Dracula (2025)

"A Unique Interpretation"

A quite bizarre melding of elements from Francis Ford Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (which this film leans on heavily), Tom Tykwer's PERFUME, and the MINIONS movie, Luc Besson's singular take on the most famous vampire tale of all is getting a digital release from Signature Entertainment, with a Blu-ray release to follow.

Besson's new film keeps the Coppola prologue, suggesting that Count Dracula (here played by Caleb Landry Jones) began life as Prince Vladimir of Wallachia, a normal human being who at 'God's request' defeated the Turks only for his beloved wife Elisabeta (Zoe Bleu) to end up dead. Vlad curses God and vampirism happens.

Then the film fast forwards 400 years, relocating events to Paris and giving us possibly the best and most interesting part of the film. A vampire-hunting priest who is never named but is played by Christoph Waltz is called to a Paris asylum to help with the case of Maria (a very vigorous Matilda De Angelis) who is Obviously a Vampire. Meanwhile in Transylvania the worst Jonathan Harker ever ends up in Dracula's castle where the Count's ability to move food without touching it earns the 400 year old vampire a 'Nice!' before Harker continues with everyday chit chat.

After that we get a lengthy backstory for the Count. The irresistibility to his bite turns out to be because of a perfume he has developed, one the remarkable effects of which are demonstrated in a number of elaborate scenes that must have used up a lot of the costume (and dance) budget, before he finally gets to Paris and Mina Murray (Bleu once more), the inevitable runaround, and a climax that involves a big gun battle with soldiers and cannons.

Is Luc Besson's DRACULA any good? Or rather, is any of Luc Besson's DRACULA any good? Well, there's a bit of visual spectacle, a show stopping decapitation near the end that's a lot of fun, and the absence of Van Helsing (replaced by Waltz's priest) is an interesting touch. Purists will likely get a headache very quickly at the liberties that have been taken with the novel, while probably everyone will be scratching their heads at why Dracula has an unexplained army of comedy gargoyle minions. Those who stick with it can play spot the filmic 'influences' because aside from the three above there are plenty more, oh yes indeed. Likely to become no-one's favourite version of the story, Luc Besson's DRACULA is still probably worth watching once, if only out of sheer curiosity value. Here's a trailer:

Luc Besson's DRACULA aka DRACULA: A LOVE TALE is out on Digital from Signature Entertainment on Monday 1st December 2025, with a Blu-ray release to follow on Monday 22nd December 2025

Primitive War (2025)

"More Fun than JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH"

Signature Entertainment are giving a much-deserved cinema release to PRIMITIVE WAR, a low budget (around $7 million if reports are to be believed) affair that pits Vietnam soldiers against dinosaurs, has plenty of monster action, and even at 135 minutes won't have you zoning out the way this year's JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH did.

We're in Vietnam in 1968. After some shenanigans rescuing a couple of POWs from the Vietcong, a platoon of soldiers known as the Vulture Squad are recruited to investigate the mysterious disappearance of some Green Berets in a distant jungle valley. When they arrive they are surprised (to put it mildly) to find the place crawling with dinosaurs. It's all the result of some pesky Russian experiment with wormholes, or something, and the Russians are keen to prevent the US from discovering what they have been up to. This the stage is set for a massive smackdown between US soldiers, Russian forces, and several boatloads of dinosaurs.

What you want from a film like PRIMITIVE WAR is lots of dinosaurs and lots of action, and the film doesn't skimp on either. There's also a refreshingly large variety of dinosaurs on display, and while the explanation for what's been going on is hardly the stuff of hard science the film doesn't give you much space to ponder it. 

