Johnny English Strikes Again (2018)

I wonder who thought that now was a good time to bring back the character of Johnny English, a rather arrogant man who often has ideas he lacks the skill to turn into action, who views himself as superior to his global counterparts, despite consistently proving otherwise, and who seems stuck in a haze of past former glories that are formed from chance events, misconceptions, and moments of standing on the shoulders of others. On second thoughts, it makes perfect sense that this character came back now. But is this new movie any good?

Sort of.

The plot sees Johnny English (Atkinson reprising the role, of course) being the last resort, yet again, when a national emergency needs a hero to avert disaster. This time the disaster is caused by a cyber-criminal. English is reunited with Bough (Ben Miller), he has some classic gadgets to help him along, and also gets the chance to become smitten with a woman named Ophelia Bhuletova (Olga Kurylenko).

There are some good laughs to be had here, a couple of set-pieces made me chuckle throughout, but perhaps not enough to warrant an entire new adventure for the UK's most hapless spy (although, in fairness, this balances the character out between the useless man we first met and the more skilled agent of the second movie, albeit rusty after his years not being in active service). I will always laugh at a scene that has Rowan Atkinson dancing to an intense dance tune, but that can be done without a whole Johnny English movie framing it. Likewise, the sequence in which Atkinson dons a VR headset and causes havoc in London is a lot of fun, but also feels as if it could have been reworked within a better narrative.

Because for all it gets right, and director David Kerr (making his theatrical feature debut after a LOT of impressive TV work) certainly keeps everything moving along briskly enough, in line with the light and amusing script by William Davies (who also wrote the first film), there's an inescapable feeling that we've seen it all before, done better, or we're seeing something that could have been part of a much fresher experience. English is a character trotted out again when he should probably have been left in retirement, although that is a lot of what the film uses to get laughs.

As for the performances, everyone joins in with gusto. Atkinson and Miller make a good duo, once again, with the latter particularly entertaining during the many times he chooses not to comment after yet another disastrous episode or lapse in judgement. Kurylenko is the kind of glamorous and dangerous woman she can play in her sleep, Jake Lacy is a tech whizz who may just be the most obvious link to the cyber-terror, and Emma Thompson is a hoot as a Prime Minister who gets through each bad day with sheer force of will and canny decision-making. And alcohol.

Maybe slightly better than the first movie, especially during a wonderful opening sequence that shows English in his new role as a teacher, but not as good as the second, this is a third outing ultimately undone by how completely unnecessary it feels.

6/10
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Dead Silence (2007)

After James Wan and Leigh Whannell found fame with Saw, for better or worse, they quickly moved into the territory that would become their more familiar ground over the next decade, the supernatural horror. Dead Silence is a film that is interesting now to watch for a number of reasons, not the least of them being the seeds of ideas that both men would use more effectively in a number of their more successful movies.

Things start with a dummy being delivered to the abode of Jamie And Lisa Ashen. It's not long until Lisa is dead, Jamie is the prime suspect, and a trip home sees him start to uncover a number of clues that point to the evil influence of a famous ventriloquist named Mary Shaw. He is trying to prove his innocence and find out exactly what happened, all the while being closely watched by a detective who clearly believes that it's only a matter of time until Jamie slips up and can be charged with murder.

There's so much here that I enjoy that I find it easy to overlook the things that Dead Silence does poorly. What it lacks in ANY sense of reality, what it fails to do in terms of hiding the minor and major twists, it more than makes up for with huge helpings of creepy atmosphere and a premise that allows plenty of chills to be wrung from that creepy standby, the ventriloquist's dummy. But this is a film that begins with a couple receiving a delivery of one such dummy and not immediately setting it on fire, setting their whole house on fire, and moving to the furthest possible zip code at the other end of the country. And that's not the least believable thing about the film. The production design is wonderful throughout, but turns a small town into nothing more than a succession of sets that wouldn't look out of place in any major Halloween haunt (it's no surprise to find that the film was used at Universal's "Halloween Horror Nights" in the year it was released), none of the characters feel remotely close to being normal human beings, and the finale, as enjoyably scary and effective as it is, is quite preposterous. It also suffers from the kind of editing that many disliked in Saw.

Wan directs competently enough, although he's at the beginning of a steep learning curve that he would easily stand astride within a few years, and he does enough with the pacing and atmosphere to help distract from the silliness. Whannell, on the other hand, can't seem to make headway with the script. He's gone on record with his unhappiness at the experience, and final product, but I'm surprised that he couldn't work his way out from the strong core and create something much better than what we ended up with. Both the exposition and dialogue are weak, although he deserves credit for creating the better scares that help to make things a bit easier for Wan.

Perhaps some stronger leads would have helped. I like Kwanten (although this was a while before I saw his work in True Blood and Red Hill, both allowing him to do much better work) but he's unable to do much with the material here. Donnie Wahlberg is so bad, at times, that he feels as if he's wandered in from an audition for the role of "obsessive and obstinate cop" in some parody. Judith Roberts is wonderfully creepy in the role of Mary Shaw, Bob Gunton and Amber Valletta do well as, respectively, the father and mother-in-law of Kwanten's character, and Laura Regan isn't onscreen for long enough to make a strong impression.

A dangerous dummy, a scary-looking old woman, an entity with a vendetta against individuals that isn't easy to placate and/or get rid of, a cop who may find himself in trouble while trying to keep track of a main suspect, Dead Silence may be viewed as a failure by some but it's an essential stepping stone in the filmographies of both Wan and Whannell. And it's actually a decent little chiller too, if also a bit of a silly one.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can get it here.

Prime Time: The Dukes Of Hazzard (2005)

There were two movies made in the mid-2000s that were based on TV shows that were, in turn, based around a car in a starring role. Well, two that I can recall, off the top of my head. Starsky & Hutch was the first, in 2004. The second was this one. It's not really a surprise to find that both were reworked for comedy. It's also not really a surprise, for those who know how easily pleased I am, that I tended to enjoy both. What IS surprising is that this film turned out as well as it did, considering who was involved in front of the camera.

Mind you, with taste being as subjective as it is, the very people I enjoy seeing in this movie may be the very reason that others never want to see it, and think it should be consigned to the bargain bin section of Hell. And if you're already thinking that then you should probably not rush to see it.

Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott play Luke and Bo Duke, the rough 'n' ready heroes of our story. Well, they are the characters that we tag along with, and they are the humans who look set to put a spanner in the works of any plan by 'Boss' Hogg (Burt Reynolds), but the real star is the General Lee, the car that Bo uses to cause vehicular carnage and stay one step ahead of pursuing baddies, or those wanting to shoot Luke because of his unchecked libido.

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar (of Broken Lizard fame), this works well because of good casting, gags that range from decent to groan-inducing, and a number of sequences that allow for some great car stonework. You also get appearances from many of the other Broken Lizard troupe members, which helps.

Written by John O'Brien, the script manages to retain the essence of the show thanks to the way it uses the main characters, even while twisting them all slightly to up the comedy quotient. Knoxville and Scott may not be your favourite actors, and may not be absolutely perfect in these roles, but they're a decent fit for a couple of moonshine-running lads who can always try to excuse the irritation they cause with a big grin and air of childishness.

