pwfinch Reviews

Outlaw (2007)

Dire from Dyer

[1/10 · 20 April 2008]

All over the world talented young writers and directors who can't raise funds for their projects must be wondering which devil Nick Love did a deal with to kick-start his own movie career, because after the unconvincing FOOTBALL FACTORY, we now have this risible piece of nihilistic nonsense.

It isn't just that it's morally skewed – though it is, horribly (while the heroes start out merely beating criminals, they soon end up hanging them and then shooting at the police, and we're still expected to regard them as heroes), but the overall execution is appalling. The camera-work is a nightmare, but the greatest weakness is the script, which is so underwritten as to be incoherent. We've got a vague idea what this movie's about, but we never learn anything about any of the characters, save that each one has got a grievance.

Sean Bean was dishonourably discharged from the army, but we don't know why (and it must have been serious, because if he fought in the Falklands as well as Afghanistan, that means he served on the front line for over 25 years – which if it wasn't so ludicrous would surely be worthy of better reward?). Danny Dyer is constantly on the verge of getting married – his girlfriend is clearly very important to him, but one day he gets punched by an irate motorist, and his life falls apart so spectacularly because of it that he can't go ahead with the wedding (work that one out, if you can). Bob Hoskins is a veteran copper whose main grump seems to be that he never got promoted, which in his mind – and in the writer/director's apparently – means that every other copper but him is corrupt. Sean Harris is a creepy, voyeuristic security guard, who doesn't have any major issues except that he sees the bad side of hotel guests through his CCTV – oh, and he's also a racist, though this is a theme we never explore. Lennie James and Rupert Friend have the most reason to start fighting back, both having suffered terribly at the hands of criminals, though neither role is satisfactory written or performed. Civilised barrister James resists and resists and resists – until it becomes boring, and then suddenly joins in enthusiastically, even to the point where he shoots at and kills police officers, while Friend is the one who finally walks away, though he's said and done so little in the whole film that you can't help wondering why he was even in it.

The plot is ridiculously contrived. As usual, we're expected to buy into Nick Love's favourite myth, namely that violence is so addictive that you'll only need to do it once and then you'll want to do it again and again. We're also expected to believe that this disparate bunch of individuals, who come from every walk of life and never knew each other beforehand, can meet up once and bond so quickly that they'll go out and commit very serious crimes together.

The underworld elements are particularly silly: street-corner drug dealers do not tell the first person that comes along which gangland superboss they are selling drugs for; gangland superbosses do not deliver pay-offs personally; gangland lieutenants do not make unsubtle threats to prosecuting barristers in courthouse toilets – especially when there are cameras there; if it's well known which high-ranking police officers are in the pay of gangland superbosses, those officers are investigated and punished – Britain is not a banana republic.

Other moments don't so much stretch your credulity as leave you baffled. What's the beginning all about? Does Danny Dyer's character regularly have premonitions of disaster? Why does the sparing of Furlong's life mean an automatic death sentence for Bob Hoskins? How does Hoskins have access to the case-files relating to so many high-profile crimes – he's supposed to be retired, isn't he? Even if he isn't, he's certainly not in the Flying Squad, because he said his application was rejected. Why are we even talking about the Flying Squad – they deal with armed robberies, not mainstream organised crime? At one point Bob pins a miniature microphone on his friend Lennie James, and spies on him. How did he get his hands on that gear? Why did he do it? How did Bean and Harris ever hook up in the first place – surely we're not saying it's because Harris was blackmailing him over the illegal weapons stash? Later on, Bean executes Harris merely because they have a fall-out. What's that supposed to mean – that Bean is a tough boss? Because for most of the film he isn't.

I guess what it boils down to is that we're back in the simplistic mind of Nick Love, where the main message is that men must assert themselves through violence. Love seems to have the attitude – as exemplified both by this movie and THE FOOTBALL FACTORY – that an uncaring world and sordid environment are sufficient reason for people to go and do violent things, and if the rest of us disagree it's because we're gutless. Yet isn't this exactly the attitude that criminals themselves take? It's a weird juxtaposition that the goodies in this movie in many ways are carbon-copies of the baddies, and yet there's no irony or post-modernism intended. Men indulging in extreme violence as an end in itself is apparently quite understandable and even acceptable to Nick Love.

If that's his warped attitude, there's nothing we can do about it. But this seems like a very strange movie for actors like Bob Hoskins and Sean Bean to be involved with.

The Crimson Cult (1968)

The scariest thing isn't the fashions, but they are scary

[3/10 · 28 November 2007]

A dashing young antiques collector and expert in ancient artifacts goes looking for his missing brother in the remote village of Greymarsh. There, he finds a sinister old house amid dark and twisted woods, Messrs. Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff, Barbara Steele wearing green paint, and evidence lying everywhere that some kind of secret Satanic cult is at work. In all seriousness, could horror buffs ask for more?

Well yeah – how about a reasonably decent movie?

I wish this one worked for me, but it doesn't. It has its moments, but that's the best you can say for a movie which, considering the talent involved, should have been much better, while the 'with-it' adornments of the most overrated decade in human history only add salt to the wound.

To start with, the stars are criminally underused. Lee walks around looking po-faced and drinks an awful lot of brandy, but never says much, and when he finally does, it doesn't make a great deal of sense (this was yet another of his movies that he disowned in later years). Karloff, though he still has immense presence, is little more than a very grand red herring, while Barbara Steele, who has equal presence, isn't actually in it – she only appears in several weird hallucinations. Michael Gough also features, but once again is wasted – in this case (and not for the first or last time in his career) playing a mumbling oddball manservant. The bulk of the screen-time is hogged by younger leads, Mark Eden, who is woefully bland and uninteresting as hero Robert Manning, and Virginia Wetherell, who admittedly looks as good nude as she does clothed (and that's saying something for movies of this period), but again is little more than a walking-talking plot device.

