SPEED RACER (2008) - fast, furious and futuristic

SPEED RACER
(2008, USA)

What do you mean, you missed it?

Speed Racer is out now on DVD and Blu-Ray in the US, and due out in November in the UK.

I was seriously impressed with this new film from the Wachowski Brothers, but couldn’t understand why so many Matrix fans weren’t interested in it. I saw Speed Racer on the largest Imax screen in the UK and was bowled over by it. The film proved to be a hard sell in the UK, where the anime show was never shown on TV and has only just surfaced on DVD. Besides few people knowing the concept or the characters, it was widely perceived as a children’s film. But I think that many people who would have enjoyed it have missed out.



It's a great example of digital cinema - using actors amongst CGI settings and action - an opportunity to unleash filmmakers' visual imaginations. There's already been the stylised, monochrome Frank Frazetta 'graphic novel' realities of Sin City and 300, and of course the recent Star Wars trilogy. But so far I've only really enjoyed Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in this style of film-making, until now.


Speed Racer attempts to portray a reality in the narrative style of the 1960's anime that inspired it, with infinite focus, garish colour and impossible action. The hyper-design of the race tracks, duelling cars and fictional but familiar-looking quixotic locations all dazzle the eye and boggle the mind.

The Wachowski Brothers have been pretty quiet since the Matrix Trilogy, apart from their work on V for Vendetta, but have now achieved a breakthrough film that could be just as influential - with breakneck action on the racetracks that the eye can just about follow, revolving horizons, warping perspectives, and impossible camera moves. There’s also a complex narrative style condensing an even longer running time by layering additional scenes in the background behind the main action.

While there is a retro, almost Brady Bunch family at the heart of the story and buckets of chimpanzee humour for younger children (though still funny for adults), the action, spectacle and technical virtuosity is ample reward for any fan of super-rich eye-candy and anyone wanting a sneak-peak at the potential future of cinema.

Once again, children's entertainment is a safe haven for psychedelia – here using fast moving, intensely detailed patterns and every colour on the pallette all at once. The story was more complex than I'd expected, with our heroes battling corrupt sponsors as well as other drivers.

An international cast is headed by Emile Hirsch and John Goodman, with strong support from Christina Ricci. There’s also a great role for Matthew Fox (of Lost) as the mysterious Racer X, convincingly threatening and mean, but keeping his performance rooted in reality. He also gets a kickass martial arts fight scene. Susan Sarandon is underused amongst all the boy racers, her most important contribution being the making of sandwiches! It also took me a while to recognise her – she looked like she’d been digitally tweaked to look ten years younger – another potential use of digital cinema.

From South Korea, Rain (recently the star of I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK) gets a good role as a rival racer, and Hiroyuki Sanada (Ring, Twilight Samurai) is in there too. Both actors are majorly hyped in the Far Eastern publicity, as you can see from the posters. I'm still puzzled that most of the baddies are uniformly grotesque, overweight and British. Somone care to tell me why we’re so often portrayed as cockney bad guys?

So far, this is my Film Of The Year (and yes, I've seen Dark Knight). Don't miss it again.

Three years of BLACK HOLE DVD REVIEWS

This site has now been around for three years. At present I want to write for many more, about the same kinds of movies. But what kinds are they? Here's a bit more about choosing what's in the Black Hole.

While I'm attempting to collect every single movie that I've ever enjoyed (preferably the original version that I first watched, maybe with the censor cuts replaced, and always in the original aspect ratio - this makes the process even slower), I'm very aware that many of them are only enjoyable because of a personal nostalgic memory. So while sifting through my favourites, I only like to recommend the ones I think could easily appeal to an audience today.

So, I'll carry on talking about the 1970's and 1960's, indeed any older movies that still hold up. I wanted to start a 1980's section, but when I watch the ones that I thought were good, I can't honestly recommend many - they seem to date much more badly than the other decades!

Of course I'm still looking for new films from all over. There's many news sites getting worked up about exciting sounding upcoming films, but I'm only interested in telling you about the ones that actually fulfilled their promises and manage to get subtitled in English, somewhere.

Although the J-horror bubble has burst in the eyes of many critics, there's still many Japanese films that I want to explore. I don't believe that Japan has stopped making good horror. They've been guilty of repeating themselves - but who hasn't? With so much creativity in an industry that still enables low-budgets and artistic vision, they're still able to be unusual and interesting. And I think there are many older gems yet to see.

My South Korean coverage has been comparatively lacking, because I watched many excellent films just before the Black Hole began. Because I like to write reviews while they're still fresh in my mind, it's only now that the time has come around to watch them again.

