

The other plotlines suffer too. The search for new mutants and the training sessions are almost over before they began. The human/mutant mistrust is virtually presented as a given. Characters swap sides almost before you‘ve worked out what side they’re on. The result is a film that’s very easy to enjoy, but hard to love.

Which is a shame, because there’s so much to love about it. James McAvoy is superb as a louche, lecherous, idealistic version of Xavier (who at times seems to treat his pupils as so much cannon fodder). Amazingly, he’s outshone by Michael Fassbender’s Erik Lensherr, a man who may be driven by revenge, but who has a much more realistic grasp of where the future is heading for mutantkind. It’s a clever dynamic, with Magneto often making more sense than Professor X, especially the way he “liberates” Raven from imprisonment in her human form.

It’s a very funny film too, but never at the expense of the story, with witty, character-led humour that helps you empathise with some of the more undeveloped characters. The action sequences are breathtaking. Admittedly a couple of effects (especially the White Queen‘s diamond form) look a little last-century-CGI, but mostly they are ahem, first class. And it all looks glorious on Blu-ray. Arguably it works better on the small screen: the shameless ’60s Bond imagery seems more at home in our living rooms after decades of watching Bond’s Connery on the telly.

So, does it have faults? Yeah, sure. But that shouldn’t stop you buying it on shiny disc, because what you did love about the film is worth watching time and time again.

Extras:

The slippage of extras to Blu-ray from DVD to try and entice us all to invest in the newer tech is painfully in evidence here. The DVD version (rated) features only a selection of deleted scenes – and only five deleted scenes, at that, as opposed to the Blu-ray’s 13. Swizz. There isn’t even a commentary – mind you, the Blu-ray hasn’t got one either. Still, you do get a digital copy.

If you do buy the Blu-ray (which comes with both a DVD and a digital copy), you get barely more than you would have expected on a blockbuster DVD release five years ago. The main thing you wouldn’t have found on a DVD is Cerebro: The Ultimate Mutant Database, a kind of faux game (in that the instructions make it sound like a game, but it isn’t) where you click on X-Men movie mutants (from the entire franchise) to access a bunch of clips about them. Perform this rather mindless task enough times and you get access to bonus features on BD Live. It’s not really a very exciting use of the medium.

On the plus side, the eight-part documentary “Children Of The Atom” (which runs for a total of 69 minutes) is very impressive. There’s very little repeated material (or even anecdotes), with almost every aspect of production covered. Matthew Vaughn seems a little camera-shy; he does contribute, but producers Bryan Singer and Lauren Shuler Donner grab most of the screen time. The suspicious among you may assume this is to stop Vaughn talking about his X-Men: The Last Stand experience (where he basically walked off the project weeks before production began) but no – they do actually cover this in quite some depth. In fact, all the interviews are impressively open; sure, any real dirty laundry (if there is any) isn’t aired but they do own up to disagreements and differing opinions. You even get the feeling that nobody apart from Vaughn quite wanted Beast to look that way. An option to listen to the isolated score completes the package.

Dave Golder
X-Men: First Class is one of our top 50 superhero movies of all time.

You'd never be able to tell it'd been colourised, would you? Ahem.

Release date: 31 October 2011
1965 | 15 | 85 minutes | £14.99
Distributor: Renown Productions
Director: John Gilling
Cast: John Saxon, Maurice Denham, Patricia Haynes, Aubrey Morris

1965, and Britain faces a menace from the stars. But which Britain? Not the land of Bond, Biba and The Beatles, that’s for sure. No, this cult curio unleashes its girl-snatching invader in the corners of the ‘60s that remain resolutely unswinging: drizzle-drab suburbia, remote military installations, the seedy evening shadows of Soho.

Ignore the criminally unsympathetic colourised version that’s the main feature presentation here and go straight to the black and white original, offered as an optional extra. This is a film that belongs – no, demands to be – in rich, smoky monochrome.

It begins in perfunctory Quatermass style. A meteor falls to Earth, tracked, located and poked by anxious boffins and army types. “Its potentialities are quite alarming!” declares a spooked Maurice Denham. Soon there’s a heavy-breathing space-perv on the loose, an emissary from Jupiter’s third moon with designs on London’s lovely ladyfolk.

The set-up drags, but the tale takes a welcome turn for the weird, mixing unearthly chills with a grubby police procedural as the half-seen alien fiend infiltrates the world of cheap-thrill girly mags and backstreet bookshops. Future Hammer helmer John Gilling conjures moments of delicious creepiness and the occasional jolt of genuine nastiness; a girl is throttled by the clawed killer and her terrible, guttural rattles are the only sound you hear, unbearably extended.

Recommended viewing conditions: late at night, cup of sugary tea, crafty copy of Bikini Girl to hand, one eye on the door for unexpected callers.

Extras: None (save that aforementioned non-colourised version).

Nick Setchfield
Read more DVD reviews here. Or don’t. Whatever. You possess free will.

"Mira, I've just got to tell you: I'm still holding a torch for you."

Release Date: 31 October 2011
1997 | 15 | 112 minutes | £24.99
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Alexander Goodwin, Giancarlo Giannini, Charles S Dutton

Guillermo del Toro’s first Hollywood picture was also his first experience of studio interference; the end results were severely compromised. Here he reconstructs the movie as something closer to his original intention.

Scientist Mira Sorvino genetically engineers a new strain of cockroaches to save NYC’s kids from a disease spread by their fellow bugs. Three years later, she’s shocked to discover the supposedly infertile “Judas Breed” has not only survived, but grown into man-sized predators that imitate human beings! The reveal, in which a “man in a mac” unfurls giant wings, is stunning.

With its interest in mutation and weird insectoid flesh, this gothic B-movie often feels like a David Cronenberg film; other aspects (like a savant shoeshine boy) feel of a piece with the rest of del Toro’s oeuvre. His bold swashes of amber and blue render the subterranean world below the subway platforms surprisingly beautiful.

Del Toro’s excision of 95% of the “second-unit crap” foisted on him makes this cut a more subtle work. You may occasionally see where the suits were coming from, though. Several now-reinstated scenes function, del Toro explains, to imply that “our place in Creation has been subverted”, but this abstruse point will likely pass all but the most analytical viewers by.

Extras:

Del Toro discusses his behind-the-scenes struggles and expounds his theories on filmmaking in a fascinating commentary. Plus: three featurettes, deleted scenes, storyboard animatics and a gag reel.

Ian Berriman

Read more DVD reviews here.

Smith, Smith and Jones.

Release Date: 30 October 2011
2010 * PG | 316 minutes | £20.42 (DVD)/£25.52 (Blu-ray)
Publisher: 2entertain
Creator: Russell T Davies
Cast: Elisabeth Sladen, Daniel Anthony, Anjli Mohindra

Rewatching SJA’s final full series after the death of its star is a poignant business; suddenly certain plot elements are foregrounded. One story revolves around a funeral, and ends with Sarah Jane leaping inside a coffin. In another, she suddenly falls seriously ill, and hands on her alien-fighting mantle. “No-one’s irreplaceable”, she says. When it comes to Lis Sladen, of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

As ever, the series excels at telling a rollicking adventure while tackling issues that trouble kids with sensitivity. Sarah’s son Luke is written out with rather indecent haste, but hints of a budding romance between pals Rani and Clyde are cute. Some stories have a strong whiff of familiarity – one’s basically a PG-rated take on Freddie Krueger, while another cheekily riffs on both The Terminator and Men In Black – but the fact remains that Sladen’s passing has also robbed us of one of the best children’s shows of the last 20 years.

The highlight is “Death Of The Doctor”, which teams Sarah with Matt Smith’s Doctor and sees Katy Manning return to the fold as the daffy Jo Grant. Russell T Davies’s script demonstrates once again his extraordinary facility for plucking the heartstrings, and the story’s focus on the power of memory serves to remind us that this most beloved of actors will live on in our hearts.

Extras:

Tricky to score. There’s nothing whatsoever on SJA, but you do get all four parts of classic Tom Baker Who “Pyramids Of Mars” (referenced in one of these adventures) – a terrific bonus if you don’t already own it.

Ian Berriman

Read our review of Elisabeth Sladen’s autobiography here.

The UK Doctor Who season six box set is released by 2entertain on 21 November, and we’ve just got our hands on a set of review discs.

The most exciting bonus on there is a series of five short “mini-episodes”. Written by Steven Moffat and collectively referred to as “Night And The Doctor”, they feature Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston, with brief appearances by Arthur Darvill and James Corden too. WARNING: there are some spoilers ahead, but we’ve kept the big reveals under wraps, okay?

The first four episodes are all connected, and set pretty much entirely in the TARDIS. Totalling fourteen minutes, they collectively address the question: what does the Doctor get up to while Rory and Amy are asleep? Well, given that he doesn’t need as much sleep as we humans, he has adventures, of course – adventures with a certain flame-haired lady friend…

“Night And The Doctor” kicks things off in madcap fashion, as Amy answers a phone call from a British royal, and the Doctor dashes in from a party, dressed in top hat and tails, carrying a goldfish in a bowl – a very important goldfish. Well, so he thinks, anyway… It’s inconsequential fare, but good fun. Arthur Darvill also pops up briefly in this segment, after the Doctor wakes him with a cry of “Rory, she’s having an emotion!”

“Good Night” is this reviewer’s favourite of the bunch (and, at nearly five minutes, the longest). A rather touching two-hander between Smith and Gillan, it sees Amy trying to talk to the Doctor about the fact that “her life makes no sense” (about time too!), and the Doctor taking her to “the saddest moment in her life” to meet… well, that would be telling. One neat idea expressed here is that our misremembered memories and feelings of déjà vu are actually side-effects of time being rewritten.

In “First Night” the Doctor lands in River’s cell during her first night in jail, to take her out for an adventure. Ending on a cliffhanger, it’s really the first part of a two-parter, which concludes in “Last Night”.

This tale sees Moffat making characteristic use of the possibilities of time travel, and putting them to the services of a timey-wimey miniature farce: at one point, there are three River Songs in the TARDIS… One interesting revelation is that it was the Doctor who suggested that River keep a diary of their adventures together, and who introduced her to the term “spoilers”. As for the meaning of that title? Well, we won’t spoil it for you, but let’s just say it has a rather poignant significance…

Finally, “Up All Night” is stuck on a separate disc from the other mini-episodes, which is initially rather mystifying. All becomes clear when you watch it, as it has absolutely no connection to them. Only a minute long, it was clearly written with the intention of using it as one of the “episode prequels” used to promote the series online. Featuring Craig, Sophie and, er, Stormageddon, it’s set shortly before the events of “Closing Time” and basically establishes the set-up for the episode. Viewed after you’ve seen Gareth Roberts’s episode it is, to be honest, pretty pointless.

The other extras?

• Episode commentaries on five episodes (not four, as the publicity materials would have you believe). Steven Moffat features on only one of these: the track for “The Wedding Of River Song”. Arthur Darvill is on two, while Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are nowhere to be found; a solo outing by Neil Gaiman is the highlight.
• Four “Monster Files” featurettes on The Silence, the Gangers, the Tessalecta’s “antibodies” and the Cybermat (between nine and 13 minutes long).
• Five short episode prequels.
• Cut-down versions of Doctor Who Confidential.
• Trailers for the two halves of the season.
• 2010′s Christmas special is also described as “bonus material”.

Ian Berriman

We’ll have a full review of the box set in SFX issue 216. In the meantime, why not check out our Doctor Who series six episode reviews?

Release date: 24 October 2011
1993-2001 | PG | 348 minutes | £49.99
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Directors: Steven Spielberg, Joe Johnston
Cast: Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough

You know what’s really dated about the original Jurassic Park? The computer graphics. No, we don’t mean the CG dinosaurs; we mean the blocky wireframes and cheesy fractals that pop up on various computer screens.

If it weren’t for them, Jurassic Park would look like it could have been made yesterday. Even under the scrutiny of Blu-ray clarity, the dinosaurs – both CG and animatronic – look as impressive today as they did back in 1993. Oh sure, connoisseurs will probably notice the limitations of 20th century effects, but you really would have to be a CG snob to complain. Most people will still find it hard to spot the joins. That says as much about Spielberg’s skilful direction, editing and wisdom in not pushing things too far too soon as it does about the technical achievements.

The first film is a five-star masterpiece, but not just for the effects. It’s a note-perfect disaster movie boasting some of Spielberg’s greatest action and tension sequences, most of which have been copied since (especially the iconic use of rippling water to signify that something wicked this way comes).

The two sequels, however, are fairly average. To be fair, III doesn’t aim to be anything more than average (“let’s do it all again with different monsters!”) but The Lost World’s failures are more disappointing because it clearly had fresh ideas – the big game hunters, the evil corporation, a T-Rex on the loose in a city – but never finds a plot meaty enough to combine them. The result is formless, too reliant on overlong action setpieces and hampered by an utterly superfluous irritating child.

Extras:

Lots and lots and lots of documentaries and archive material. The centrepiece is a new six-part documentary, packed with original interviews and fresh information. After a while, though, you realise that there’s an awful lot of repeated material and anecdotes and you begin to wish there was something more surprising or esoteric on offer. The end result is certainly a comprehensive study of all aspects of all three films, but feels disappointingly predictable for a Blu-ray release.

Dave Golder

Jurassic Park was just one of the great leaps forward in CGI visual effects. Hey, why not read about all the rest?

Release Date: 17 October 2011
1990 | 18 | 89 minutes | £15.99
Distributor: Second Sight Films
Director: William Friedkin
Cast: Jenny Seagrove, Carey Lowell, Dwier Brown

It may be directed by William “The Exorcist” Friedkin, but you won’t hear Mark Kermode banging on about this evil-nanny horror – with good reason.

It’s based on a script by British horror writer Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch), which Friedkin substantially reworked. The anti-Poppins of the piece, Camilla (a clothes-shy Jenny Seagrove) is a baby-stealing manifestation of an evil tree entity.

It has its moments, principally a bonkers final show-down in which the baby’s father takes on the tree – which bleeds when cut – armed with a chainsaw. Unfortunately, it’s hard to take a movie about an evil tree seriously, and a spoilerific prologue which shows exactly what happened to Camilla’s last young charge saps it of any mystery. Plenty of bark, then, but not much bite.

Extras:

New interviews with Friedkin, Volk and Seagrove.

Calvin Baxter

Release date: 17 October 2011
2011 |12 | 114 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Triple Play Blu-ray)/£29.99 (3D Blu-ray)
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Director: Martin Campbell
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong

For a hero born of the space race, it’s ironic that Green Lantern finally makes the big time just as NASA retreats from the stars. But imperfect timing is the least of this wannabe blockbuster’s problems.

In the comics, Hal Jordan was an icon of JFK’s New Frontier, a stratosphere-scraping test pilot in the buzz-cut Mercury 7 mould. In the 21^st century flesh he’s the altogether more boyish Ryan Reynolds, prone to exclaiming “Wow!” and “This is so cool!” as he’s transformed into a planet-hopping cop whose mystical ring bestows the power to create objects from pure will (there’s a quietly daft touch of Looney Tunes about this superpower, as it summons everything from glowing green dragsters to giant springs – what, no ACME anvil?).

It’s not a film without ambition, and there’s an undeniable buzz in seeing the more pulp SF side of the DC universe brought to the screen with admirable fidelity. But it doesn’t know how to deal with its decades of accrued cosmic mythology. The opening voiceover brains you with the mother of all info-dumps – yes, kids, billions of years ago the universe was divided into 3600 vectors, do keep up – and somehow the movie never quite reconciles its sprawling interstellar canvas with the Earthbound, everyday world of Hal and his uninspiring girlfriend.

Martin Campbell must have seemed a smart, surefire choice as helmer – his muscular but sweeping Casino Royale gave a spectacular shot of adrenalin to the Bond brand, after all. But his strengths lie in the sweat-and-blood zone. He flounders here, exiled to a smooth, frictionless universe of digital eye-candy. The FX-loaded finale is particularly weak, pitting Reynolds against an amorphous octo-cloud, like a man in a bareknuckle brawl with a gas leak. If only the fabled emerald ring had conjured a killer screenplay to save the day.

Extras:

The one-disc DVD (rated), just has previews of DC’s new animated series and the New 52 comic book relaunch. The Blu-ray features an extended cut (123 minutes), deleted scenes and Maximum Movie mode shenanigans. A choppy, unfocused documentary on the comic book roots of the character parades some top-flight creatives but fudges the crucial story of Green Lantern’s creation (not even a mention of his original Golden Age incarnation), while a fistful of behind-the-scenes docos, tellingly, foreground FX secrets at the expense of any discussion about storytelling choices.

Nick Setchfield

Release Date: 10 October 2011
2009 | 15 | 97 minutes | £15.99
Distributors: Network Releasing
Directors: Alexandre Franchi and Mark A Krupa
Cast: Ricky Mabe, Mark A. Krupa, Tiio Horn, Trevor Hayes

Using foam swords and invisible magical enchantments are the norm for Live Action Role Players, but bring in an outsider who doesn’t apply by the rules of decorum and things can get ugly.

In this Canadian film, Erik (Ricky Mab) infiltrates a LARPing camp to find his wayward girlfriend Lyn – or, as she prefers to be called, Princess Evlynia. There’s a hint of The Wicker Man as Erik is drawn into this world; he agrees to go on a “Viking quest” with his hardcore LARPing brother, Bjorn, to win the love of Lyn.