Speaking of plot, there are way too many contrivances on show here: Manning finally discovers that his missing brother was at Greymarsh after all because, half way through the film, he suddenly remembers that his brother often used an alias while travelling – and surprise surprise, people then remember him. In another silly contrivance, Manning, having been hypnotised and sent to take his own life, is about to drown himself in a woodland pond when a passing policeman (in a deep forest, in the middle of the night!) intervenes and saves him. But worst of all is the moment when Manning, who's been sleepwalking outside, enters heroine Eve Morley's bedroom in a daze, and because he's cold, is advised by the accommodating lass – not to don a dressing-gown, or even to put his pyjama top back on – but to get in her bed so that he can warm himself.

You don't need to be a student of life to correctly surmise what's going to happen next.

I suppose it's an interesting enough premise, in a traditional, clichéd sort of way: Demonic power from times past reaches out and avenges itself (herself in this case – Lavinia, the Black Witch of Greymarsh, burned in the 17th century) on the descendants of its enemies. Traditionally-themed horror films were still in vogue at the time, so much can be forgiven. But it was a big mistake to try and contemporise it, because if there's one era that's dated very badly on celluloid it's the politically incorrect 1960s. Suddenly we're out of that ageless Edwardian time-loop where so many films of this sort dwell, and into an equally unrecognisable world where naked girls giggle as packs of fully clothed men hunt them through the night-time forest, and the hero's main technique when it comes to seducing the heroine is simply to grab her almost as soon as he's met her and force his tongue into her mouth (to which, needless to say, she doesn't really object).

It's also the era of psychedelica, and there's the rub. In fact there's the whole story. Psychedelica is at the root of almost everything mysterious in this movie, though bewilderingly, when we actually get to a wild 1960s party, there's nothing stronger on show than some very bad clothes, some champagne and a few spinning, coloured lights.

Possibly because of this almost complete absence of hallucinogenic drugs (though, quite confusingly, a drugs-warning is given at the beginning of the movie), the final revelation - that Lavinia only exists in the mind of a madman, and in the delirium of people he's mesmerised (with his spinning, coloured lamp) - seems so out of place in what started out as a standard devil-worship romp that you can't help wondering if it was tagged on belatedly to try and appeal to a groovier audience.

At the end of the day, it isn't desperately bad. Despite the hugely disappointing finale, the film is nicely shot in very autumnal English settings, there's a genuine feeling of isolation about the house and village, and it does have Karloff and Lee, who always add kudos.

Don't give it too wide a berth; if nothing else it should remind you of that easier age in horror when every English village was full of diabolists, every old manor house was riddled with secret passages, and women executed for witchcraft were invariably guilty as charged.

Wolf Creek (2005)

The dark side of Crocodile Dundee, and what a dark side it is.

[9/10 · 20 November 2007]

Thrillers set in the Australian outback all tend to benefit from one thing: the land. It's so vast, wild and primeval that it's an alien environment for everyone except those few hardy souls who eke out their existence on it.

In likable rom-com CROCODILE DUNDEE we were presented to one such community, a remote outpost full of rough and ready but benign country folk eager to offer a welcoming hand. But in WOLF CREEK this image is flipped dangerously onto its head. Suddenly we're reminded how easily some aberration, like a sadistic serial killer, could use this rugged wilderness to hunt down human prey and remain undetected maybe for his entire murderous career.

The film's main strength is probably John Jarratt, whose psychopathic Mick Taylor is probably one of the most realistic human predators ever put on celluloid. This is a man who tortures and murders people because he enjoys it. As a sideline he also cannibalises their vehicles and stockpiles their goods. But the main reason he lures people to their doom is because he likes doing it – it gives him pleasure. This may be the hobby of a complete madman, yet it's the only aspect of his character that is mad. The rest of him is perfectly normal: he's witty, interesting to talk to, handy with cars, he can live comfortably in the outback, and nine times out of ten – if it's impossible for him to secretly kill and dispose of you – then he probably will give you a hand and send you safely on your way.

Acting plaudits must also go to victims Cassie Magrath, Nathan Philips and Kestie Morassi, who really capture the essence of the twenty-something backpacker crowd, carefree youngsters who think they've seen and done it all and yet, as happens so often in real life, are completely unprepared for the monster they're about to stumble upon.

Writer and director Greg McLean is the driving-force behind this excellent if understated horror movie. Though he uses a handy-cam for much of the film, the finished product is a visual delight. McLean doesn't just handle the cast and action with supreme skill, but is an artist as well, producing endless studied portraits of his native land, the sheer savagery of which he evidently loves and fears in equal measure.

The same subtleties apply to the script. From the outset, McLean is clearly determined to avoid the blood-soaked clichés that bedevil so many movies where townies have strayed into the grasp of evil backwoodsmen. Though the violence is brutish and nasty, it's short-lived and non-gratuitous. As stated earlier, the killer is a real man with a life to lead, not some disfigured maniac. His methods of entrapment are simple and workmanlike, and the responses of the main characters when they finally realise what's happening to them are totally believable: they're almost paralysed with shock and horror, they become squabbling, guttural animals who'll do anything to survive, and as such make mistake after mistake. There's minimal dialogue, yet the story is told in full, with no questions left unanswered – except those that McLean wants to be left unanswered.

And that's a key point, because there is mystery here as well as horror.

It is very slightly hinted at that Mick Taylor might be a Vietnam veteran, but the truth is that we don't know and we don't need to know. Where's he come from, where's he going? None of this matters. He's a force of nature, a creature of the outback, a nameless thing that dwells in the wasteland. And if this sounds a tad supernatural, then there are elements of that as well. Taylor captures all his victims at Wolf Creek, the giant meteorite crater in the Kimberley wildlife park. This is an eerie enough place as it is, but when Taylor arrives, everyone's watches stop and their vehicles conk out (okay, the cars have probably been sabotaged by Taylor, but the effect is the same). It's as though nature is conspiring with one of its own, as though an entirely separate time-zone has been created. And such is the skill with which this is implied, that we don't really need or even want any explanations. We just accept it.