The rest of the cast fit just as well, whether it's Jessica Simpsons turning heads as Daisy Duke, Burt Reynolds as the villain of the piece, M. C. Gainey as his main henchman, who also happens to be the local Sheriff, and Willie Nelson as Grandpa. There are also fun turns from David Koechner, James Roday (playing a cocky ex-resident of the county back to take part in a local race), an underused Lynda Carter, and one or two others.

The soundtrack has some great selections, the chase sequences are genuinely entertaining, and the plot feels like the kind of thing that could have happened in a feature-length episode of the show, which is sometimes the best you can hope for from a movie reworking a beloved TV show from the past. This may not be the best film that anyone here is involved with, but it's fun stuff, nothing more, nothing less.

6/10

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Altitude (2018)

Here's the thing about my movie reviews. I often forget to mention the musical scores, I am woefully forgetful when it comes to namechecking people like cinematographers and designers (people that are vital to helping the director create their vision), and I don't always write essays based around the themes and subtext of the more meaningful cinematic classics I have watched over the years. Sometimes I try, don't get me wrong, but I'm often aiming to just relay a general feeling about the films I have watched. My reviews are often just about my reaction, as opposed to being a full dissection. Sometimes I manage to pack a bit more in there, and am always happy when the thoughts and words flow well for me, and sometimes I am happy that I am watching another film that doesn't really need such thoughtful criticism.

Altitude certainly falls into that latter camp.

Denise Richards plays Gretchen Blair, a female FBI agent who has boarded a flight after having a very bad time of things recently. She gets angry at an inconsiderate idiot who has ended up sitting in her seat and ends up being taken to first class. Result. Sitting alongside a man named Terry (Kirk Barker), her moment of happiness is short-lived. Some people want Terry, or at least what he has hidden away from them, and that means that they want to take control of the flight. Greer Grammer is the woman in charge of the criminal plan, and Dolph Lundgren is her right hand man (although she also has other muscle on hand, with the most recognisable being Chuck Liddell).

Altitude is preposterous. Of course it is. The characters are all ridiculous clichés, very few moments are plausible, and it's a film in which viewers have to accept Richards as the strong and smart goodie up against Lundgren.

Director Alex Merkin tries to keep everything moving along zippily enough, throwing occasional distractions in (like Jonathan Lipnicki as an over the top, dancing and singing, air steward) to break up the overly familiar plotting as we get the opening situation that puts our lead in need of a rest, an overview of the plane and the passengers, developing awareness of the dangerous plot, etc. The script, by Jesse Mittelstadt, also helps here, with the material sadly growing weaker when the actual action starts to take place. Neither Merkin nor Mittelstadt can do enough to get this anywhere close to any of the other, superior, plane-based action thrillers that we've already seen over the years. And some of the dialogue is either laughably cheesy or cringe-inducing, depending on your mindset.

Richards is okay in her role (although I did spend the majority of the movie squinting at the screen and asking myself "is that Denise Richards?"), and Barker is fine, if fairly bland. That leaves it to the villains to liven things up. They don't quite manage it, mainly due to the fact that Granmer plays her role in a way that makes you wish someone had been able to negotiate a fee for Krysten Ritter, and also the fact that Lundgren is sorely underused (he spends most of his screentime actually flying the plane). The least said about Liddell the better, but it's worth mentioning Jordi Vilasulo, who does a decent job as the air marshall who gets involved in the situation.

You could do a lot worse if you're after a mindless slice of action, which is all it is trying to provide. I'll watch anything Lundgren does, he improves pretty much any film that he stars in, and this may not be one of his better films, but it's still a fun one.

5/10

You can pick up the film, under the name "Hijacked", here.
Americans can get it here.

Mubi Monday: The Sisters Brothers (2018)

A bit of a change of pace for director Jacques Audiard, The Sisters Brothers is an enjoyable dark comedy Western that benefits immensely from two central performances from Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly.

The two play the titular brothers, men who end up on a quest to chase down two men (played by Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal) who may be on to a winning formula for gold prospecting. They encounter difficulties along the way, of course, caused by people who want to end their lives, and the excessive drinking of Charlie.

Although featuring all of the usual things you expect to see in a Western, this is atypical in the way the characters are shown and the situations developed. Our two leads are not on some honourable quest, for example. They are being sent after men by a figure known as The Commodore (Rutger Hauer). Loyalties change, character flaws are not fixed in any major moment of redemption, and you never expect anyone to ride off into the sunset.

Reilly and Phoenix may not be two actors you would think of pairing up as brothers but both work really well in their roles, with the former being slightly in the shadow of the latter, although both can step up to the mark when guns need drawn and the bullets start flying. Ahmed is very good as the young man out to make his fortune with brains over toil, and Gyllenhaal is equally good as the man who does his best to stick close to him. You also get a good selection of supporting players, with enjoyable turns from Rebecca Root, Allison Tolman, and the smallest of roles for Carol Kane.

The script, co-written by Audiard and his frequent collaborator Thomas Bidegain (based on the novel of the same name by Patrick DeWitt), is strong. Characters are fleshed out very quickly, with more being added to them as the plot winds from beat to beat, and there are some cracking lines of dialogue (a favourite of mine being Phoenix talking to the citizens of a town named Mayfield).

The direction is also strong, as you may expect if you've seen anything else from Audiard. He keeps everything feeling firmly rooted in the genre while giving most scenes enough of a little twist to make it all feel slightly different from the norm and fresh. There's also some typically wonderful music throughout from Alexandre Desplat (another favourite collaborator of Audiard) and some nice cinematography throughout from Benoît Debie, making a lot of the more unpleasant moments seem more palatable.

8/10

Here's a disc.
And Americans can get it here.

Netflix And Chill: Unicorn Store (2017)

Unicorn Store is a slight jumble of a film but it's also a sweet and enjoyable one, thanks to a great lead turn from Brie Larson (also making her feature directorial debut).

Larson plays Kit, a young woman who we see growing up in a montage that focuses on her love of art, right up until the day that she is told her work is not good enough. That leads to her moving back in with her parents (played by Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford), becoming a temp agency worker, and generally resolving to get on with a bland adult life. Until she is invited to a store by a mysterious salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) who tells her that she has been picked to receive a unicorn, but only if she can prove that she is ready to accept one.

Written by Samantha McIntyre, Unicorn Store is anything but subtle, and perhaps falls too in between a couple of main demographics to fully appeal to many. Kit is every dreamer who has ever been given that cold splash of water in the face by people telling them that it is time to grow up and get serious. This happens to her as a young adult, but the way she clings on to hope and bright fantasy puts her more in line with teenagers who have yet to be worn down by the grind and grit of daily adult life. She seems very childish at times, yet it's also easy to see her behaviour as something we would all like to regress to, at least occasionally. Admit it, if you're a parent who has been having a hard time of things lately then it's not just your children who enjoy the times when you let them build a blanket fort and have a day away from the outside world. You join them and remember what it was like when it was so much easier to keep things much simpler.

