Visceral Visions: They Live

The rather prolific Shout Factory have announced John Carpenters eighties sci-fi They Live in a rather cool looking Blu-ray package for early November.  Obviously this will be 'scoped and full HD, though audio commentary and other extras are to be confirmed.  If you order direct from Shout Factory at the moment you'll get an edition limited to 500 that contains an 18"x 24" poster showcasing the rather nice front cover artwork.  There will also be a Personally I want Prince of Darkness on Blu, which is looking closer to possibility.

Visceral Visions: Basket Case Trilogy

Something Weird's US Blu-ray of the awesome Basket Case is a great one, but UK-based Second Sight are going one better and releasing all three movies on Blu in a single steelbook edition (spread over three discs) on October 22nd.  Extras should include a documentary on all three films, an interview with film poster artist Graham Humphreys, audio commentary from Frank Henenlotter, outtakes, short film, trailers, video introduction from the director, and other promotional material.  A surprising announcement.

Visceral Visions: The Evil Dead

Always a title to guarantee a few sales, Sony/Columbia Tri-Star are re-releasing The Evil Dead on Blu-ray in the UK on 5th November 2012 as a steelbook.  This almost coincides with the early 2013 release of the dreaded remake...  No specs on the wonderful 1982 gris-fest as yet but I'm very much guessing that it will be the same as the previous Blu-ray - though I'm actually hoping this is not the case, as I was rather disappointed that on the disc already released UK fans only got the cropped 1.85:1 version (in the US the disc contained both widescreen and the uncropped fullframe image - undoubtedly the preferred viewing method for this 16mm classic).  If it contains the 1.33:1 version, I'm buying; if it doesn't, I'm not.

Alien 2 - On Earth

1980, Italy, Directed by Ciro Ippolito
Colour, Running Time: 84 minutes
Review Source: Blu-ray, Region A, Midnight Legacy; Video: 1.85:1 1080p 24fps, Audio: DTS-HD

A young girl goes wandering across the beach during a family holiday and foolishly attempts to satisfy piqued curiosity upon discovering some kind of pulsating ‘blob’. A short while later, after heading off to look for her, the mother is somewhat distraught to find the daughter whimpering with half of her face missing. Elsewhere a party of initially intrepid cave explorers is preparing for a mission to descend into a vast array of dangerous underground caverns when one of their number discovers a scattering of unusual rocks - he decides to keep one of them. Once beneath ground, and separated from the rest of mankind, not only do they become hopelessly lost but it’s not long before the rock turns out to be something of extraterrestrial origin and people start disappearing as they realise that there’s something inhuman down there with them, something decidedly alien, hostile, and unsympathetic towards human survival.

Long before The Descent there was Alien 2 - On Earth. Okay, they’re not identical twins (and fans of the former may consider the latter to simply be low budget trash) but neither are they a million miles apart. The original Italian title (Alien 2 Sulla Terra) would suggest a sly attempt to cash in on Alien. Plot is as straightforward as it gets: group of people explore caves and die one by one at the hands of an unearthly terror. Therein partly lies the problem - much of the first hour fundamentally focuses on the party endlessly meandering the admittedly striking caverns (these are no sets!) and it can drag a little. If you’re in the right mood it does have a fair amount of atmosphere (the quirky but typically Italian score sometimes adding to this) and there have been occasions when I’ve enjoyed this slow moving film. Aside from a fun appearance by the omnipresent Michele Soavi, there are a number of pretty bloody deaths punctuating the endless searching of underground passages but one thing that the film-makers seemed to have tapped into is the potential claustrophobic terror of being lost in a subterranean world, monstrous being in pursuit or no monstrous being in pursuit - when they realise they’re hopelessly lost there is a creeping feeling of genuine fear that the viewer can possibly identify with on a pure instinctive level (and surely that’s where fear itself largely has its roots?), even after never having been lost beneath the earth‘s surface for oneself! Where the boredom is really put to sleep, however, is when one of the characters finally manages to break free, only to find a deserted city above ground suggesting that the extraterrestrial threat has infiltrated Earth on a much more catastrophic level. It’s quite potent and almost epic, but the film unfortunately fails to take it much further, this perhaps being a remnant of features such as Zombi 2 (or the cash suddenly running out!), where the world is on the verge of the apocalypse just before the end credits interrupt. Nevertheless, in my opinion there are factors that prevent Alien 2 being simply consignable to the dustbin.