All in all, a remarkable and yet quite horrible piece of film-making. Many have seen it and said they enjoyed it, and yet have commented that they wouldn't want to watch it again. An unusual but completely understandable reaction, and it's not because this movie is filled with grotesque violence. It isn't – it's a very slow burner, and when the horror does come, it's mostly suggested rather than visualised. The real answer is that it's terrifying, almost to a point where watching it becomes a disturbing experience. Even though the first half-hour is amiable and uneventful, you have a really bad feeling that something awful is going to happen. When the hapless trio are stranded, and Taylor's headlights emerge through the darkness of the desert night, even the most hardened horror movie addicts must admit to being scared out of their wits. When the guy himself appears and his avuncular style creates a huge sense of relief – both for the audience as well as the characters – it doesn't last, because deep down you know that something is still going to go seriously wrong.

The final shot, where Taylor literally vanishes into the landscape, as he no doubt always does when the law gets too near, is the icing on the cake, because, like it or not, we're aware that it's all too alarmingly real. Who is the world's deadliest serial killer?, you ask yourself. Answer: the one who's never been caught.

To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

Hammer dies non-too impressively

[4/10 · 31 August 2007]

This one really could and should have worked. The usual ingenuity was employed to stretch a small budget a long way, lots of British talent was available at micro-cost, a Hollywood A-lister came on board, it was based on probably the best of Dennis Wheatley's black magic novels, and in an age when, thanks to THE EXORCIST, occult movies were in vogue, it might well have regenerated vital interest in the ailing studio.

But it didn't. Hammer folded shortly afterwards, and this movie contributed to that - even though it made a healthy profit. Nowadays it's seen as something of a curiosity: a well-intentioned but belated addition to the Satanic horror cycle, still distinctly Hammer but laced with tasteless moments that don't do anyone involved any credit at all, and at times so clumsily edited that you're never really sure what's going on.

The first problem is the script, which apparently was being constantly rewritten right up until the end of production. As a result, there's no clear narrative line for the audience to follow. What is the purpose of the hideously deformed baby? Is it the Devil incarnate? If so, why does it then get sacrificed? What's Nastassja Kinski's role in all this, apart from to lie alluringly on slabs and indulge in full-frontal nudity? Who are the lead-Satanist's urbane followers? We never really get to know them, or understand what functions they have, and we see no real sign that they're part of a larger cult. Why does one of them then bleed herself to death? Surely it isn't required that every drop be drained from her body just so that a small amount can be trickled around a magic circle? Why, right at the end, are we suddenly introduced to the mysterious properties of flint-stone, and why, when it's got the blood of one of Satan's acolytes on it, will flint automatically protect the hero from demonic attack (if this is a part of arcane lore, how on Earth were we supposed to know – because the impression this movie gives is that we should be blown away by this revelation and say: "Wow, why didn't I see that coming?")?

The most perplexing moment of all however, comes – unforgivably – right at the climax of the movie. Once Christopher Lee has been thwarted, he simply disappears – with no explanation given. Has he escaped? Is he dead? Has the Devil taken him? We simply don't know, we're not told. (In actual fact, the answer is that in the original version, Lee was struck by lightning and died in flames, much the way he did in SCARS OF Dracula, and this similarity worried the producers so much that in the end it was simply cut out and not replaced.

Another problem lies in what, ironically, should have been one of the movie's greatest strengths – Richard Widmark. His presence (which was purely to justify US funding) is initially surprising and intriguing, but he was allegedly very difficult for the crew to work with, and extremely high and mighty while on set. And, despite that, he doesn't give much of a performance. Stone-faced and unemotional throughout, he lacks any kind of charisma and is way too old to be the hero in a movie where 18-year-old Nastassja Kinski is the heroine. Kinski herself doesn't add much, apart from the aforementioned risqué moments, and this is a pity because the rest of the cast do a good job. Christopher Lee is at his most devilish as the excommunicated priest at the heart of the conspiracy, and is ably supported by Honor Blackman, Denholm Elliot and Anthony Valentine as innocents who get caught up in it.

Director Peter Sykes does a reasonable job considering the difficulties he supposedly had, and composes some very nice shots – check out the opening sequence in the church, all played out under beautiful stained-glass reflections – and makes very good use of authentic locations in and around London and Munich. But all this really does is remind you what a good movie this could have been.

New-fangled obscenity didn't help it much either. Throughout the age of permissiveness, Hammer had been pushing the envelope with regard to sex. But it really cuts loose in this one. The Satanic orgies are the most explicit and realistic the studio ever produced, and in addition to these there's a plethora of gratuitous female nudity, and then – yet again – we come to that ghastly, deformed baby. It seems to serve no purpose at all, and yet at one point is thrust up into Nastassja Kinski's womb, and at another has its throat cut on camera while it's still wriggling and crying. Christopher Lee was very unhappy with these scenes, while Dennis Wheatley was revolted and said afterwards that Hammer would never again adapt one of his stories – though neither Wheatley nor Hammer would live to see this defiance tested.

The film is certainly good enough to watch again. The mysterious nature of the rituals involved is quite convincing – the symbols, the ancient books, the dusty vaults – but it's too talkie and seems tediously slow by today's standards and, as I said before, the finale is truly the most disappointing in Hammer history.

The Omen (2006)

Haven't we been here before?

[3/10 · 14 August 2007]

The question is – why? Why remake a superb movie that hasn't dated at all in the last thirty years? And if you must remake it, why do it as a scene-for-scene carbon copy of the original? It's quite a surreal experience, watching this. It really is the same film that you saw back in 1976. It's almost the same dialogue, the same camera angles. There are no surprises at all, even for the new generation who probably weren't around when the first version was made but no doubt are well aware of it due to its lasting appeal and impact.

That's why I'm forced to mark this one down.

It's undoubtedly well made. It looks good, John Moore directs with style, Liev Scheiber and Julia Stiles provide younger but equally weighty leads to Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, Marco Beltrami's score is excellent though not as good as the original (how could it be?). But it's nothing more than a re-tread. At least the new versions of The Amityville Horror and The Wicker Man – appalling though they were – attempted to divert from the original story lines. This doesn't give us anything new at all. Even the death sequences are duplicates of the first ones – which left me feeling particularly short-changed. Surely they could have updated the gore at little?