The problem with this is that Lyn (Tiio Horn) is utterly selfish and annoying; we honestly have no idea why he would go after her in the first place. However, the film does have some great qualities: lines like “No, you’re fucking dead,” always get a laugh, and can you really say no to seeing a man in full body armour take Mjolnir, the legendary hammer of Thor, from a kitchen cupboard? We didn’t think so.

Bjorn (Mark A Krupa) is the most noticeable character, thanks to his drunken and violent Viking demeanour. He’s loud, capable of wielding a foam axe on a petrol pump spouts phrases like “By Odin!”, and is just brilliant to watch. The referee of the LARP camp, Tamara (Claudia Jurt), is the complete opposite; she’s calm, talks at a normal volume, and is a sweet character. No, scratch that, she’s the only sweet character; her warm humanity is a welcome break from the depressing tone of the film.

A few scenes drag (mostly the ones with Lyn in them) and the editing is a bit scissor-happy, but the story is original and entertaining to watch. In the end, it’s obvious that things are going to go wrong, but nevertheless the last scene is unexpected and chilling. Some LARPers don’t play nice…

Extras:

Extras:

A flimsy Making Of is the centrepiece. You also get festival clips, storyboard and image galleries, a trailer, and an isolated title sequence.

Helen Wilson

Release Date: 10 October 2011
2010 | 18 | 105 minutes | £15.99 (DVD)/£19.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Directors: Howard J Ford, Jonathan Ford
Cast: Rob Freeman, Prince David Osei, David Dontoh

For a film as refreshing as the Ford Brothers FrightFest favourite, it’s baffling why the producers should condemn it to instant anonymity with a title as ubiquitous and bleedin’ obvious as The Dead. Heck, even African Zombie Road Movie would have been better – at least it has a bit of personality.

It would also succinctly sum up the plot of this, er, African zombie road movie, which sees downed American air force engineer Brian (Rob Freeman, who possesses the acting chops of Orlando Bloom’s incompetent older brother) band together with local militia man Daniel (Prince David Osei), who’s cutting swathes through an Africa over-run with the living dead on a journey to find his missing son.

The sluggish pace, sparse dialogue and almost non-existent score may test the patience of modern moviegoers who prefer their undead sprinty (the dead heads here are of the shambling Romero ilk). Ardent zombie lovers, however, will find a lot to admire in the tension and unusual atmosphere evoked during the pair’s trek across the Sahara’s stunning plains.

The make-up and CG effects look grotesquely good for a relatively low-budget British production, even in bright daylight. But the daylight is also a problem, as the film is never particularly scary. Worth seeking out, even if it means flicking through the hundred other films with the same title to get to it.

Extras:

An audio commentary with the Ford Brothers, 14 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, two brief featurettes and two minutes of deleted scenes.

Jordan Farley

Release Date: 3 October 2011
2010-11 | 15 | 887 minutes | £32.99
Distributor: Universal Pictures UK
Creator: Nick Wauters
Cast: Jason Ritter, Sarah Roemer, Laura Innes, Zeljko Ivanek, Clifton Collins Jr

Another glossy US TV series hyped as “the new Lost”, it’s unfortunately easier to look on The Event as the new FlashForward, especially since the show’s cancellation after one season means this sci-fi conspiracy thriller’s cliffhanger ending is never going to be resolved. However, despite all the blatant Lost influences (especially the character-centric flashbacks, sensibly dumped halfway through the run), The Event owes its biggest debt to 24, to the extent that most episodes feel like Jack Bauer could wander into shot at any moment.

It’s all thanks to the “sleeper agents on American soil” central concept (in this case the people hidden among us are aliens, looking to evacuate their population to Earth before their original planet is destroyed). This conflict boils down to a very post-9/11 Us-vs-Them subtext, but while the pilot episode is thrilling and cinematic, the show quickly gets stuck in a rut of middling but rarely exceptional action adventure. The murkiness of the central premise (especially since we never discover precisely what the titular “Event” actually is) leaves the central arc feeling unfocussed at times, ending up as a repetitive series of betrayals and counter-betrayals. Without any stand-out performances or truly remarkable episodes, it’s a show that’s slickly produced but instantly forgettable.

Extras:

Three audio commentaries, 76 minutes of bland deleted scenes and a handful of weak featurettes. Beware the disc menus, which actually spoil the climactic sequence of the final episode!

Saxon Bullock

Release Date: 3 October 2011
1971 | PG | 146 minutes | £20.42
Distributor: 2 Entertain
Director: Michael Bryant
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Roger Delgado

Watching this Third Doctor story makes you realise what Outcasts would have been like if it’d been made in the early ’70s. An unremittingly brown six episodes’ worth of beardy colonists trying to prevent Evil Corp™ miners from evicting them, while the indigenous aliens do mysterious stuff in the background, it’s certainly languid enough.

It has ambition, to be sure. The first Jon Pertwee story not set on Earth, it’s a kind of cash-strapped Avatar, with the same lofty, conservationist message (business bad, lentils good, leave aliens alone). It also has Roger Delgado’s Master, which is always a good thing. Sadly it’s also slow, visually uninspired and full of facial hair.

Extras:

Standard issue stuff for Who DVDs these days, though the main Making Of documentary benefits from an amusing cartoon recruitment drive intro (“Do you have a moustache? Do you look good in a helmet?”). Aside from the expected talking heads who turn up here and on the commentary (Katy ”Manic” Manning, Terrance “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before” Dicks, the director, a few of the lead guest stars), a more surprising (but canny) choice is Graeme Harper, who was a mere floor manager back then; he’s since directed both classic and new Who, and his inclusion allows for some interesting comparisons. Aside from that you get a few not very exciting bits of trimmed location footage, text commentary, a photo gallery, trailers and Radio Times PDFs.

Dave Golder

Release date: 26 September 2011
2011 | 12 | 115 minutes | £19.99 (One-disc DVD)/£27.99 (Blu-Ray/DVD combo)/£29.99 (3D Blu-Ray/DVD combo)
Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgård

Thor could have been terrible. It could have been an epic fail, with Marvel yanking the film out of cinemas and burning it on a longboat. Gamma giants and Spider-men are one thing; an honest-to-goodness Norse god superhero is something else. And yet, Thor has translated so smoothly to comic-book moviedom that we can look back now and wonder why it took the hammer-flinging one so long. (And no, his TV movie appearance in The Incredible Hulk Returns doesn’t count.)

One of the film’s chief delights is the way that Thor is always Thor, whether he’s smiting giant monsters in a frosty Tolkienish world, or striding into a New Mexico pet shop and demanding a horse. Cannily, director Kenneth Branagh starts on Earth, with a flash-forward into the middle of the story, showing a spectacular close encounter. On a stormy night in the vast desert, a Wizard Of Oz-style twister spits out an exiled Thor on the sands before an impressed Natalie Portman and a sceptical Stellan Skarsgård (who’s unwilling to accept that a character out of his children’s folklore books has just come to life in front of him).

It’s only after this prologue that Branagh takes us up to the cosmic realm of Asgard. Here, we’re filled in on how Thor angered his one-eyed, very Welsh divine dad Odin (Anthony Hopkins) by going on a private and illegal war against the dastardly Frost Giants, who launched a sneak attack on his proud homeland (Hmm, is there a contemporary allegory there?) Odin is like a disciplinarian Uncle Ben from Spider-Man, punishing his son for not respecting the great responsibility that comes with having an army-smashing hammer. “You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!” Hopkins declares with dreadful Shakespearean authority.

Despite their huge differences, Thor resembles the Iron Man films in the way it points out the flaws and failings of an unworthy hero who must be thoroughly chastened before picking up the Marvel mantle (Several of Thor’s mythic themes and conflicts last appeared in blockbuster form two decades ago, in Disney’s The Lion King.) Also like Iron Man, Thor is blessed by a hugely charismatic lead, though it’s a performance at the other end of the multiverse from Robert Downey Jr. As Thor, Chris Hemsworth is a little boy in a titan’s body, oblivious to the hammerblow impact he has on the ladies each time he removes his shirt. Thor’s utter lack of guile (in contrast to his slippery brother Loki – the excellent Tom Hiddleston) is hilarious and endearing;  he’s a one-level character in a film with considerably more than one level.

Granted, some fantasy-flick connoisseurs will gripe at the primary colours and theme-park cleanness of Asgard, with its shiny happy heroes, and mutter about the Hollywoodising of epic Norse tales. On a less snooty note, there are parts of Thor’s story that don’t resonate the way that they should. The revelation, for example, that the film’s two uber-baddies are actually father and son, potentially mirroring Thor and Odin, is pretty much thrown away. Loki’s twisty schemes keep us interested and on our toes, but they’re not really convincing on a dramatic level. And wouldn’t it have been better if Thor’s human squeeze (played adequately if unmemorably by Portman, in a limited role) had managed to get up to Asgard, and take part in the final bridge-breaking showdown?

But enough complaining. Thor is a hugely enjoyable, charming and disarmingly smart injection of Peter Jackson-scale cosmic fantasy into the Marvel film universe, and yet another reason to look forward to The Avengers next year. Let’s hope Joss Whedon’s film has a scene where Hopkins’s Odin and Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury compare eyepatch tips…

Extras:

Thor is being released in three home editions: a DVD version (rated) and two DVD/Blu-ray combo sets, one in 3D. The feature-length commentary by director Kenneth Branagh is common to all editions. Branagh talks about Thor thoughtfully and articulately, putting an end to snarky sniping that he was slumming it for the money. If you want to understand the drama that Branagh saw in Thor, then his commentary is a perfect guide, but you can’t help thinking how much more fun it would have been with Hemsworth and Hopkins bantering along. We smell an anniversary ensemble commentary somewhere down the line…

DVD purchasers also get four short deleted scenes (with optional commentary), none of them more than mildly interesting. The most notable is a rather sweet fond fraternal moment between Thor and Loki just before Thor’s coronation, but you can see that it would have slowed down the opening too much. As for a lame “preview” (ha!) of the upcoming Avengers movie, it tells and shows you virtually nothing. The Blu-ray combo editions also include a seven-part Making Of documentary (total running time about 42 minutes), covering everything from the casting to the score.

Andrew Osmond

Release Date: 26 September 2011
1977 | 12 | 88 minutes | £8.99
Distributor: Final Cut Entertainment
Director: Jack Smight
Cast: Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard, Dominique Sanda

Astonishingly costing more to make than the same year’s Star Wars, Damnation Alley (based on a Roger Zelazny novel) is so cheap-looking it could almost be a TV movie – which is kind of why it’s so much fun.

After a nuclear apocalypse, the pilot of Airwolf and the head of The A-Team team up to trek across the desert in their hilariously clunky but strangely loveable Landmaster vehicle, in search of other survivors. What they encounter are unconvincing giant scorpions, “killer” cockroaches and hairy rednecks, along with a young Rorschach (who’s ace at throwing rocks!).

Dialogue is limp and the characters are uniformly uninteresting but this is a movie firmly in the “guilty pleasure” category, thanks to stock footage of nuclear explosions, craaaazy-coloured post-apocalyptic skies and a simple, accessible plot. Drop your standards, indulge, then go out and build your own Landmaster.

Extras: None.

Russell Lewin

Release Date: 19 September 2011
1967 | 12 | 98 minutes | £22.99 (Blu-ray/DVD combo)
Distributor: Optimum Classic
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cast: Andrew Keir, Julian Glover, Barbara Shelley, James Donald

The Quatermass series is infuriating for never settling on one continuous lead actor in its 20-odd-year entirety, but Andrew Keir can lay convincing claim to be the definitive Prof. He’s helped by having Nigel Kneale’s best Quatermass story to play about in.

This Hammer adaptation of the original BBC serial sees Kneale once more putting the science gloves on to give witchcraft and the supernatural a good boffiny pummeling, as an alien vessel that’s been buried for millions of years is unearthed.

Crunched down to 97 minutes from the telly version’s three hours-plus, it’s a taut retelling, which surrenders only a few fairly redundant subplots. Roy Ward Baker’s direction isn’t quite synched to the subtleties of Kneale’s script, however, with a few too many over-dramatic music cues. There’s also a threateningly fatal effects sequence showing Martians on their home planet; it passes swiftly, but its Button Moon stylings are hard to forgive.

That said, Baker casts it well. James Donald, all effortless Oxbridge authority and British stoicism, is excellent as palaeontologist Dr Roney and Julian Glover’s equally good as the stubbornly fat-headed Colonel Breen. And Keir’s Scots lilt, clashing with the RP voice fog of his RADA colleagues, gives his Quatermass a brittle outsider edge.

Extras:

An SF-themed episode of the Worlds Of Hammer series (which is just a collection of non-HD clips), alternate American credits and trailer, plus new interviews with Judith Kerr (Kneale’s widow), actor Julian Glover, celebrity Quatermass fans Mark Gatiss and Joe Dante, critic Kim Newman and Hammer expert Marcus Hearn. There’s no commentary, though. Bah.

Steve O’Brien

Release Date: 12 September 2011
1972 * PG * 96 minutes * £19.99
Distributor: 2entertain
Director: Paul Bernard
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Nicholas Courtney, Aubrey Woods

One surprising thing about Doctor Who is that, until Steven Moffat came along and had us all drawing flow-charts, the series rarely played with the paradoxes inherent in time travel. This Third Doctor four-parter is a notable exception.

Rather like The Terminator, it concerns people from the future travelling back to our time to prevent a certain timeline unfolding – in this case, a post-WW3 Dalek-occupied Earth – via an assassination.

It’s a fascinating concept, played out as rollicking action-adventure. Pertwee is authoritative, Dalek lackeys The Ogrons (ape-like Gumbie toughs in Max Wall wigs) are a great creation (bring ‘em back, Moff!), and there are some charming moments of good-humoured banter between the “UNIT family”.

The general uselessness of both UNIT and the future rebels is a source of amusement: arriving at night, the rebels decide to wait until morning to attack (an unconventional military tactic); meanwhile, UNIT’s response when the Doctor goes missing is to search everywhere except the wine cellar… The main disappointment of the script, though, is the way the Daleks feel bolted on (which makes sense when you know they weren’t in the original draft at all); the Doctor only gets to say one sentence to them.

The story’s weaknesses are mainly on a technical level. The Daleks sound uncharacteristically weedy, and there just aren’t enough of them, something that becomes very apparent in the “action-packed” finale, as the same three Daleks trundle slowly towards a country house (which, bizarrely, seems to contain derelict wasteland and a railway bridge within its grounds…), something which could have been disguised far better with more creative direction.

Extras:

The main attraction is a new Special Edition of the story (fear not, Luddites – it’s an optional second-disc bonus). Previous re-edits have been a complete waste of time, but this is the first you might actively choose for future viewings. As usual, they’ve tarted up the effects (adding laser rays, mostly), but the Daleks have also been revoiced by current incumbent Nick Briggs, and there are various “fixes”, including a “Greedo shoots first” scenario (veteran Who fans may also be aghast to see that the infamous “No complications!” Ogron has been excised). Most significantly, new footage (cutaways of multiple Daleks and UNIT troops being zapped) has been shot at the original main location using a ‘70s camera, and blends in pretty seamlessly. As a result, in the climactic battle it now looks like as many as five or six Daleks are attacking… well, it’s a step up. Sadly the addition of CGI-cityscape establishing shots is very jarring.

On the commentary, the late producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks are joined by actors Jim Winston and Anna Barry and Mike Catherwood (the story’s vision mixer). Other highlights include a standard half-hour Making Of (rather top-heavy with “expert” talking heads, this);  the second half of featurette “The UNIT Family”, (31 minutes) which is at its most entertaining when covering stories yet to hit DVD such as “The Mind Of Evil” and “The Daemons” (and which also sees John “Benton” Levene tear up remembering the death of Master actor Roger Delgado); a Making Of on the Special Edition (14 minutes); and an amusing piece voiced by Who-loving comedian Toby Hadoke on the so-called “UNIT dating controversy”.

Completing the package are: a featurette in which Letts and Catherwood visit a studio gallery (20 minutes); shot clips from Nationwide and Blue Peter; a particularly intrepid “Now And Then” visit to the locations, which sees the dauntless cameraman struggling with bushes and fences, bless him (five minutes); one of those rather yawnsome sciency pieces they seem to think is essential nowadays, wherein a psychologist discusses the unreliability of our childhood memories (eight minutes); and the usual text commentary, photo gallery and Radio Times PDFs.

Ian Berriman

Release Date: 5 September 2011
2011 | 15 | 87 minutes | £17.99 (DVD)/£22.99 (Blu-ray)/£27.99 (Blu-ray 3D)
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Director: Scott Stewart
Cast: Paul Bettany, Karl Urban, Cam Gigandet, Maggie Q

Maggie Q does a nifty motorcycle stunt.There’s a great animated sequence from Samurai Jack’s Genndy Tartakovsky. And the vampires don’t sparkle. That aside, there’s little to get excited about with this perfunctory adaptation of a Korean manga.