While I feel a little cruel reviewing films that are hard to find (in the Not On DVD list), it's good to see that every month or two, some of them are finally getting a release somewhere in the world. I'm still amazed at some of the classics that are still missing. But it's also to mention the smaller films that I think could still make their money back.

I might start including embedded movie trailers and clips again. I'm not a fan of the look of big blurry, randomly-picked freeze frames, of most movie-viewers. So, please let me know if they at all effect your enjoyment of this site. I only want to improve things, not include stuff you find annoying, unsightly or a drag on your load times.


When I started on this, I only wanted to wish the Black Hole a happy birthday...

"Every large galaxy has at its center a massive black hole"

WESTWORLD (1973) - when theme parks attack

WESTWORLD
(1973, USA)

You planning a trip to the Delos resort. Would you choose Romanworld, Westworld, Futureworld or Beyond?

Science fiction has long toyed with the concepts of sophisticated humanoid robots being able to replace humans. TV and film producers love the idea of robots that look like people because building robots is very expensive - Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet (1956) was the most expensive prop in the film. Robots that look like humans (androids, to be exact) are a very cheap special effect.

In the 1970's, writers were still being inspired by the technology of the Disneyland theme park attractions, like the animatronic Hall of Presidents, and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. This was specifically referenced in the 1975 thriller made of Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives, and in Westworld - an expensive playground where adults dress up as cowboys, shoot gunslinger robots and shag-robot dancing girls.

 

Westworld struck a vein, depicting the funland of Delos, deep in the desert, made up of Westworld (the wild West), Medieval World (sword fights, jousting, wenching) and Roman World (orgies).

While it didn’t predict that the electronic games of Pong would evolve into virtual reality gaming, the writer envisaged a reality re-created on a Hollywood-style set with robots fulfilling sexual and violent fantasies. In retrospect, I don’t think everyone would want to live out their fantasies in public, and not many businesses could really make money out of building expensive robots but having to repair their gunshots every night. But it seemed like a good idea at the time.


Written and directed by Michael Crichton, on a roll between medical sci-fi thrillers The Andromeda Strain (1971, based on his novel) and Coma (1978, which he directed), he injects a problem into the computerised resort. The machines start breaking down in a pattern that spreads like a disease, thus predicting the computer virus, but calling it a "central mechanism psychosis". Of course, this plot device was recycled for Jurassic Park (1993).

Westworld caught the public imagination at the time, though it was a hard project to find financial backing. Crichton describes his script getting turned down all around town – perhaps executives liked big stars and directors with good track records more than they liked original stories. As a result, the movie is low budget, but still considerably smarter looking than other pre-Star Wars sci-fi at the time. After a lengthy set-up to explain what the Delos resort is all about, and some lightweight comedy padding (like the low-rent balsawood bar-room brawl), the pace tightens considerably as things start to go wornnnng… With the robot gunslinger programmed to get into fights, but his fail safe mechanisms deactivated, a deadly chase begins. As the other guests get massacred, one survivor has to fend off the unstoppable top-of-the-range killing machine…

This was an early starring role for James Brolin, before he rounded off the decade with genre classics The Car, Capricorn One (1978) and The Amityville Horror (1979). Richard Benjamin is better known for comedy, like the Dracula spoof Love at First Bite, but this and Catch 22 proved he had more range. Of course, Yul Brynner efortlessly recreates the look of his character from The Magnificent Seven (1960). His silvered eyes and removable face giving away his robotic status.

The functional sets are under-dressed and flatly lit, though the endless white corridors of the Delos resort work well as a maze. You can tell it from a TV movie by the 2.35 widescreen aspect, the bloody slow-motion squibs, and the hints of cyber-sex. In the UK, it got an AA certificate, restricting under 14’s from seeing it. I first saw it on a double-bill with Soylent Green.

The long final act with the unstoppable robot with infra-red vision anticipates elements of The Terminator, Predator (right down to a crucial plot point), even the robo-vision of Robocop. In fact, the American Cinematographer articles about Westworld (November 73 issue) point out that the gunslinger’s electronic viewpoint was the first sequence to use actual computer imaging – the footage was scanned in, digitally simplified and played out again. Westworld also features an early instance of the baddie who won't stay dead (before Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers or The Terminator).


The paperback tie-in book (above) that was sold at the time was simply a draft of the script, as it stood just before filming began – with a different ending to the film. It has an interesting and thorough introduction by Crichton, talking about the making of the film.