The lesser characters, though well cast, are no improvement on their forerunners. Mia Farrow is devilishly cunning as the starched Mrs. Baylock, but back in '76 Billie Whitelaw didn't have the 'demon child' baggage that Farrow has, and thus worked better. As ill-fated photographer Jennings, David Thewliss is fine and loses his head more spectacularly than David Warner did, but that's the most you can say for him. Pete Postlethwaite is Father Brennan – an actor cut very much from the same angst-ridden cloth as Pat Troughton, who did it first. Again, he's no worse but no better. Which is more than can be said for Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick in the key role of Damien. He's certainly more sinister than Harvey Stephens was in 1976, but there's the rub: Stephens came over as nothing more than a spoilt, irritating brat. And wouldn't that be the way the Anti-Christ would appear in his infant years? The modern Damien, though underplayed (rather nicely, it has to be said) by Davey-Fitzpatrick, is intelligent and evil way beyond his years, and for this reason seems less real.

The only moment when this version comes even close to improving on the earlier one, is in the scene at the remote monastery in Italy. It's particularly spooky, but only serves to irritate more because it shows what the film-makers could have done with this story if they'd been prepared to attempt a completely new interpretation and perhaps had veered even further into the realms of full-blown horror.

Hollywood's lack of adventurousness when it comes to big-money chillers is something that should dismay all fans of the genre. There was so much money, effort and talent put into this – and for what?

V for Vendetta (2005)

An image of Britain in the near future - as envisaged by student activists

[1/10 · 2 July 2007]

I had no idea the Wachowski Brothers were still students. No really, I honestly didn't. I thought they were accomplished film-makers, but judging by the pretentious bombast that is here presented as something profound, I'll approach any further work of theirs with the same wariness I would work by any other bunch of opinionated undergrads.

We're in Britain, 20 or 30 years in the future, and the Conservative Party has returned to power, now with sufficient mandate to do what it has clearly always wanted to do, transform the country into a brutal Nazi state – even though it was a Conservative government who stood up so bravely to the real Nazis (I'm not a Conservative by any means, but you immediately understand the sort of targets this movie is taking pot-shots at, and if you prefer your cinematic entertainment not to be filled with unsubtle student politics, then you're already irritated). Anyway, a superhero thankfully arises, one of those guys of many inexplicable talents: he can breeze his way through the most advanced security systems (without ever feeling the need to show us how); he can perform all kinds of acrobatic hi-jinks and is also a master of weapons and technology (again, without telling or showing us how or why); he is hugely well financed and is always three or four steps ahead of his blundering foe. He even manages to break into the government's own television channel and broadcast a message of hope (as they so often seem able to do in these dystopian sci-fi thrillers).

Anyway, all this is a good thing because Britain is now an Orwellian police state full of dark alleys, creeping spotlights and crashing jackboots, where anyone and everyone is likely to get it in the neck, but the staunchly right-wing, Christian authorities mainly pick on intellectuals, homosexuals, Moslems and all the other minorities that student activists like to imagine are persecuted in the present-day West. As a result, our hero – 'V' – is a guy proud to wear the moniker of 'terrorist'. He openly admits that his war against the state is born of a personal vendetta, and he'll go to any lengths to force his views on people – even imprisoning and torturing innocents in order to show them how terrible the enemy are (yet another half-baked student philosophy, where any means are justified by a righteous end). Of course V has a softer side too. Naturally he's a lover of the arts (students can never conceive of a hero who isn't at least as well-educated as they are). He fills his house with paintings and sculptures, and (completely irrelevantly to the plot) quotes the great works of literature at tedious length. He also appears to idolise 17th century 'freedom fighter' Guy Fawkes, a mask of whose face he wears 24-7.

And yes, you've got it. This is basically a hollow, ostentatious, politically outdated lump of pseudo-anarchist propaganda.

We could blame Alan Moore's original graphic novel, but hardly anyone read the graphic novel, whereas lots of people have seen and commented on the film, so it's the film we need to concentrate on. In any case, Alan Moore had the good grace to disinherit the film, so he's divested of all blame.

Even at a purely technical level, it's flawed. The narrative is weak and full of holes: why is a simple chief-inspector of police investigating a case that has the potential to bring down the whole of society?; why does the state bother with a police force at all when it has it's 'finger men' – all-licensed thugs whose job is simply to terrorise people and who are above the law themselves; despite there being spies and surveillance cameras everywhere, how is that free-thinkers are still allowed to provide rays of hope? – in this case it's Stephen Fry's character, a closet gay and Koran reader (!), who regularly mocks the government in his television show, yet only now seems to attract their attention. Why do the British public, who are constantly shown scoffing at government broadcasts and disbelieving everything the politicians say (got to remind the working-class that we're not having a go at them, I guess) do nothing about the terrible conditions in which they live, when the authorities' hold on power is patently so tenuous?

And if that isn't enough, the whole thing is massively overwritten, and overly talkie, and it uses lots of big words and Shakespearean quotes to show how clever the movie's authors are, and as you'd expect from a bunch of students, it preaches, boy how it preaches. But just in case the preaching isn't enough, there are lots of other bits and pieces thrown in to ram the message home: every symbol of evil seems to have a crucifix attached to it; Britain's clergy are shown to be child-molesting phoneys; her war-heroes are cruel sadists who would rather be concentration camp commandants.

The acting is risible. John Hurt does his usual shouting madman thing; Tim Piggot-Smith is his usual sneering bureaucrat; Natalie Portman – presumably because she thinks she's at last made it into a 'real' movie – screams and cries a lot; while Stephen Rea plays a cop so stricken with conscience that it's a miracle he even lasted one day in his job let alone rose to the rank of chief-inspector.

It certainly looks good, as befits the budget. But at the end of the day, it's all pretty empty and silly. The stuff and nonsense about November 5th, and the lauding of Guy Fawkes – who in reality was a religious zealot of the sort this film seems determined to loathe – shows how shallow and poorly researched it really is.