I picked this up in the late nineties on the old (early eighties, I think) VTC cassette, the feature here being entitled Alien Terror - once available separately, it was smartly paired up here with the classic (depending on your view…) Nightmare City, making a cool double bill. It was a large and chunky video box with OTT artwork emblazoned across the cover. In addition both films actually looked surprisingly clean and detailed, for the VHS format, especially considering the tape was a few decades old. While NC was definitely censored, AT was possibly uncut (though I can‘t be certain). One strange thing about the aspect ratio on the VTC release of AT: there is stock footage used throughout the earlier half of the film (kind of in the fashion of Ed Wood's approach of "use anything") but while the movie itself was letterboxed at about 1.66:1, the stock footage was pillarboxed fullscreen - this struck me as quite odd. Midnight Legacy kind of shocked people who knew anything about this film by announcing a Blu-ray release around 2010/11, and even more shocking is that the film looks blinking beautiful on this disc. Consistently framed at 1.85:1, and possibly containing a slightly different cut compared to the original UK tape, the image here is realistically colourful and highly detailed (for the main footage - the stock material looks very rough and it always will), occasionally looking almost as vivid as a more recent, higher budgeted film. Limited extras (a trailer and some stripped-out footage) aside, they've bravely taken the time to have a minimal-fanbase movie mastered in an extremely respectful manner, something which should have been a sign of things to come; alas, they seem to have vanished (hopefully not permanently) in times of very low returns. Real shame that people aren't open minded enough to pick this stuff up instead of (or as well as) big US films, though I guess the fact that not too many people like Alien 2 even in the cult world doesn't help! I think the film, despite being a little boring in places, has its merits, and for the fan of Italian horror this Blu-ray has to be on your shelf.

Visceral Visions: The People Who Own The Dark

One of the elusive Paul Naschy films that I've wanted to see for a while now is the Leon Klimovsky directed Último Deseo, or The People Who Own The Dark, a post apocalyptic film shot in the seventies about a group of people trapped in a mansion as undead-like characters mill around outside.  Awesome news then (well, awesome minus one, as this is DVD only) that Code Red have just released the film to disc, with two versions contained therein.  Have ordered my copy straight away as it is limited to just 400 copies - already the scum profiteers have picked their copies up in order to resell on ebay at vastly inflated prices... Buy direct from Code Red and give your money to the guys who deserve it, not the profiteers!

*Update: You can read The Grim Cellar's review here.

Billy Liar

1963, UK, Directed by John Schlesinger
Black & White, Running Time: 98 minutes
Review Source: DVD, R1, Criterion; Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: DD Mono

The original novel of Billy Liar, written by Keith Waterhouse, earned notable critical commendation on its release in 1959 prior to its adaptation as a stage play (co-written between the book’s author and Willis Hall). During its initial West End run it was Albert Finney who played the lead role of Billy Fisher, bringing a wider audience to the production as Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (also starring Finney) became a big hit. Finney's departure opened up a slot in the play for Tom Courtenay, an actor who would attract some acclaim for his part in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner before securing himself the part of Billy again for the movie adaptation of Billy Liar. The film’s narrative wasn’t too far removed from its literary counterpart: Fisher works at a funeral parlour in an administrative capacity while dreaming of greater things, particularly becoming an author of either comedy scripts or novels, whilst allowing his love life to become an increasingly tangled mess. He also has a tendency to fabricate the truth to others as his imagination runs largely unrestrained in addition to the apparent ongoing requirement for such manipulation to cover up his proclivity towards laziness and almost accidental dishonesty, for example his failure to post a batch of calendars on behalf of his employers leading to the absorption of the postal money into his own pocket. The story effectively snapshots one day in his life as he awakens one morning before work (his parents having great difficulty actually getting him up and on his way), endures the short working day before handing in his notice to take up the script-writing job that hasn’t quite made it to reality, tries to sort out the periodic incidents of difficulty with his multiple girlfriends, goes to a dancehall in the evening where a number of problems inconveniently collide, and makes a decision to head off to London with his favoured woman, Liz, at the end of the day after his gran dies.