Westworld spawned a sequel in 1976, but Futureworld wasn’t written by Crichton. It picks up years after the Delos disaster, replacing the resort of Westworld with an outer space simulation. But somehow the relaunch of the resort to the public also incorporates a sinister bid at world domination (a story continued in the short-lived 1980 TV series Beyond Westworld).



The story isn't as intersting as the actual NASA hardware used as a backdrop, all far more impressive than the many dull predictions of 'future' technology - holographic chess, dream machines, remote-controlled robot boxing… I remember it even being unexciting at the time. 

They even throw away the return of the Gunslinger character, using him for seduction rather than gunplay. But it’s not every day you can say that you’ve seen Gwyneth Paltrow’s mum (Blythe Danner) making love to a robot (Yul Brynner). Peter Fonda and Arthur Hill starred, though Danner's character makes more of an impression, playing a fiesty journalist.

Futureworld has had a PAL region 2 DVD release in the UK.

ONE MISSED CALL - the sequels (2005) and (2006)

Rather than watch the new US remake of One Missed Call, I instead tried the Japanese sequels. The common thread is the curse of the cell-phone call from the future, that predicts your time of death…

Takashi Miike startled everyone by directing a hit, formula, horror film, the first of his accomplished mainstream movies. After offbeat and ultra-gory cult classics, fans were worried he’d abandon low budget film-making. Thankfully, that’s not been the case, but he’s now proved he can work well in film and TV on any budget.

The first One Missed Call (2003) was a shameless derivative of Ring, but Miike helped push the format into new territory with a fast pace, inventive shock scenes and even satire. In the story, the tabloid media get onto the bizarre murder story, and televise one of the threatened curse deadlines. Highly enjoyable, one of the best J-horrors I’ve seen, it was a sufficient hit to spin off a ten hour TV series and two sequels.

ONE MISSED CALL 2

(2005, Japan)

Scary in a coal mine...

For the sequel, it's highly advisable to have just watched the first film, as there are many back references to its story and characters.
A small group of friends find that they’re being targeted by the cell-phone curse when one of their parents accidentally takes a call intended for one of them. While trying to survive, they discover that the recent events (briefly flashed back from the first film) aren’t over, and an older curse may be personally linked to one of them. As the friends start dying, a reporter and a detective join the race against time as everyone hunts for clues as far as Taiwan and down an old coal mine…


This is just as creepy as the first film, thanks largely to the unnerving and noisy soundtrack, backed by a hypnotic ambient soundtrack. But it’s suspenseful horror, and misses out the inventive set-piece death scenes that I hoped would figure in the sequels. In fact, half of the deaths take place offscreen. As always, the core of the curse is suitably nasty, (let’s just say ‘lips’ and ‘long needle’…) which keeps the tone both tragic and edgy. There's also a very Sadako scene, which almost deliberately reminds us of the trilogy’s debt to the Ring franchise.

The acting is mostly well-played, but the male leads aren’t quite up to convincing screaming and horror hysterics. Their tough guy antics, like breaking through doors and falling about, almost verges on comedy.


One Missed Call 2 is good, but not great. Good for atmosphere but not great on thrills. I watched the Hong Kong DVD release which has good English subtitles and a fantastic DTS soundtrack option. In the US, the region 1 DVD is a double-disc set that includes missing deleted scenes to help explain the twisty plot.

ONE MISSED CALL FINAL
(2006, Japan)

Are you quite sure you want a video phone?

Final is the third film. Far removed from the strengths of the first film, when a mostly adult crowd tackled the curse. Here it’s a class of teenagers on a school trip to South Korea. Probably aimed more at a cell-phone crazy younger audience.

In flashbacks we know that the classmates were so cruel to one girl that she ended up hanging herself. Somehow teamed up with Mimiko, the original cursed girl of the series, she takes revenge by sending deadly telephone calls to the bullies, and ticking them off a class photograph, reminiscent of the Battle Royale poster.


With simple and repetitive shocks (the best seems to have been borrowed from My Bloody Valentine), mostly green staring faces of death and endless clutching hands, occasionally surprise but don’t frighten. Gone is the tense atmosphere of the second film. The scares are almost mild enough to transpose it into the Haunted School series. Interestingly, given the Korean setting, two close girlfriends in the story give a hint of homage to the Whispering Corridors series. But what I really wanted was another One Missed Call film. It’s no surprise that this third film hasn’t been released on DVD in the UK or US yet.

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT vs THE VIRGIN SPRING

THE VIRGIN SPRING
(1960, Sweden)

LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
(1972, USA)

Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream) and Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13th) made their names in horror by remaking an Ingmar Bergman arthouse classic. While steeling myself to rewatch Craven’s directorial debut, the notoriously nasty Last House on the Left (which Cunningham produced), I watched the Bergman film that inspired it.