Feeling like it’s been plotted with computer game levels in mind, Priest is set an alternate world where priests are trained by a corrupt church to battle vampires. There’s not really much more to the plot. It reunites the director/star duo who gave us Legion, and they barely manage to improve on that mess. Scott Stewart’s FX background leads to some stunning visuals on a meagre budget, but nothing can overcome the threadbare, hand-medown plot elements.

From the Blade Runner city to the Sergio Leone confrontations Priest feels less like homage and more like plagiarism, with blandly functional public toilet sign dialogue – it tells you where to piss but you wouldn’t call it art. Paul Bettany, a decent actor normally, is no action hero, and resorts to a poor Christian Bale Batman impression, while Karl Urban is utterly wasted as the villain. Pray we don’t get the sequel that the ending rather desperately hints at.

Extras:

A lively commentary; deleted scenes that show where all the character development went; and short featurettes on creating the world, the weapons and the vehicles. The Blu-ray has an extra facts track, and the 3D Blu-ray has 360º views of various vehicles and weapons.

Dave Golder

Release Date: 29 August 2011
2011 | 12 | 106 minutes | £11.99 (DVD)/£16.99 (triple-play Blu-ray)
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Director: Joe Wright
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams

Hanna is 15 and always running. Nothing unusual in that. However, when this angelic blonde starts kicking up her heels, it’s generally because she’s being chased. And it’s always very bad news for whoever’s on her tail. Typically, they expire just as the excellent Chemical Brothers soundtrack crescendos.

This young girl, you see, is very special. And not in an “all young girls are special” kind of way. In fact, she’s lethal. Sequestered away since the age of two in the icy wastes of northern Finland and trained to kill by rogue CIA agent Erik Heller (Bana), she storms through chin-ups and press-ups, fights like Bourne, shoots like Bond, and – thanks to a terrific performance from Saoirse Ronan – maintains a compelling aura of innocence.

Unsurprisingly, she’s a wanted girl – cartoon villain Marissa Wiegler (Blanchett), whose intentions oscillate between maternal and homicidal, is set on bringing her in alive. On her wide-eyed, blood-splattered travels through a world hitherto experienced only via an encyclopaedia, Hanna spends a lot of time worrying about being abnormal. But Joe Wright’s film is populated entirely by freaks and oddballs – Tom Hollander’s whistling, tracksuit-sporting assassin, Isaacs, is a particular highlight. The whirling camerawork combines with the carnivalesque cast to provide a disconcerting, dreamlike atmosphere – which is fine when the pace is up and good old Hanna is sprinting and slitting throats, but does threaten to nauseate a little as the film runs out of gas in the final third.

There are other issues, not least some glaring errors of logic. But no matter. Leave rationality aside, accept the grotesques and eccentrics, and enjoy the journey. Hanna knows exactly where she’s going. The film doesn’t, and never quite arrives anywhere – but it gets there very entertainingly indeed.

Extras:

The DVD contains an audio commentary with Wright, an alternate ending, deleted scenes and a featurette on the escape from Camp G. Blu-ray owners also get featurettes on Hanna’s training, the CIA, the film’s world and (best of all) the ace soundtrack.

Ed Vanstone

Release Date: 22 August 2011
2010-11 | 15 | 990 minutes | £27.99 (DVD)/£36.49 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Creators: Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec
Cast: Nina Dobrev, Paul Wesley, Ian Somerhalder, Katerina Graham, Candice Accola

Why is The Vampire Diaries just so darn watchable? It shouldn’t be: it’s basically a teen soap opera with all the emo-filled relationship drivel you get on shows like Gossip Girl or 90210. The fact there are vamps, werewolves and witches doesn’t really change things – they sleep around, fall in love and pine over their exes, just like everybody else. At times it’s hard to remember this is an SFX show… but then someone turns into a werewolf in a flurry of bone-crunching FX and everything’s cool again.

It’s The Vampire Diaries’ stupendously fast pace and shameless cliffhanger-mongering that keeps us coming back – particularly this season. There’s a ton of fun to be had with Elena’s evil vamp doppelganger, Katherine, and the head games she plays with the Salvatore brothers; boring bonehead Caroline gets bitten and ends up actually developing a personality; werewolves trot into town to snap at the vampires’ heels. Oh, and best of all, Damon is reassuringly Damon: the wittiest, naughtiest antihero we’ve seen in years. You may as well just watch for him.

Extras:

Three featurettes on the show’s werewolves, one on Nina Dobrev and another (very dull) featurette about “who’s nibbling on who”. There’s also a gag reel, deleted scenes and a single audio commentary.

Jayne Nelson

Release Date: 15 August 2011

2011 | 12 | 89 mins | £14.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (double-play Blu-ray/DVD)
Distributor: Optimum Releasing
Director: Duncan Jones
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Vera Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan

Sean Fentress (Gyllenhaal) is just your everyman teacher, on his morning commute with his colleague Christina (Monaghan). What Sean doesn’t know is that his train is going to explode in eight minutes. What he also doesn’t know is that he’s actually Captain Colter Stevens, a soldier forced to repeatedly relive the last eight minutes of Sean’s life in order to discover who bombed the train. And if you think that sounds convoluted, all we can say is… “Oh boy”.

After the success of Moon we were eager to see what director Duncan Jones would come up with next. It’s obvious what attracted Jones to Source Code – his Blade Runner-esque pet project Mute was floundering in development hell, and here was a pre-packaged go project with a star already attached. Source Code already had pedigree too – a pacy sci-fi thriller script, it had appeared on the infamous Hollywood Black List of hot, unproduced scripts the year before. It makes sense as a sophomore effort for Jones – like Moon, Source Code is also a neat little sci-fi fable, a Tharg’s Future Shock, featuring a protagonist fighting to discover a surprising truth. But unlike Moon’s Sam Bell, Colter Stevens isn’t trapped in a physical place – he’s trapped in someone’s mind.

Stevens is operating from Beleaguered Castle, a secret military facility in possession of Source Code, a machine that apparently allows them to plug into the last few minutes of a person’s life in order to relive them over and over again. Each time Colter jumps into Sean’s body, he has to make different choices to flush out the bomber’s identity, and it’s interesting to see the same eight minutes of story played out as a detective story, an action movie and a romance. Finding the bomber is an almost impossible challenge under the circumstances, but the Groundhog Day repetition of the scenario means that Colter learns a little bit more each time, improving his odds with every run. From the very beginning you’re anticipating the “perfect” final run, where Colter will avert the threat, save the girl and prevent coffee from spilling on his shoes. It’s like watching someone attempt to get a top ranking on a particularly tricky level of a videogame, and it’s to the movie’s credit that when that sequence finally occurs, it still manages to subvert your expectations.

Gyllenhaal is probably at his most appealing since Donnie Darko, with an infectiously upbeat approach to the mission for the most part. His two leading ladies, Vera Farmiga and Michelle Monaghan, should probably have inspected their tickets a little closer before getting on this locomotive, though. As Christina, Monaghan isn’t given much to do apart from looking hot while reacting to Sean’s increasingly bizarre behaviour. Farmiga, who plays Colter’s handler at Beleaguered Castle, does at least get to show a bit of emotion; doubly impressive when you realise that she spends most of the film acting into a webcam. The awesome Jeffrey Wright has the most fun, with a superbly jittery performance as the scientist behind the project. Source Code is a tight little whodunit for the first two acts, but as it gets into the final act, the film suddenly becomes far less interested in Quantum Leaping, and much more interested in quantum mechanics. It feels really cheap to base a twist around deliberate misinformation, and science geeks who spend the first hour screaming, “But it wouldn’t work like that!” will spend the last 30 minutes wrapped in a “Told you so” smug/angry feedback loop. And if that weren’t enough to sour the experience slightly, the film’s topped with a multiple pile-up of endings that pushes the whole thing off the rails and into the path of an oncoming freight train. It’s not that any of the endings don’t work individually; it’s just that the ultimate explanation of what Source Code really does is badly fumbled, and wll probably leave you scratching your head. Admittedly, it’s here that the home viewing experience comes into its own, and being able to rewatch those befuddling closing 20 minutes a few times will probably clear things up for you if you are left scraping your scalp with your fingernails.

It’s a sign of Jones’s inexperience, and perhaps those multiple endings might have been better handled by a more seasoned pro. Instead, Jones has delivered a superior episode of The Twilight Zone, filmed with confidence and flair, but let down by some unfair scientific red herrings and a muddled dénouement. Of course, here at SFX, we’ve nothing against projects that try to reprogram the grey matter, but we’re trying to be Objective-C and sadly Duncan’s Assembly of this Source Code has a few too many BASIC errors to be considered a true Perl.

Extras:

The standout is the commentary with Jones and writer Ben Ripley. The “Cast and Crew Insights” are a series of short featurettes on the characters and train set; while the “Focal Points” are more of the same on Quantum physics, the Many Worlds Theory, Brain Computer Interface (!) and more.

Jon Hamblin

Release Date: 8 August 2011
2011 | 15 | 98 minutes | £11.99 (DVD)/£14.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Entertainment One
Director: David Gordon Green
Cast: Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Theroux, Charles Dance, Damian Lewis

In Pineapple Express, Danny McBride and James Franco proved that stoner comedy could, against all the odds, be funny, well-made and surprisingly heartfelt. In Your Highness, the less-than-dynamic duo are paired together for the duration, this time in a fantasy world that will take you straight back to the ’80s.

Prince Thaddeus (Danny McBride) is the underachieving, perma-stoned brother of Prince Fabious (James Franco), the muscled hero of a realm ruled over by their imperious father (Charles Dance). When Fabious’s betrothed, Belladonna (the lovely Zooey Deschanel) is kidnapped by sleazy sorcerer Leezar (Justin Theroux), the brothers head out to defeat the wizard, win back the maiden and say “fuck” a lot.

Whether you dig Your Highness or not will very much depend on where you stand on Danny McBride’s style of expletive-laden, full frontal comedy. The gags are consistently crude, and although the cast are clearly having lots of fun swearing in cod-English accents, it’s a joke that wears thin quickly. The fantasy setting is lovingly created though, and there’s enough affectionate pastiche and ridiculous action to keep you engaged until the final confrontation. Definitely one for fans of the occasional jazz fag.

Extras:

Loads to get stuck into, including “Damn You Gods: The Making Of Your Highness”, a commentary with video intro, deleted scenes, alternate scenes and a gag reel.

Rob Power

Release Date: 8 August 2011
2011 | 12 | 109 minutes | £10.99 (DVD)/£13.99 (triple-play Blu-ray)
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Oscar Isaac

Like his guntoting heroines, director Snyder came under a lot of flak when Sucker Punch launched into cinemas. Charges of confused pseudo-feminist posturing were levelled at his tale of Baby Doll and co, women locked in an asylum who conjure outlandish visions of brothels and battles as part of their escape fantasy. Slow-mo combat and gratuitous costumes certainly make it vulnerable to accusations of crassness.

But Sucker Punch displays a gutsy love of genre tropes, delivering a hyperreal spectacle as Snyder crams his sci-fi passions onto the screen – dragons, robots, samurai, steampunk zombie soldiers… Its chief narrative flaw is its clumsy videogame formula – defeat the boss, collect the item, return.

Many conversations could be had about whether Snyder is empowering or exploiting his protagonists. But nonetheless, Sucker Punch looks distinctive and its high-energy ideas leap out and punch you in the face.

Extras:

The DVD comes with four animated shorts (11 mins in total). In addition the Blu-ray boasts a featurette about the soundtrack, “Maximum Movie Mode” in which Snyder pops up in various scenes to deliver bursts of video commentary, plus – most interestingly – a Director’s Cut of the film with an additional 18 minutes of footage. It includes more battles and a dance number – a beautifully orchestrated version of “Love Is The Drug”, which helps to make sense of what life’s like in the bordello.

Dave Bradley

Release Date: 1 August 2011
1977 | U | 97 mins | £20.42
Director: Pennant Roberts
Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Michael Keating

This Fourth Doctor adventure is set on a Pluto warmed by six artificial suns. Great concept; sadly it has nothing to do with the story – instead it’s writer Robert Holmes’s revenge on the Inland Revenue. “The Sun Makers” is a Gilliam-esque piece about a populace subdued by crippling taxes, full of in-jokes such as corridors named “P-45”.

The satire is rather blunt, and the gags don’t make up for a story that’s even more about running down corridors than normal. And these ones are really boring corridors (the concept of set-dressing clearly having eluded the designer). Some good performances and an on-form Tom Baker keep it watchable.

Extras:

The commentary is good, thanks to reliable old Tom Baker – we dare you to use him bellowing, “I’m coming, dear! I’m coming!” as your ringtone. Sadly there’s little else of note: the out-takes are all from one scene, the documentary is unexceptional, and the Dudley Simpson featurette skips through his career as Who’s incidental musician with indecent haste.

Dave Golder

PS: And yes, we know, that BBC publicity still above features actor Henry Woolf out of make-up.

Release Date: 1 August 2011
2011 | 15 | 500 minutes | £29.99
Distributor: Entertainment One
Showrunner: Chris Chibnall
Cast: Jamie Campbell Bower, Joseph Fiennes, Eva Green, Tamsin Egerton, Claire Forlami, Philip Winchester

If the secret of comedy is good timing, the joke was certainly on Camelot. Maybe if it had been launched at any other time, we may have been more grateful for a big budget, adult-themed, starrycasted fantasy on TV. Instead, it premiered within weeks of Game Of Thrones, and we all just went, “It’s a bit cack, innit?”

Because while Camelot was widely touted as The Tudors with sorcery, it was Thrones instead that hit that nail on the head. Camelot ended up more like Merlin with naughty bits, a glossy but superficial action adventure with added breasts and swearing. In that respect it resembles the first, rocky season of Torchwood, which was more “stroppy teenager” than “grown up”. Is it any coincidence that Chris Chibnall was showrunner on both?

It isn’t all bad. Fiennes is masterly as a Merlin for whom magic is a crack addiction, and Eva Green gives us a deliciously arch (and often naked) Morgana. Clive Standen’s Gawain impresses with his double-handed sword action, and the locations are great.

But while the series starts off as a solid, if slightly goofy adventure show, it soon becomes stuck in a relentlessly muddy rut. Less and less seems to happen per episode as the plotting runs round in ever decreasing circles, padded out with frankly tedious heart-to-hearts.

It doesn’t help that the constantly puzzled-looking Campbell Bower and the immaculately coiffured Egerton make an unbearably insipid Arthur and Guinevere. There’s more sexual tension between Arthur and Merlin in the BBC show.

Extras:

Lots of fluffy, brief character featurettes, and a great big plug for Starz, the network that cancelled the show.

Dave Golder

Release Date: 27 June
2011 | 15 | 91 minutes | £17.99 (DVD)/£12.99 (Blu-Ray)
Distributor: Momentum Pictures
Director: Dominic Sena
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Robert Sheehan, Stephen Graham, Claire Foy, Christopher Lee

You’ve probably heard the word about this one. A 15-rated historical horror, starring Nic Cage on a sane day. Dull, eh? Audiences agreed. Witch tanked at the box office, with some critics proclaiming it Cage’s worst movie ever. Yikes.

It’s the time of the Crusades and two knights, Behmen (Cage) and Felson (Perlman), are hacking their way through infidels and bedding wenches. Then, one day, Behmen has a change of heart. Sickened by all of the violence, he deserts, taking Hellboy with him. But God has one last mission for the two knights. They are tasked with transporting a girl suspected of witchcraft to an abbey for trial. Behmen is sceptical, but as their journey continues, strange things start to happen.

It’s the sort of plot Hammer would have had a field day with. Trouble is, while it looks pretty enough, the dialogue is weirdly anachronistic (and, y’know, terrible), the effects are dodgy and the actors sleepwalk through it.

So yes, it’s bad. But not Wicker Man bad. There’s a sense that everyone involved knows how daft the film is and, for its trim running time, it’s content to be a lightweight, cod-historical B-movie, with a big scrap at the end. It’s kinda fun. Just don’t stare at Cage’s wig for too long. It’s the scariest thing here.

Extras:

A brief and vacuous Making Of, a spoilerific trailer and a lenticular cover.

Will Salmon

Release Date: 27 June
2010 | 12 | 100 minutes | £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Director: Mark Romanek
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Sally Hawkins

First a warning. If you’ve managed to avoid the premise at the centre of Never Let Me Go thus far and want to watch the movie “cold”, look away now. This review will contain spoilers. After all, the idea that drives the plot is so integral to its DNA that it’s nigh-on impossible to talk about it without giving anything away.

If you’re still here, you won’t mind us saying that Never Let Me Go is about human clones created so their vital organs can be harvested to save other people’s lives. It follows the lives of three clones (Spider-Man, Sally Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann…) from childhood to their destiny on an operating table, and makes an interesting companion piece to The Island. While Bay’s blockbuster revolved around a similar premise, however, that’s where the similarity ends.

Where The Island was loud, action-packed and preposterous, this is quiet, stiff-upper-lipped and (mostly) plausible, a UK yin to Bay’s US yang. But in focusing so closely on the by-the-numbers relationships between the central trio, the movie skirts the more interesting questions the story poses. Why do the clones accept their fate so readily and without question? What would an alternative UK where people are bred and killed for the benefit of the masses be like? And why don’t the authorities take all the donors’ organs out in one go, rather than subjecting them to prolonged suffering as their body is brutally dismantled over a series of ops?

