Monthly Archives: May 2018

The Slayer (1982)

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One from the to watch pile…

The Slayer (1982)

Film: Even though I am taking this from the ‘Re Watch Pile’, I am actually regarding it as a ‘To Watch Pile’ contender as the only way I have seen it before was on a pretty awful DVD release from the UK from several years ago. I remember seeing the video cover at my local video shop, but never got to hire it as there must have been some other horror fan in my area who totalled bogarted this tape and no one else EVER got to watch it. He’ll, I even had a copy of the poster hanging up in my bedroom as a kid.

The Slayer was written and directed by J.S. Cardone, who also gave us Puppetmaster and the remake of Prom Night, and co-written by Bill Ewing, who also produced the film.

Artist Kay Church (Sarah Kendall) has always had nightmares, and she exorcises the images from them through her art. On the eve of an important art show, her husband David (Alan McRae), brother Eric (Frederick Flynn) and his wife, Brooke (Carol Kottenbrook), decide to take her away to a secluded island to rest and relax and wind down after the child up to the show.

Once on the island, though, Kaye gets a weird feeling like she has been there before, even though the island is mostly abandoned during the off tourist season, and she starts to recognise places on the island that she has painted from her memory.

Kaye feels off the whole time on the island, and when her husband goes missing, things begin to unravel.. has she actually been here before or has she been getting premonitions about the place that feel like a warning, and when the deaths start happening, who, or what is responsible….

For its time, The Slayer is unusual as the trend was really mainly sexy, slutty teens being killed and this clearly features adults in peril. It also doesn’t feature a murder event ten minutes to keep the short attention spanned audience interested either, and instead slowly tells a story of a woman who may be descending into madness.

I really like this movie. It’s not just a good watch, it’s also a charming document of the time (smoking in a 6 seater Cessna is something no-one under 30 could even comprehend, let alone pass by without a complaint to the management) and has some pretty creepy bits in it, and a left field ending that in lesser hands could potentially have not worked, but actually works really well within the context of the universe the film exists in.

Score: ****

Format: The reviewed copy of this film was the Arrow Video multiregion Bluray, and is presented in a nicely restored 1.78:1 image with a decent Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. It was nice to actually SEE this film for the first time and not on some terribly mastered DVD.

Score: ****

Extras: It’s an Arrow Video release, so you expect there to be HEAPS of extras, and there is!

First, the film is available here on both a Bluray and a DVD version, and the packaging has a reversible sleeve, one with an original image from the film, and the other by Justin Osbourn, which is amazing! There is also a booklet with articles by film historian Lee Gambin and Arrow’s Ewan Cant.

Nightmare Island: The Making Of the Slayer is an exhaustive almost hour long documentary about the making of the film and a great mix of talent are interviewed for it, including writer/ director Cardone, actress Kottenbrook, production executive Eric Weston and a bunch of others. It is a fascinating look at the whole process with some interesting anecdotes from all involved.

Return to Tybee: the Location Of The Slayer is a look at Tybee Island, where the film was made, today. The best thing is in the film there us a dilapidated old cinema which has been restored to its former glory, and enjoying a showing of The Slayer.

The Tybee Post Theatre Experience features the screening mentioned above (which can be watched on this disc with the sound of the audience played as well), and also has a speech from Arrow’s Ewan Cant and a Q&A with the films DoP Arledge Armenaki.

There is a stills gallery which is a slideshow with a combination of behind the scenes stuff and stills from the film, with the soundtrack played over the top.

There is a trailer.

Finally, there is a commentary with Cardone, Weston and Kottenbrook, another one with The Hysteria Continues (a horror podcast from the UK), an isolated composer score track with accompanying interview and finally a repeat of the Tybee Post theatre audio track!

Score: *****

WISIA: As I mentioned, I’d only ever seen this as a pretty poor quality DVD which was a chore to watch, but now I’ve seen it in this cleaned-up version, I’m pretty sure I’ll be back.

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

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One from the rewatch pile…

Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Film: You have just got to love a good monster movie, and it’s especially great when that film has a monster that is either based in reality, or is reality tweaked to some tiny degree to make it even more fearsome, or in the case of a film like, say Zombeavers or Night of the Lepus, a tiny bit fearsome.