There are a fantastic array of characters that either get in Billy’s way throughout, or become antagonised by his inconsistent ability to be honest: his mother and father for starters, the latter almost constantly shouting at the lad or doubting his ability to do anything, something which might have instigated Billy’s all-thought-no-action approach to life. At work we then meet his best mate, Arthur Crabtree (Rodney Bewes), who Billy ends up arguing with after telling a lie to Arthur’s mom, and beyond that there is Barbara, Rita, and Liz (Julie Christie), Billy’s three antithetical girlfriends. Barbara is an uptight virgin who won’t let Billy even touch her until they’re married, Rita is the promiscuous tart who’s relentlessly squawking and nagging him, primarily about the engagement ring that she doesn’t know is actually on Barbara’s finger, and finally Liz is the girl who likes to drift between towns, refusing to pin herself down to a place she cannot identify with. In most respects Liz is the girl most suited to Billy’s unpredictable strategy for dealing with life’s more mundane details, someone who similarly uses her imagination to free herself from the constraints of a humdrum existence. One crucial difference manifests itself as the separating factor between Billy and Liz however, and that’s the fact that Liz acts on her impulses while Billy doesn’t, and it’s that issue that will ultimately determine the outcome of their relationship - at least on the day focused on by the story. Billy’s daydreams are given life by cinema: reality is punctuated by episodes of mental wanderings as Billy imagines himself in a plethora of situations adopting roles preferable to that which he has to endure on a daily basis, from a surviving war veteran, to a reformed prisoner-cum-successful author, with the inhabitants of his ‘real’ life often making an appearance somewhere (spot Liz alongside him in one of his early fantasies before we’ve even met her, suggesting that she has a relevant part to play in his ideologies). These episodes don’t tend to be my favourite pieces in the film, however. What rises the film to a higher plane is the ongoing complexity of Billy’s relationships, these giving rise to beautiful moments of drama. The characters throughout appear to have their own agenda, merely getting caught up in Billy’s confused world where fact and fiction aren’t mutually exclusive concepts, and most of these characters are granted life by the astounding talents of a well selected cast. Whilst this film would most likely be categorised as a ‘drama’ it’s not without its frequent moments of amusement as Billy progresses from one awkward situation to the next and even when his gran dies the film refuses to get bogged down too much in melancholy. Hence Billy Liar remains an uplifting experience every time, featuring people whose actions can be scrutinised, dialogue that is fascinating despite familiarity granted over repeat viewings, and a gorgeous Northern ‘kitchen-sink’ appeal throughout. Stripped of glamour, but not beauty, Billy Liar is one of the greatest triumphs of sixties British cinema, and almost certainly one of the greatest irrespective of era or geographical origin.

Stamping on the old pan & scan video cassettes and TV broadcasts that we had to put up with in the distant past, Criterion’s DVD presented the film accurately representing its CinemaScope ratio (the 4:3 transfers were simply awful). It’s a decent looking image that could nowadays be improved I suspect, but is satisfying nonetheless. An informative commentary from the director, Courtenay and Christie accompanies a 15 minute TV featurette that focused on Billy Liar and another of Schlesinger’s earlier films, A Kind of Loving. Hardly in-depth but the package is rounded out by excellent liner notes by Bruce Goldstein, the founder of the company (Rialto) that rescued Billy Liar to provide a theatrical re-release 35 years after it was made. The British DVD lost the majority of the bonuses but obviously came in a lot cheaper. This disc/film remains one of the most valued entities of my movie shelves.