Never Let Me Go is so scared to admit it’s SF that it misses the beats that would make it genuinely intriguing. It’s a shame because this could easily have been another Children Of Men. As it is, you find yourself yearning for The Island’s slow-mo explosions – which isn’t something you get to say very often.

Extras:

Just a featurette with the cast yakking, a gallery of director Mark Romanek’s on-set photography, fake ads for the movie’s National Donor Programme and a trailer.

Richard Edwards

Release Date: 20 June
2011 | 15 | 113 minutes | £9.99 (DVD)/£14.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Director: Mikael Håfström
Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Colin O’Donoghue, Alice Braga

It’s not easy being a Catholic, what with the guilt and all, but things can get really tricky if you pick up a demon infestation. Exorcism, the subject of many horror films ranging from the terrifying to the terrible, is once again pored over in The Rite, but it sadly settles for mediocrity.

Things start promisingly enough – Michael (O’Donaghue), in an effort to get a free degree, signs up at the seminary and begins training as a priest. When he attempts to resign at the end of his course, his superiors – sensing some inherent priestly talent – instead send him on an exorcism course at the Vatican, where he encounters the eccentric Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins).

A sluggishly paced first hour is nevertheless quite effective, creaking with unholy menace and containing a smattering of chills as Father Michael grapples with his faith in the face of demonic possessions.

The final third, however, is a mess. O’Donoghue’s Father Michael is a priest straight out of One Tree Hill – pretty but useless – and when the script deviates from high-church fire and brimstone it falters badly. Instead of a tense, psychological finale with diabolic undertones, we’re given a Catholic Rocky, and the whole thing feels like a huge missed opportunity.

Extras:

On the DVD are a handful of deleted scenes (12 mins). Blu-ray buyers also get a couple of exclusives: an alternate ending and the “Soldier Of God” featurette (7 mins).

Rob Power

Release Date: 20 June
2011 | 12 | £14.99 (DVD) | £19.99 (Blu-ray) | 109 minutes
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Director: DJ Caruso
Cast: Alex Pettyfer, Dianna Agron, Timothy Olyphant

Eventually Hollywood will find a franchise to fill the Harold Potter and Twiglet-shaped chasms at the heart of blockbuster season. Until then a factory line of pretenders to the throne is the order of the day, including this charmless piece of manufactured sci-fi hokum.

Brit Alex Pettyfer (Stormchaser) stars as John, number four of nine surviving alien children hiding on Earth after their home planet was wiped out by an invading race of Mogadorians. With the help of his guardian, Henri (Olyphant, wasted here), John has evaded the slap-headed nasties, who must inexplicably kill the superpowered extraterrestrial teens in numerical order. That is, until John’s developing powers and his feelings for a girl (Glee’s smiley Agron) bring him one step closer to a Mogadorian shiv.

Cinema doesn’t come much more uninspired than I Am Number Four. Every aspect feels like the result of decision by committee. The high concept is nonsensical, verging on idiotic. Essentially an excuse for a climactic telekinetic smackdown which, when it finally arrives after 90 minutes of tedious high-school melodrama, is a standout sequence for the special effects department.

If this is the next Harry Potter, or even Twilight, there are dark times ahead for teen sci-fi.

Extras:

DVD folk get just a short featurette and pointless blooper reel. The Blu-ray’s not much better, with six weedy deleted scenes and a digital copy.

Jordan Farley

Release Date: 13 June
1966-7 * PG * 1,500 minutes * £39.99 (DVD)
Distributor: Revelation
Executive producer: Irwin Allen
Cast: James Darren, Robert Colbert, Lee Meriwether

You know those old episodes of Doctor Who where he lands in some historical scenario and spends ages trying to convince antagonistic locals that he’s not bad news? Well that’s what happens in almost every episode of The Time Tunnel! Scientists Doug and Tony – who must have also done really well in their history lessons and are pretty handy with their fists too – are the unlucky pair who randomly visit events from the planet’s past thanks to a shonky US government time travel machine. When they finally manage to convince people that they’re not dodgy they put right some wrong only without changing the course of history. Which is pretty clever when you think about it…

Hard thinking, though, is not something to do while watching Irwin Allen’s hokey one-season show that also features aliens straight out of a Blue Peter Design-A-Monster competition, built by the children themselves. Our two heroes, played by actors who never change their mood, expression or clothes, encounter even more horrific things in the shape of realms of stock footage: when a thousand screaming Arab warriors or a truckload of howling Nazis are required, Irwin just dips into his old movie collection, and voilà.

It’s fun but repetitive, despite all the different settings. Maybe season two would have taken more risks?

Extras:

Trifling 1976 TV movie Time Travelers, an attempt to revive a similar format, and an unaired pilot for a new Time Tunnel from 2002. There’s also a sizeable stills gallery, Coming Soon montages, cast interviews and more. Russell Lewin

Release Date: 23 May
2010 * 18 * 645 minutes * £39.99 (DVD)/£49.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: HBO Home Entertainment
Creator: Alan Ball
Cast: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Sam Trammell, Alexander Skarsgård, Ryan Kwanten, Marshall Allman, Rutina Wesley

The show that would’ve given Mary Whitehouse the screaming collywobbles sashays into its third season without even pausing to take a breath, picking up right where it left off, with Sookie accepting Bill’s proposal but then finding herself mysteriously bereft of her vampire suitor. The fact that True Blood spends a good chunk of this year focusing on its two leads living separate lives (he’s been kidnapped; she’s looking for him) actually does it a few favours, as it frees up both characters to do lots of outrageous things with other people.

This year brings us everything from bone-breaking sex to spines being ripped out on live TV to warped drug hallucinations. Business as usual, then. The one problem with season three, however, is that there doesn’t seem to be a clear narrative arc, merely a bunch of guest stars wandering in and shaking things up a little without a Grand Plan for the regulars to rally against.

This small but vital oversight means that True Blood has now become the world’s most gruesome soap opera – but that’s not to say it isn’t fun. Denis O’Hare’s scheming vampire Russell Edgington is the sickest creation since Buffy’s Drusilla; a pack of werewolves add much-needed bite (er, sorry); Eric and Pam prove they should have a show of their own; and the sex, language, wisecracks and relationships are as entertaining as ever. Feel bad for Rutina Wesley’s Tara, however, who has nothing to do this year except wail and cry, and Sam Merlotte’s new-found family grate even more than they’re supposed to.

Soap opera or not, though, the shocks are what make True Blood the most-talked-about show on TV today, and because they’re still coming thick, fast and bloody, it’s difficult to complain. Long may Bon Temps gross us out.

Extras:

Six commentaries from a multitude of cast and crew. Minisodes, episode post-mortems and an “Anatomy Of A Scene” (from episode two) add further value, while the inclusion of Snoop Dogg’s “Oh Sookie” video shows this isn’t a box set that’s taking itself seriously. The Blu-ray adds a few more bits’n’bobs, although most of them are rather superfluous preview and recap kinds of thing. Jayne Nelson

Release Date: OUT NOW!
2010 * U * 96 minutes * £19.99 (DVD)/£21.99 (Double-play Blu-ray)/£29.49 (3D Super-Play)
Directors: Nathan Greno, Byron Howard
Cast: Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy, Brad Garrett

After years in production, the 50th animation from Walt Disney studios (and reportedly one of the most expensive film ever made), Tangled has an awful lot of expectations to live up to.

A classic Brothers Grimm fairytale, Rapunzel (Moore) is stolen as a baby from the King and Queen by an evil old woman desperate for the magical youth-giving powers of her luscious locks. After 18 years imprisoned, she longs to explore the world outside, managing to escape when a dashing thief, Flynn, seeks refuge in the tower while on the run. Hi-jinks and random singing ensue.

Visually, Tangled is easily up there with Disney classics. The stand-out “lantern” scene really is a stunner and with complicated crowd and action sequences, it’s easy to see where all the budget went.

Sometimes, however, it can feel as if Disney were wary of straying too far off the fairytale checklist, resulting in a pretty formulaic affair. Handsome prince? Check. Beautiful princess? Check. Wicked stepmother? Check. Cute animal sidekick? Check… Nevertheless, this doesn’t detract from a great story brought up to date with a feisty female for a modern audience.

With Oscar-winner Alan Menken tinkling the ivories, the soundtrack doesn’t go far wrong either, with some songs bound for classic status. Tangled is Disney back at its sentimental, showstopping best.

Extras:

Original openings and a 50th Animated Feature countdown on the DVD. The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes, extended songs and a Making Of featurette. Amy Davies

Release Date: OUT NOW!
1976 * 18 * 107 minutes * £16.34
Distributor: Eureka
Director: Narciso Ibanez Serrador
Cast: Lewis Fiander, Prunella Ransome

It starts with seven minutes of credits which feature archive footage of atrocities against humanity, especially children – Auschwitz, the Korean war, Vietnam and so on. It’s a bit heavy, but you straight away realise this is no ordinary movie.

An English couple in Spain head to a remote island for a little peace, but on arriving find that it’s been overrun with children. The adults are all but gone, although one shows up to explain that the kids have gone crazy, murdering the grown-ups – and it’s tough to fight back because, as he ventures, who can kill a child?

Like Hitchcock’s The Birds, only with younglings as the creatures who go a little crazy sometimes, Who Can Kill A Child? is a highly effective, deliciously subtle horror film that’s genuinely unsettling. That most of it’s shot in the bright sun only adds to the chills, and the deserted town plot once again works its tantalising magic.

It largely avoids mistakes that could have spoilt it: the child actors are as good as could be wished, the two leads are believable and sympathetic, and it doesn’t make compromises to deliver a pat ending. One criticism might be that it’s a little too long – dumping those grim, drawn-out opening credits would have been a good idea for starters.

Extra:

A brief but interesting interview with the director and a slightly longer one with the cinematographer. Russell Lewin

Release Date: 16 May
2010 * PG * 93 minutes * £19.99 (DVD)/£24.99 (Blu-ray)/ £29.99 (3D Blu-ray)
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Director: Rob Letterman
Cast: Jack Black, Chris O’Dowd, Jason Segel, Billy Connolly, Emily Blunt, Catherine Tate, Amanda Peet, James Corden

The sight of Gulliver peeing on a tiny soldier would not faze Jonathan Swift – the 18th century scribe was not above a good urination gag. What would baffle him, however, is the Guitar Hero product placement, the appearance of a giant robot and a laughably incongruous dance number featuring Edwin Starr’s “War”.

Jack Black plays mailroom loser Gulliver, who heads to sea to prove himself worthy of both a journalism job and the travel editor’s affections. Shipwrecked on Lilliput, he’s feted as a superman by the miniature populous until the jealousy of General Edward (Chris O’Dowd) leads to a punch up.

There are genuine chuckles to be had from the Brit comedians, especially O’Dowd. But the film blunders from one slapstick incident to the next, with an on-autopilot Black sure to please only the most juvenile viewers. The central message becomes “have confidence in yourself and you can give a wedgie to a droid” – it’s no small feat to try and find that life-affirming.

Extras:

The DVD boasts eight deleted scenes; “I Don’t Know”, a spoof mystery documentary; a short “gag reel”; a special effects Making Of; “Jack Black Thinks Big”, about bringing New York to ye olde Lilliput; a game and a trailer. The Blu-ray adds a digital copy; “War Song Dance”, about the Starr number; talking heads with Black and Segel; an interview with the director and premiere footage. Dave Bradley

Release Date: 16 May
2010 * 18 * 280 minutes | £29.99 (DVD)/£34.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Entertainment One
Creator: Frank Darabont
Cast: Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun, Chandler Riggs

We know zombies are slow-moving but still, it’s pretty staggering that it’s taken 43 years since Night Of The Living Dead redefined the undead for them to shamble onto our TV screens in the context of an ongoing series. In some respects we have Danny Boyle to thank. The stateside success of 28 Days Later’s faux-zombies helped kick-start a revival of the genre that still continues to snowball, to the point where walking corpses are now considered a suitable subject for children’s books and romances.

Of course, Robert Kirkman deserves most of the credit. “The zombie movie that never ends” was his brilliantly simple high concept, and the excellence of his character-led comic-book treatment caught the eye of Frank Darabont. As soon as that partnership was founded, there was little doubt the results would be something special. The Shawshank director is one of us, a geek – this is the guy who worked on screenplays for the likes of The Fly 2 and the remake of The Blob. He gets this stuff.

The results are satisfyingly faithful, but add an extra dimension. Darabont’s show follows the same general path as its comics precursor, but is not above taking a detour, which stops things getting too predictable for Kirkman’s fans. Characters you expect to die don’t; the flip side of that is that no one is necessarily safe. There’s no holding back either, no dialling back on the grue – that becomes crystal clear in the second episode, once our hero hatches a plan to avoid detection by wearing rotten intestines like a scarf – a fashion innovation we hope to see on the catwalks very soon.

At the same time, this isn’t one of those zombie tales that merely revels in carnage, whooping at the exploding heads like an overexcited hillbilly. What’s really impressive about The Walking Dead is its ability to switch gears, from zombie mayhem into more meditative, reflective moments. For every face-off, flipping car or axe to the head, there’s a dignified, quietly moving two-hander on pain, loss and acceptance. The writers never forget that this is a show about people, not zombies – damaged survivors who’ve lived through unspeakable horrors. Leaving someone behind is a harrowing business. Every death matters. Every bite hurts.

For British viewers, the sight of This Life’s Andrew Lincoln as a Yankee sheriff’s deputy is initially disconcerting, but Lincoln’s portrayal is so steadfast (and his accent so unwavering) that you soon get over the fact that Egg’s gone Southern-fried. Also impressive are Jeffrey DeMunn as Dale, kindly, thoughtful liberalism personified in a fisherman’s hat, and the incomparable Michael Rooker, who kicks out the jams as racist redneck Merle Dixon, a new character so powerful he can become the dominant focus of an episode he’s entirely absent from. The expansion of Rick’s cop partner Shane (short-lived in the comic) is an equally welcome embellishment.

There’s just one fly in the ointment. Is The Walking Dead sexist? There are those who claim that’s the case. Some of that analysis seems predicated on an early exchange in episode one, where Shane discusses the differences between men and “chicks” in thoroughly chauvinist terms. But that’s not an endorsement of his views; the function of that scene is to tip us off to the fact that Shane is something of an ass-hat.

Keep watching, however, and it’s undeniable that when there’s rescuing to be done or zombie skulls to crack, men always take the active role; the women are more likely to be hanging up washing. Of course, these characters are a product of their environment, and we might expect gender roles to be more “traditional” in the rural South – Rick and co are from small-town Kentucky, not New York (or Galactica’s future). And the likes of Lori and Andrea are by no means ineffectual characters.

All the same, it’s disappointing that the female characters of The Walking Dead never really get to step up to the plate. A scene from the comic where the women of the camp get firearm training never makes it to the screen, and scenes of two women in conversation are thin on the ground. Hopefully in series two the katana-wielding Michonne (one of the comic’s most fascinating characters) will make her arrival and help to fix this gender imbalance.

Extras:

No commentaries – a rotten disappointment. On the plus side, you do get a generous spread of featurettes and snippets. Alongside the regulation Making Of (29 minutes) are snippets from the Comic-Con panel, 14 short featurettes and a trailer. Highlights include a peek at extras being run through “zombie school” exercises, advice on creating your own undead make-up, and a look at how they created the crawling zombie from the first episode. Ian Berriman

Release Date: 9 May
1986 * PG * 125 minutes* £24.99 (Double-play Blu-ray/ DVD)
Distributor: Studio Ghibli
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: Anna Paquin, James Van Der Beek, Cloris Leachman, Mark Hamill, Richard Dysart

The first official Studio Ghibli release is also one of the most accessible to Western audiences – its tale of two kids searching for a legendary floating castle could be the animated Indiana Jones film that never was.

Sheeta, a girl who owns a magic pendant, meets Pazu, a young miner. Pazu’s late father photographed a mysterious castle in the clouds, and he’s determined to find it. With pirates in pursuit of the pendant, the pair set off on a journey to the strange citadel.

Now on UK Blu-ray for the first time, this is one glorious-looking animation. Its world appears to have been conjured from a child’s dreamscape, so we’re treated to, say, a railway on stilts cascading over valleys beneath, or steampunk-style flying machines cutting through the blue skies, roaring guns ablaze. It’s a world you can happily escape into, and doesn’t feel as alien as some anime worlds do: for instance, the cobbled streets and terraced houses of Pazu’s mining neighbourhood could almost be Durham.

With its classic, fairytale-esque storyline, deeper themes (Pazu wants to find the castle to validate his late father), and its sense of physical freedom, it’s Miyazaki at his most inspiring.

Extras:

In-vision storyboards, a promotional video (12 mins) and three featurettes. There are also textless credits, TV spots and trailers. Russell Lewin

Release Date: 9 May 2011
1970-1971 * PG * 192 minutes * £29.99
Distributor: 2entertain
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Roger Delgado

Mannequin Mania collects two tales featuring the plastic-lovin’ Autons. “Spearhead From Space” saw a show threatened with the axe radically reinvented as a full-colour, Earth-based action-adventure series with a more grown-up tone. Tapping into our unease with synthetic materials, the Autons are a fab creation, though their boiler suit and neck-scarf outfits do bring to mind Tony Hart playing Jason Voorhees. Boffin assistant Liz Shaw is so sarky she’s annoying, and the perfunctory climax, where Pertwee gurns like a loon as he’s strangled by octopoid tentacles, is risible in the extreme. But scenes of mannequins busting out of shop windows to slaughter pedestrians still pack a punch, and top-of-the-line Auton Channing is sublimely creepy. Shame it looks so dull… a studio strike made this the only classic Who shot entirely on film, and the results are a little drab.

