The Secret of Marrowbone (2018)

"Atmospheric High Class EuroHorror"

Oh yes, this may be set in America and feature American and British actors, but a quick look at the credits and it becomes obvious that THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE is a Spanish production, and a very good one indeed. After a brief theatrical run earlier this year eOne are now bringing MARROWBONE (the film's US title) out on DVD and Download in the UK.

Rural America in the late 1960s. The Fairbairn family arrive from England, take up residence in a crumbling manor house some distance from the nearest town, and change their surname to Marrowbone. Mother has a terminal disease and father is nowhere to be seen, and soon the four Marrowbone children are on their own. Or are they? Who's that watching the house? And what's making those sounds in the attic?

Starting off bit like one of those old-fashioned children's serials the BBC used to show at Sunday teatime, THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE doesn't take long in getting to the scary stuff, providing some really splendid shivers and a climax that will have any fan of classic BritHorror nodding with pleasure. 

The film was written and directed by Sergio Sanchez. He also wrote 2007's THE ORPHANAGE and quite a few of the same crew are involved here (ORPHANAGE director J A Bayona is executive producer). The young cast is excellent, with special mention going to George Mackay as oldest child Jack, and Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth (horror & weird cinema veterans both) as Jack's love interest and sister respectively.

eOne's DVD comes with 27 minutes of extended and deleted scenes, plus a short VFX clip that's well worth a look to see just how much work went into transforming the Spanish locations into American-looking ones. 

One of my favourite films of 2018, THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE didn't get the press coverage it deserved on its initial release. Hopefully it will turn out to be one of those cult sleepers that more and more will discover as the years go on. Don't miss out on it. 

Sergio G Sanchez's THE SECRET OF MARROWBONE is out on DVD from Monday 19th of November 2018. It's already out on download.  

Project A & Project A Part II (1983 & 1987)

It's time for some more knockabout martial arts comedy fun as Eureka releases Jackie Chan's colourful period adventure pictures in a special limited edition two-disc hardbound boxed set.

PROJECT A sounds like it might be science fiction, or possibly a political thriller, but in fact it's a pirate adventure set at the turn of the century. (The title was apparently Chan's attempt to stop other studios copying him before his film had been released).

This time, our Jackie is Sergeant Dragon Ma, a member of the Hong Kong Marine Police Force. Pirates have been attacking and raiding ships in the area and it's up to our hero, with the help of Sammo Hung, to get into as many highly (and possibly sometimes dangerously) choreographed fight scenes as possible. For those of you interested in Chan's stunts, this is the one where he pays tribute to silent comedian Harold Lloyd by hanging from a clock before plummeting (several times in the out-takes) to the ground, without the aid of a net but with the aid of some canopies to break his fall.

PROJECT A PART II followed four years later. Dragon Ma is still busy up against pirates, again in lengthy, sometimes breathtakingly choreographed fight scenes. This time we get a tribute to the Marx Brothers' A NIGHT AT THE OPERA and perhaps even more famously, a tribute to the classic scene in Buster Keaton's STEAMBOAT BILL JR where a house falls onto our protagonist and he escapes unscathed. 

Eureka's transfers for PROJECT A PARTS I & II are absolutely gorgeous - bright and colourful, they've done a very fine job indeed with these 2K restorations. Both films have both Cantonese & English dialogue tracks. There's an absolute stack of interviews (ten altogether), some of them new and some archival. You also get an archival featurette, Jackie's introduction to the film for the lunar new year 1984, behind the scenes footage, alternate out-takes from the Japanese version of PROJECT A, behind the scenes footage and deleted scenes. Exclusive to the box set are booklets for each film, featuring both new and archival material.

Jackie Chan's PROJECT A & PROJECT A PART II are out in a limited edition set now. 

Long Weekend (1978)

"Classic Downbeat Ozsploitation Eco-Horror"

Colin Eggleston's 1978 Ozsploitation When Animals Attack picture gets a welcome UK Blu-ray release courtesy of Second Sight.