So, of course everyone loves a good shark movie; hell, if the Sharknado films are anything to go by, everyone loves even a BAD shark movie! Deep Blue Sea came along at just the right time: The 90s, in general, was a wasteland of bad horror being made as studios tried to tap into what made the 80s franchises so great, but missed either the point, or the boat.

Sure this decade gave us Scream, which in itself was a parody of Craven’s own work, and The Blair Witch Project, which was more about clever marketing than good filmmaking or storytelling but in general, horror had temporarily gone the way of the western.

Deep Blue Sea was somewhat of a surprise. Written by Valentine’s Donna and Wayne Power, and Bait’s Duncan Kennedy, one thing from the 80s this film did utilise was Renny Harlin as director, who is probably best know for A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, and a whole bunch of action films from the 90s, including Cliffhanger and Die Hard 2.

Deep Blue Sea tells of a scientific facility in the ocean known as Aquatica, where scientists, including Dr. McAlester (Saffron Burrows), Jim Whitlock (Stellan Skarsgård) and other are attempting to show off to a potential investor, Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson) their research into getting proteins from genetically altered shark’s brains and using them to repair the broken pathways in the brains of sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease.

The problem is the sharks have gotten smarter, and even though shark wrangler Carter Blake (Thomas Jane) has suspicions, even he isn’t aware of just how smart, and very soon the sharks have figured out how to flood the facility, and using the staff as their very own human smorgasbord…

This film honestly could have been called ‘Deep Blue Trope’ as it took generic formulas from 80s slasher films and turned them into a monster movie. This is basically Friday the 13th, with the stereotypical teens (the cool black guy, the oversexed couple, the frigid final girl and the cool tough guy… and some throwaway characters you would never care about) in an abandoned area with no way out and something stalking them, which is a shark instead of a serial killer: it even does the killer POV camera shots! Maybe the juxtaposition of these two horror tropes is what makes the film kind of interesting.

The movie, yes, is generic, but I have to admit that I have a big problem with just how smart the sharks became. An animal working out that a gun is something that can hurt you is one thing, but figuring what video cameras do and then disabling them, with no context, is quite another, and ultimately, Jane’s character’s realisation as to the shark’s motivation, we’ll, even for a monster movie is pretty far-fetched.

There is some nice early appearances of some actors who went on to the greater things. Samual L. Jackson was still an actor when this was made, and didn’t just play Samual L. Jackson, like he does these days.

The real tragedy of this film is the closing credits are choked with an awful rap by LL Cool J, who also plays the chef who works at the facility. I also must admit to feeling sorry for Saffron Burrows: Even though her character is possibly the most important one in the film, and is even the only human on the cover, she actually doesn’t get a cover credit, and instead Skarsgård and Michael Rapaport, who aren’t in it as often, do. That’s a pretty sad indictment on the film’s release.

Score: ***

Format: This film was reviewed with the Australian, region B Bluray release of the film which runs for approximately 105 minutes and is presented in a satisfactory 2.35:1 image with a pretty spectacular DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1audio.

Score: ***1/2

Extras: There’s a couple of Ok extras on this disc.

First there is a commentary with Harlin and Jackson, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t recorded together. Jackson talks about the story of the film, and Harlin looks more at the making of the film and the processes.

When Sharks Attack is a selection of behind the scenes footage with an occasional sound byte from a cast or crew member, which, to summarise, comes together as ‘sharks are scary’.

Sharks of the Deep Blue Sea looks at all the various effects used to make the special effects sharks work.

There is a trailer for the film.

There’s a bunch of deleted scenes as well, and, as expected, the optionally accompanying commentary does little to convince otherwise.

Score: ***

WISIA: Deep Blue Sea is an amusing distraction that I have watched a couple of times, but realistically, if it weren’t for a sequel coming out, I probably would not have revisited it.