That can’t be said of “Terror Of The Autons”; with its garish colours and focus on tacky consumer products, it couldn’t be more representative of The Decade That Taste Forgot. It gives the Doctor a new nemesis: The Master! Here, the Doctor is given a new nemesis: The Master! Roger Delgado is note-perfect from the off, combining menace with urbane charm. It’s a series of loosely-strung-together incidents, with world domination secondary to the game of one-upmanship; as the Doctor foils one fiendish trap after another, we’re forever rushing to the next murderous setpiece. Writer Robert Holmes has a ball imagining new ways to psychologically damage the under-tens, armchairs and plastic flowers into objects of terror in ways the modern shows probably wouldn’t dare (it’s rather a shame the new series doesn’t exploit this side of the Autons). The climax is feeble, with the Master easily talked into a U-turn, and image quality is poor (long story…), but it’s all such outrageous fun that it doesn’t really matter.

Extras:

“Spearhead” first came out in 2001 with scant extras, so Who fans will probably end up buying it again to get “Terror”; start making your placards for the march on 2entertain HQ now. This reissue adds a second commentary (by the producer and the script editor), and two featurettes – a Making Of (19 minutes) with some amusing anecdotes, and a somnolently dry piece on the challenges of the move to colour (23 minutes). There’s nothing earth-shattering on “Terror” either; highlights include “Life On Earth” (34 minutes), which ropes in RTD’s right-hand-man Phil Collinson to compare and contrast two differing takes on Earth-based Who. “The Doctor’s Moriarty” (19 minutes) wheels out talking heads from three eras to discuss the Master, while the somewhat underwhelming “Plastic Fantastic” is 11 minutes of Auton chat, mostly by new series writer Rob Shearman. The commentary is suffused with sadness, since two of the participants (Barry Letts and Nicholas “The Brig” Courtney) are no longer with us.

Ian Berriman

Release date: 25 April 2011
2010 * 18 * 155 minutes * £19.99
Distributor: Entertainment One
Director: Gaspar Noé
Cast: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta, Olly Alexander, Cyril Roy, Ed Spear

Life begins at 40, or so the saying goes. But for drug dealer Oscar (Brown) life begins at the moment he watches his guts paint the walls of a faeces-encrusted Tokyo toilet.

Ascending from his still-warm corpse, Oscar’s spirit becomes unstitched in time, jumping between traumatic childhood memories and modern-day Tokyo. Soaring over the city’s hallucinatory neon skyline and to the deepest depths of its sex-crazed, uber-violent underbelly, Oscar gently course-corrects the life of his self-destructive stripper sister Linda (De La Huerta), bringing about his own redemption in the process.

From the astonishing opening title onslaught to the full-circle finalé, Gaspar Noé’s mindbending melodrama is a dizzying sensory experience. Walls, floors, even people are no obstacle for the camera, which captures Oscar’s final journey entirely through his ethereal eyes. Coupled with the unsettling ambient soundtrack and garish light scheme, the film presents a vision of the afterlife both nauseatingly sordid and unexpectedly spiritual.

Featuring on-screen abortions, themes of incest and a nightmarish hotel built for 24/7 sexual deviance, Noé (director of notorious rape-revenge drama Irréversible) occasionally veers too close to the distasteful. But beneath it all there’s genuine compassion in the story of a brother and sister repeatedly torn apart by unimaginable tragedy. Tough, but rewarding.

Extras:

Not much, despite coming as a “special two-disc edition”: lots of trailers (15 minutes worth!), 10 minutes of so-so deleted/extended scenes, and a pair of dull effects featurettes. Jordan Farley

2003
Director: Jun-Hwan Jang
Cast: Ha-kyun Shin, Yun-shik Baek, Jeong-min Hwang
Available on region one and region two DVD.
Watch a trailer here.

A serial killer. Tightrope walking. A punk rock cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Death by bee attack. 2001 homages. Menthol rub. All elements of this crazy Korean export.

Byong-Gu is a geek with a mission. Convinced Earth’s going to be destroyed, he abducts a businessman he believes is an alien from Andromeda, and interrogates the hell out of him. He’s clearly nuts; question is, is he right?

For most of its duration, this plays like a wacked-out take on Manhunter. A Maverick Ex Cop (TM) hunts Byong-Gu, while he gleefully tortures away with electric shocks and anal probes, leaving the film teetering on the edge of sadism.

If you can stomach that, there’s plenty to enjoy. There are some pleasing visual ideas – Byong-Gu is a mannequin maker, so his dingy lair is full of hanging plastic limbs – and Ha-kyun Shin’s performance switches neatly between sympathetic loser and sweaty, evil loon.

Only thing is, Save The Green Planet was clearly designed to win a cult following. And its “chuck everything, including the kitchen sink in” approach to weirdery treads a fine line between “endearingly bat’s-arse” and “trying a bit too hard”.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The weirdo.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

Release Date: 18 April 2011
1974 * PG * 148  minutes * £19.99
Distributor: 2entertain
Director: Barry Letts
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, John Dearth

This six-parter draws the Jon Pertwee era to an end with a mix of the fresh and the hokey, as writer/director/producer Barry Letts grasps the opportunity to indulge both his own, more cerebral interests and those of his action-loving departing star. The result is a Zen Buddhist parable that also includes a preposterous 12-minute-long hovercraft/gyroplane/speedboat/flying car chase!

Setting much of the story at a meditation centre is an interesting move (although it rather beggars belief that the villain of the piece would think a retreat run by some Tibetan monks would be a likely place to go to achieve power…), and the story cleverly uses its creepy giant “Eight-legs” as symbols of rampant egotism; a Flowers For Algernon-style subplot is also quite effective.

Unfortunately, once we get to the spiders’ home planet there’s a lot of rather trad “oppressed peasants revolt” run-around, with the likes of Gareth Hunt struggling to look dignified in sheepskin tops, but it’s fascinating to see a dash of Eastern philosophy stirred into the usual recipe.

Extras:

The commentary is suffused with sadness, since it includes Barry Letts and Nicholas “The Brigadier” Courtney, both sadly no longer with us. A retrospective Making Of (38 minutes) neatly mixes facts and anecdotes with fannish reminiscences of watching the show air by new series scribe Mark Gatiss. You also get interviews with guest star John Kane (Tommy), who has a great anecdote about staying in character for the taxi ride to TV centre, and Barry Letts (about directing Who), a now-and-then feature on the locations, a Wogan clip, the usual text commentary and Radio Times PDFs, and, for completeness’ sake, an omnibus repeat edit of the story which you will never, ever watch…

Ian Berriman



Release date: 18 April 2011
1989 * 12 * 99 minutes * £15.99
Distributor: Second Sight Films
Director: Steve Miner
Cast: Julian Sands, Richard E Grant, Lori Singer

Warlock‘s credits are a roll-call of cult favourites. Written by David “Pitch Black” Twohy, with Lake Placid‘s Steve Miner in the folding chair, genre legend Roger Corman on producer duties and celebrated tunesmith Jerry Goldsmith waving the baton, it sounds like a sure-fire triumph.
The titular spellmonger is a suave Julian Sands, demonically rescued from his execution in the 17th century and flung forward in time. He’s tasked with finding the Grand Grimoire which will undo all of God’s creation, but a hairy witch-smiter (Richard E Grant) zips across to 1989 too and hunts him, with help from kooky Californian Kassandra (Lori Singer).

It’s fun, though lacking much that could elevate it to iconic status. Humdrum dialogue and a lack of truly likeable characters are barriers to genuine satisfaction, plus it’s awkwardly derivative. Though billed as a horror at the time, Warlock’s more in the fantasy tradition that spawned Highlander – a fake Scottish accent and man-out-of-time plot seem engineered to bring Christopher Lambert’s 1986 hit to mind. Singer tags along looking like Pris from Blade Runner, and there’s trace DNA from The Terminator, as the time-travelling pair track each other across modern America, with mankind’s destruction as the prize.

These flaws are not, ahem, the end of the world. The two leading men deliver brooding performances, and there are amusingly grotesque moments as the Warlock randomly bites off a man’s tongue or ritually drinks a child’s fat. But the overall concoction fails to cast a spell.

Extras:
None.

Dave Bradley

1985
Director: Alan Rudolph
Cast: Kris Kristofferson, Keith Carradine, Lori Singer, Geneviève Bujold, Joe Morton
Available on region one and region two DVD.
Watch a trailer here.

Who in their right mind would cast Divine – heavyweight tranny, dog poo-munching muse of John Waters – as a Mr Big crime lord? Only a director like Alan Rudolph. That’s just one typically idiosyncratic choice in this offbeat neo-noir.

Sometimes compared (misleadingly) to Blade Runner, it’s set in an indeterminate time and place. The look is retro-futurist: the ‘40s as remembered in the near-future, as imagined in the ‘80s. Silver-helmeted militiamen walk the streets, and there are glimpses of eccentric signage. But these details never intrude into the foreground, where three characters meet their destinies in Rain City: ex-cop Hawk, played like a knight whose faith has lapsed by Kris Kristofferson; ethereal country girl Georgia, whose innocence captivates him; and her partner Coop (Keith Carradine), seduced by crime, his ethical standards tumbling as his increasingly surreal haircuts rise.

Low-key, dryly humorous, stylish, it’s a film blessed with epigrammatic dialogue (“Everyone wants to go to heaven – no-one wants to die…”) and surreal images (the villain’s spin on “sleeping with the fishes” sees people drowned in water-filled cars). Unhitched from reality, it takes you to a place where anything can happen.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The weirdo.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

Release date: 11 April 2011
2010 * 15 * 79 minutes *  £15.99
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Cast: Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick, Wings Hauser, Roxane Mesquida

A movie about a tyre that goes on a telekinetic killing rampage? Sounds like something Troma would dream up. But Quentin Dupieux (aka electro musician Mr Oizo)’s debut is too coolly postmodern to be bracketed as a simple B-movie.

The ironic tone is established immediately, as Stephen Spinella’s Sheriff delivers a speech explaining that it’s “a homage to ‘no reason’”. Aware that he exists within a fiction, the Sheriff later points out to his subordinates that “it’s not real life”. Add a crowd of observers who act as a Greek chorus, anticipating audience responses as they watch through binoculars and you have an extended absurdist joke that’s more Luis Bunuel than Christine.

Anthropomorphising a tyre poses a clear challenge, but Dupieux pulls it off. There’s considerable delight to be had as we watch “Robert” testing his powers, contemplating his reflection, or spying on a pretty girl. Simply watching him rolling along under his own steam into artfully composed postcard landscapes fascinates your inner child – like observing a spinning coin. And the Scanners-style results of his psi powers are satisfyingly explosive.

But for all the film’s drollery, style and charm, there isn’t enough depth to the concept to sustain a feature-length run time. Rubber would have made a magnificent half-hour short, but after an hour you’ll begin to (sorry) tyre of the experience.

Extras:

Short interviews with the mischievous Dupieux (who’s quizzed by a blow-up sex doll…) and three cast; a test footage snippet;  the trailer.

Ian Berriman

Join us every Monday, as we look at a cult movie. Our film of the week this time features a Japanese girl being chewed up by a piano…

1977
Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Cast: Kimiko Ikegami, Kumiko Ohba, Yôko Minamida
Available on region one DVD/Bluray and region two DVD.
Watch the trailer here.

The reaction of one Toho studio suit to Nobuhiko Obayashi’s screenplay for Hausu (aka House) was, “This is the first time I’ve seen such a completely meaningless script!” His head must have exploded when he saw the finished film.

The director had an interesting career path. He began making experimental films, then moved into TV commercials, and brings both of these sensibilities to this category-defying Japanese horror. It follows a schoolgirl as she visits her aunt’s bewitched house in the country, with six friends in tow. “Weird stuff ensues” is the best synopsis we can manage.

The score’s the first thing to bamboozle your senses: jarringly jolly tunes, cartoonish sound effects, sentimental piano melodies, and the musical war crime that is slap bass, layered all over everything so thickly as to be the aural equivalent of dousing a dish of sushi in tomato sauce. But it’s the bewildering array of visual techniques that really fry your brain. Slow-motion, choppy frame rates, Monty Python-esque animation… Dialogues take place in whip-wipes from one character to another. One minute the fake painted backdrops are reminding you of the stylised kitsch of French artists Pierre et Giles; the next there’s some Goodies-style speeded-up slapstick.

The horrific sequences would slot neatly into one of Peter Jackson’s early films: in one, a decapitated head flies about in the air and bites someone on the arse. In another, a girl’s chewed up by a piano. It’s maddeningly incomprehensible, perversely fascinating, and so hyperactively edited that it may cause foaming at the mouth. We try to avoid drug-based similes, but sometimes nothing else will do: if you crashed a teenage girls’ pyjama party after necking some bad acid, this is probably what it’d feel like.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The weirdo.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

Release date: 4 April 2011
2011 * 15 * 471 minutes * £19.99
Distributor: 2entertain
Creator: Ben Richards
Cast: Liam Cunningham, Hermione Norris, Daniel Mays, Amy Manson, Ashley Walters

Considering the Beeb’s publicity machine did its best to deny that Outcasts was SF at all, the show doesn’t skimp on the genre stuff. We’re not just talking about the fact it’s set on another planet in the future – the presence of clones, freaky electrical storms and an awkward alien presence ensure it’s a harder sci-fi proposition than primetime BBC One audiences are used to. But to blame that – or being scheduled against Big Fat Gypsy Weddings – for ratings that went from ordinary to disastrous would be turning a blind eye to some fundamental problems.

In a world of multichannel TV and wedding dresses that need a forklift to shift them, Outcasts never does enough to grab viewers by the scruff of the neck. Its first few episodes are humourless, short on genuine drama and populated by a group of characters who are neither interesting nor relatable – the last thing you’d expect from Life On Mars and Spooks hit machine Kudos.

But Outcasts does eventually evolve into decent sci-fi. If viewers had stuck around for the second half of the series, they’d have been treated to episodes that ramp up the tension and intrigue, culminating in a tantalising cliffhanger setting up a second series that, sadly won’t happen… Fingers crossed that Outcasts’ failure to find an audience won’t put the Beeb off serious science fiction for good.

Extras:

“Reach Out To The Stars”, a half-hour piece that includes cast and crew interviews and a tour of the set.

Richard Edwards

1958
Director: Irvin S Yeaworth Jr
Cast: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe
Available on region one and (if you can find a copy!) region two DVD
Watch the trailer here – and hear the theme song here!

Think it’s cheeky that half the Buffy cast were obviously in their twenties when playing high school kids? That’s nothing compared to The Blob, which provides a first starring role for one “Steven McQueen”. He plays a teenager despite the fact that he was 27 years old at the time, and – with his greying temples and frown lines – a mature 27 at that.

A meteorite lands in a small town, releasing a protoplasmic lifeform that absorbs flesh on contact. Soon what resembles a giant lump of raspberry jam is rolling around town, perhaps taking revenge for the harsh treatment of its Earthly fruit preserve brothers. Young Steve tries to warn the town but – perhaps unconsciously suspicious of his age – the cops don’t believe him.

The Blob is one of those B-movies that will always inhabit a warm little nook in the affections of SF fans but, truth be told, it’s never quite as fun as it should be. The blob attacks are the main draw – and they’re few and far between. Every amusingly “hip” line of dialogue (“You mean this little pebble’s been hot-rodding around the universe?”) is cancelled out by an interminable “character” scene. Never mind fleshing out the local cops! Show us the angry jam!

The script has one genius idea: staging a blob attack at a cinema, a movie-within-a-movie moment that was way ahead of its time. You’ve gotta love the resulting scenes of panic – when the “terrified” crowd runs out of the cinema, most of the excited extras are clearly grinning like mad (you can also see the same bloke in a pink shirt running out twice!) But as for McQueen, the King Of Cool, acting like a gawky kid? Here on the net, you can find middle-aged women in pigtails and ankle socks who make more convincing teenagers…

A spoofy follow-up, Beware! The Blob, followed in 1972, directed by none other than Larry Hagman – yes, JR Ewing! You can give that a miss, but the surprisingly gory 1988 remake, co-written by some bloke by the name of Frank Darabont (whatever happened to him?), is well worth a watch.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The weirdo.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

Release Date: 28 March 2011
2011 * 15 * 450 minutes * £24.99 (DVD)/£29.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: 2entertain
Creator: Toby Whithouse
Cast: Aidan Turner, Lenora Crichlow, Russell Tovey, Sinead Keenan, Jason Watkins, Robson Green

Series three of Being Human is right up there in the premier division of British telefantasy’s greatest moments. That’s not just a piece of gushing in the immediate rush after transmission; the events here will be mulled over at convention bars for years to come.