I'd only attempted Bergman's Hour of the Wolf many years ago, and recently tried to slog through The Seventh Seal (famously referenced in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey). I knew Woody Allen often took inspiration from and even lampooned his films, specifically in Love and Death where he borrowed camera angles and the character of death in his spoof of Tolstoy’s War and Peace!

I wanted to see how strong the link was between the two films. As David A Szulkin’s thorough book observes, Last House on the Left starts by stating it is a true story, even though it’s not. It’s based on The Virgin Spring, which in turn is based on a medieval Swedish folk tale. It’s also black and white, set in medieval Sweden and all in Swedish. But this shouldn’t intimidate even the average horror movie fan because it’s still mystical, powerful stuff. Starring Max Von Sydow, the Exorcist himself, years before he appeared in American films, and 20 years before he became Emperor Ming!


Von Sydow plays the owner/protector of a farm that’s doing well despite a widespread famine. His daughter and step-daughter are sent on a horse ride to their nearest church. But on the way, Karin loses her step-sister and is viciously attacked by a gang of brothers. The twist of fate in both Virgin Spring and Last House, is that the attackers then accidentally visit the victim’s home. If her family find out what they’ve done, they’ll want revenge…

This is all surprisingly fast-moving and story-driven. While there are many opportunities for the characters to discuss whether a Christian God (as opposed to the Norse gods) would allow random acts of violence to befall their family, the message of the film does not push any easy conclusions. Instead it’s stubbornly faithful to the plot of the original fable, regardless of logic or character motivation.


Von Sydow is excellent, but the two daughters - Birgitta Pettersson as virginal Karin and Gunnel Lindblom as bad girl Ingiri - dominate the film. Though neither of them is two-dimensional as good girl and bad girl. Karin is delusionally living a fairy-tale story in her mind. She’s vain and spoilt, and conscious of being everyone’s favourite. She wants to stay pure till her marriage, in a complete contrast to Ingiri who’s single but already pregnant, as well as hateful, scheming and spiteful.


The beautiful glowing cinematography by Sven Nykvist lead to high profile international work. Sleepless in Seattle and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? are among his diverse American credits.

Of course, this is a far better crafted and acted film than Last House, though less obviously accessible. It’s even been described as a Bergman horror film, which it undoubtedly is. After seeing it, I’m ready to see many more of his films.


Watching Last House on the Left again was less rewarding, even though it’s an important horror film, a cornerstone of the first wave of ‘torture porn’ that remained banned for many years for its prolonged and sadistic rape scene. Today, besides still being pretty nasty, it's not easy to watch due to the limitations of the zero budget and the lousy music. Wes Craven himself admits that he was learning how to direct as he went along. The grainy 16mm gives a cheap look look to the interior scenes. The numerous technical mistakes, like poor focusing, odd edits, bad looping etc… repeatedly distract.

The klutzy script adds insult to multiple injury – trying to leaven groundbreaking hardcore violence with slapstick comedy. To intercut between sadistic violence, torture, rape and comedy relief makes it even more distasteful. Admittedly, this was only supposed to be a supporting feature for two or three local cinemas (hence the micro budget), plus an attempt at something as taboo-breaking as possible.

The handheld, documentary look and the realistic staging of the violent and threatening scenes give the film its power, breaking boundaries of sexual violence that have rarely been matched. Even though it followed the release of A Clockwork Orange and Straw Dogs.

It’s a useful film to reference, especially for fans of Cunningham and Craven, but otherwise it's hard to watch. If you want a vintage Wes Craven film, check out The Hills Have Eyes first.

Last House on the Left is available in the US and UK on DVD in a director-approved version, with thorough documentaries focusing on the arduous low-budget shoot. It's in widescreen 16:9, even though it was shot 16mm. The Virgin Spring is also widely available, and honoured with a Criterion DVD release in the US. It's black and white, 4:3 fullscreen, as originally shot.

HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN (1969) - beyond surreal

HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN
(1969, Japan)

I’m currently enjoying a stream of late-1960s/early 1970s Japanese movies - a rich vein of surreal and outrageous horror films and lurid thrillers. Women are often topless, art direction is saturated in colour, photography could be arthouse but the stories dwell on the surreal, the sadistic and the taboo-breaking. Intrigued by the fantastic Female Prisoner Scorpion series, and such transgendered film noir as Black Lizard from Kinji Fukasaku, I’m being fed by some welcome new DVD releases in the US.