In short, and in keeping with the World War Two feel, this is a pile of corny old tripe

Prophecy (1979)

1970s environmentalism only goes so far!

[6/10 · 10 April 2007]

As committed environmentalist Robert Verne, Robert Foxworth certainly talks the talk in this largely forgotten eco-horror of the 1970s. He wears thick sweaters, has a bushy beard and frequently professes a hatred for modern society, no matter how clean it claims to be.

But does he walk the walk?

Well it's pretty hard to conclude that he does when, in one scene, he throws a rabid raccoon into a fire while it's still alive. And in another, roars triumphantly as he leaps onto a mutated beast that he's just mortally wounded in order to apply the death-blow.

And in fact, performances are the main problem here. These moments of tasteless triumphalism aside, Foxworth is primarily wooden. Talia Shire, as his long-suffering wife, is primarily worried. And Armand Assante, as Indian activist John Hawks, is primarily mistrusting.

Yet these are minor gripes about what, in truth, is a pretty effective monster movie.

Okay, the first act's a bit slow, but that's because director Frankenheimer has adopted the old-fashioned method of using it to create a realistic set-up and explain the back-story in ways that both look and sound authentic. When the monster actually comes, it's a pre-CGI animatronic, but is shot with such skill – we mainly see it in fire-lit glimpses, or through meshes of thrashing pine branches – that it's pretty darn frightening (and the carnage it wreaks among the petrified cast, who, no matter what they do, can't seem to get away from it, is genuinely horrific).

The Canadian woods look nice as well, and the merging of modern industrial mutation with Native American mysticism is a neat touch, which adds an extra dimension of mystery to a B-movie that really doesn't deserve to be named as such.

An enjoyable way to spend a Saturday evening, and a crying shame that for most viewers it's now a distant memory.

Tommy (1975)

Snapshot of angst-ridden early '70s Britain in bizarre Christ allegory

[5/10 · 8 April 2007]

The Who weren't known for making subtle music, and Ken Russell makes anything but subtle movies. Put the two together to tell the story of a very underprivileged child, who one day emerges as a self-proclaimed messiah trying to preach an impossible message, only to be ruthlessly exploited and viciously attacked, before finally crawling from his tomb and ascending to the celestial realm, his job done, and you've got an extravaganza of sound and cinema just waiting to explode on your screen.

So why does it not work very well?

As far as I can see, they simply try to cram too much into it. As if the religious theme isn't enough, it touches on many of the problems starting to tear secular society apart in the early 1970s – drugs, drunkenness, child abuse, pornography gambling, gang violence, dishonesty, etc, all played out against a kaleidoscopic backdrop of churches, scrap heaps, tatty holiday camps and beautiful Lake District mountains.

Despite an admiration for the central message of hope and spiritual purity, there is deep criticism of the abuses inflicted by organised religious groups – this movie abounds with false prophets and money-making evangelism.

It's also, in vintage Russell style, garish, unnecessarily lurid, and filled with pretentious, surreal imagery, and though Pete Townshend's soundtrack contains one or two classics – PINBALL WIZARD and I'M FREE, to name but two – much of it is forced and rather shrill (and is way too long – many purely musical moments could have been cut in half or removed altogether).

Performance-wise, Ann-Margret is by far the best thing in it. She sings and dances the house down as Tommy's sultry mother, remaining lithe and curvaceous through various incarnations, from homely '50s housewife, to '60s tart, to '70s glam queen, finally dying stripped of all adornments on her own cross – a broken pinball machine. As the other 'thief', Oliver Reed – a Russell regular – can't sing for toffee, yet succeeds in evoking some sympathy for a character who in lesser hands would simply be a brutish villain. That leaves Roger Daltrey as the other main lead, the titular Tommy, and there's not a lot he can do, being deaf, dumb and blind for at least half the film, and for the rest doing what he normally did as lead-singer of a rock band, which is entertain massive crowds with grandiose and overblown songs. However, his first appearance jars the film badly; even for a Ken Russell movie, it's asking too much of the audience to accept Tommy's sudden transformation from World War Two runt, complete with a tank top and short back and sides, to a tanned, muscular hippie with bleached blonde hair and pearly-white teeth.

In terms of secondary characters, it's a mixed bag. Elton John gives an ordinary and overrated performance as the Pinball Wizard (his version of the song is, in truth, nowhere near as good as The Who's own), Eric Clapton lacks any charisma as a charlatan preacher and Jack Nicholson is completely wasted (but awful even in the short time he's on screen) as a money-grabbing doctor. Better by far are Tina Turner, whose Acid Queen is sexy but also disturbingly weird, Keith Moon, who's in predictably odious form as Uncle Ernie, and best of all for me, Paul Nicholas as Tommy's gleefully maniacal Cousin Kevin.

As rock operas go, this one is strictly second division, so in terms of movie musicals in general, it's way down the list. However, it packs energy and certainly, if it's the first time you've seen it, makes for compelling viewing – much the way a freak-show would, if I'm honest, though there is a lot of talent on show as well, and it's worth watching at least once just for that (and for Ann-Margret, wearing tight clothes that are already semi-transparent, and then rolling around in a mess of beans and chocolate, but that's a different matter).

The Haunting (1999)

How to callously slaughter a great movie and an even greater novel

[1/10 · 7 April 2007]

First, the bits that work: the house, both externally and internally (where it is a miracle of pseudo-Gothic design). Now, the bits that don't work: every other aspect of the film.

My only conclusion can be that Jan de Bont doesn't understand the first thing about horror. It's clearly a forlorn hope that he has even an inkling of the subtle psychological nuances that made the original novel and the very effective movie version of 1963 such benchmarks in the genre, but on this showing he doesn't even understand basic horror, preferring to plunge his viewers into the breathtaking but ultimately brief world of visual roller-coaster rides rather than exposing them to the sort of deep-rooted primal fears that will linger long after the projector has stopped running.