Future Shock! the Story Of 2000AD

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One from the re watch pile…

Future Shock! the Story Of 2000AD (2014)

The cover of Arrow Video’s release of Future Shock

Film: Truly, the best comic fans I know are the ones who grew up with the English comic, 2000AD. Sure, like many comic fans, I bought Marvel and DC as a kid, but these companies had (and still have) ‘style guides’ and even though we like to think we like one artist over another, the companies control the look to fit a company wide aesthetic… even Jack Kirby whilst he worked at DC in the early 70s had the heads of Superman that he drew redrawn by Curt Swan, an artist who probably drew Superman MORE than anyone else, ever!

I think if I had have been Kirby I would have been totally insulted and would have told them to stick their job right up their Hall of Justice.

2000AD was a totally different animal.

2000AD is a science fiction comic which celebrates the diversity of writing and art and within a single weekly issue, you were treated to at least 4 different artist and story teams, telling stories from all of the galaxy, and very rarely from the superhero sub-genre. It introduced the world to characters like Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Bad Company, Rogue Trooper and Slaine, just to name a few. It was more like the French comic Metal Hurlant (which is known in the English speaking world by its ‘other’ name Heavy Metal) mixed with an London punk attitude which shouted ‘UP YOURS’ to authority.

Creator of 2000AD, Pat Mills speaks of its origins.

It interesting to point out that even DC realised that maybe they could do something different, something that didn’t have a style guide, and came up with the comic line Vertigo in the 90s which abandoned the strict Comic Code Authority restrictions and made a comic line truly for adult comic collectors, and by adult I don’t mean it was full of tits and violence… well not, always.

(It’s interesting to point out that Stan Lee experimented with doing more adult comics in the 70s and it always fell short, mainly due to the content still being somewhat juvenile rather than truly ‘adult’. DC’s Karen Berger understood better than Lee as to what adults wanted, stole all of 2000AD’s talent, thrived with Vertigo comics whilst Marvel, in the 90s, highjacked Image comics aesthetic and very quickly almost went into bankruptcy)

That’s enough of the history lesson though, what are we here for? Well, this documentary talks to the brains, the original talent and the past fans who became the talent of the comic, and how it thrived even beyond the time of its name! Future Shock is mainly a talking heads styled documentary but it’s subject is fascinating as the comic truly was a document of the time it was released, which is important for ANY science fiction to be relevant.

Comic legend Kevin O’Neill discusses his involvement in the comic.

A massive amount of the UK’s comic talent pool are interviewed here, from Pat Mills to Neil Gaiman, Brian Bolland to Dave Gibbons, Cam Kennedy to Peter Milligan, Emma Beeby to Lauren Beukes… so many talented people with such interesting things to say about the history of UK comics, their own careers and what was happening historically in the Uk at the time.

The documentary is intercut with some pretty cool animation of the old art, and a decent heavy soundtrack that carries the subject changes along nicely (as an aside, seeing Dredd ACTUALLY punch his fist through Judge Fear’s head may have been one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen).

I’ve watched a lot of comic docos and honestly, I find all of them to be really engaging and definite rewatchers, but this one stands out as being a superstar. It never gets boring, it travels along at quite the clip. If I’m to criticise it at all it’s not due to the makers, but due to writer Alan Moore’s resistance at being interviewed about his craft, and his absence is really quite obvious and unfortunate as his comics that 2000AD published (The Ballad Of Halo Jones and Skizz, just to name a few) are an amazing introduction to his work.

Score: *****

The menu screen for the Bluray Of Future Shock

Format: Future Shocks was reviews on the UK, region B Bluray release which is presented in an excellent, except for archival footage, 1.78:1 image with a perfect LPCM 2.0 audio track, which is fine considering most of the audio is Interview dialogue.

Score: *****

Extras: Arrow have provided a Mega-city full of extras, some of which were made by Arrow Video and are great supplements to the original doco:

Steve MacManus Interview is a 25 minute discussion with MacManus who was the editor of 2000AD from 1979 to 1986 and author of The Mighty One: Life in the Nerve Centre. His reflections on this amazing period for the comic is quite fascinating.

Extended Chapter featurettes just expands some of the discussions in the doco, specifically heap Entertainment” The Appeal Of Comics, Dredd Extended, Dredd 2012 True in Sporit and 2000ad VS The USA.