Horrors of Malformed Men is a rare beast indeed, a film not even available in Japan anymore. Out of respect for the physically handicapped, this is seen to equate physical with mental aberration. But that’s quite a narrow reading of this astonishing film, and luckily it’s been restored and released on DVD in the US by Synapse Films.


I was especially keen to see it, having waited patiently since seeing an enticing photo in Denis Gifford’s Pictorial History of Horror Movies in the early 1970s. In the DVD extras, it’s mentioned how the film wasn’t shown outside of Japan for decades – making me question whether Gifford himself saw everything in his book, which I’m still attempting to do.

From the picture, I was expecting a Japanese rip on Island of Lost Souls (the H.G. Wells novel adapted three times by Hollywood). Horrors of Malformed Men far exceeds my teenage expectations, for that's only a fraction of what's in store.

It begins with a scene of mad outlandish sexual fantasy, with a confused man surrounded by half-naked women behind bars. While expecting him to awake at any moment, I was surprised to see that the scenario was actually happening. The film continues with many dream or fantasy situations as part of the story’s reality. He appears to be trapped in a paranoid nightmare, as an inmate in a psychological institution. He escapes to a circus while straining to remember who he actually is. His vague memories lead him to a rich man's mansion, where he contrives to pose as the dead owner, who he closely resembles. The story turns into a wish fulfilment fantasy of owning plentiful money and property, he even has his own island! As he goes exploring, he discovers his mad dad has started a fantasy island of naked women and surgically-engineered freaks…

But I’m telling you the plot. Full of lascivious and bizarre interludes, all fuelled by the stories written by Edgawa Rampo, who is back in vogue today with more films based on his written works. The late director Teruo Ishii (Jigoku, 1999) explains, in an interview on the DVD, that he thought he wouldn’t get another chance to direct any stories by Rampo, and decided to work in elements from his other favourite stories. Meaning we get such wonderful asides as the man living inside a sofa in order to feel up the owner.

The mad dad in the story resembles a bearded Sadako – long black hair falling over his face, his contorted moves and appearance by a stormy coastline are straight out of Ring and Ring 0: Birthday, but thirty years early. He’s played by a famous dancer and contortionist Tatsujmi Hijikata, who here performs an early incarnation of the frightening Sadako walk.


Despite all the traditional kimonos, we’re reminded that it’s the 1960s by an eye-popping psychedelic scene where silver-painted dancers perform in front of rotating mirrors. Although the times were a-changing, the censor still appears to have drawn a line - as the editing gets a little quirky during the siamese twin operation scene, and a breast-cutting torture in the women’s prison.

I recognised Hideo Ko, the creature from Goke, Bodysnatcher from Hell, even though he appears at one point in full drag, rather an odd uniform for a Prison Governor. Teruo Yoshida, as the central character, was also in Goke.


This is an extraordinary movie. Synapse has included some welcome extras, including interviews with two famous fans of the film, directors Shinya Tsukamoto (Nightmare Detective) and Minoru Kawasaki (Calamari Wrestler). They help give the film a much needed context for the film’s reception in Japan. The film itself looks brand new, presented 2.35 anamorphic. The region 1 NTSC DVD also has a reversible cover, revealing the original Japanese poster art.

JUGGERNAUT (1974) - a very British disaster movie

JUGGERNAUT

(1974, UK)

As the American disaster movie genre gained momentum in the seventies, this British film depicted a grittier, more realistic and suspenseful alternative. Before the list of possible disasters soon ran out, Juggernaut was an early example of a plot that sidestepped natural disasters in favour of man-made terrors - there'd soon be endangered aircraft (Airport '75), subway trains (The Taking of Pelham One Two Three), packed sports stadiums (Two Minute Warning and Black Sunday) and funfairs (Rollercoaster).

Juggernaut, with an entire ocean liner held hostage, matched Hollywood for tension and accurately portrayed the stressfulness of the hostage situation. There’s a taut parallel race against time as the police desperately try to track down the identity of the bomber, while disposal experts tackle the seven booby-trapped drums of explosives - if any three explode, the ship will sink. The blackmailer calls himself ’Juggernaut’ and detonates warning blasts to prove that he’s not bluffing. Either pay up, or lose the ship and all onboard…

There's a scene in the film that's famous, but you probably don’t realise it was shown here first. Where the crucial decision has to be made – to cut the blue wire or the red wire.


Another gripping sequence is the bomb squad’s parachute jump to get to the liner. Rough seas prevent the passengers from abandoning ship, they also make getting onboard a lethal and hazardous task.