Larson directs well enough, although it's all very similar to so many other independent movies we've seen over the years, in terms of the quirky characters, developments, and main lesson learned. It just has some big names to help carry the material and make it seem a bit more mainstream.

Leading lady aside, who is as good as she usually is, the highlights include Cusack and Whitford as caring parents who Larson feels are constantly disappointed by her, Hamish Linklater as an odd and awkward boss, Karan Soni as an old friend who seems to have made a great success of his life, and Mamoudou Athie as a hardware store employee who ends up helping Larson to prepare her home for the arrival of the unicorn. Jackson is a lot of fun as the salesman, although it feels like the role is designed more for Jackson to have fun than any other reason.

A unicorn is different things to many people (I still love the fact that here in Scotland it is our national animal) but it's also always symbolises something magical, pure, and very difficult, often impossible, to attain. That may be someone you love, it may be having the time and resources to create your art, or it may even be a sense of acceptance for your current situation in life. Whatever it is, once you prepare well enough for it, you can take a moment to enjoy it. And then maybe help others to find their own.

7/10

Fans of Larson can buy Room here.
Americans can buy it here.

Shudder Saturday: Wilderness (2006)

I'm not sure if it's still the case but Wilderness is one of those movies I always spotted in the bargain bin section of any shop selling DVDs. Which is why I bought it. It sat on my shelf for many years, and I could never work up the enthusiasm to actually watch the thing. The reason? Well, I'd been burned some time ago by certain words - "Wes Craven presents" (I know, I know, I should have known better) - and ended up watching some piece of dross called The Breed. The Breed was another movie from 2006 about young people in an isolated location being threatened with killer dogs. The main difference between these two movies, as far as I could see, is that one was American and one was British. Thankfully, once I worked up the nerve to give it a go, the other main difference is that Wilderness is a much better movie.

Sean Pertwee is the man in charge of a group of juvenile delinquents who are forced to spend some time on what is alleged to be an uninhabited island. They soon find that there is another group of youngsters camping there (some girls, watched over by a tough woman named Louise). There's also at least one other person on the island. Oh, and a pack of vicious dogs that will happily chow down on anyone they catch. Can the group stop fighting among themselves long enough to fight off their new enemy?

The second feature film from director Michael J. Bassett (who started off strong with the impressive and enjoyable Deathwatch), Wilderness has enough in the mix to make it a fun time-waster for horror fans, even if the script, a first from Dario Poloni (who only has this and the superior Black Death in his writing credits, at this moment), is never as strong as it could be. There are actually a lot of positives: the death of a character that sets off the main events is well done, the antagonistic protagonists are all fairly memorable, some decent gore, the cast. Unfortunately, they're undermined by the elements that are either underdeveloped (some more backstory for at least one of the main characters would have been appreciated) or just a bit too predictable, especially during the second half.

Although he's the main authority figure, and as enjoyable as ever, Pertwee isn't the lead. That spot is reserved for Toby Kebbell, playing a tough lad who doesn't seem as bad as some of the others but has no qualms about doing whatever needs done to survive. It's far from Kebbell's best work, but he brings his usual level of considerable talent to the role. Stephen Wight is good value as the most unpleasant of the group, Luke Neal is also good, as his less unpleasant friend, Karly Greene, and Lenora Crichlow both do fine in their roles, and Alex Reid does well in the role of Louise, although it's a shame she doesn't have even more screentime. It's also worth mentioning the dogs, who do a very good job of looking vicious and able to tear people apart into bite-sized meaty chunks.

Not great, not terrible, but Wilderness is easily the best of the 2006 movies about people being terrorised by killer dogs in an isolated location. And you can quote me on that.

6/10

You can pick up the DVD here.
Americans can pick it up here.

Tully (2018)

Most Hollywood movies have a comfortingly optimistic view of parenthood and families that have to struggle to balance the household budget. You see mothers rushing around, usually in a montage of school runs and sporting events, and most people struggling with debt still seem to have a roof over their head, a car (which I know is more essential in America than it is here in the UK), and a generally decent selection of food and drinks.

Tully is a film about motherhood that impressively, determinedly, moves away from the sugar-coated outlook that appears in most movies. Charlize Theron plays Marlo, the mother of two children, one daughter and one son, with the latter having an undiagnosed condition that makes him behave in a way that others charitably describe as "quirky". And she's expecting her third child. Her husband, played by Ron Livingston, seems to be loving and supportive, but could probably do a fair bit more to help, and her brother (Mark Duplass) thinks that he will help out by gifting her the services of a night nanny. And that eventually leads to her receiving help from Tully (Mackenzie Davis), a bright and energetic young woman who helps to make a positive change in the Marlo's life.

Although still far from perfect in the way it depicts a struggling mother, and the way in which it depicts certain health issues, this is a film that has more for parents, and especially mothers, to identify with than usual. The direction from Jason Reitman is as capable as ever, the guy does solid work without ever really putting his own stamp on things, and the script by Diablo Cody is a nice balance of harsh truths and wry comedy, despite a couple of mis-steps that are easily forgiven once the end credits start to roll and you think over what you've just watched.

Theron hasn't put in a bad performance in a long time, and she keeps her streak intact here, showing a woman changed by motherhood in so many ways (mentally and physically) that she wonders if she can ever get back to finding herself under the layers of selflessness, tiredness, and auto-responses. Davis, another actress I have been a fan of in almost every role she has played, lights up the screen with almost every moment of her screentime. Her enthusiasm and energy come in at just the right time, and Davis does just enough to keep her character sweet and likeable when she could just as easily have seemed annoying, and even slightly creepy. Livingston has a lot less to do, although he's not painted in any kind of bad light until he takes time to look at himself a bit more closely, and Duplass is a lot of fun with his mix of bluntness and genuine care for his sister. Gameela Wright also does well as a teacher who has to break the bad news that the school can't really cope with the additional responsibility of one troubled young boy.

Some viewers may see where this is heading from the opening scenes (I am notoriously unable to foresee things in movies that others say are completely bleeding obvious) but that doesn't stop it being an interesting and rewarding journey. I think there's still some way to go before we see a more realistic portrayal of motherhood onscreen, if it ever happens, but this gets closer than most, which is just one of the reasons to give it your time.

8/10

You can buy the DVD here.
Americans can get a Blu here.

The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

A film that does exactly what the title tells you it is going to do, The Incredible Melting Man is a strange and uneven viewing experience, saved by the moments that feature the titular character, a tragic figure who has many moments that allow him to parallel Frankenstein's monster.

Alex Rebar is that man, an astronaut named Steve West who has been fundamentally transformed during his last space voyage, a trip that killed the men alongside. He escapes from his hospital bed and starts to wander through the countryside, killing people as he continues to melt into a sludgy mess. It's up to Dr. Ted Nelson (Burr DeBenning) to find him before too many people die, but he always seems to be a step or two behind.