As a dinosaur movie PRIMITIVE WAR is faster moving and a lot more fun than JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH. As a military vs the monsters movie it's stratospherically better than Neil Marshall's THE LAIR (not difficult) but it's also more entertaining watch than Julius Avery's OVERLORD. The CGI is absolutely fine and while the characterisation is a bit thin in the first act by the climax you'll be able to list all the members of Vulture Squad and how some of them meet their ends. Of course you'll have to watch the film to see who makes it out alive. Here's the trailer:

PRIMITIVE WAR is on general cinema release in the UK through the Odeon, Vue and Showcase chains from Friday 28th November 2025

The Life of Chuck (2025)

"Moving, Uplifting, and Quite, Quite Lovely"

After a short stint in UK cinemas, Studio Canal have released writer-director Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Stephen King's novella (which you can find in his collection If it Bleeds) on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD.

It's not the easiest film to talk about without giving away spoilers, both in terms of plot and the cast members who pop up along the way, suffice to say that this is a story in three acts, told in reverse order. Act Three begins with a world on the brink of destruction. Earthquakes have destroyed California, Florida has flooded and the rest of the world has been subjected to the same kind of disasters.

During all of this, teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) decides to make his way across town to see his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan). All around him are billboards and TV adverts thanking someone called Charles Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) for 39 'great years'. But neither Marty, nor anyone he meets, has any idea who Charles Krantz is. However we will, and as the film progresses we begin to understand why he is so important to the people we have been introduced to.

THE LIFE OF CHUCK is very much the Stephen King of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION or STAND BY ME, and Mike Flanagan shows he is just as adept as Frank Darabont and Rob Reiner at telling the moving, bittersweet, ultimately uplifting tale of Chuck's life and exactly why it's so important. Flanagan fans familiar with his TV work especially will spot a number of familiar faces, and if you're fan of 1980s and 1990s cult cinema then there will be other actors you'll recognise, too.

Studio Canal's disc comes with an 18 minute making of featuring interviews with Flanagan and some of the principal actors, and there are more in depth interviews with Hiddleston (14 minutes), Ejiofor (10 minutes) and Mark Hamill (9 minutes). There's also a Mike Flanagan commentary. The presence of both his and Stephen King's name may make you prepared to be scared but instead THE LIFE OF CHUCK is, for those old enough, like a very touching episode of The Twilight Zone. No shocks, just a lovely story well told by a master craftsman, ably assisted by talented cast and crew. Excellent stuff. 

Mike Flanagan's film of Stephen King's THE LIFE OF CHUCK is out now from Studio Canal on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD

A Desert (2025)

 

"Filled with Insidious Menace"

Blue Finch are releasing director Joshua Erkman's A DESERT, a film that could sit comfortably alongside Rose Glass's LOVE LIES BLEEDING in the offbeat desert noir genre. 

Alex (Kai Lennox) is a professional photographer famous for 'The Death of the New West', a book of images of abandoned towns and landmarks that are now crumbling and rotting. Hoping to repeat his success he sets off into the desert intending to deliberately lose himself in a maze of ghost towns and lost places that will form the subject of his next book.

Unfortunately he spends the night at a rundown motel where he meets the psychotic Renny (Zachary Ray Sherman) and his 'sister' Susie Q (Ashley Smith). Soon Alex has vanished and his wife Sam (Sarah Lind from A WOUNDED FAWN) employs private investigator Harold (David Yow from UNDER THE SILVER LAKE)  to find him, with ultimately horrific results.

A DESERT could be described as 'slow burn', but that would be by people for whom plot progression is the maxim by which movies should be judged. The film takes its time to allow you to drink in the gorgeous landscapes and the very real ghost towns that are the subject of Alex's obsession, such that we begin to understand his desire to capture them on the very old fashioned camera he lugs round with him. At the same time the film manages to convey a sense of creeping dread pretty much from the outset. The climax is suitably bloody and overall A DESERT is a fine entry in the offbeat desert noir genre.