2000AD Strip Featurettes look at a bunch of different characters through the eyes of the creators, including Bad Company, Tharg’s Future Shocks, Rogue Trooper, Sláine and Strontium Dog.

Art Jam shows some time lapse footage of artists Jock and Henry Flint drawing pictures of Judge Dredd and Nemesis the Warlock.

King’s Reach Tower sees Pat Mills revisit the place where 2000AD was born, King’s Reach Tower.

Soundtrack Studio takes a look at the production of the soundtrack by Justin Graves from Crippled Black Phoenix.

Extended Interviews has more comic knowledge from Mills, Morrison, Gaiman, Gibbons and Berger.

Blooper Reel proves that even in a documentary, people can foul up what they were saying. Special mention goes to the Australian Women’s Weekly for getting a mention.

There is also a teaser trailer and the Uk Launch trailer.

In addition this package contains a booklet with an essay from Pádraig Ó Méalóid about the history

of the comic, some cool art and a few little notes about the disc itself.

Score: *****

WISIA: Seeing as how I love comic documentaries, this will get revisited regularly, especially considering how many extras there are!

The early mock-up of what 2000AD should look like.

R.I.P. Margot Kidder

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The To Watch Pile has awoken to find that a teenhood crush, Margot Kidder, has tragically passed away, aged 69.

Most remember Kidder as the feisty Lois to Christopher Reeve’s Clark in the original Superman films of the late 70s and 80s, but those who are a darker side of cinema lingered will fondly remember her from Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, Stuart Rosenberg’s The Amityville Horror or Brian De Palma’s Sisters.

Nightmare City (1980)

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One from the re watch pile…

Nightmare City aka Incubo Sulla Cittá Contaminata (1980)

Film: We have SO much to thank George A. Romero for. Not only did he give us a bunch of amazing films that have risen above their lowly horror roots, he also generated an entire horror sub-genre that has become so popular it not only appeals to horror fans, but the general public are totally into it as well, as can be seen by the popularity of TV shows like The Walking Dead and even events like the annual Zombie Walks that several cities worldwide get involved it.

After the splatterfest that was Dawn of the Dead in 1978, every producer was looking for an avenue to deliver a zombie movie down, and Italian director, Umberto Lenzi (The Cynic, The Rat and the Fist) was offer a small script to produce.

He realised this script was too short for a feature and didn’t want to just produce a zombie movie that emulated Romero’s, so he created a world where human beings (not zombies) who suffered from nuclear radiation poisoning would end up with a blood disorder that required them to consume the blood of the Living to survive. His ‘zombies’ were more ‘nuclear vampires’.

The story starts with a mysterious airplane landing with no advice to the control tower as to their identity. Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) is a reporter at the airport who goes to deliver a story as to what this mysterious plane is, but when it lands, he, and a bunch of incompetent soldiers, find that the plane is full of these nuclear vampires, who immediately go on a spectacular, unstoppable rampage which doesn’t stop when they are all killed as everyone they bite gets irradiated and turns into another nuclear zombie.

The military, led by General Murchison (Mel Ferrer), is trying to keep a clamp on this news getting into the general public’s hands, but the wave of monsters is seemingly bottomless, and the threat increases exponentially.

Will humanity survive this horrible invasion, or was it just a horrible dream?

This film is dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb, but so enormously watchable because of that. The script is terrible. I remember once reading an article about the economy of cinema and how every scene should move the story forward and if it doesn’t, it should be excised from the script. This film has a weird discussion about a work of art that has absolutely no payoff.

The vampire’s motivations are odd as well. They seem to be smart enough to fly a plane, use a gun, even cut a phone line, but are easily distracted during an important feeding session by a new victim, even though they haven’t ‘finished’ the victim they have off… maybe the love of the hunt is just as important to them and the actual catch.

All in all it’s a pretty stupid film that is so bat-guano crazy at times that it’s hard not to like it. Give it a go.

Score: ***

Format: On this Arrow Bluray release, there is two different versions of this film, the original negative version and the dupe, both are present in 2.35:1 and neither are perfect. The dupe is not very sharp and the negative transfer has several spots where the image has stains on it, but both versions are entirely watchable. The audio is presented in a mono 1.0 and again, isnt fantastic but clear enough.