Written and directed by William Sachs (who would go on to give us the much more enjoyable Galaxina a few years later), this is an FX showcase that doesn't have enough decent scenes away from the nasty moments, and often doesn't even show off the practical work, headed up by Rick Baker, as well as it could. Originally intended as a campy homage to past sci-fi horror movies (there's definitely a Quatermass vibe there, amongst the other influences), the fact that producers wanted something more straightforward and serious helps to explain the uneven tone of the whole thing, with Sachs still managing to squeeze in some quirky humour here and there, certainly in the first half of the film.

Rebar isn't really seen under all of that make-up but he does well enough as he shambles around, and he arguably puts in a better performance than most of the other main cast members. DeBenning is an unlikely "hero", really only the best hope for Rebar when compared to the local Sheriff (Michael Alldredge) and a grumpy General (Myron Healey). Ann Sweeny is the wife of DeBenning's character, and she does okay in her role, Cheryl Smith at least makes an impression, playing a model stuck in the middle of nowhere with a sleazy photographer (Don Walters), and Edwin Max and Dorothy Love are amusing enough as a childish elderly couple on their way to visit family.

Have I made this sound good? It's not. Not really. But it's not terrible either, thanks to the intentions of Sachs and the moments that it gets right. It somehow does just enough to keep things decently paced, and there's an enjoyably low-key and slightly unsettling coda.

The Incredible Melting Man is still a title that I think most horror movie fans should check off their watchlist, if only for those Rick Baker effects. It's just a shame that it comes nowhere near to living up to the title, and will always be below the likes of Street Trash and Body Melt (and any other melty-fleshed features I am currently forgetting about, although all of them sit in the shade of the gloriously gloopy Society).

4/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the movie here.

Prime Time: Polterheist (2018)

Okay, there are two ways to look at Polterheist, a film I decided to give my time to purely on the basis of that great title. On the one hand, it's not great. Let me get that out of the way just now. It has a number of flaws that I will discuss in more detail soon enough. But on the other hand, it's actually a pretty solid, you might even say impressive, mix of comedy, crime, and the supernatural.

Developed from a short film of the same name, the plot focuses on two gangsters named Tariq and Boxy. They are tasked with discovering the whereabouts of a stash of drug money stolen by their old boss, Frank. The big problem is, and it's something they want to keep a secret, they just killed Frank. Which means they have no chance of recovering the money and keeping themselves safe, unless they are able to make use of the particular skillset of a local woman, Alice, who claims to be able to communicate with the dead.

Directed by David Gilbank, his feature debut, Polterheist impresses most with the way that it seems to be constantly punching above its weight. It's clear that this is not a film with a large budget, yet nobody uses that as an excuse to cut corners and churn out something too lazy and shoddy (unlike a hundred other low-budget features I could glare at). Gilbank does make a couple of standard mistakes, especially when it comes to the inconsistency of the visuals and the self-indulgence of a few moments, but he carries viewers over those quickly enough, thanks to his energy and confidence.

The script, co-written by David Gilbank, the late Gemma Head (who also has a small role onscreen), and Paul Renhard, is a bit too uneven throughout, with many scenes either feeling unnecessary or padded out to bulk up the runtime, but there's no denying that it deserves praise for what it gets right. I don't think I would recommend this to anyone seeking a pure horror, nor to anyone seeking a pure comedy, and maybe not even to anyone after another British gangster film, but I would recommend it to anyone after something a bit different, something that doesn't quite make the most of all the subgenres it moves through but tries admirably to weave them all together into one unique movie experience.

Sid Akbar Ali and Jamie Cymbal play the two main characters, and both do a decent job, but many scenes end up being stolen by Jo Mousley (who plays Alice) as she transforms from timid hostage to the kind of harsh and manipulative character that Frank obviously was, complete with a very different tone of voice too. The other scene-stealer is Pushpinder Chani, playing Uday, the criminal who wants his money back. Chani is a force of nature for almost every moment that he's onscreen, he is introduced playing indoor cricket with some hapless humans in place of wickets, and his amusingly outrageous performance is responsible for some of the best laughs in the film. The aforementioned Head does well in her role, and Polly Lister is perfectly fine as the typical cop trying to sort out a situation that looks about to go from bad to very, very messy.

I've tried to stay balanced and reasonable here, because I think it's important to praise enjoyable independent films when they can benefit from positive word of mouth and support, but it's equally important to refrain from the kind of hyperbole that just leads to people becoming disappointed in reviewers and then perhaps dismissing other movies they try to recommend. Polterheist worked for me, overall, but I can easily see many people still dismissing it (not THAT scary, not THAT funny, not had enough money put into it). I'm not going to hail it as a modern classic, I'm not even going to say that everyone must see it. I would just encourage those who don't mind low-budget movies to give it a go, and I'll be keen to see what Gilbank and co. get up to next. May I suggest any one of the following titles: Omen's Eleven, Snitches Get Witches, or even Poletergeist (yes, the spelling is deliberate, it's a sequel to this movie in which an angry spirit gets revenge on some gangsters who wronged him by scaring away the patrons of their strip clubs).

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the same disc here.

Lords Of Chaos (2018)

As unfamiliar with the Norwegian black metal music scene as I am, I either have to take Lords Of Chaos as truth or take it as an attempt to present a sketch of the events of the early 1990s that led to both tragedy and infamy for some of the key players. Considering how often film-makers have to take liberties with the truth in order to turn it into cinematic entertainment, I am going with the latter. Don't take Lords Of Chaos as an attempt to deliver the truth, take it as an exploration of attitudes, lifestyles, hype, and lies that became muddled up and interchangeable in the minds of some young men who started to feed on an unwise diet of their own flesh and blood. They started devouring themselves more and more vigorously at a dining table that would stretch to accommodate more and more acolytes, creating a self-destructive cycle that would inevitably only end one of two ways, eventual overstuffing (metaphorically speaking) or disappointment and hunger.

Rory Culkin plays Euronymous, the lynchpin of a Norwegian black metal band named Mayhem. When Mayhem recruits a new lead singer, Dead (played by Jack Kilmer), Euronymous is alternately impressed and irritated by his macabre antics, which often involve dead animals/flesh and self-harm. The irritation disappears, however, when Dead shows how committed he is to his lifestyle choice by blowing his brains out with a shotgun. From that moment on, Euronymous moves from being a band member to being a record store owner and the manager of a record label. And that is when his life starts to fully intertwine with a young man named Kristian (who goes by the name of Varg), which is when conversations start to get darker and more extreme, followed up by ego-driven actions.

Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, someone I wouldn't really consider myself a big fan of (I like some of his music videos, really disliked his debut movie, Spun), Lords Of Chaos is a fantastic mix of moments that are filled with dark humour and moments that depict violence in a way that is grim and difficult to watch. Every wound, every moment of pain, every death comes with a serious amount of weight attached. This is all thanks to the script, co-written by Dennis Magnusson and Åkerlund, that takes viewers on a journey that starts with childish bravado and inexorably slides towards life-shattering consequences. There's also something to be said for the energy levels in each scene, with things always feeling busy and energised until any fatal violence occurs, at which time the film slows down, almost as if matching the slowing breath/heartbeat of the victims.