A DESERT is out on digital from Blue Finch Releasing on Monday 24th November 2025

Horror of Frankenstein 4K (1970)

Studio Canal are releasing a 4K transfer of the one Hammer Frankenstein not to feature Peter Cushing as the Baron. It was originally released on a double bill with SCARS OF DRACULA which Studio Canal are also releasing on 4K at the same time, so you can recreate your very own 4K HD double bill of these two at home. If you want to. 

Rather than carry on from the high of the previous year’s FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, Hammer Films decided to reboot their franchise and go back to remaking the film that started it all, employing original screenwriter Jimmy Sangster to write (with Jeremy Burnham), produce, and direct. The result gives us a smarmy young Baron (Ralph Bates) whose drunken womanising git of a father (George Belbin) dies, allowing Frankenstein Junior to embark on a witless attempt to literally build a monster by numbers while seducing 1970s starlets. The result lumbers about for a bit before suffering an ignominious fate, leading to a final freeze frame shot of the Baron, who looks about as upset as someone who has just received an especially large and unexpected gas bill.

  The joys to be found in this one are mainly in the character roles. Dennis Price and Joan Rice are a delight as a grave robbing husband and wife team, and Jon Finch, inexplicably not cast as the Baron (now there would have been a Frankenstein for the 1970s) but in a far less interesting bit part as a policeman. Even composer James Bernard sat this one out, with soon-to-be Master of the Queen’s Music Malcolm Williamson (BRIDES OF DRACULA and CRESCENDO) stepping in instead. However if you fancy a little bit of black comedy with your Hammer horror this may suit. 

Archival extras include a Jimmy Sangster / Marcus Hearn commentary track and interviews with lead actress Veronica Carlson (14 minutes) and the monster himself, David Prowse (5 minutes). There's also a ported over making of (18 minutes), a stills gallery and trailer. New material is limited to a conversation between critic Clarisse Loughrey and actor / writer Isaura Barbé-Brown (34 minutes) who are very diplomatic about the film's shortcomings, and a 64 page book which features new writing on the film, the original press kit, and two posters.

Hammer's HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN is out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Studio Canal on Monday 24th November 2025

Scars of Dracula 4K (1970)

 

Studio Canal leap in before Hammer to be the first to release a 4K transfer of one of the studio's Dracula movies. Admittedly it's the one at which some Hammer fans turn their nose up, but this edition, with its very appealing new cover art, is going to look very nice on the shelf along with all the others when they finally come out.

SCARS OF DRACULA was the fifth film to star Christopher Lee as Dracula and it's understandable that by that time the series was getting a bit tired. Usually at pains to maintain continuity, the use of a script possibly intended to follow the third film (DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE) throws any sense of this being a direct series follow on by having a bat dribble blood on the Count's ashes to bring him back.

Once he's up and about we take a break to meet the usual Bright Young Things, including hero Dennis Waterman, heroine Jenny Hanley and soon to be impaled on a spike Christopher Matthews, whose midnight dash from the bed of the burgomaster's daughter causes him to end up at Castle Dracula.

SCARS is, arguably, the low point of the series but that doesn't mean there's nothing to enjoy here. The little cardboard castle is quite charming and the set for Castle Dracula isn's bad either. John Elder / Anthony Hinds' script ransacks bits of Stoker but it's better to have a bit of Stoker in these things than none at all, and the concept of the Count's resting place being a room all-but inaccessible to anyone but him is nicely creepy. Composer James Bernard probably emerges the best from this, providing a score that deservedly received a dedicated CD release some years later.

Studio Canal's transfer looks splendid. SCARS always looked very crisp on their previous Blu-ray release but this is even better. Whoever thought we'd get to see Bob Todd in 4K? Archival extras include the Christopher Lee / Roy Ward Baker commentary track, a short making of (Blood Rites - 18 minutes) and a Christopher Matthews interview from 2006 (11 minutes). 