I'm sad to say it, but almost every decision he made in this very unwise remake of a movie classic appears to have been the wrong one.

Whereas in the original we wandered nervously through a shadowy world of eerie statues, patterns in paper, pounding doors and unhinged minds, here we watch bored as monsters emerge from fireplaces, big faces appear in ceilings and beds come to life in order to eat the people who are sleeping in them. Whereas in 1963 only one character was really haunted, and even then we weren't entirely sure that she wasn't responsible for it herself, in 1999 the entire cast are subjected to a procession of overblown CGI horrors, many of which border on the totally silly.

This movie lacks any sense of mystery or suspense. Within a few minutes there's no question in our minds (even if there still is in the ultra-dumb characters' minds) that a malevolent and very real supernatural force is at work here. Instead of trying to work out whether we're dealing with psychological aberrations or something more sinister, we're very quickly trying to find out who the spirits are and why they're here, which while it might be diverting enough for a family audience watching a Disney ghost movie, is no challenge for hard-core adult viewers who are here to be spooked.

I don't wish to keep harping on with this comparison, but despite the presence of accomplished actors, the performances here are a million miles from those tautly realised characters in the 1963 movie. Liam Neeson sleepwalks through his part, on occasion playing it for laughs, on others looking mildly tense and worried, but never even hinting at the depths of deviousness a person would require to entrap all these people in such a dangerous place. Catherine Zeta-Jones is slinky and sexy and pretty, and completely superficial and shallow – a very pale imitation of Claire Bloom back in '63, whose ice-cool cat woman (and lesbian) was the last word in independent-minded womanhood. Owen Wilson, not yet a star at this stage, tries the hardest to give a 'real performance', but only succeeds in creating a twitching, irritating oddball, whose very presence is a distraction from the main story.

As for Lili Taylor, who has the pivotal role of Eleanor Lance, suffice to say that it's not entirely her fault. The film's makers clearly decided beforehand that their Eleanor would be a self-sacrificing heroine, rather than the main victim (and possible cause) of the Hill House horrors. Therefore Taylor can't be blamed for making her character an innocent lamb, deeply abused and neglected, but then rising fearlessly to the challenge and eventually giving it everything she's got in the embarrassing finale, when all the tortured souls are rescued and go to Heaven – which, to say the least, is missing the point of the entire story, though by this time of course, any semblance to either of the original two masterpieces is long forgotten, so it probably doesn't matter anyway.

But these issues of movie taste aside, considering they spent $80 million on this, it's all such a porridge. In technical terms alone there are quirks galore. Two characters, one of whom never even speaks, arrive with the team early on and a very short while later leave again, having served no purpose whatsoever. By the same baffling token, the screenwriters would have us believe that eminent psychologist Neeson has deliberately lured a bunch of people with sleeping disorders to this house, where he confidently expects them to be terrified out of their wits and plans to study their reactions, and that he expects to get away with it (have these guys never heard of malpractice suits?). In another scene, utterly ludicrously, Neeson is grabbed by a gigantic bronze hand, which comes to life for no apparent reason, and dunked in a stagnant pond – only to walk calmly away afterwards and get on with his weekend as if nothing has happened. To me, that latter incident underlines this movie's main weakness – it treats its audience like a bunch of imbeciles.

We queued up to watch it in order to be scared – at least as much as we were by the original, if not more so given the larger budget this time around. We didn't come to be wowed by a plethora of special effects, which at the end of the day have become fairly routine in modern movies.

A clunking travesty, which sums up so much of what's wrong in Hollywood these days: "Forget the vacuous script and dud performances. Just pack it with snazzy FX and the popcorn crowd will be satisfied."

Countess Dracula (1971)

Hammer babes die naked in underrated historical chiller

[6/10 · 28 March 2007]

First of all, this movie is nowhere near as bad as many reviewers suggest. In fact, by Hammer standards of the early 1970s, it's superior fare.

To begin with, the period and settings are nicely realised. Okay, the manicured woodlands of the English home-counties are getting a bit tired by now (and in truth look nothing like the Carpathian Mountains), but the characters – peasant and nobility alike – are dressed convincingly, the ever-reliable Pinewood Studios castle and surrounding village both look good, and the interiors, which are marvellously shot and lit by director Sasdy and cinematographer Talbot, are frankly stunning, especially considering the huge amount that wasn't spent on them. There's also been a genuine attempt to steer us away from the multiple clichés that so frequently spoil Hammer's vampire movies: for once, we're clearly out of that generic Germanic setting and into the Balkans, where we should have been from the start. There's now a visible pyramid of seventeenth century privilege; it's no longer just a case of the cruel despot locked away in his (or her) castle but capable of exerting life-and-death control over the rest of society, which wallows in poverty and fear, with only a well-educated priest or schoolmaster (and his predictably delicious sister or niece) to defy him. We've now got soldiers, librarians, servants, gypsies, police, stallholders – in short a real, functioning community, as well as honest-to-goodness laws to which even the aristocracy are subject.

Now for the performances, which have been much mocked, though I can't think why. Theatrically trained Nigel Green adds a touch of class as Captain Dobi, the cruel countess's lover – a loyal henchman who, for once in these movies, isn't evil merely for the sake of it. Ingrid Pitt, though she's again been cast for her overt sexiness rather than her skills as a thespian, gives possibly her best performance, switching effortlessly between the sweetness and light of youth, and the sourness and cynicism of old age. Sandor Eles is less engaging, though as feckless hero Lieutenant Toth he's only doing what legions of young male actors did before him in Hammer's period horror – playing unnoticed second-fiddle to more mature stars like Cushing and Lee (though not in this case, of course), or to stunningly beautiful women like Pitt.

On which subject, this being a Hammer movie, there's plenty of cleavage on view and much female nudity. But it's all quite brief and inoffensive, and it's hardly unnecessary, this being the tale of a faded beauty who seeks to restore her looks by bathing naked in the blood of slaughtered virgins. With regard to violence, there's surprisingly little – another example of how unexpectedly restrained this movie is. On the same note, Harry Robertson provides an understated but highly evocative score, which works particularly well in the opening scenes, accompanying a title-sequence of period paintings hinting at the crimes of Erzebet Batori rather than explicitly portraying them.