I can understand people being annoyed that the cast isn't made up of more Norwegian actors in the main roles but I'm sure that Åkerlund had to balance out ways to get the film made with potential candidates who would be a great fit in their roles, and he's assembled a fine selection of actors. Culkin is easy to travel alongside, even when he's being selfish and horrible to others around him, and Emory Cohen is impressive as Varg, the one person always willing to take things further and prove that he doesn't just talk the talk. Sky Ferreira does fine in her rather thankless role, Kilmer makes a strong impression with his limited screentime, and you also get a solid supporting turn from Valter Skarsgård.

While this looks at a very particular time and place, a lit fuse that exploded a powderkeg, it's worth praising the fact that Åkerlund and Magnusson don't ever glorify the whole scene being shown (indeed, there's an air of mockery throughout that fans definitely won't appreciate). They also manage to remind you that the main characters involved here are still barely adults, despite their posturing and attempts to act as if they know exactly what they are doing, despite making the basic errors of mistaking infamy for fame, and striving to be creative while embodying a philosophy that is nihilistic and destructive.

A very difficult, at times excruciating, watch. It's also very much worth your time, even if it does nothing more than serve as a springboard to further exploration of how things got as bad as they did.

8/10

You can order the movie here.
Americans may want to check out this book.

Mubi Monday: Phantom Lady (1944)

A lighter example of film noir, Phantom Lady is an enjoyable and well-paced drama that suffers from the fact that it decides to become a fun amateur detective romp for most of the runtime, with us viewers clued in on the (okay, fairly obvious anyway) identity of the real killer.

Things start with Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) moping in a bar after a fight with his wife. He has two tickets to a show that he may not now use, at least not until he convinces the woman beside him (Fay Helm) to accompany him. He returns home to find a heavy police presence in his home, due to the death of his wife. She has been murdered, strangled with one of Scott's ties. Scott is the main suspect, of course, but thinks he can easily provide a verifiable alibi. Unfortunately, as he goes around with the police, none of the other potential witnesses are able to back up Scott's story. Tried and given a death sentence, Scott is helpless. Except for the loyal assistance that may be offered by Carol Richman (Ella Raines), his devoted secretary.

The performances are fine from all involved, with Curtis being sidelined after the opening third to focus on the detective work from Raines, who is very likeable in her role. Thomas Gomez is enjoyably gruff as Inspector Burgess, Aurora Miranda is fun as the star of the show that Curtis and Helm got to see, Elisha Cook, Jr is a welcome addition as a drummer with one eye on his music and one always on the ladies, and Franchot Tone is the best friend of Curtis who appears just in time to help with the investigation, after hearing the news. Helm does okay in her role, but it amounts to little more than a few scenes.

Based on a novel of the same name by Cornell Woolrich, Phantom Lady is a very capable and enjoyable film, directed well by Robert Siodmak, with a fun screenplay by first-timer Bernard C. Schoenfeld (who I had encountered previously with his enjoyable screenplay for There's Always Tomorrow). The technical side of things, and the plotting, is very good, and it all feels strangely plausible, even as it veers in and out of territory that could become slightly ridiculous.

A good way to pass 90 minutes, especially if you like any of the cast members, this simply suffers in comparison to so many other crime movies from this time. It's never too tense, doesn't crackle with great lines of dialogue, and remains resolutely upbeat, much like the character played by Raines, even when things look to be at their worst. It also has a killer who is so obviously the killer that it's amazing to not see them be arrested as soon as they appear onscreen, tics and dizzy spells and all. Of course, not every film has to be an absolute classic, which is all this is guilty of.

7/10

You can buy the Blu-ray here.
Americans can get the disc here.

Netflix And Chill: The Great Wall (2016)

The first English language film from director Zhang Yimou, who has given us some absolutely gorgeous films in the past few decades, The Great Wall is a film that I think I can best sum up as being, well, one I never worked up the enthusiasm to watch. I didn't want to see it in the cinema, I didn't pick up the shiny disc until I saw it in a sale selection one day, and I didn't watch it until now. And, here's the thing, my lack of enthusiasm seems to have been warranted.

The story sees a couple of European Mercenaries (played by Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal) encountering a monster while they rest en route to the Great Wall. Once at their destination, they are looking to somehow get their hands on a load of gunpowder stored there, they are taken prisoner. While trussed up and helpless, they witness the wall being attacked by a horde of monsters. Managing to get free and join in with the vigorous defence of the wall, the two men are then made to feel more welcome. They learn the story of the monsters, they help to figure out a plan to potentially defeat them, and they may find themselves being rewarded with much more than just gunpowder. If they can resist the urge to steal and flee.

There are enough separate elements that work here to make The Great Wall an enjoyable enough piece of entertainment. The acting is generally okay (although it's a rather weak turn from Damon, who seems as puzzled as most viewers as to why he should be the lead), the special effects do what is needed, the story is a fun creature feature that makes good use of one of the most famous structures on the planet, and there are sequences that contain such colour and grace that remind you Zhang Yimou is sitting behind the camera.

Sadly, it's never as good as it could be. Compared to other monster movies, or action movies, or even the past highlights from Yimou, this is just okay. And just being okay can be okay, but it's disappointing when it comes from a director with this eye, and this much talent.

The screenplay, by Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, and Tony Gilroy, never does enough to underline the points it is making about culture and order, about the nobility of the sacrifices being made by The Nameless Order, those tasked with protecting the wall from the attacks of the monsters. You get some decent exchanges between the main characters, but they're like gasps of breath in between crashing waves of muddy water. None of the characters feel as developed as they could be, and every relationship dynamic feels unearned and simply there to tick off the checklist that the film is working through.

Damon, as already mentioned, seems a bit out of place here, in more ways than one, and it's not one of his better performances. Pascal fares better, helped by the fact that his character is set up in a way that doesn't require him to go through any major transformation. Jing Tian and Andy Lau are both very good in their roles, even if they are working with material that feels slightly beneath them (not in terms of the standard content, I mean in terms of the way their characters are sketched/treated). Willem Dafoe is the other name worth mentioning, although he also suffers at the hands of the script.

It's always hard when foreign directors transition from working in their own language to working on an English language production, and it's good to see the sequences here that Yimou uses to indulge in his usual mix of bright colours and grace, but this isn't anywhere near the disaster it could have been. It's a mediocre movie with a couple of standout set-pieces that make it worth your time. Or you could just pick one of the better, subtitled, movies that Yimou has directed in the past. Hero, House Of Flying Daggers, and Curse Of The Golden Flower are all good choices to start with.

6/10

You can buy the disc here.
Americans can buy the disc here.

Shudder Saturday: King Cohen: The Wild World Of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2017)

There was one obvious choice for this blog selection this week, due to the death of celebrated filmmaker Larry Cohen. Cohen is one of those people I have always admired, yet haven't actually seen as much from as I should have. That included this very documentary, one that has been on my radar for some time.

Of course, watching a documentary and then figuring out how to review a documentary are two completely different things. This has a pretty standard format, various talking heads in between clips from most of Cohen's movies, and it does it well, providing a sense of respect and love for Cohen that will be immediately obvious, even to those unfamiliar with his work before seeing this.