New is an interview with author (and relative of Bram) Dacre Stoker (17 minutes) who covers the material taken from the novel that was used in SCARS OF DRACULA, and a discussion between critic Clarisse Loughrey and actor/writer Isaura Barbé-Brown (31 minutes) which is very listenable and (surprisingly) finds some nice things to say about a film that has received quite the critical drubbing over the years. There's also a still gallery and trailer, and the set comes with a 64 page book containing new essays and the original press kit, as well as two posters. 

Hammer's SCARS OF DRACULA is out on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Studio Canal on Monday 24th November 2025

Dark Star 4K (1974)

 

Fabulous Films are bringing out John Carpenter's (and Dan O'Bannon's) DARK STAR, in both limited edition 4K UHD website exclusive and standard Blu-ray editions. 

The scout ship Dark Star is twenty Earth years and three 'real' years into its mission of finding unstable planets that could prevent human colonisation and blowing them up. Time has not been kind to the Dark Star or its crew of five, one of whom is already dead when the film begins. All the toilet paper has been destroyed, a beach ball-type alien rescued as a 'mascot' is keen to cause havoc, and an encounter with a meteor storm causes a communication laser to malfunction. When one of their talking bombs gets stuck in the bomb bay it may finally be all over for our increasingly frustrated / insane crew members.

Created on a shoestring (O'Bannon cites $55 000 in the extras), DARK STAR was made during what was arguably America's Golden Age of SF film production, one that began with the release of PLANET OF THE APES in 1967 and which continued with such US-driven thought-provoking pieces as 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, SILENT RUNNING, SOYLENT GREEN and PHASE IV until the release of STAR WARS in 1977 killed it pretty much stone dead, to be replaced with slick, profitable, but essentially non-challenging space adventure pictures. 

What makes DARK STAR stand out in this golden period is that it's a comedy, which must have been something of a surprise to audiences back in the day. O'Bannon would further develop some of the ideas here in his screenplay for ALIEN (1979) but in 1974 it must have seemed pretty radical to have scruffy astronauts bickering, dancing, getting bored and working in one of the most claustrophobic and cramped control rooms ever committed to celluloid.

Fabulous Films' disc includes both the original 71 minute director's cut and the 83 minute expanded theatrical release. DARK STAR has always been a pretty grainy film but the 4K here looks as excellent as it possibly could, with good detail and no picture noise even on the brightest monitor setting. Extras on the disc start with the 2010 documentary on the making of the film that's almost two hours long and which includes interviews with a bunch of familiar names including Carpenter and O'Bannon (his final recorded interview), Tommy Lee Wallace, Jeff Burr and producer Jack Harris.

Other archival extras include a commentary from 'superfan' Andrew Gilchrist, Alan Dean Foster talking about the film and his career for 35 minutes (essential stuff if you haven't read his memoir), actor Brian Narelle's behind the scenes stories and life and career overview (40 minutes), a 3D guide to the Dark Star ship, and a written introduction from O'Bannon that's rather fun. There are also poster and still galleries, written biographies of Carpenter, O'Bannon, Harris and Narelle and some trivia notes all ported over. New to this release is a booklet containing an essay by Michael Doyle from his forthcoming massive (and still increasing in size according to FAB publisher Harvey Fenton last week) book on John Carpenter and 'Commander Powell's Mission Log' which is also a nice bit of extra fun.

Fabulous Films, a company best known for decent reissues of older movies and TV shows, have pushed the boat out with their DARK STAR 4K UHD package. As well as the disc with all the extras above, the set boasts a slipcase around a rigid clamshell box that includes a sew-on mission patch, and a cardboard case containing 'mission files', which actually includes reproductions of the front of house still set, a double-sided UK quad poster repro showing that the infamous David Hamilton Grant was responsible for bringing this film to Britain, and a copy of the Bryanston Pictures press-book. Exceedingly posh and all very nice to have.

John Carpenter's DARK STAR is now available on Blu-ray and 4K UHD from Fabulous Films. The 'O' ring / clamshell / sew-on patch limited edition of 500 is only available from the Fabulous Films Website.