Score: **

Extras: There’s a great amount of extras on this disc:

There is an interview with Umberto Lenzi which is quite informative, about the production of the film, and how is well-known zombie film, is NOT a zombie film at all!

Maria Rosario Omaggio is also interviewed on this disc and to assist in her English she reads a charming letter to horror fans that she previously prepared.

Hostel and Cabin Fever director Eli Roth talks about the importance of Nightmare City within the history of cinema.

The Limits of Restoration explains the difference between the a negative transfer and a dupe reversal transfer. It is just a text extra with examples, but an interesting look at a process I knew absolutely nothing about! This is accessible here and on the main menu when you are able to choose which version you would like to watch.

There is a Trailer for the film and alternative opening credits, which has the title Attack of the Zombies!

Finally we have a commentary by ex-Fangoria Horror Movie Magazine editor, and Uwe Boll’s punching bag, Chris Alexander, who doesn’t in any hold this film in any way precious, so he’s very honest with his interpretation of it which makes for an amusing commentary.

The Arrow release also has a cool reversible cover, and an interesting booklet on the inside featuring an essay y John Martin, author of the book Seduction of the Gullible.

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: It’s as dumb as a box of hammers but it has enough charm to make it a repeat viewer.

Phenomena (1985)

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One from the re-watch pile…

Phenomena (1985)

Film: The works of Italian director Dario Argento feature prominently in my top ten horror flicks, because with Tenebrae, Suspira and Phenomena he really appeals to my internal, and occasionally external horror nerd. His ability to make violence look like a beautiful choreographed dance has always amazed me, though in his more recent films, he seems to have lost it.

Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly) is a young girl who starts at a Swiss boarding school in a town where several murders have taken place. The investigators have employed a local Entomologist Professor, John McGregor (Donald Pleasance), who is assisting them with his knowledge of the time of death on the victims using the lifespan of the various bugs that consume rotting flesh. Jennifer, as it turns out, is quite special and has the uncanny ability to communicate with insects, and this gift may be able to help the investigation move forward. Her power though puts the investigation closer to the murderer, and puts her at great peril.

As the synopsis would suggest, Phenomena falls among Argento’s supernatural work, like Suspiria or Inferno but with elements of his giallo, like Tenebrae or Sleepless.

In this picture, Argento has created a bizarre world with quite possibly the most unusual plot within his output, which features bugs, serial killers, a chimp and a mutant just for good measure. The locations and camerawork are wonderful to watch. The treatment that Arrow have given the film really shows just how beautiful the camerawork is as the presentation is crisp and pure. There are some stunning tracking shots, and the opening exterior shot (you know the film, of the girl missing the bus) is just perfect. That’s not to say the interiors are inferior, as they too, look magnificent. When Argento gets to stage a scene how he wants to see it, he really is at his best.

The cinematography is typically excellent Argento, but what is a surprise is the quality of the performances he gets from the actors, which has occasionally been his downfall. The acting in Phenomena is mostly of a particularly high standard, with Connelly, Pleasance and regular player Daria Niccolodi being the stand-outs. Actually, Connelly needs to be commended in particular as Argento really puts her through her paces as an actress and as a performer, with some physical work that most actors would flatly refuse.

The soundtrack is another high point. Goblin are on top of their game with this film, and the addition of other artists makes for a great audio experience.

Phenomena is a brilliant piece of, not just Italian cinema, but of cinema in general, and I simply can’t recommend it enough. Not having this in your collection is a crime worthy of having your head pushed through a glass window.

Score: *****

Format: The film is presented in 1.66:1 and is nothing short of spectacular: sharper than a film reviewers wit! Occasionally the image does lose some of its clarity, but I assume that is due to this most complete film getting some of its material from varied sources. The audio on this disc is in LPCM 2.0 and is as fine as it could ever get, I believe. The actual film content changes from English to Italian or German and back but it remains clear throughout, and is appropriately subtitled when the language changes. The music track is a must for fans of soundtracks too, with music from Bill Wyman, Motorhead and Iron Maiden… not to mention Goblin, on it.