Using the disaster movie ploy of having an ensemble cast spread across the poster, it stars Richard Harris and David Hemmings, who engagingly represent the best of the bomb squad. Omar Sharif is the increasingly desperate captain. A young Anthony Hopkins is in charge of the frantic police investigation on land, even though his wife and kids are onboard.

From the US, are actors Shirley Knight (recently seen in Desperate Housewives as Bree’s Mother-In-Law) as a freewheeling ‘guest’ at the captain’s table, and Clifton James (a more deserved and reserved character than the comedy redneck Sheriff Culpepper he’s famous for in Live and Let Die). The supporting cast include the formidable Ian Holm (Alien, Brazil), Freddie Jones (The Elephant Man, Dune), and John Stride (The Omen, Brannigan).

Director Richard Lester, in between the brilliant Three and Four Musketeers films and Superman II, adds to the wry sense of gallows humour among the doomed passengers, in particular the attempts of the entertainment officer (the fantastic Roy Kinnear) to lift their spirits. Once again, Lester adds snippets of dialogue to almost every character onscreen, no matter how incidental.


Not sure why this DVD has been renamed with such a TV movie title as Terror on the Britannic. Even in the UK, the DVD doesn’t go under its original cinema release title, (even though Juggernaut thankfully remains the onscreen title). This kind of retitling is a good way to lose sales.

Even so, this remains just as taut and exciting as it was in the cinema, and is a welcome remastering in 16:9 widescreen.

More Juggernaut images at MoviePoster.com.

PAURA - LUCIO FULCI REMEMBERED - VOL 1 (2008) - new DVD

PAURA - LUCIO FULCI REMEMBERED - VOL 1
(2008, USA)

The late Lucio Fulci directed some essential Italian horror films, my favourite of which is the extraordinary Zombie Flesh Eaters (1979). While he was a cult figure, and received some attention overseas before he passed away in 1996, he never had much respect in his own country.

Mike Baronas picked up on this recently while producing DVD extras for several of Fulci’s films and, spurred on by not properly meeting his idol, he felt he had to pay tribute somehow and also help people know more of what he was actually like. As Baronas explains in his introduction and liner notes for Paura, he’d ideally like to have done this in a book, (maybe as a companion piece to Beyond Terror by Stephen Thrower, which focusses on Fulci’s films rather than the man himself). While there’s no chance of a book at the moment, Baronas and co-producer Kit Gavin made this DVD to get something out there.


I met Mike Baronas briefly at the Pittsburgh HorrorHound Weekend, where he accompanied Al Cliver and Ottaviano Dell'Acqua, both stars of Zombie Flesh Eaters. Now I’ve had a chance to see his DVD.

Not knowing anything about the project, I was initially disappointed at this not being a documentary about Lucio Fulci's life. It's more of a packed DVD with extras - 88 tributes to the man himself. There are three groups of interviews - collaborators, actors and peers, as in horror movie directors and producers in the Italian film industry who knew Fulci or knew of him.


The memories and anecdotes are honest, sometimes giving a little too much detail, like his tobacco-chewing habits! But the more you hear, a rounded, honest and complete picture emerges of what Fulci was like and how he worked. Many actors and co-workers talk of him very fondly indeed. It’s a fantastic testimonial.

Paura also serves as a valuable overview of many familiar names in Italian horror, some whose names I’ve often heard, but whose faces I've never seen. Such as Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust), Lamberto Bava, Luigi Cozzi, Michele Soavi and many, many more. It's also fascinating to see so many actors from this very seventies genre, nearly thirty years later.


On the main menu page, it’s worth seeking out a slightly hidden extra that takes you to an introduction from Baronas. His quest to re-establish Fulci in the canon of great Italian directors has sent him round the world collecting these interviews. His presentation, which explains the events that motivated him, are preceded by an astonishing gallery of photos of him together with each of the contributors.

The DVD is then best experienced in three options of ‘Play All’. Each interview is introduced by photos and a list of their credits In Fulci films. Though the accompanying music gets rather repetitive despite the rarity of the photos. There is nearly four hours of material in all.


This is a labour of love, aimed squarely at Fulci fans who want to get to know the man better. Having watched it, I can’t wait to see his films again.

The Paura DVD is available on this site. There’s also a review here, with screengrabs.

APPLESEED: EX MACHINA (2007) - futuristic animation

APPLESEED: EX MACHINA
(2007, Japan)

I've not seen or read anything from the Appleseed saga except for the first film, which was very impressive. It introduced me to the scenario of a futuristic post-war society trying to keep the peace after a devastating Third World War.