At its best, it’s not just good genre TV, it’s great drama, period. It begins deceptively, with episodes that seem to suggest a new format. Not just the relocation to Wales – the new setting in ’70s timewarp B&B Honolulu Heights seems to be changing the show into some kind of supernatural Fawlty Towers, with new undead lodgers every week.

And it’s fun. The show regains its comedy/drama mojo, and boasts dialogue to – ahem – die for (“Can you not ask my girlfriend to suckle you, please?”). The guest characters (teen vampire Adam, werewolves McNair and son, zombie Sasha) are strong and memorable. The plots indulge in some gloriously warped ideas.

But then, halfway through the series, it takes a very dark turn, as the fallout from the series two’s Box Tunnel Massacre catches up with Mitchell. Vampire baddie Herrick returns, but in a way you wouldn’t expect, making Mitchell a desperate man indeed.

For those fed up with soppy, lovestruck vampires in easy control of their inner demons, it’s a revelation. Here’s the tale of a man who, finally, cannot ignore what he is. There’s no redemption, no easy fixes. The show delves deeply into themes of guilt, self-deception and trust. It’s brave, it’s uncompromising, it’s electrifying to watch.

It’s not quite perfect. The opening episode is oddly structured; the episode with George’s “dead” dad stretches credibility too far; Annie occasionally acts a bit dim; and Lia’s revenge plot come to a perfunctory, grinding halt. But when series three is good, it’s jawdroppingly magnificent.

Extras:

Not a huge selection (wot, no commentaries?) but what’s here is very good indeed. There’s a tour around the set in the company of Sinead Keenan, who rather sweetly gets lost and can’t find her own character’s bedroom. You also get 20 minutes of excellent interviews with all the four main actors. Best of all, though, is the 10 minutes of cut footage. These aren’t just random offcuts of people walking down streets; these are fully-formed, wonderfully-crafted scenes full of dialogue every bit as quotable as the words transmitted.

Dave Golder

Release date: 28 March 2011
2009 * PG * 110 minutes * £17.99 (DVD)/£19.99 (Blu-ray)
Distributor: Manga Entertainment
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Sumiko Fuji, Ayumu Saito, Mitsuki Tanamura

The best anime movies redefine SF and fantasy. Ghost In The Shell introduced a new kind of screen cyberpunk. Spirited Away transformed kids’ fantasy. The marvellous Summer Wars is, among other things, a cyberspace spectacle, but with the warmth and wonder we associate with Pixar or Ghibli. For anyone who’s seen director Mamoru Hosoda’s previous film, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: the man’s still got it.

The witty story starts in teen romcom mode, though straight off there’s much more happening under the surface. Shy schoolboy (and maths prodigy) Kenji is dragged into the countryside by the fair Natsuki, a girl who wants him to – ahem – impersonate her fiancé. Home is a former samurai fortress, where Kenji meets Natsuki’s boisterous extended family, led by her knife-sharp great-granny. That night, Kenji unwinds by solving a maths puzzle sent to his phone, and things go cyber…

The film’s online world is the exact opposite of Tron: Legacy’s neon night. It’s a realm of soft pastels and shining white spaces, where cartoonily whimsical avatars zoom and soar like Pokemons from Krypton. As for the cyber-villain, it mutates throughout the film, from a sniggering Mickey Mouse-alike, to a macho kung-fu king, to a towering Godzilla.

Wisely, though, Summer Wars sets most of its action in the real world, where Natsuki’s clan is the most engaging cartoon family since the Incredibles. Summer Wars has the dramatic weight of that Pixar film; there’s a bold story turn that gives a real punch to the throw-in-everything fireworks finale. Calling Michael Bay! This is how you make a spectacular summer movie.

Extras:

An interview with the director (13 mins), Nearly an hour of material from the Locarno International Film Festival, including interviews with the director (13 mins) and voice cast (25 mins), as well as trailers and TV spots.

Andrew Osmond

1958
Director: Quentin Lawrence
Cast: Forrest Tucker, Janet Munro, Lawrence Payne
Available on region one and region two DVD.
Watch the trailer here.

Back in the ‘50s Hammer were having considerable success turning Auntie Beeb’s Quatermass series into movies. Spotting a good thing, their competitors Eros Films followed suit, hiring Hammer’s own Jimmy Sangster to adapt an ATV serial.

This sci-fi thriller (also released under the title The Crawling Eye in the States) is set in the Alps, in the shadow of the Trollenberg mountain. An observatory for studying cosmic rays has discovered a strange radioactive cloud squatting on the mountain, never moving. There are mysterious deaths, with climbers losing their heads – literally. It’s the start of an invasion by aliens from a chilly planet, who are gradually acclimatising themselves to our warmer climate.

Although hampered by a low budget and some laughable model work (hmm, is that a plane or an Airfix kit?), Trollenberg certainly has its moments. It’s surprisingly gory at times – you actually see the headless corpses left behind by the aliens. And there are a couple of very atmospheric sequences; in one, a pretty young psychic has a vision of what’s going on up on the mountain; in another, the creatures reanimate a dead climber, and send him to stab the girl to death…

Unfortunately, this is one of those films with too many unanswered questions, such as: why exactly are the aliens so keen on ripping humans’ heads off? Do they collect them? Eat them? Play marbles with them? And what have they got against stage mind-readers? Is cabaret taboo on their home world?

Fortunately, once the aliens emerge out of the shadows and we get into a siege situation, all these questions fade away, rendered insignificant by the lunatic spectacle of giant one-eyed scrotums lashing out with their deadly tentacles. Magnificent!

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The weirdo.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

Release date: 14 March 2011
2010 * 112 mins * 15 * £15.99 (DVD and Blu-ray)
Distributor: Icon Home Entertainment
Director: Matt Reeves
Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas

Hollywood remake of foreign language horror film. You know the drill. Not as good…lacks the subtlety… Hollywoodisation… Spoon-fed plot… Glossy but hollow, blah, blah, blah… Blah humbug!

Sure, Let Me In isn’t as good as the original, Swedish Let The Right One In. But that movie was a masterpiece of warped, stylish, stylised horror that’d be hard to match. If you’d never seen it, though, and you came to Let Me In fresh, you’d have to admit, it’s one of the best, most striking, most individual Hollywood horror movies for a long, long while. And as a film about a schoolboy becoming beguiled by a girl vampire, it’s a wonderful antidote to Twilight. Especially as she can be pretty gross at times and he’s downright warped.

Like its Swedish forebear it’s stylish, it’s character-lead and it’s as much the tale of a bullied young lad in a snowy, parochial, working class small town (albeit in New Mexico this time) as it is about the vampire who moves into the flat next door. Like the original, its horror is as much about atmosphere and mood as it is about gore (though when the gore comes it’s effective). It‘s an elegant film, with some astonishing cinematography, and gutsy, raw performances.

The main problem is, it’s so close to the original movie (despite the fact that director Reeves and co don’t consider it a remake, but rather a separate adaptation of the original John Ajvide Lindqvist book that both are based on), that if you have seen the Swedish version you can’t help but play a distracting game of compare and contrast. While on most counts the Swedish film wins out, the US movie does come tops on a couple of occasions, especially during a Hitchcockian car crash that’s shot entirely inside the car.

The CG vampire attacks, though… not a good idea. Hollywood just can’t resist playing with its latest toys, can it?

Extras:

A genuinely fascinating and passionate director’s commentary, two so-so Making Of documentaries (one of which is one of those trashy Channel Four-style movie specials), a visually appealing FX featurette, an analysis of the car crash sequence, deleted scenes (with director’s commentary) and a photo gallery. A decent selection, but it’s a shame more’s not made of the fact that this is the first film from the reanimated Hammer. Oh, and not a single frame from the Swedish film is to be seen anywhere. An artistic decision, or a legal one?

Dave Golder

1983
Director: Tsui Hark
Cast: Hoi Mang, Moon Lee, Brigitte Lin, Damian Lau
Available on region one and region two DVD.
Watch the trailer here.

Eyebrows. Central to the careers of Roger Moore and Leonard Nimoy. To the rest of us, merely harmless lines of bristly hair. But, in the hands of a kung fu master (or rather, on the brows of a kung fu master), they’re deadly weapons. At least, they are in the crazed universe of Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain, which features a chap who can grab people with his super-long eyebrows and chuck them around.

This slice of fantasy kung fu is a classic of the genre, and was a big influence on John Carpenter when he made Big Trouble In Little China. It was ground-breaking at the time, because for the first time experts from the States were employed to work on the optical effects. They look a bit tuppence-ha’penny now, but there are still some striking moments, such as a kung fu scrap set against an acid-trip space backdrop.

The plot is sometimes hard to follow, although it’s difficult to tell why. It could be that cultural differences block a Westerner from comprehending things that would be instantly understood by an Eastern audience. Or it could just be that they’re making it up as they go along. You won’t care. When one character asks what the hell’s going on he’s told “They’re the bad guys. We’re the good guys. Understand?”). That’s all you really need to know. The narrative moves at such break-neck speed and hits you with such a rapid succession of gags that you’re soon too dizzy to fuss over the details.

As you’d expect in a film where practically every character has the ability to fly, the film features loads of wire-work, and the action scenes are brilliantly choreographed. Some scenes have all the grace of ballet; others have characters hilariously pinging around like a pinball. Now that wire-fu’s gone overground and respectable (thanks to the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) it’s refreshing to go back to the source. Great fun.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The weirdo.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

Release date: 7 March 2011

1982/1983 * U * 197 minutes * £29.99
Distributor: 2entertain
Directors: Peter Grimwade/Fiona Cumming
Cast: Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Matthew Waterhouse, Simon Rouse, Martin Clunes

Keen to impress others that you’re a more discerning Who fan? Then ensure you list “Kinda” in your personal top ten. Proving that the classic series was capable of greater subtlety than it’s often given credit for, its unique blend of dream visions and gnomic mysticism make it Who for grown-ups.

When companion Tegan falls asleep on Deva Loka, an idyllic Eden world apparently populated by the Timotei tribe, she becomes the gateway into our reality for a force of evil known as the Mara. Nearly three decades later, the scenes set within her mind retain the eerie charge of a vivid nightmare, and there’s a seductive streak of dark sensuality to Janet Fielding’s “possessed” turn.

It’s just one of several strong roles for women in a story that lauds female wisdom and scorns inflexible masculine values. However, the show is stolen by Simon Rouse as Hindle, a by-the-book member of an expeditionary force whose unravelling into infantilised paranoia is more authentically chilling than any ranting Dalek.

True, the climax of the tale is torpedoed by the manifestation of the Mara as a giant serpent which looks more like a novelty draught excluder. But compromised though it may be by the harsh realities of what could be achieved on ‘80s telly, this defiantly enigmatic adventure remains a triumph.

Follow-up “Snakedance” sees the Mara seeking to return, through Tegan, on a world from which it was banished centuries ago. Having learned the limitations of the format, writer Christopher Bailey somewhat disappointingly delivers something more conventional, providing a scientific explanation for the Mara, and even locking up the Doctor for a whole episode – how terribly trad. On the plus side, the production is handsomely mounted and the guest cast is uniformly excellent, with a young Martin Clunes the stand-out as a bored, insouciant aristocrat.

The main point of interest is the story’s exploration of the way historical events turn into legend, and are transformed into custom, with the true significance of symbols and ceremony eventually lost. It’s left to the Doctor to decode their significance, and seeing our all-too-often all-knowing Time Lord dismissed as a raving crank, left powerless and exasperated as he searches for answers, makes for a refreshing change.

Extras:

Both Making Ofs (34 mins/25 mins) are excellent, thanks to frank speaking all round. The twinkly-eyed Christopher Bailey bemoans “a lack of creative bounce”, while script editor Eric Saward – a man who clearly had no time for such pleasant niceties – is scathing about an absence of logic, and you can sympathise with both viewpoints. A third featurette celebrates director Peter Grimwade (17 mins). Both stories have commentary by Peter Davison, in the company of all three companions and “Kinda” guest star Nerys Hughes. Don’t expect illuminating insights; do expect amusing argumentation by the truck-load, thanks largely to the entertainingly combative Janet Fielding. “Kinda” comes with some impressive (and optional) new CGI effects to replace that rubbish snake. You also get some fascinating deleted scenes – several minutes of trims from “Kinda” episode one, and an extended ending for “Snakedance” – and seven minutes of studio footage which illustrate When Effects Go Wrong… Add a clip of Davison on Saturday Superstore, info text, isolated scores, gallerys and more and you have a superb package.

Ian Berriman

1977
Director: Michael Winner
Cast: Chris Sarandon, Christina Raines, Martin Balsam, John Carradine
Available on region one and region two DVD
Watch the trailer here

“Help me!” screams a young woman in a negligee, running into the street. “The neighbours in my new apartment are crazy! But the letting agent says no-one else lives in the building… except the blind priest upstairs. The building’s a gateway to Hell, he’s its guardian, and I’m lined up as his replacement! Shriek!” A corpulent, squint-eyed old man chuckles, nodding at the camera crew. “Calm down dear! It’s only a movie!”

Before he became better known for pimping insurance in those irritating ads, Michael Winner made equally annoying films. This is one of his better efforts – though that’s not saying much. The cast is certainly impressive, with the small roles filled by a mix of reliable Hollywood character actors (Burgess Meredith, Eli Wallach) and fresh-faced up-and-comers such as Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Walken (oh, and Star Trek fans, keep your eyes peeled at the end for an astonishingly young Nana Visitor – Kira from DS9 - making her film debut as a woman looking round the apartment.)

In every other respect this horror in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist is a second-rate piece of tut. In his DVD commentary, Winner chuckles, “This kind of thing always happens in horror films!” at on-screen clichés so often it practically becomes a mantra – no, this kind of thing always happens in bad horror films.

The most memorable sequence is also the most distasteful. When a horde of demons emerge, Winner saves money on make-up bills by employing deformed extras. That makes sense (physical mutilation is high on the agenda in Hell), but adds an element of Victorian freakshow that leaves a rather bad taste in the mouth.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

1995 * 18 * 250 mins * £19.99 * 28 February 2011
Distributor: Network
Directors: Lawrence Gordon Clark, Rob Walker, Bob Mahoney
Cast: Martin Clunes, John Simm, Nigel Havers, Peter Egan, Kevin McNally, Sophie Ward
Available exclusively online from www.networkdvd.net

Originally broadcast in 1995 and the victim of unstable scheduling due to – what else? – overlong sports coverage, Chiller is as great a “lost” piece of British spookery as you’ll find. It’s a short anthology series, featuring five unrelated hour-long tales of hauntings and horror, and has lingered in the collective memory thanks not only to some genuinely creepy tales, but also to appearances from a startlingly young John Simm, as well as Martin Clunes, and writing from such genre luminaries as Stephen Gallagher and Anthony Horowitz..

Clunes’s episode is the best. Entitled “Toby”, it’s about a literal phantom pregnancy, and manages to be honestly unsettling and upsetting – mainly because it deals so fairly with the devastating loss of a child, and sets up some entirely believable relationships. It’s something the series does very well as a whole, which is why it’s so effective – aside from what is arguably the weakest instalment here, “Here Comes The Mirror Man”, in which John Simm plays a homeless man urged to violence by an imaginary chum (OR IS HE?). It’s not bad, just duller than the rest.

Elsewhere, we get Peter Egan’s professional sceptic facing down the supernatural in “The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Ghosts”, Nigel Havers caught up in a ouija board blast from the past in “Prophecy” and Kevin McNally desperately trying to track down a child killer in “Number Six”. With its druidic undertones it’s possible to see the latter as a distant urban relative of The Wicker  Man – but all the episodes here are shining, shiversome examples of recognisable British lives intruded on by the uncanny. Welcome back, Chiller.

Extras: None.

Jes Bickham

1958
Director: Albert Band
Cast: Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel
Available on region one and region two DVD
Watch the trailer here

Maps. Help you get your way from A to B. Useful for digging up chests full of doubloons. Wonderful things. Unless they give you the power of life and death…

Richard Boone plays Robert Kraft, a chap who takes over the chairmanship of a local cemetery. The graveyard has a map showing which plots are occupied and which are reserved: a black pin means occupied; a white pin meets reserved. When Kraft puts the wrong coloured pin in a space, the plot’s owner dies. And it keeps happening…

An early career peak for the director of Ghoulies 2 and Zoltan: Hound Of Dracula (who also happens to be the grandfather of Alex Band, lead singer for US rock band The Calling), I Bury The Living is infused with a rising sense of panic that recalls films like Roman Polanski’s Repulsion or nightmare-noir Detour. It’s markedly low-budget, but they manage to turn that into a strength. When three more people are marked for death, all we see is Kraft waiting by the phone in the dark, panicking as he waits to hear the bad news, and it’s seriously unnerving.

Sure, this is basically just like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone, but that’s no bad thing, since it’s like a good episode.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

1986 * 18 * 90 mins * £17.99 * 21 February 2011
Also available on Blu-ray (£22.99)
Distributor: Arrow Video
Director: Richard Wenk
Cast: Grace Jones, Chris Makepeace, Dedee Pfeiffer, Robert Rusler

This ‘80s horror-comedy is a case of sleeves rolled up and tongue placed firmly in cheek. Although set around a vamp-infested strip club, with all the obvious 14-year-old-boy appeal that entails, it’s at least five times less potentially offensive than, say, Piranha 3D, thanks largely to the fact that not many of the strippers actually strip.