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

1998, US, Directed by Danny Cannon
Colour, Running Time: 100 minutes
Review Source: Blu-ray, Region B, Sony; Video: 2.39:1 1080p 24fps, Audio: Dolby TrueHD

Hard to believe that this was released a decade and a half ago, give or take a little.  I Know What You Did Last Summer was of course a big hit in cinemas, blazing hot in the smoke left by Scream, and you'd think the success had been preempted considering the speed with which this sequel was rushed into production.  Abandoning logic from the starting line, the second movie has Julie James consistently plagued by nightmares about Mr Fish-hook himself, Ben Willis.  Lucky for her then that she is invited on a trip to the Bahamas when her friend wins a radio competition.  Asking her old flame Ray along she eventually pairs up with the more geeky Will when Ray, unbeknown to her, runs into a little accident on his way to warn them of the terrors to come.  Arriving at the remote island they're rather perturbed to discover it's close of season (no wonder they were giving the f**ker away) and they're pretty much the only holiday (and love) makers there, aside from the resident drug dealer, hotel owner, and one or two other pieces of cannon fodder for later.  Not only that, it's just entering the rainy season and an endless streak of bad weather (not unlike what we're currently experiencing here as part of the UK's wonderful summer) hits the island, plus exit boats are cancelled.  Not only that, but Willis appears to have returned from the dead, fish-hook and raincoat intact, and this guy is real pi**ed at everyone.

Initial opinion of the sequel wasn't good and, looking at general online opinions now, it still isn't!  I watched it first of all via a TV broadcast about ten years ago, and I concurred with what I'd previously heard at that point.  Anyway, the Blu-ray was going fairly cheap online, and having picked up the US Blu-ray of the first film a couple of years ago (it's not, at time of writing, available on Blu in the UK for mysterious reasons) and finding it a source of primal enjoyment, I quite fancied checking this out again.  The film is riddled with cliché, a factor which once upon a time repelled me.  The teens are quite typical of the slasher arena, and every one of them is so corny they almost deserve to be blasted off into space.  The bad boy here is also a cut and paste job, copycatting anything from Halloween to Friday The 13th Part... whatever.  Strangely, however, what I found on this viewing was that the film goes down extremely well with several glasses of spirit: I haven't had so much fun watching a film for ages!  It's difficult to know with certainty whether they were serious when producing this nutball killer-stalks-good-looking-teens outing, but my suspicions that tongues were actually in cheeks were roused by the appearance of Jack Black as a white drug dealer who thinks he's black (still a twerp here, but an loosely amusing twerp for a change) and, more resolutely, Jeffrey Combs (Re-animator himself) appearing as the hotelier - very funny, particularly as the teen characters are all obliviously taking seriously a man we know is there for subtle laughs.  And of course, Jennifer Love Hewitt looked as hot as a branding iron back in these days, and she adorns an array of skimpy, tight-fitting outfits throughout (oddly, and frustratingly, retaining her bikini even whilst taking a sunbed - what, does she want tan lines?!?).  Add to this a bit of gore and some potty but enticing suspense sequences, this is a fun ride from start to finish, and well executed at that.  Whether I could say the same while sober could be another matter.

What's not quite so pleasing as Love Hewitt's shape and everything around it is this Blu-ray presentation - a very lazy disc from Sony.  The image is certainly colourful but rarely does it remind the viewer of a high definition transfer, not often rising much beyond standard definition in fact.  There is a softness throughout that makes this feel like a lost opportunity, particularly given the exotic cinematography and locations on display.  Conversely, the audio track is knockout, and possibly a step up from the DVD I would imagine.  Extras are absolutely pitiful: we get a crap music video of Love Hewitt embarrassing herself as a wannabe pop star, attempting to emulate every other boring modern pop video I've ever had the misfortune of catching; we get a two or three crap trailers; finally we get one of those pi**awful EPK things - five minutes of people talking sh*t, intercut with anything remotely exciting from the film we've just sat through.  The BD for the first film was much better, and more satisfying all round.  My advice: if you haven't got I Still Know... but want it, pick up the Blu-ray because the picture will be marginally better and the audio track is good demo stuff; if you have got the film on DVD, I hate to say it but it's probably not worth upgrading to this disc unless you can get it dirt cheap (at the same time as getting rid of your DVD for a roughly equivalent price...).