Cyborg technology now strengthens the police ranks and repairs the war-wounded. Repopulation has been boosted with Clones who've been genetically tweaked not to cause trouble when angry or stressed. But there are still problems in paradise, and the heavily armoured police now use flying mecha-suits to stamp out trouble. The most powerful cyborg is Briareos a reconstructed ex-soldier, who has a robotic helmet instead of a face, something Deunan, his lover, still has to deal with.

The first film had many dramatic and visually complex set-pieces, like the holographic recreation of a murder scene. Technically, the film was a conserted effort to use 3D CGI animation to represent people, not with photo-realism, but with a stylised more traditional anime look.

The movie sequel Appleseed: Ex Machina pushes this visual approach further, aiming to give the stylised 3D characters more weight and realism, extensively using motion-capture for action, as well as dialogue (it's far harder to map the movements of the many facial muscles). While more time is spent humanising the performances, apparently less time is spent on the plot.


As the various president's of the new world territories meet to unify their communications satellites, cyborg terrorists attack the conference. As the crisis spreads throughout their city, Deunan and Briareos take on a huge new threat to save their fragile future.

The story is too simple, with the characters lagging behind the audience - if only the heavy ops squad were as good at detective work as they were at slow-motion sideways somersaults during gunplay (thanks to co-producer John Woo), a lot of trouble could have been averted.

It's still spectacular, entertaining and represents what can be done in digital cinema using imaginative designwork. The hardware on display looks like it will actually be built one day.

But despite the advances in the animation, I still prefered the more complex first film, where the climax was more impressively large-scale and the story more complex and even philosophical. The totally chaotic action finale is full of those dangers where heroes depend on luck as much as skill.

Also, both films still can't compare to Innocence – Ghost in the Shell 2, which overcame the wide gap between the look of its 2D characters moving around in 3D backgrounds. Appleseed's story isn't as haunting or memorable and it's imagination hasn't been allowed to roam free.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) - see it

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
(1966, Italy/Spain, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo)

If you only see one spaghetti western, make it this one…

This was one of the earliest epics that really engrossed me. Even on TV, I was totally immersed in the story for two and a half hours. Thankfully it used to be shown on a channel without advert breaks. The story, the characters, the music and the spectacle all help make this my favourite western.



This was the third in the 'Dollars Trilogy'. I know, no dollars in the title, but it’s so similar to A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More that they’re always considered together. There are familiar faces from the first two films, though Lee Van Cleef, introduced as Clint Eastwood’s older wiser mentor in For A Few Dollars More, becomes 'The Bad' here. Even in by wild west standards, he shows a marked lack of conscience. As a prison camp commander (director Sergio Leone is keen to remind us that p.o.w.s were interred even during the Civil War). 'Angel Eyes' (Cleef) uses relentless torture to get what he wants, muffling the screams with a band of prisoners.

While 'Blondie' (Eastwood) is more clearly defined as ‘The Good’, he’s still motivated by money, with a cruel streak of humour. ‘The Ugly’ is Tuco, played brilliantly by Eli Wallach. Not a shining representative of Mexico, but for that matter Clint isn't a shining example of all that's American.


The three are gradually introduced, eventually meet up, and then race each other to a stash of army gold. But their journey, alliances and clashes are the treat. The story is far clearer than Few Dollars More, but still character-based and episodic. It contains many classic scenes filled with invention and humour...

A dangerous scam involving faked lynching. Torture by desert crossing. How to sabotage the Civil War. A gunfight in a town under bombardment. And the awesome, oft-copied, circular gunfight. If anyone wants to quote the visual language of a tense gunfight, it's usually from this film. The scene was parodied soon after in the WW2 comedy adventure Kelly's Heroes that also starred Eastwood.


I never tire of the soundtrack music, even after thirty years of listening to it. A key cue from the film’s climax took me by surprise in Las Vegas earlier this year. Outside the front of the Italian-themed Bellagio hotel/casino, a huge synchronised fountain display plays every half hour. I was thrilled to see them use 'The Ecstasy of Gold' from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, a pretty ironic track, but I was delighted that this particular Ennio Morricone era is still recognised and paid tribute to, especially in such spectacular style.

The latest DVD Special Edition has reinstated scenes missing from the American release version that orignally appeared in Leone’s longer Italian release. This meant belatedly adding 15 more minutes of English language audio, using the actors to dub their performances over thirty years later. Unfortunately this makes the new scenes quite easy to spot, as Wallach and Eastwood’s voices have altered considerably. It’s also not the version that I grew up with and they add nothing crucial to the experience. These scenes would be nice as an option or an extra, but I’m not throwing away my copy of the original English language release. Once again, a film that I love is getting rare in the form that it was originally seen.
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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is being shown around the UK and a Clint Eastwood retrospective is currently running at the BFI Southbank.