It’s essentially Scorsese’s After Hours with added eroticism and gore, as an out-of-his-depth nebbish (Chris Makepeace) ends up stuck in the shady end of town, stumbling through one bizarre situation after another – menaced by a vampiric little girl, nearly decapitated by a defective lift, and so on.

Grace Jones toplined the poster. Though mute throughout, she’s a powerful presence as vampire queen Katrina, at one point giving a provocative performance in an outfit apparently made from three electric hob rings. Some of the supporting characters are endearingly eccentric, like the club’s host, who, with his pink jacket and hedgerow eyebrows, resembles an ageing Mafiosa who’s been made over by John Waters.

But the movie never quite gets up a head of steam, periodically stalling when it should be building momentum. Few of the attempts at a zinger one-liner hit the bullseye. And one stylistic quirk annoys: practically half the movie is lit in garish pink and green. So we won’t be metaphorically tucking a $20 bill in the director’s posing pouch…

Extras:

An impressive selection, including commentary by actor Robert Rusler, and interviews with the incredibly charming Dedee Pfeiffer (27 mins), director Richard Wenk (17 mins) and producer Donald P Borchers (21 mins). You also get a peek at Wenk’s scrapbook of clippings and on-set photos; some amusing behind-the-scenes footage of Grace Jones rehearsing her neck-sucking on the director (!); a blooper reel; and Dracula Bites The Big Apple (21 mins), the student short which led to Wenk getting the directing gig – plus reversible covers, a fold-out poster, and a collectible booklet.

Ian Berriman

1966 *  U  * 98 mins * £19.99 * 14 February 2011
Distributor: 2entertain
Director: Michael Imison
Cast: William Hartnell, Peter Purves, Jackie Lane, Eric Elliot, Inigo Jackson

Has there even been a more laughable bunch of Doctor Who villains than the Monoids? These one-eyed aliens noisily discuss their wicked plans, can’t resist making wise-cracks about humanity’s imminent demise, and mutter an awkward “Er…” when they’re caught out. With their over-sized Beatle wigs, bingo wings and waddling pooed-my-pants gait, they’re not exactly a terrifying sight either. The poor saps don’t even have a proper backstory.

If you had to summarise “The Ark” in a single word, “quaint” is the only one that’d do. What else can you call a story in which prisoners are carted off to a “security kitchen” (just how secure can a kitchen be?) – especially when said kitchen is staffed by people wearing those plastic ribbon curtains popular in ‘70s bookmakers, and stocked with industrial-size tins of magical just-add-water new potatoes.

The story, a kind of HG Wells’s Greatest Hits, sees the TARDIS crew landing on a spaceship containing all that remains of life on Earth – including a real live elephant! – which is headed on a centuries-long journey to a new homeworld. In a development that surely wrong-footed viewers of the time, the Doctor and co depart at the end of part two, then return to exactly the same point, four hundred years hence, only to discover that humanity’s Monoid servants have overthrown their masters – a revolution caused in part by the time travellers spreading the common cold. It’s a fascinating idea, and it’s rare we see the Doctor having to face the consequences of his actions.

The story is breathtakingly compressed at times, chewing up and spitting out plot points that other tales of the era might have dragged out for an episode or two. Much-derided companion Dodo is a breath of fresh air, simply because she dares to use words like “dodgy”. And compared to most Who of the time the expansive sets look positively epic, giving the story a rare sense of scale. “The Ark” may teeter on the dividing line between the risible and the naïvely charming, but you can’t help but admire the ambition.

Extras:

The three featurettes all seem a little unfocussed. “Riverside Story” (20 mins) sees Peter Purves visiting the studio where the story was shot, providing some interesting insights about Hartnell – Purves ascribes the increasingly gaffe-prone actor’s bad temper to the fact he was “aware he was losing it”. “All’s Wells That Ends Wells” (13 mins) sees various talking heads discuss HG Wells’s influence on Who. “One Hit Wonder” (four mins) puts the boot into the Monoids. Comedian Toby Hadoke moderates a commentary with Purves and the director. The usual text commentary, gallery and Radio Times PDFs complete the package.

Ian Berriman

2010 • 15 • 81 mins • £14.99 • 7 February 2011
Distributor: Revolver Entertainment
Director: Suiji Chiba
Cast: Mika Hijii, Ben Hiura, Shûji Kashiwabara

If you’re looking for civilised moviemaking, you should probably go and watch Colin Firth stutter for a couple of hours. You’ll feel all clever and sophisticated, it’ll be great. However, if black-clad ninjas wiping the floor with extra-terrestrial ass is more up your street, look no further my friend. Leave the high-minded to sniff their own over-cultured farts and grab Alien vs Ninja – you won’t regret it.

You’ve read the title so you know the plot – an alien spaceship crash-lands in ninja territory in feudal Japan, larks ensue – and if you can get through a bafflingly slow first half hour, you’re in for a wonderfully weird treat. As our intrepid band of ninjas head out to investigate the alien crash site, they are ambushed by a seemingly invisible menace which appears from out of the ground and swallows them up, Tremors-style, before disappearing into the woods. The stage is now set for an epic alien-whooping to begin.

The aliens themselves, best described as walking space dolphins with barely functioning space claws, aren’t the most intimidating creatures ever seen on screen, and it’s obvious they’ve been put together on a tight budget (they are quite clearly wearing spray-painted trousers, and the pink ooze that pours from their wounds looks suspiciously like Angel Delight), but once the ass kicking commences, Alien vs Ninja becomes a wildly entertaining bloodbath as they rip men in half, squish heads and generally cause havoc.

It’s unlikely to win any Oscars, but there’s some genuinely exciting fight choreography and plenty of gore to help things along. Great fun if you’re able to completely switch off, get by without any semblance of plot and enjoy awesomely preposterous martial arts scenes; the fifth circle of Hell if you can’t.

Extras: Nada.

Rob Power

1980
Director: Jean Rollin
Cast: Brigitte Lahaie, Vincent Gardère, Dominique Journet, Bernard Papineau
Available on all-region and region two DVD
Watch the trailer here:

This zombie-less zombie film has many flaws. The sketchy storyline feels like it was made up on the hoof. It was clearly made on the cheap, and some of the acting is barely worthy of the verb. But the late cult French auteur Jean Rollin was incapable of making an unmemorable film.

It begins with a mystery: who is the amnesiac beauty in a nightgown who runs in front of a guy’s car? Later, as the damsel in distress is returned to the high rise from which she’s escaped, it develops into a French spin on early David Cronenberg classic Shivers. The inhabitants wander the gleaming corridors of this circle of Hell like lab rats, dead but not dead, driven to random killings by their anxiety.

This Alzheimer’s nightmare has an uncanny, downbeat atmosphere that can’t be dissipated, even by the comical regularity with which Rollin’s stars disrobe, or some crude scissors-in-eyes gore: these are the dirty bargains an artist must make to gain financing. Despite the bombardment of bare breasts, it’s the poetic dialogue (“I want to die with each breath, so I will never forget you”) and the existential dread that linger in the memory.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

1972 * PG * 146 mins * £19.99 * 31 January 2011
Distributor: 2entertain
Director: Christopher Barry
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, Paul Whitsun-Jones

If simply incorporating important issues guaranteed good drama, “The Mutants” would be a classic. This six-parter tackles colonialism and apartheid as the Time Lords send the Third Doctor to Solos, a 30th century colony that’s suffering an outbreak of mysterious mutations… It’s also on the brink of achieving independence. Ruling over it from an orbiting base is the Marshal, a tubby tyrant who’s willing to slaughter the natives to cling onto power.

Stirring though it is to hear Pertwee’s authoritative Doctor raging at the description of genocide as a “side-effect”, sadly, this particular caterpillar never quite transforms into a butterfly, thanks to some bungled execution, a surfeit of run-around padding and, in Rick James (good-hearted guard Cotton), a strong contender for worst acting performance in Who history. One might also argue that by focussing on the Marshall’s machinations, the story ignores the real issue: wasn’t colonising in the first place the real crime?

Still, there are some pleasing touches: local hothead Ky (a kind of intergalactic Wolfie Smith) is charismatic; there’s a rare sense of a real alien environment; and four decades on, the designs for the carapaced “Mutts” remain striking.

Extras:

The highlight is the politically-minded documentary “Race Against Time” (38 mins). The first half, which places the story in its social context, is something of an exercise in stating the bleedin’ obvious, but the remainder commendably addresses an enormous elephant in the room, asking why the classic series featured so few black actors. We never expected to see a Who featurette posing the question, “Is the Doctor a cultural imperialist?” A 27-minute interview with costume designer James Acheson is a tonic – he spends most of it hooting at his memories, and has such an infectious laugh that you’ll be chuckling too. You also get a regulation Making Of (21 mins), commentary by a rotating cast of seven contributors (including Katy Manning and the director), and a short Blue Peter clip, as well as the usual text commentary, photo gallery and PDFs of Radio Times listings.

Ian Berriman

2010 * PG * 450 mins * £29.99 * 31 January 2011 
Distributor: Brightspark
Directors: David Caesar, Karl Zwicky, Daniel Nettheim
Cast: John Leeson, Robert Moloney, Philippa Coulthard, Keegan Joyce, Daniel Webber

Few TV series face a backlash before they’ve aired a single episode, but this oddly Australian take on K-9 did. Ten years ago, if you’d told Who fans that there’d be a show dedicated to the metal mutt, most would have been delighted. These days, post-new Who, it arrives unwanted and unofficial, the Never Say Never Again of the Whoniverse.

Time-warping to London in 2050 (actually a warehouse in Brisbane), our hero is immediately thrown into battle with the Jixen – a bunch of rubbery space-turtles. Sacrificing himself to save a gang of teenagers, it’s not long before K-9 regenerates (WTF?!) into a new, improved model that can fly. Cue much adventuring with pals Starkey, Jorjie and Darius (no, not that one, thankfully) as they fight aliens and dodge the police in fascist future Britain.

These 13 episodes (the remaining 13 are released on 7 March) are far from brilliant, but amongst the shonky effects and dodgy accents, there’s a good deal of charm too. The aliens, laughably inept in their Poundland realisation, have a mad invention that recalls The Mighty Boosh‘s fantastical creations. There’s a bouffant space freak, all hairspray and ‘70s glam, a phallic space caterpillar, and a carpet-faced weirdo called Mr Whiffy. Likewise, the vaguely dystopian future London setting feels refreshingly different to The Sarah Jane Adventures, the show’s obvious competitor.

It’s nowhere near as emotionally involving as that series, and it’s never going to be anyone’s first choice for a Who fix, but there’s enough solid entertainment here to make it a worthwhile watch. If Who is a bit too hardcore for your kids, K-9 may be a decent way to get them hooked early.

Extras:

Just some textual character profiles – one of which hilariously compares teen rebel Starkey to Nelson Mandela. Oh dear.

Will Salmon

2000
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Cast: Hideo Sakaki, Tak Sakaguchi, Chieko Misaki
Available on region one and region two DVD, and region one Blu-ray
Watch the trailer here

Being cool is the greatest virtue. That’s what so many people don’t seem to understand. They bang on about Gandhi, but tell me – did he wear wrap-around shades and a leather trenchcoat? No, he wore a loincloth and specs. They lionise Mother Teresa, but did he ever deliver deadpan one-liners whilst firing a handgun, held sideways? No. She was rubbish. Looking cool is all that matters.

Which is something that the makers of this Japanese zombie flick understand. They know the score. Yakuza gangsters are cool. Black leather jackets are cool. Blank-eyed Yakuza in black leather jackets kicking the heads off zombies are really, really cool. Other cool things include: sexy hitwomen with dyed red hair; the Hitchcock-style track-out/zoom-in; nonchalantly shooting people without looking in their direction; Harley Davidsons; not bothering to wipe away the blood decoratively spattered over your face; scenes where the camera rotates elegantly around a big punch-up.

You’re probably thinking “Trenchcoats? Martial arts? This sounds like The Matrix!”. But Versus doesn’t cloak itself in a patchwork of trite philosophical references to try and con you that it’s got half a brain. Why should it? Being dumb is cool, dude, and Versus is as knowingly dumb as a three-chord thrash by The Ramones. With its energy and mordant sense of humour it has more in common with Peter Jackson’s early splatter films.

The plot? Something to do with a “gate to the other side”, with the reincarnations of age-old enemies battling to open the gate, or keep it shut. Don’t worry about it too much, the film-makers didn’t.

The film’s only flaw is its length. Cool should never outstay its welcome. You need to get in there, pose like mad, and get the fuck out of Dodge, and at two hours Versus is just a little over-long. All the same, this stylish, hyper-kinetic riot of ultraviolence is glacially cool. Watch it. It’ll make you a cooler person.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie fan, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

2011 * 18 * 84 mins * £15.99 * 24 January 2010
Also out on Blu-ray (£19.99)
Distributor: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Director: Mike Disa
Cast: Christopher Judge, Peter Woodward, Gwendoline Yeo, Ricardo Chavira

Like its predecessor, Dead Space: Downfall, Aftermath is an animated prequel to the latest Dead Space videogame, which chronicles the massacre before joypad jockeys are let loose in a Necromorph house of horrors. If you don’t know your plasma cutter from your line gun, go make a cup of tea now.

Still with us? Then Aftermath is a worthwhile, albeit far from essential, episodic 84 minutes which gives gamers their first glimpse of the wider Dead Space universe (including an all-powerful, Weyland-Yutani-style Company) and a handful of truly nightmarish sequences. It’s a significant step up from Downfall but suffers from the same fatal flaw: a non-existent plot where everyone is destined to die, and which will probably be summarised in the game’s opening cutscene anyway.

It doesn’t help that the voicework is phoned in, or that the quality of the animation shifts dramatically in each of the film’s five segments, ranging from visually arresting manga flashbacks to present-day sequences on par with early ’90s Saturday morning toon ReBoot. It’ll add nothing to your experience of the game, but completists are in for a treat.

Extras:

Does a trailer for Dead Space 2 count?

Jordan Farley

1977
Director: Colin Eggleston
Cast: John Hargreaves, Briony Behets
Available on region one and region two DVD
Watch the trailer here

Alfred Hitchcock’s classic The Birds inspired a slew of films about what happens when nature turns against humanity. The ‘70s was the highpoint of the genre, at least in terms of quantity: it was the era of Frogs, Squirm, Night Of The Lepus and The Swarm. As that list suggests, most of the films weren’t much cop. Long Weekend stands out from the crowd; this little-known low-budget Australian chiller is a classic of its type.

It’s a two-hander that, like another, more recent Aussie film – Open Water – centres around a bickering middle-class couple. Marcia (Briony Behets, who Neighbours fans may remember as glamorous bitch Amanda Harris) and Peter (John Hargreaves) are on holiday in the middle of nowhere. To say that their relationship is “dysfunctional” is an understatement. This is a pair for whom “you self-indulgent maggot!” is practically a term of affection. So when Mother Nature turns against them, you find yourself cheering her on…

They deserve it, too. Peter, in particular, is a human bulldozer, leaving a trail of carnage in his wake. Early on, a kangaroo bounces off the bull bars of his Land Rover, but it’s when he shoots a mysterious shape in the water (which turns out to be a bunyip – a seal-like creature) that the couple’s fate is sealed.

What follows is an eerie, doom-laden exercise in carefully ratcheting up the tension until it becomes almost unbearable. There’s no gore and there are no lurid effects; just sinister rustles and weird monstrous howls in the bushes. It’s a terrible tease of a movie, building and building the viewer’s anticipation for so long that when the couple finally get theirs, it’s a palpable relief.

Long Weekend was recently the subject of a remake starring James Caviezel, but if you take our advice you’ll stick with the more unsettling original.
Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

2010 * 12 * 88 mins * £19.99 * 17 January 2011
Also available on Blu-ray (£24.99)
Director: Joe Dante
Cast: Chris Massoglia, Haley Bennett, Bruce Dern, Teri Polo, Chord Overstreet

Whatever happened to Joe Dante? While The Hole is by no means a disaster, it’s hard to believe this largely toothless affair was directed by the man behind the wickedly sharp Gremlins and the glorious tongue-in-cheek schlock of The Howling.

Of course, The Hole is by and large a kids’ film, in a way Gremlins was not, despite its cute Mogwai and gleeful spirit. The premise is simple: two brothers, recently moved into a new neighbourhood, find a bottomless pit beneath their house and, along with the cute girl next door, begin to suffer visitations from their worst fears.

While this leads to a couple of genuinely shiversome moments – the malignant presence of an evil clown doll, an encounter in a toilet with a little-girl revenant – the film meanders along on a predictable course, neither surprising nor frightening. It’s short on Dante’s trademark wit and mischief, and only the final sequence, an encounter with a representation of the boys’ bad dad, vaguely simmers with underlying discomfort – the threat of domestic violence and children’s fear of grown-ups and their own powerlessness.

Perhaps the biggest problem, though, is with the three leads, who seem mostly unperturbed about the portal to hell under their noses, remarking that it’s “cool” and never seeming particularly scared. This unflappable spirit might be a salutary lesson to the young ‘uns, but what’s missing is some bite and danger – something you’d expect from Dante, who appears to have misplaced his playful malevolence and substituted something duller and more ordinary in its stead. Let’s hope he rediscovers his mojo soon.