This Arrow BD release of Phenomena is something of a revelation to me, as I had previously only seen it as the disastrous edit Creepers or the somewhat visually lacklustre Umbrella DVD release. There is no doubt this version both looks and sounds the business.

Score: ****

Extras: There are some great extras for Argento enthusiasts on this disc courtesy of High Rising Productions. Typically they are all interesting and I reckon even the most stalwart of fan will come away with something new

Dario Argento’s Monkey Business: The Making of Phenomena is a retrospective look at the making of the film with Argento, actress Daria Argento, visual effects Luigi Cozzi, cameraman Gianlorenzo Battaglia and special effects Sergio Stivaletti. Most of this is is subtitled Italian.

Music For Maggots: Claudio Simonetti Remembers Phenomena sees Goblin’s Simonetti recall details of the musical selections for this film.

Creepers and Creatures: Sergio Stivaletti Live Q&A Sessions is a Q&A hosted by High Rising Productions Calem Waddell with the Italian special effects master. The sound is somewhat muddy but some of the harder to hear comments are subtitled.

This BD edition from Arrow also has a double sided poster of the film, and a booklet with a piece by Alan Jones in it… I imagine it is not 2GB’s Alan Jones though. Also, as with many of Arrow’s BD release, this film comes with four different covers for the cardboard slipcase.

I must admit to wishing the filmclip Valley by Bill Wyman and Terry Taylor was included, like on the aforementioned Umbrella release, but you can’t have everything.

Score: *****

WISIA: Being one of my favourite horror films, it gets rewatched regularly and I love it! You will too! As I stated earlier, this film is a standard in my top ten favourite films, and this release is the best I have seen. A horror fan’s must have!

The Dead Pit (1989)

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One from the re watch pile…

The Dead Pit (1989)

Film: I’m an unadulterated fan of Re-animator; in actual fact it’s my favourite movie of all time… not just my favourite HORROR movie, but my unbeatable number one film. This film made me a lifelong Lovecraft fan (even though it’s not very Lovecraft-y) and after I first saw it, it didn’t matter what the movie was, if someone, anyone claimed ‘this film reminded me of Re-animator’ or if a magazine made a similar claim, I was all over it like water on a Deep One.

Of course, From Beyond was one of those films and so was this one, The Dead Pit.

Written and directed by Brett Leonard, who also directed the Marvel movie Man-Thing, and The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity. It was co-written with Gimel Everett who produced this same films with Leonard.

The Dead Pit is a bizarre story, and runs along these lines…

20 years ago, a mad scientist, Dr Ramzi (Danny Gochnauer) was performing horrible experiments on the inmates at a mental asylum. He was found out and killed during the ensuing scuffle and his experiments hidden in a basement of an abandoned wing of the hospital.

Flash forward to today and we see a new inmate arrive at the hospital, named Jane Doe (Cheryl Lawson), suffering from amnesia and upon arriving at the asylum, starts suffering from nightmares and seizures, and keeps seeing a mysterious figure of a doctor with a bullet hole in his head.

As you would expect, a series of murders start at the hospital but what connection do they have with Cheryl and willRamzi’s experiments rise from the Dead Pit to create havoc?

Let’s hope so!!

The first thing you’ll notice about this film is how bad the acting is, real high-school theatre styled with heaps of over-exaggeration but the weird thing is, the soundtrack and the story are so melodramatic, it actually suits it.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the effects. The make up effects are fine, but some of the rubber heads and miniature effects are… well, really funny, which I’m not sure was the desired effect.

The highlight of the film is definitely Cheryl Lawson. She went on to become a Hollywood stuntwoman, but her performance in this is the most convincing, and her scene that combines a crazy nurse, a firehouse and a very loose white crop top t shirt may not hit the heights of Re-animators ‘head-giving-head’ sequence, but it tries.

Special mention should also go to the appearance of classic western actor Jeremy Slate, who unfortunately passed away just after this DVD was produced.