Teenage Wasteland: The Slasher Movie Uncut

2010, Author: J A Kerswell, Publisher: New Holland, Softcover, 208 pages

In case you didn't hazzard a guess at the topic based on the title, this tome is a study of the history of slasher movies, taking the reader through the beginnings and influences on the movement right up to whatever was going on around 2008/9 (unfortunately just missing out on Scream 4).  The read takes us right back to the beginnings of cinema through to the likes of The Old Dark House, Peeping Tom and a few others that led up to the real birth of the slasher (IMO) in Psycho.  It wisely whisks us on tours of the German krimi films, and of course the Italian giallo on route before taking time to consider what the Brits and Americans had to offer (including the film before its time, Black Christmas) before the modern version as we know it today was born in the Shape (sorry) of Halloween.  At this point it proceeds year by year along what is considered to be the Golden Age: chapters devoted individually to each year from '78 to '84.  Brief stops are made on the journey to focus a little on what was happening outside of America, before returning to take a more detailed look at the video age (where this type of film lingered on after box office had slowed down considerably) and the whole revival thing that Scream was effectively responsible for.  It concludes with short individual reviews of seminal pieces, which could serve as a 'tick-off' list for newcomers (if you're not a newcomer, you've probably seen all or most of these anyway).

I wouldn't say I'm the greatest fan of this kind of movie, though I do have appreciation for the likes of Halloween and My Bloody Valentine.  Occasionally, if in the mood, this stuff can go down well (and let's face it, who doesn't want to see most irritating teens of the present generation 'get' it one way or another...) - I have a soft spot for I Know What You Did Last Summer, especially when the young Love Hewitt appears in frame, while the deeper and significantly nastier Maniac is a big favourite.  Generally though there are inherent limitations that can instigate boredom more often than not - this stuff goes through the motions and clichés pretty much like nothing else out there.  In light of that, the book makes for a reasonable pick-up over the course of a couple of weeks, its primary problem being a reflection of the very thing that it's talking about: repetition.  Once the history side of the text is over and done with, it winds up going through a routine with most of the films it looks at, which is: brief mention of plot such as masked or pissed off killer knocking off various (usually) teenage victims, before outlinging the box office takings as an indicator of how well it was received (unfortunately neglecting often to think about comparisons between how it was perceived at the time to how it is generally considered nowadays, but then this is probably supposed to be more of a historical approach).  I perhaps think that a film guide (i.e. chronological listings of films containing cast/crew/technical details alongside synopses and other titbits) may have worked better.  The writer does cover a lot, including quite a few pieces that I wasn't previously familiar with, although often he strangely neglects to opine in depth, opting instead to use (as aforementioned) the box office figures to demonstrate whether the film was really worthwhile or not.  And let's face it, who can trust the general public to pick out a great exploitation flick!  The other niggle I must mention - and something like this would be difficult for anyone to avoid given the limited focus - is the excessive use of the words 'slasher' and 'subgenre', something that occurs pretty much every paragraph and once you become aware of it you can't help but become a little distracted!  Perhaps it's just me...

Anyway, the book is colourful (perhaps too colourful - some of the schemes I suspect would be awkward for dyslexia sufferers), pleasantly laid out, and filled with fantastic film and video posters throughout, which is possibly the most attractive aspect of the book from my point of view.  The front/rear covers also fold open to reveal further imagery of interest.  The prose is fairly easy going, even if not especially stylish (hey, I can't talk, but this guy's getting paid for it - I aint!), and this makes for a book that you will likely want on your shelf if you have at least half a passion for the much loved/loathed stalk n' slash genre.  Note this review is based on the UK edition - it has also since been released stateside with the somewhat less 'cryptic' title of 'The Slasher Movie Book', just in case Americans wouldn't be able to figure out the contents based on the original moniker...