Extras:

A Making Of, interviews with cast and crew, and behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Jes Bickham

1950
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Jean Marais, François Périer
Available on region one and region two DVD
Watch the trailer here

Over the centuries, Greek mythology has fascinated countless artists and writers, and the stories have been reworked for successive generations. The tale of Orpheus and Eurydice is one of the best-known tales. Singer Orpheus’s wife is taken by Death. He descends into the Underworld to rescue her. He’s allowed to return with her, but on one condition: he is not allowed to look at her. Of course he does, and loses her again.

This 1950 film by French poet, writer and Jean Cocteau transposes the story to post-war France. Orpheus becomes a successful poet, played as a pantomime of the stormy, alienated artist by Jean Marais. Death transforms into the personification of elegance; a captivating woman in a jewelled black evening dress, gliding about in a black Rolls Royce. In Cocteau’s version, Orphée falls in love with Death, and one can hardly blame him.

The film is at its most captivating when Orpheus invades the limbo of The Zone, a looking-glass world entered by walking through a mirror. Cocteau uses primitive effects (such as back projection) to create an uncanny, dreamlike world of atmospheric ruins. Elsewhere he reverses the film to make the impossible possible: a shattered mirror reforming itself, for example. Nowadays that’s a laughably quaint effect, but in this context it seems magical.

Some might find this slice of French arthouse indigestibly pretentious. At one point Orphée becomes obsessed with a car radio burbling enigmatic one-liners such as “silence is twice as fast backwards” or “the bird sings with its fingers”. However, if you’re the kind of amateur existentialist who admires the ring of a sentence like “look a lifetime in a mirror and you will see Death at work”, then this beautiful film is for you. Morrissey is, presumably, one of its admirers – the cover of The Smiths’ “This Charming Man” features a publicity still of Jean Marais.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

Click here to see our other cult movie write-ups.

2008 * 12 * 131 mins * £15.99 * 10 January 2011
Also available on Blu-ray (£19.99)
Distributor: Manga Entertainment
Director: Shimako Sato
Cast: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Takako Matsu, Toru Nakamura

Jaded by Hollywood’s increasingly formulaic take on the masked man genre? Try this gem of Eastern cinema, a piece of retro-pulp adventure that makes the whole caped daredevil trope feel vital and thrilling once more.

We’re in an alternate 1940s where World War 2 never occurred. Japan has calcified into a cruel feudalism – an aristocratic elite exile themselves in wealth and beauty, while the underclass fester in gutters and shantytowns. Into this world comes K20, The Fiend With Twenty Faces, a “phantom thief” who’s clearly plundered the Shadow’s mocking cackle and fashion sense, along with the Phantom Of The Opera’s taste for a plummeting chandelier.

K20 is no dashing avenger, nor even a public-spirited Robin Hood. Initially presented to us as a distant figure of mystery – he’s barely in the first half hour – he soon emerges as every bit as callous as the class system that created him, framing a young circus acrobat (House Of Flying Daggers’ winning Takeshi Kaneshiro) who’s destined to inherit his mantle. When the cape-swirling larcenist’s identity is finally revealed it comes as a genuine jolt.

It’s a gorgeous looking movie, infused with a subtle hint of steampunk as autogyros buzz the skies above rusting, industrialised cities. One particularly brilliant set sees a room unlock like a giant puzzlebox. There’s a commendable physicality to the fantasy, though, with stuntwork and freerunning sequences that feel like the product of sweat and muscle rather than the digital paintbox of their Western counterparts.

Perhaps the alternate history could be explored more – there’s no real sense of the wider world beyond Japan’s shores. But that’s a minor quibble. With engaging performances and a gallant old-school score, this is a film to restore your faith in the power of the mask.

Extras:

A behind-the-scenes featurette (25 mins).

Nick Setchfield

1980 * U * 87 mins * £12.99 *
10 January 2011
Distributor: 2entertain
Director: Terence Dudley
Cast: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, Jacqueline Hill

This Fourth Doctor four-parter is mildly diverting nonsense with one USP: a megalomaniacal cactus! Yes, the titular villain is a spiky succulent (the writers found inspiration in the plant on their kitchen table!) Trapping the Doctor in a time loop, he copies his form in order to steal the power source for a super-weapon…

Vegetable villain aside, the story doesn’t really have any new ideas, revolving around the tired old notion of a society torn between faith and science, and the bickering between the two factions soon becomes tiresome. It doesn’t bear close analysis, either: how Meglos acquired a secret underground base (or operates its switches…) is just one of a host of issues that are never addressed.

Still, Bill Fraser is good value as General Gruger, leader of the incompetent space pirates in Meglos’s employ; watching Lalla Ward’s Time Lady Romana run rings around them is a delight. But the story’s main appeal is the chance to see Tom Baker plastered in green slap and spikes whenever Meglos’s grip on his disguise falters – and the chance to see the malevolent glare he no doubt turned on unreceptive directors used on-screen…

Extras:

The principle goodies are an amiable featurette reuniting writers John Flanagan and Andrew McCulloch for a tour of their old haunts (18 mins), and a short but moving tribute to guest star Jacqueline Hill (12 min). Two further featurettes explaining entropy (five mins) and the “scene-sync” process (11 mins) will come in handy for insomniacs. The five-person commentary features (amongst others) Flanagan and Lalla Ward. You also get text commentary, a photo gallery and PDFs of Radio Times listings.

Ian Berriman

2010 * 15 * 83 mins * £19.99 * 27 December 2010
Distributor: Optimum Home Entertainment
Director: Daniel Stamm
Cast: Patrick Fabian, Irish Bahr, Louis Herthum

Don’t be fooled by the cover art, which shows a possessed young woman impossibly crammed into a corner of the ceiling: there’s no head-spinning, spider-walking or projectile vomiting of mushy peas on show here. Neither is this latest entry in the increasingly over-populated genre of mock-doc horror as grim or gritty as a cursory scan of the synopsis might suggest.

Patrick Fabian plays Reverend Marcus, a preacher who’s spent years carrying out fake exorcisms. Determined to lift the lid on the practice now that his faith has lapsed, he invites a camera crew to tag along with him on one final case… one which soon torpedoes his smug certitude.

The film has none of the beetle-browed brooding admirers of The Exorcist might expect. With his smoking prop crucifix and recordings of demonic wails, Marcus is a showman – even his decision to “come clean” seems to be motivated partially by a desire to show off – and so is director Daniel Stamm.

Like Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project, it’s most successful when tapping into primitive fears: what’s out there in the dark? What’s lurking behind that door? Although it’s a shame that incidental music undermines the conceit, it’s briskly paced, with strong performances across the board, and the script keeps you guessing all the way to a faintly ludicrous final-reel flight into the fantastical. But be sceptical of claims that it’s possessed of genius.

Extras:

Three commentaries: one by the producers; one with the director and the three leads; and one featuring a psychologist, a minister, and the victim of a haunting. As well as the usual promotional Making Of (19 mins), you get a featurette on real stories of exorcism (14 mins); interviews with cast and crew; audition footage, material from Cannes, trailers, and a handy protection prayer to chant while you view…

Ian Berriman

2010 * 12 * 107 mins * £19.99 * 27 December 2010
Also available on Blu-ray (£24.99)
Distributor: Universal Home Entertainment
Director: Edgar Wright
Cast: Michael Cera, Mary Elisabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Kieran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh

In retrospect, it’s depressingly obvious why Scott Pilgrim barely managed to make a dent at the box office. To the uninitiated, it’s a schizophrenic mish-mash of rom-com, sit-com and chop-socky fantasy. A musical where instead of breaking out the high notes, characters break out flaming swords. A Google-generation pop-culture melting pot that fuses videogames and manga to Seinfeld and Beck. Its staunch refusal to stick to the pigeonholes of Hollywood’s marketing megalith and utterly indulgent, freewheeling lack of restraint might have bewildered audiences, but also prove the film’s greatest strength, and the reason why Edgar Wright’s first Stateside project is one of the best films of 2010.

It would be easy to mistake Scott Pilgrim’s startlingly audacious visuals for the superficial sheen on an emotionally vacuous whirlwind romance, but the film’s take on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s genre-defying series of graphic novels straddles the line between reverence and revision with grace. It’s easily the best videogame movie and arguably the best-judged comic book adaptation to date, going beyond nuts-and-bolts narrative (youthful couch surfer Scott Pilgrim must fight, and defeat, his girlfriend’s seven evil exes) to impeccably bottle the surreal texture and tone of Pilgrim’s hyper-real fantasy innerspace.

There couldn’t have been a better man for the job than Wright. The film is a natural evolution of Spaced’s lucid magical realism, with purposefully frenzied editing and carefully crafted beats lending it pitch-perfect comedy timing. Add to that half a dozen synapse-sizzling scraps that embrace the spirit of Street Fighter (not the look, as many seem to think) and enough in-jokes to leave gamers giddy with delight, and remarkably it manages to feel daringly original despite the story having already been told through another medium.

The cast also deserve a heap of praise, as they almost achieve a flawless victory – Kieran Culkin and Brandon Routh in particular steal every frame they’re in as Scott’s deadpan gay roommate and super-powered vegan ex number three. Michael Cera is perhaps the only weak link; his lovable-loser shtick wore thin the moment the credits rolled on Superbad, making it tough to buy Ramona’s devotion to him. Here, however, it’s less problematic because of the heightened headspace Scott inhabits and, credit to his kung-fu, Cera handles the ludicrously demanding battles like a veteran.

For audiences who aren’t onboard with the film’s superb hipster soundtrack, Zelda references and psychedelic soundwave Yetis, Scott Pilgrim will no doubt be a relentlessly baffling experience. There are problems: the concept of the sub-space highway (like a lot of concepts in the film) is barely explained and bafflingly inconsequential, while the meticulously choreographed feel can occasionally give an overly busy film a clinical artifice. But it’s easy to forgive such things when the finished product is so uncompromising, carefree and, crucially, fun.

Extras:

Fit to bursting – appropriately for a film which is sure to find its home on DVD. The first disc houses a whopping four audio commentaries – the first of which, featuring Wright and comic creator Bryan Lee O’Malley, is essential listening for fans of the comics. You also get 10 minutes of fun out-takes, a trivia track, a photo gallery with hundreds of stills and 27 minutes of deleted scenes (with commentary by Wright), which are, for a change, actually worth watching – especially the alternate ending.

And all that’s before you’ve even popped disc two out of the case. The highlights here are a fascinating 49-minute Making Of which chronicles the shoot, 86 minutes of pre-production footage (animatics, fight tests, casting tapes, band practice sessions, a “Mecha-Gideon” alternate ending storyboard and more) and 19 minutes of alternative edits, which give a fascinating insight into how even subtle changes can drastically change the rhythm of a scene. There’s also a music featurette (16 mins), that’s perhaps a tad short; VFX before-and-after shots (14 mins); four extended music videos; an amusing daytime TV-safe version; the adult swim short Scott Pilgrim vs The Animation, trailers; TV spots; Easter Egg cheat codes for the videogame… and breath.

If you’re watching the gorgeous Blu-ray you also get further cool additional features, including 45-minutes-worth of Wright’s director diary blogs, picture-in-picture storyboards and the usual BD-Live gubbins.

Jordan Farley

1972
Director: William Crain
Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas, Gordon Pinsent, Charles Macaulay
Available on region one and region two DVD
Watch the trailer here

Blacula was responsible for kick-starting a small subgenre of blaxploitation horror, which continued with the likes of Exorcist cash-in Abby, Blackenstein, and Dr Black, Mr Hyde (no, we’re not making this up). Didn’t Blantom Of The Blopera occur to anyone?

Though not out-and-out spoof, it’s clearly not meant to be taken too seriously: it all kicks off with a pair of stereotyped queens declaring that Dracula is “soooo camp”, before buying a sarcophagus for their guest room. The prominence of a “NO SMOKING” sign when Blacula gets scorched by sunlight is surely no coincidence. And it’d take a Herculean effort not to snigger at his vamp face. Featuring wrap-around Noel Gallagher eyebrows and a Ray Reardon afro (ask your snooker-loving dad…), it’s pure joke-shop Wolfman.

When the blood-lust fades, however, William Marshall is suitably mesmeric in the lead role. He possesses the same imperious cadence as voice-of-Vader James Earl Jones, and an even greater flair for nostril-acting than Firefly’s Nathan Fillion. Marshall brings considerable nobility to African prince Mamuwalde, cursed to an eternal thirst for the red stuff by his Transylvanian namesake – no mean feat when you’ve got patches of hair glued all over your face and keep turning into a giant bat.

Formerly an anti-slavery activist (he received Dracula’s curse after taking umbrage at the Count’s approval of slavery), Blacula’s still a righteous brother: in 1973′s sequel Scream Blacula Scream he upbraids some pimps for “imitating their slave master” by “making a slave of their sister”. Given that he’s just sucked the life out of another young black woman, that’s a tad hypocritical, but he’s clearly meant to be a sympathetic figure – just as clearly as the audience is expected to cheer every time a cracker cop comes a cropper. Every time he throws one through a window you can practically hear the grindhouse audience whooping their approval.

The script relies heavily on absurd coincidences, and there are diminishing returns when it comes to the follow-up, despite the addition of the indomitable Pam Grier (blaxploitation’s paragon of strong, proud black womanhood) as a voodoo expert Mamuwalde hopes can tame his inner beast. Despite that, this batty saga is as hypnotically irresistible as Blacula himself.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

Freakshow will return in the New Year.

1975 * PG * 175 mins * £12.99 * 1 November 2010
Distributor: Network DVD
Directors: Leon Thau, Audrey Sherett, Vic Hughes, Stan Woodward, Peter Webb, Stan Woodward, Darrol Blake
Cast: Jenny Agutter, Russell Hunter, Pauline Quirk

Children’s television was rarely more bone-chilling than in the ‘70s. Take Shadows, a teatime anthology series that had the power to lower the ambient temperature of your living room. Even the title sequence is suffused with a sense of  still, wintry dread – no music, simply the murmur of the wind as a candle is lit, casting the shadows of wilting flowers on a wall. Somehow it could only be the product of a decade that gave us power cuts and the three day week.

These seven episodes trade in atmosphere and psychology and feel rooted in an English horror tradition that shudders through everything from MR James to The Wicker Man. Skip “The Future Ghost”, by far the feeblest tale here and an insane choice for series opener; riddled with period clichés (“It’s a real pea-souper,” no less) it betrays its premise in its title but still tries to pass it off as a punchline. “After School” is stronger meat, a genuinely nerve-jangling piece involving a locked boiler room, an unearthed skull and possession (“I hate being here among the rats!”). Elsewhere, “Dutch Schlitz’s Shoes” is a sidestep into comedy, with Russell Hunter reprising his gloriously ripe turn from Ace Of Wands as louche, pinstriped demon Mr Stabs.

There’s an understated SF quality to these fireside tales. Many episodes deal with time and the notion of history needing to be avenged or averted. JB Priestley’s “The Other Window” explains magic via quantum physics, while the superb “The Waiting Room” finds two teens marooned in the kind of time-lost train station that would soon be the beat of Sapphire and Steel. Turn off the lights, shiver and savour.

Extras: None.

Nick Setchfield

1973
Director: Peter Newbrook
Cast: Robert Stephens, Robert Powell
Available on region one and region two DVD
Watch the trailer here

The Asphyx is one of those British gothic horror films for which some claim “under-rated cult classic” status. That might be exaggerating its merits just a little, but fans of the Hammer and Amicus studios should certainly check it out.

Robert Stephens plays Victorian scientist Sir Hugo Cunningham, who is conducting experiments into photographing the dying at the point of death. Noticing a strange smudge on the photos, he believes he’s recorded the soul leaving the body. Further experiments reveal the smudge is moving towards the body, not away from it. Cunningham concludes that he’s recorded the Asphyx, the spirit of death from Greek mythology (this legend was, incidentally, totally made-up by the screenwriter. What a swizz!) Discovering how to trap it, he hatches a plan to confer eternal life upon himself and his family…

We’re then treated to lots of scenes amusingly reminiscent of a Victorian version of Ghostbusters, as Cunningham trains a beam of brilliant light onto screeching, protoplasmic blobs, and drags them into storage boxes. It’s hard to resist the temptation to call out “don’t cross the streams!”

The Asphyx takes itself a lot more seriously than that, though. Terribly, terribly seriously in fact – even as it becomes increasingly farcical and preposterous. As the filmmakers try to squeeze in grotesque death scenes, Stephens whips out a home-made electric chair, then a guillotine, then a gas chamber. It’s like watching a particularly grisly Tom And Jerry cartoon – you half expect someone to suddenly get flattened by a ten-ton weight.

What stops the film from sliding into irredeemable silliness is the performance of Robert Stephens, one of those dependable British thesps you can always rely upon to pull out the stops. Alternately watery-eyed, then shaking with furious rage, Stephens wrings the maximum emotion out of every line, treating this period potboiler with exactly the same level of commitment that he brought to countless productions of Shakespeare.

Ian Berriman, reviews editor of SFX and cult movie nut, has watched Rat Pfink A Boo Boo four or five times, but never seen On The Waterfront. The nutter.

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