All in all, whilst this isn’t a patch on Re-animator, it is a fun ride through Mad Doctor territory, and features a nice bunch of angry zombies who will gladly dispatch all the bad over-acting stars.

Worth a spin.

Score: ****

Format: This review was performed with the Code Red uncut and uncensored, NTSC, Region 0 DVD and runs for approximately 102 minutes long. It is present is an occasional artefact-y 1.78:1 image with a clear it u spectacular Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track.

Score: ***

Extras: There’s a few pretty good extras on this disc.

Audio Commentary with Director Brett Leonard, Star Jeremy Slate and Producer/ Writer Gimel Everett is a pretty thorough commentary and is interesting throughout.

There a bunch of interviews with Leonard, Slate, Everett and star Cheryl Lawson. They are an interesting bunch of interviews with some great anecdotes and stories being shared. The only thing I found with these features was the aspect ratio was out so you might have to tweak it to get it right.

There is also the original trailer and a bunch of Code Red Trailers for Night Warning, Beyond the Door, The Unseen, The Farmer and Sole Survivor.

Score: ***1/2

WISIA: Even though it’s a pretty dumb film, I still dig it, so it gets a yearly watch.

Fear in the Night (1972)

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One from the to watch pile…

Fear in the Night (1972)

Film: It seems to me that every time I reach a point where I think I have seen every Hammer film, ten more that I haven’t seen pop up. The best thing about these films is in general the reason I didn’t know about them is because I was a ravenous lover of Hammer’s monster movies, like the Frankensteins and the Draculas, but a lot of these thrillers and real fun and a great watch.

This film, Fear in the Night, is directed by one of the real creative forces of Hammer, Jimmy Sangster, who also directed Lust for the Vampire and The Horror Of Frankenstein. Being a prolific writer of Hammer films, he do-wrote this screenplay with Michael Syson, who also wrote the 1979 western, Eagle’s Wing.

Fear in the Night is a thriller starring Judy Geeson as Peggy Heller, a newly wed who is packing her things from the sharehouse she lives in so she can go with her new husband, Robert (Ralph Bates) at the boys boarding school where he is employed as a maths teacher.

On this night, though, she is attacked by a man with only one arm, and as she is someone with a history of mental issues, she is not immediately believed though the police are called and a report made.

She travels to the school where she finds it abandoned, as it is apparently end of term, and meets the headmaster, Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing) and his wife, Molly (Joan Collins). Molly is immediately hostile towards Peggy, but Robert explains that she is apparently a bitch to everyone. Michael is a calm, studious type… WITH ONLY ONE ARM!!!!

DUM, dum, DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!!!

Is Michael the man who attacked her, or is there a highly detailed plot involving misdirection leading to MURDER?

Well obviously there is, this is a Hammer film for goodness sake!!

This is a beautifully shot film, with some cool cinematic subtleties throughout, for example, Geeson’s costuming changes as her state of mind becomes fractured.

Considering Geeson basically holds the film single-handedly, she is perfect for the role. Girl next door pretty and with a tragic demeanour she nails this mentally-unstable waif brilliantly. That’s not to disparage the others: Collins plays perfect bitch, Bates plays perfect cad and Cushing? Well, Cushing is Cushing, and what else would you want?

All in all, it’s a quality Hammer Horror thriller, but it telegraphs most of its surprises quite early, and whilst the pay-off works, the epilogue is somewhat lacklustre.

Score: ***1/2

Format: This film was reviewed on the Australian, region B Bluray which runs for 94 minutes and is presented in a clear 1.66:1 image with a matching Dolby DTS-HD audio track.

Score: ****

Extras: There is not a great deal of extras on this, but what there is is quality.

End of Term: Inside Fear in the Night has various film experts from the UK like Jonathon Rigby, who wrote the amazing Euro Gothic, Alan Barnes, co-author of The Hammer Story, Kevin Lyons, the editor of eofftv.com and cultural historian John J. Johnston talking about the history and providence of the film. The only problem with this extra is it only goes for just over 15 minutes!

There is also a trailer for the film.

Score: ***

WISIA: Once the well-telegraphed twist is revealed, it doesn’t really lend itself to repeat watching.