You get a lot of the usual suspects for this kind of thing. Joe Dante can talk about these movies until your ears fall off, and John Landis never met a spoken sentence that he couldn't then follow up with a dozen more sentences. They're as good value as ever, but the joy comes more from those who haven't been seen in so many of these kinds of things. Fred Williamson and Yaphet Kotto are both enjoyable to listen to, Eric Roberts once again reminds people that he seems to enjoy working with as many people on as many different filming experiences as possible, Barbara Carrera has some good stuff to share, and Michael Moriarty is, fittingly, the star of the show when it comes to delivering a mix of information, anecdotes, and good-natured disagreement over individual recollections.

Although he may initially seem like someone in the same mould as Corman, this documentary does a great job of reminding you of how different he is from that other celebrated figure. Cohen was always a writer who could impress people with his creativity and his prolific output. His journey to being a director stems from the fact that he could then work on his scripts, without seeing them warped and altered too much from their original form, and that's an attitude that he has passed along to others over the years.

If you're new to Cohen then this serves as a decent highlight reel without actually spoiling too many of his "greatest hits", although you will see some key scenes. I have yet to check out the likes of Bone, The Ambulance, and, the one I feel I should have checked off the list a long time ago, God Told Me To. I've seen It's Alive but have still to check out any of the sequels. Now I know I need to bump them back to the top of my "to watch" pile because this documentary reminded me of how much I love Cohen's work. He may not always be delivering absolute classics but he's always interested in trying to say something interesting while never forgetting that movies should also entertain.

A bittersweet experience to watch now, especially when you see how energetic and enthusiasm Cohen remained throughout his life, it's also one that all genre fans should check out. Either get to know the man for the first time or get to spend some quality time with someone who has probably already given you a couple of your favourite movies over the years.

7/10

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Slender Man (2018)

I've said it before, as have many other people, and I will say it again. The worst thing that a movie can do is to leave you feeling absolutely nothing. The ones that just exist, you watch them, you wonder what else you could have done during that time, and you hope to never have to watch them again. Slender Man is one of those movies. I can't give it the lowest possible rating, mainly due to the fact that it has a degree of technical competence and acting ability that the worst films end up lacking, but I don't want anyone thinking that this comes even close to being any good.

The very basic plot sees a group of friends discussing the modern urban legend that is the Slender Man and then working together to summon him, for no other reason than shits and giggles (this is no Candyman). Their plan works, they start to disappear one by one, and it's then a race to figure out how to get him to go away and leave them alone.

As far as I can tell, the Slender Man was created in stories on the internet about a decade ago, by someone named Eric Knudsen AKA Victor Surge, and the creation snowballed and grew into something impressively convincing and developed. My own experience with the character happened when I started to dig into the online series, Marble Hornets (look it up on YouTube, it's highly recommended), and I have been aware of his "brand" growing over the years, in videogames, movies, and as the figure at the centre of a number of crimes and media-crafted tales of fear and panic.

His presence, and the way it has developed from those early days, makes this movie all the more disappointing. What we have here is a bland, safe, mess of a film that tries to make use of the character without ever capturing the real sense of creepiness you can find in most of the tales.

The cast all do what is asked of them, without being memorable or interesting. Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, and Annalise Basso are the four main girls involved, Taylor Richardson is a younger fifth character who may get dragged into proceedings, and Alex Fitzalan plays one of the few male characters, and is so redundant that he may as well not be onscreen at all. Nobody stinks. They just can't work well enough to make up for the drab, familiar, aesthetic that is used for the nightmare imagery and scares.

Director Sylvain White has spent the past decade doing mostly TV work (his last feature was The Losers) and this doesn't look likely to lead to an increase in demand for him to try creating more cinematic outings. Although the script by David Birke is about as middling and horribly predictable as you can get, White does nothing to help, instead content to work with imagery and scene construction that feels as if it could have easily been cut and pasted from dozens of other teen horror movies from the past decade.

Do yourself a favour, skip this movie and instead spend 90 minutes browsing the internet for the early tales and videos that brought the Slender Man to the attention of the masses. You'll find a lot of that stuff much scarier.

3/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

The Hurricane Heist (2018)

The Hurricane Heist is quite terrible. The characterisations are laughably bad, every scene is overloaded with CGI, and there are moments in which it's very difficult to remember just what the hell is going on, thanks to the choppy editing and fast and loose nature of the screenplay.

Toby Kebbell and Ryan Kwanten play two brothers, Will and Breeze Rutledge, respectively. At the very start of the movie we see the younger versions of their characters in the middle of a super-strong hurricane that kills their father. This has led to Will becoming a meteorologist and Breeze being at a bit of a loss after his time in the military. One of his recent jobs involved working on a generator in a treasury facility that has the task of shredding millions and millions of dollars. When very bad weather causes generator problems, a Treasury agent named Casey (Maggie Grace) calls on Breeze to take him to the facility and help fix things, not realising that while she is out of the picture the place is being taken over by robbers. The weather keeps getting worse, but Casey is with the right people to help her use the conditions to foil the robbers.

Directed by Rob Cohen, who has a few other titles in his filmography in the same vein as this slice of silliness, The Hurricane Heist is the kind of entertainment that you put on when you don't want to think too much. It has spectacle and decent pacing, although anyone after stuff like decent characters, logic, and surprises should look elsewhere.

The script, by Jeff Dixon and Scott Windhauser, is the big weakness. Revelations and character developments are awkwardly shoehorned in between action sequences when the best approach would surely have been to take a bit more time during the opening act to set everyone up before then leaving them to battle robbers and insanely strong wind and rain.

Kebbell and Kwanten may not want to put this film on any highlight reel but at least both know exactly what movie they're in, and they have fun in their roles (with Kebbell involved in a couple of the more enjoyable set-pieces). In fact, everyone at least plays their part well enough, with Grace also doing a decent job as the agent facing overwhelming odds as she tries to foil the robbery, and Ralph Ineson as another agent mixed up in the whole mess. Nobody else really makes much of an impression but that doesn't really matter, as they're mostly there to be a threat to our leads while the hurricane continues to build and build into an even bigger threat.

Not the worst film of last year, not by a long shot, but enjoying this movie is only possible if you know exactly what you're letting yourself in for. It's definitely not as good as it could be, and the first few set-pieces show how good it could have been (I was impressed by both the car chase sequence and the later moments showing Kebbell using the strong wind to his advantage as he threw stuff around a corner to be blown into the baddies), but it's an easy, disposable, watch.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Prime Time: Curtains (1983)

I'll be honest, I thought I was going to either end up bored with Curtains or frequently laughing at it. It's a film I have been aware of for many years, mainly thanks to a famous clip that has been shared around the internet again and again, but didn't think was supposed to be any good. It turns out that it actually IS pretty good, although there are still chuckles to be had (mostly thanks to the wonderful performance from John Vernon as a director with an eccentric approach to casting).