Does it frighten? Well, no. But it's certainly pervaded by a sense of decadent evil, which you'll remember long after it's finished. Very unusually for Hammer, the most chilling moment of the film contains no bloodshed at all. It comes in the closing scene, as it of course should, and features … well, that would be telling. Suffice to say it's very effective, and if it suddenly veers away dramatically from the true story, it barely matters because it still makes your hair stand on end.

If you haven't seen this one, check it out. It's not an event in film-making, it's not even an event in Hammer film-making, but it far outweighs the risible TWINS OF EVIL and VAMPIRE LOVERS, which came out at roughly the same time and were seemingly designed for the exclusive titillation of a juvenile 1970s audience.

Jacob's Ladder (I) (1990)

Tormented everyman struggles with his personal demons or does he?

[6/10 · 7 March 2007]

A genuinely scary but at the same time moving horror story, which unfortunately suffers from occasional muddled moments.

Tim Robbins makes a very appealing hero, and Andrian Lyne directs with aplomb, plunging us into a seedy, trash-strewn New York, which is both desolate and eerie, particularly in the subway sequences. To all intents and purposes, this gritty, brooding ghost story should have blown its audiences away. However, the main question at the time was, and remains: what's it all about? On one hand, there's clearly some kind of high-level conspiracy to keep the Vietnam vets in the dark, or even eliminate them; while on the other, an occult, even demonic force is apparently at work. And this weird paradox is never really resolved, which is undoubtedly the film's main weakness. Who is the hippie chemist who turns up right near the end, for example (Jake's already dead at this stage)? And if what this movie is really about is a tortured soul's struggle through Purgatory, then why is so much time (and so many characters) given to the investigation into the chemical testing incident? These oddities aside, this is one effectively realised chiller. The convincing urban grime is juxtaposed with supernatural elements that at first glance would seem more at home in medieval myth, yet it complements them perfectly, invoking a genuinely disturbing atmosphere, while Jake's descent to the gates of Hell (located in the hospital basement) is one of the most hair-raising moments in cinematic horror.

In our age of militant atheism, the fact that our hero is eventually redeemed by the intervention of angels and heavenly spirits has made it fashionable to mock this movie, but that's missing the point. If anything, JACOB'S LADDER is a metaphor for the battle through life as much as through death. Not everyone in this movie is stone-cold evil. In fact, apart from the briefly seen demons, hardly anyone is. Sure, there is selfishness, ignorance, impatience, dishonesty, lack of pity, not to mention the impenetrable wall of bureaucracy – these are the main obstacles Jake faces. But then don't we all? A fascinating parable of the modern age, for the most part intelligently told.

King Arthur (2004)

Anachronisms abound as Hollywood once again tears apart the Arthur myth

[4/10 · 23 February 2007]

I suppose they meant well. And their attempts to place the legendary hero Arthur in a more realistic era are to be applauded. But in truth, there are all sorts of problems with this disappointing failure.

On the upside, it looks good. It's well dressed, well shot, and where the lesser characters are concerned, well acted. But unfortunately that's where the plaudits end and the brickbats begin.

As Arthur, Clive Owen is about as wooden as it's possible for an actor to be and remain in place as the star of the film. He's far too clean cut, and doesn't pack anything like sufficient passion to be convincing as a Dark Ages war-chief. He should have been replaced in the role by Ioan Gruffud, who is wasted as Lancelot, Lancelot himself being wasted – his part in the famous tale is here reduced to that of a cynical lieutenant. Guinevere is portrayed by Keira Knightley as a Celtic warrior princess – not a bad idea, but as always in the hands of Knightley, and particularly ludicrously on this occasion, she sounds as though she's just emerged from ladies finishing school. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of all is the absence of Merlin, the most enigmatic personality in the whole story. Okay he's here, but he does and says so little that he might as well not be.

We also have several bizarre switches from winter to summer. One minute we're on a frozen lake, the next we're on a verdant meadow with all the trees in full leaf. It's baffling and rather silly, and completely detracts from the otherwise effectively harsh climate that the film seeks to create. Even the battles don't work particularly well. They've been applauded by many, but to me they suffer from what I call "the 'Troy' disease" in that they are painfully over-choreographed. It's more like watching a ballet rehearsal than an actual fight.

There are all sorts of historical issues too, and yet again you wonder why, when they had such a good original story to work from, the movie makers had to change so much. Everybody knows nowadays that Arthur, if he existed, was not a medieval king presiding over a chivalrous court. He was most likely an ex-Roman officer, who assembled tribal leaders to fend off the Saxon incursions (the Saxons incidentally did not invade Britain via Scotland, as is shown in the film – they came in through the south-east, and their conquest was not a holocaust, but a gradual colonisation). In this instance however, Arthur is presented as a Roman officer serving at the head of a troop of Samartian horsemen (very anachronistically referred to as 'knights'); an odd and pointless diversion from the myth, in which, far more excitingly, his supporters are natives who must learn to defend their homeland after the protection of the legions has been withdrawn. Sadder still, none of the really dramatic events of Arthur's reign – his creation of the Round Table to unite a nation, his heroic death not at the hands of invaders but in a treachery-filled civil war – are even touched upon. All we're really dealing with here is a rescue mission just north of Hadrian's Wall, which goes badly wrong. Hardly the stuff great romances are made of.

Another missed historical opportunity, and in this case a particularly bad one – with the money that was spent here, a seriously good Arthurian epic could have resulted.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Much maligned but actually quite effective demonic chiller of the late '70s.

[7/10 · 21 February 2007]

This movie's main problem is that it came out at the wrong time. In 1979, the age of the slasher flick was at hand: body-counts were racing up, blood was suddenly spattering our movie screens. As a result of which, one of this film's strengths – its subtle approach to the horror – became unfairly identified as its main weakness.