MOON ZERO TWO (1969) - finally on DVD

MOON ZERO TWO
(1969, UK)

2001 – A Space Odyssey (1968), Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic vision of near-future space travel, and the excitement of the Apollo Moon landings in 1969, inspired film-makers to cash in.

In the same year, compared to the deadly slow Marooned directed by Robert Altman, and Journey to the Far Side of the Sun produced by Gerry Anderson, Hammer Films’ tongue-in-cheek space adventure was a breath of fresh air. Moon Zero Two looked forward to lunar colonisation, envisaging it as the next frontier.

In 2021, there are small cities on the Moon, regular shuttles from Earth, and a race to claim all the mineral riches. The crew of spaceship Moon Zero Two earn their money by salvaging space junk but are also the only independent space vehicle for hire.

Captain Kemp (James Olsen) is approached by shady millionaire J.J. Hubbard (Warren Mitchell) to illegally crash an asteroid on the far side of the Moon. Clementine Taplin (Catherine Schell) also hires him to look for her brother, who has a claim on the far side. Kemp is having a busy few days, and he also has to dodge the attention of the Moon Sheriff who happens to be his girlfriend!


Using American westerns as inspiration, the story weaves in gunfights, claim-jumping, and a bar-room brawl, while accurately predicting life fifty years on. Plastic money, laptop computers, sub-surface ice, and solar energy are now a reality. Made during the Cold War, the film looks forward to Americans and Russians being friends again, pointedly making the crew of Moon Zero Two a citizen of each. It all looks like the sixties, but only the designs date the film, not the story. Spookily, even the date rings true, as NASA are gearing up for more Moonshots by 2020.

The baddies here are money-grabbers and monolithic corporations, and the race for space is now purely economic. Exploration will only happen if it’s for economic gain.

There’s a cheeky reference to 2001, when the Pan Am lunar express tries to jump the cue for re-entry. But like 2001, it encourages a modicum of realism regarding the temperature, pressure, and air supplies needed for human survival. Though for budgetary reasons, there’s an artificial gravity switch inside the buildings, no more of a cheat than in Star Trek.

The impressive sets are huge for a Hammer Film, though the visual FX aren’t so consistent. The spaceship isn’t bad, the wirework space walks and slow-motion low gravity work OK. The most obvious effect is the moon bug tractor – the model looks like a toy, which is a shame as it cross-cuts with an impressive full-scale version. Of course, they didn’t have the budget that Kubrick had.


I’ve always found the film very watchable, with likeable characters and a fast-moving story. All helped enormously by the echoey jazzy score by Don Ellis, in a completely different style to the pounding Julie Driscoll theme tune (the only track that’s out on CD).


James Olsen is the confident hero, Kemp, and token American actor in the cast – he was about to land his biggest screen role, starring in Robert Wise’s The Andromeda Strain (1971). Catherine Schell was also a Bond girl in 1969, but is best remembered as space alien Maya in Space 1999. Carry On regular Bernard Bresslaw, as Hubbard’s brute henchman, was trying hard to get serious roles, but still can’t resist pulling a few comedy faces. Another famous comedian, Warren Mitchell as Hubbard, is far more convincing in villainy.

Adrienne Corri gets a strong role to match her screen presence as Moon Federation Sheriff. She was in many cult films in the seventies, like Madhouse with Vincent Price, Vampire Circus as the ring-master, and A Clockwork Orange, as the main victim of Malcolm McDowell’s Droogs. But this was the only time she had holsters built into thigh-length plastic boots.


Looking at some of the lacklustre poster art for the film, it’s easier to understand why the film wasn’t a success at the time, and why Hammer never ventured into space again. But I’m not the only fan – here’s a website full of photos, modelwork and missing scenes.

Missing from home video for decades, Moon Zero Two has finally been released on DVD in the US as a Best Buy exclusive by Warner Bros. Subtly listed as Sci-Fi 70's Double Feature #1, with the similarly rare When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (there's a fantastic appreciation of that film here on SciFi Japan). Both are remastered 16:9 anamorphic, which frames the action quite tightly, but after a wait like that, I’m glad they're available again and finally off my Not On DVD list.

UPDATE: 22nd September

This DVD is now more widely available than just Best Buy stores, and can be ordered online like here from Diabolik.