Anyway, here's the plot. In order to prepare for the role she has wanted for many years, a mentally unstable woman in a film called "Audra", an actress, Samantha Sherwood (played by Samantha Eggar), conspires with a director (Stryker, played by Vernon) to get herself committed to an insane asylum. Her plan seems to be working out, until she hears that Stryker is letting a group of six young actresses visit his home to audition for the part. Before you can say "professional rivalry", a killer wearing the mask of an old hag decides to get rid of most of the wannabe-stars.

Despite the fact that the production of this film was a troubled one, apparently director Richard Ciupka and producer Peter Simpson clashed over the ultimate aim of the film, Curtains still manages to do enough to keep it in the top half of the many slasher movies released at this time. The mask worn by the killer is a large part of that, it's creepy and memorable, and the plotting works well enough to allow the corpses to pile up, it's both silly and plausible in all the right ways, especially as the auditioning actresses like to assume that everyone else is just trying to inhabit the role of Audra.

Writer Robert Guza, Jr also does enough to make all of the main characters memorable enough, simply allocating each one with a main talent that allows you to keep track of who is who when they start to be pared down. There's the comedienne (Patti, played by Lynne Griffin), the actress with more experience than the rest (Brooke, played by Linda Thorson), a ballet dancer (Laurian, played by Anne Ditchburn), a musician (Tara, played by Sandee Currie), and an ice skater (Christie, played by Lesleh Donaldson). There's also a woman named Amanda, played by Deborah Burgess, but *spoiler* she doesn't even make it along to the actual auditions.

The standouts in the cast are Vernon, Eggar, and Griffin, although very few of them do a terrible job, especially considering some of the scenes that they have to take part in (and it's almost impossible to watch Eggar in another movie that features a man yelling at women to free themselves and get in touch with a dark part of their psyche without thinking of The Brood). There's also a very small role for Michael Wincott, if you're a completist who needs to see everything he ever did.

It's often slightly daft, it's far from the bloodiest slasher movie you could watch, and it even decides to forego the many opportunities it has for gratuitous nudity, which is a surprise (considering how the subgenre so often uses that to distract from other weaknesses), but Curtains is also a very enjoyable, and even memorable, little slasher film. And the end scenes cap everything off very nicely.

7/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the movie here.

Kolobos (1999)

Perhaps not deliberately, considering what it took to get the thing made, Kolobos is an odd little horror movie that made a big impression on me at the end of the 1990s because it was different from so many other movies of that time. Right in between the surge of Scream imitators and the super-spooky ghost tales that would prove to be such massive box office hits, not to mention the deluge of "J-horrors" that a lot of fans were about to be turned on to.

And discussing it fully is to spoil some of the treats that it had in store so I am going to try to be slightly vague, even as I attempt to convince others to watch it. Is it a masterpiece? No. Some of the elements, such as the poor acting from almost all of the cast members, make it very difficult to fully embrace. But it tries hard to be a unique and intense horror, and there are times when it succeeds.

The plot, or at least the most basic part of it that I will share here, sees a group of young people (Amy Weber being the nominal lead, Kyra) taking up the offer to share some time together in a house while they are filmed as part of an experiment. But what they signed up for and what happens in the house are two very different things.

Written and directed by Daniel Liatowitsch and David Todd Ocvirk (with assistance from Nne Ebong in the screenplay department), Kolobos is a psychological horror movie that also doesn't forget to deliver the visceral goods every so often (one of the death scenes here holds up as a gruesome favourite of mine). It's a look at a fractured mind, it's an early mix of horror a scenario that feels very much like the standard reality TV set-up for modern audiences, and it's a love letter to Argento that manages to blend many influences together while still feeling fairly fresh and unique.

The cast are, sadly, a bunch of duds. There's no point in sugar-coating that particular pill. They can't do anything to improve the weak script (weak in terms of actual dialogue, not the ideas being played around with) and are just far too unappealing. But they're also all ultimately unimportant, with all deaths being about the method rather than the motive or consequences. The film gets better, in my opinion, as logic starts to dwindle and a sense of madness really comes to the fore, although I am sure others may feel quite the opposite.

Padded out with some extra scenes that were required to get it released as an actual feature, and you can tell, Kolobos is a scrappy, low-budget horror that should please fans after something a bit different, as long as you can overlook the weaker aspects of it. If you can tolerate the dialogue and acting then you're rewarded with some great set-pieces, some amusing clips of a fictional film within the film, and that impressive score by William Kidd. All thrown together in a feature that admirably blends Deep Red with My Little Eye (a couple of years before that film came along).

7/10

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Mubi Monday: The White Crow (2018)

For his third directorial feature, Ralph Fiennes would seem to have edged further into more challenging territory with this look at the life of ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, the development of his talent and the building tension that led to his defection to the West. But that's not entirely true. Although I am sure he stretched himself to develop the ballet sequences, this is just far too by-the-numbers stuff that shows a man remaining well within his safety zone.

Oleg Ivenko plays the lead, with Fiennes himself also onscreen as Pushkin, a man who helps him to be the best he can be, and the behaviour of Nureyev is familiar stuff. He's arrogant, he rubs many people up the wrong way, and he has to overcome a number of major problems on his way to becoming the most famous male ballet dancer in the world (certainly to an uncultured layman like me).

Fiennes, either through lack of confidence or some unwise choices, never allows this to lift up as it should. Okay, it's about a crucial point in the life of Nureyev, but viewers should still know just how good his talent is, and that rarely comes across onscreen, despite the efforts of those involved to show some technical skill. Most of the time, we know that Nureyev is the best at what he does because he says that he is the best.

The script, by David Hare, feels far too meandering when it should be focused either on Nureyev's talent or the events being set in motion around him that he remains ignorant of until it's too late. The grand finale of the film is dramatic and tense, with viewers finally realising the very real and weighty stakes at play, but it's a case of too little too late.

It's all competently put together though, with enough there to make me want to check out the source material by Julie Kavanagh (her book about Nureyev being the inspiration), but there are enough minor failings and mis-steps to make this seem like a first attempt by Fiennes to sit in the director's chair.

It doesn't help that, I assume in an attempt to assemble a cast mixing talent and authenticity, very few people stand out in the acting front. Ivenko is quite poor, but he seems to have been picked more for his ability to emulate some dance moves than actually act, as is Adèle Exarchopoulos, playing a young woman who becomes Nureyev's closest friend, and it doesn't help that they pale in comparison to the performances from Fiennes and Chulpan Khamatova (playing the wife of Fiennes' character). Olivier Rabourdin and Raphaël Personnaz do decent work, playing two men who impact the life of Nureyev in very different ways, but nobody else stands out, unless it's for the wrong reasons.

I'm sure there's a great film to be made about Nureyev. Sadly, this isn't it.

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Johnny English Reborn (2011)

I have no idea what movie I saw, and so disliked, some years ago but it seems that it wasn't this one. Or, if it was, I was in some kind of terrible mood that completely clouded my judgement. Because Johnny English Reborn made me laugh a lot. It's silly, it's predictable (seriously, if you cannot spot the main villain as soon as they appear then I'll be amazed), and it's superior to the first outing in a few key ways.