There are certainly technical faults on show. The investigating policeman thread leads nowhere, Rod Steiger overacts terribly as the tortured priest, Father Delaney, and the final appearance of the demon – so frightening in the book – is jettisoned in favour of a much less satisfying finale.

But otherwise, the slow-burn atmosphere works very well. The idea that there's something utterly evil yet at the same time intangible in the Amityville house is far more frightening than the glib, cartoon-like explanations offered in the 2005 remake. There's also a feeling of authenticity. Modern accounts of haunting suggest that the main effects on people so afflicted is sickness and disorientation. Those who are genuinely supposed to be possessed go through personality changes and become tired and ill-tempered, rather than turning into leering, Nicholsonesque maniacs. All of this is reflected here.

The dreary Autumnal setting, while it isn't OTT, creates a sensation that these people are alone, that their lives have suddenly taken a turn for the worse, that time is running out for them, while Schifrin's understated score has now become a classic in the history of horror movies.

Something this film is often accused of is looking like a TV movie, and in some respects that may be true, but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment. This is no roller-coaster ride full of special effects and ghoulish monsters; it's more like a documentary analysis of a real-life haunting, which at the time many viewers believed it was. And on that level it hits the mark. If only they hadn't stuck with that rather lame, uneventful ending.

Braveheart (1995)

Medieval superman takes on evil empire in revisionist epic

[1/10 · 13 February 2007]

Shockingly one-sided portrayal of real, tragic events that left thousands of innocents dead on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border.

Previous historical epics have dealt very maturely with the subjects of conquest, rebellion, repression, etc - 'Spartacus' being one good example, 'El Cid' another – so for that reason alone, this self-indulgent, schoolboy fantasy rates as a big disappointment.

Basically, Mel Gibson throws the history book away, and makes Scottish knight William Wallace into a Geronimo-like hero, constantly on the run, constantly outwitting (and brutally slaughtering) his cruel, pompous, haughty, tyrannical, cowardly, ignorant, 'pagan' (!) enemies. Rarely is it mentioned that the real guy killed anyone who understood the English tongue, and often skinned and burned alive his prisoners – many of whom were taken during Scottish raids into England (yes, it happened both ways, though this film would have you think differently).

Does it work? Sure it works, on a very simple level. The scenery is lovely, the battles are probably the most convincingly filmed to date (though if you look closely, you'll see that they mainly consist of brawny Scotsmen bloodily butchering screaming, squawking Englishmen). But it does work. It's pacey enough, it's entertaining and it has as raw, gutsy feel.

If, however, you're like me, and you prefer at least a little bit of historical accuracy, then it's a dog's breakfast. To begin with, the armies Wallace led are portrayed in the movie as poorly-armed highlanders, whereas in reality they were lowlanders, easily as well equipped as the English armies they fought. The battle of Stirling Bridge was decided by the collapse of the bridge under the weight of the English cavalry, most of whom then drowned in their armour. The Scots did wreak some butchery, but mainly on the small infantry vanguard who'd got to the other side – the English 'heavy horse' were never involved. At Falkirk, the Irish didn't side with their fellow Celts (they despised the Scots), and though the battle was indeed won by the English because the Scottish nobility fled the field, Wallace also fled – how else did he survive? The characterisation is extraordinarily weak. Gibson himself, though his performance strikes a convincingly muscular, patriotic note, speaks in modern Glaswegian and sports blue woad and Celtic plaits that predate the Dark Ages never mind the Middle Ages. Sophie Marceau's beautiful French princess is totally one-dimensional as an abused innocent (in truth she was a scheming harpy, who later connived in the savage murder of her own husband and then an attempted coup). Patrick McGoohan (who steals the show for me – at least he gives his character some charisma), concentrates mainly on the stern, unyielding side of Edward Longshanks – we don't learn that he founded Parliament, or revised countless laws for the benefit of the underclass, etc.

It's a big missed opportunity. The same story could still have been told, painting Wallace as a hero, depicting Scotland as an oppressed society, but a bit of balance and political back-story would have made it much more interesting and, dare I say it, more adult.

It sill works, but only the way a pre-1960s cavalry vs Indians western works: as a bit of rousing fun, anachronistic in a more educated age.

The Long Riders (1980)

The life and times of the James-Younger gang

[4/10 · 13 February 2007]

Nice backdrops and occasional dollops of historical authenticity can not distract from what is otherwise a tribute to a band of killers.

The horrors of the Civil War and the deprivation of the South afterwards are given as the sole reasons for the violent activities of the James-Younger gang, who rob and kill their way across the Mid West.

It's difficult to know where to start with a movie like this, because though there is much to applaud - pleasing cinematography, likable performances (from some of the cast), and Hill's trademark, a climactic, balletic gun-battle - the whole enterprise is morally flawed. In any study of outlawry, it's necessary to show both sides of the argument, to present the main protagonists as being ordinary people as well. But when a movie shows its peace-officers as callous villains, and its crime-victims as people who somehow deserve to be humiliated, robbed and then, maybe, shot, it's loading the dice irresponsibly. In any case, the main characters here are not fully developed. While the Carradine brothers give sympathetic performances as the Youngers, presenting them as rational men who perhaps could lead normal lives in another time and place, the Quaids are boorish, brutal and unpleasant seemingly for the sake of it. As the James boys, Stacy Keach is unusually wooden as Frank, and though his brother James's depiction of Jesse as a lean, dead-eyed individual may hint at the emptiness of a murderer's soul, I suspect it is more to do with the lacklustre script. Either way, it's an ultimately unsatisfying package.

To be fair, this isn't the entire story. The film does briefly mention the fact that the gang are primarily terrorising those they're claiming to protect - i.e. poor southern farmers, while the betrayals and mistrust that lead to their eventual collapse are nicely characteristic of real-life thieves and hoodlums (their excuse-making is also exposed, to some extent). But overall, I find it worrying when any film as well-made as this takes a distinctly 'understanding' perspective on mass slaughter.

Baddies and goodies may be an old-fashioned concept these days. But baddies presented as goodies? I think I prefer the former.