Atkinson returns to play the main character, a man we last saw basking in the glow of success. That glow has long faded, after an incident in Mozambique that was so bad that he even had his knighthood removed, and he has spent a long time training with Tibetan monks. But an opportunity for redemption awaits when he is requested back by MI7. There's a plot brewing to kill the Chinese Premier and the main lead will only talk to English. Partnered up with a young man named Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya) and armed with the latest gadgets, English is determined to foil the plot. And he's a lot more skilled than he used to be.

There's a level of polish and ambition here that was missing from the first film, although I think it may have been possible here as a direct result of that film's success. And it also does a great job of delivering what audiences want more of while not simply rehashing all of the previous highlights.

Director Oliver Parker oversees everything with a sense of confidence and style, working with a great script from Hamish McCool that, sensibly, makes the main character a much better agent than he used to be, although he still lacks essential knowledge and social skills while remaining oblivious to his own failings. Rather than just derive laughs from the ineptitude and clumsiness of English, McCool gives the character a different flavour. He's an agent who now compensates for his failings with new techniques and tricks.

Atkinson has just as much fun in his role, perhaps even more so with the moments that allow him to look a lot cooler than he ever has before (a chase sequence in which he relentlessly, but sedately, strides along after a daredevil practitioner of parkour is a highlight in the first half that best rings the changes), and the supporting cast is even stronger than it was for his last spy adventure. Kaluuya is as likeable as ever in his role, Gillian Anderson is the weary boss, Dominic West is the standard British agent in the mould that we're all more familiar with, and Rosamund Pike is a behavioural psychologist who obviously finds herself fascinated by English, and you also get small roles for Stephen Campbell Moore, Richard Schiff, Tim McInnerny, and Pik Sen Lim (as a deadly assassin).

If you enjoyed the first film then you're likely to enjoy this. There's even a chance that, like me, you enjoy this one even more. And I'm looking forward to checking out the next instalment.

7/10

Here's a triple-pack for you.
Americans can buy the same set here.

Shudder Saturday: Lake Bodom (2016)

Taking a true event as its starting point, Lake Bodom is a decent, twisty, horror movie that has the misfortune of coming out at a time when the way things play out already feels slightly overdone, although there are usually different motivations for it in other movies. It also doesn't help that it makes a couple of choices that are, quite frankly, odd.

A quartet of teens, two boys and two girls,  go camping out at Lake Bodom, an area that was the site for some vicious murders back in 1960, with those involved being, yep, two teenage boys and two teenage girls. While the main characters settle in for their ghoulish night, you get the usual mix of platonic moments, awkward flirtiness, and attempts to create scares.

Nelly Hirst-Gee and Mimosa Willamo are Ida-Maria and Nora, the two female members of the party, and both do good work in their roles. Mikael Gabriel and Santeri Helinheimo Mäntylä are Elias and Atte, the two boys who think they will have a fun time before being rudely alerted to the fact that it maybe isn't such a good idea to fool around at an infamous murder site. They're also good, although working with characters that are give less depth than their female counterparts.

Directed by Taneli Mustonen, who co-wrote the screenplay with Aleksi Hyvärinen, Lake Bodom isn't a terrible film, by any means. Nor would I say it is one that is completely predictable from start to finish. Unfortunately, once it starts to develop a couple of the main plot points it then becomes easy to see where everything is headed, making what should be an enjoyable and thrilling second half into nothing more than a decent waste of time until you get to the inevitable ending.

This feels like a movie planned around a couple of twists and one main set-piece, with the rest of the runtime simply padding things out. The twists are okay, if obvious enough from the moment the spring starts to coil (as it were), but, fortunately for the makers of the film and the viewers,  the main set-piece is pretty great. Enough to lift this above average.

As for those odd choices I mentioned in the first paragraph. First of all, character motivation is not what it should be, not by half. Considering what happens in the second half of the movie, the reveal of previous developments, shown in flashback, doesn't really make anything seem plausible. Secondly, the use of the real-life murders as a springboard for events seems to be a completely unnecessary (and some might say tasteless) detail. Although it may resonate more with the people of Finland, where this is set, would it really have been so difficult to take any location, create a fictional unsolved murder case, and let the plot unfold in the same way? No, it wouldn't. There MAY be another reason for it, beyond the name recognition, and the case has been directly cited in at least one other horror movie (Bodom, 2014) and influenced at least one extreme metal band (Children Of Bodom), but I can't think of anything beyond the cynical and obvious.

Everything works, at least on the surface. It's just a shame that there's nothing more to it when you dig a little deeper.

6/10

There's a DVD available here.
The same disc (R2) is available here.

Night Train To Terror (1985)

Well, this is a hell of a wild ride. Night Train To Terror is an anthology movie that stitches together parts of some other movies (one unfinished) and frames them with a tale of God (Ferdy Mayne) and Satan (Tony Giorgio) having a philosophical debate while travelling on a train that also features a groovy group of dancers who keep gyrating around while a lead singer keeps repeating the same song.

There are three stories here. Story one shows an insane asylum that seems a lot more interested in mutilation and murder than curing anyone. Story one is also the hardest one to get through, but more on that later. Story two is about a man who ends up in a club that enjoys playing deadly games. Everything is set up so that one person in the group should always die, with methods ranging from electrocution to deadly insect. Last, but not least, we have a tale about a servant of Satan and the people out to stop him.

Due to the way this movie was assembled, there are a number of different directors involved here (which can be the case with anthology horror movies anyway). John Carr is the man behind the first two segments, while Philip Marshak, Tom McGowan, and Gregg G. Tallas are responsible for the third tale. The framing device was filmed by Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, and the screenplay is credited to Philip Jordan, the man responsible for writing the movies that were edited together to make this.

Like any anthology, there are good and bad sections here. The first tale is just too random and bonkers to be as effective as it could be, although you get to enjoy a performance from John Phillip Law that sees him permanently confused by the events around him, as well as a menacing turn from Richard Moll, playing a sadistic orderly. The second is the strongest, despite the silly moments throughout, lifted slightly by the presence of the lovely Meredith Haze in the role of Gretta, the woman who starts the main male character on his journey through these death challenges. Although the final segment is, unbelievably, even less coherent than the first, it throws in some better imagery, has decent performances from Faith Clift and Robert Bristol (the latter being the Satanic helper), and also lets Richard Moll back onscreen, playing a very different character from the one he played in the first tale.

I wasn't enjoying Night Train To Terror, feeling that it was a slog throughout the first 15-20 minutes, and then it started to win me over. Maybe it was the lengths it would go to in order to line up the shocks and bloodshed, maybe it was the attempts to sandwich some debate on good and evil in between the tales, maybe it was just that bloody song, that gets repeated again and again, and turns into quite the earworm by the time the end credits roll.

Sometimes you want movies that comment on the world around us, sometimes you want slick thrills and chills, and sometimes you can be entertained enough by something that is just complete nonsense, lacking any logic or attempt to stay within spitting distance of a sense of reality. Night Train To Terror is a film for those times.

6/10

Americans can get a decent disc here.