Bickering, shrill, annoying couple Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) decide to try and patch up their failing marriage by spending a long weekend in the country. They lose their way but end up near an isolated beach. Showing nothing but disdain for the wildlife around them, they leave a trail of casual vandalism and destruction in their wake, including the deaths of some of the creatures they encounter. But nature has decided it isn't going to take this sort of treatment from humankind any more.

A remarkable movie that is at once low-key and yet manages to achieve levels of claustrophobic hysteria unsurpassed in a subgenre that includes George McCowan's FROGS (1972), and William Girdler's DAY OF THE ANIMALS (1977). However, where those movies had some sympathetic human characters, LONG WEEKEND has none, and the viewer finds themselves rooting for nature pretty much from the start. 

Second Sight's Blu-ray looks great and comes with some excellent extras, with more on here than on the US Region A disc from Synapse. The commentary track from Executive Producer Richard Brennan and Director of Photography Vincent Monton on that disc has been ported over. Nature Found Them Guilty - Examining Long Weekend is a very good panel discussion moderated by Lee Gambin who talks in depth about the film with Alexandra Heller-Nichols, Emma Westwood and Sally Christie. 

You also get interviews with star Briony Behets, DP Vincent Monton and screenwriter Everett de Roche, taken from Mark Hartley's excellent Ozsploitation documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD. There's also an archival audio interview with star John Hargreaves.

Finally you get a stills gallery and trailer. A couple of sound options are offered, the 5.1 mix giving you the feeling that you're in the middle of the nowhere with the leads for added discomfort. 

Colin Eggleston's LONG WEEKEND is out on Blu-ray from Second Sight on Monday 5th November 2018

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)

"When Comic Book Movies Go Bad"

Oh yes, the movie that has passed into legend in terms of how much it cost compared to how rubbish the final outcome actually was gets a re-release from Fabulous Films. But is it really as bad as people claim?

The film starts with an interesting bit of action. Or at least it would be if someone hadn't decided to put the credits over it. Then we get to feel very sorry indeed for David Hemmings (the actor not the character) before we are introduced to the very very expensive indeed Sean Connery.

Sean is playing H Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain & he's been chosen (although goodness knows why) as the leader of a bunch of nineteenth century literary characters to defeat the evil scheme of the lead singer of Metallica who has presumably been injured in an amp feedback accident.

Richard Roxburgh plays 'M' (oh dear) and plays him as if he's forgotten to stop being the Duke in Baz Luhrmann's MOULIN ROUGE (oh dear oh dear). He introduces the other members of the team. These include token female and Jess Franco tribute Mina Harker (a vampire who can see herself in a mirror, walk around in daylight and she wears a long red scarf. If she's not meant to be a tribute to Soledad Miranda in VAMPYROS LESBOS this film is even less interesting than I thought); a rights issue (presumably H G Wells' estate wouldn't let them use his Invisible Man); Captain Nemo (because they need a ridiculous boat that won't fit up the canals of Venice but somehow does anyway) and...oh I've forgotten the others already. Let me have a look at the picture.

Oh yes! Dorian Gray who is immortal and so are his clothes, it would seem. Dr Jekyll who can turn into the most Looney Tunes version of Mr Hyde ever shown, and Tom Sawyer because, you know, America or something (that last bit the actual words from a script conference I suspect).

Off they go to Venice!

Metallica is busy destroying the city. They save it by destroying even more buildings. But wait! One of them is a spy! And there's even more dastardly work afoot! An evil plan to...

Now this is where I began to lose track of what was going on entirely. I'm not going to spoil it for those who want to watch the film, mainly because I'm not sure if anyone really knew what was going on anyway. But there's snow and a castle and a truly daft looking monster.

Is the graphic novel any good? I don't know as I haven't read it. Is this film any good? Sadly not. In fact it's depressing to see something that looks as if a fortune was spent on every shot, every set and every costume, but not a penny was spent on sorting out a decent rip-roaring story to tell. This is not LXG's only problem - there's a real lack of enthusiasm on the part of some of the cast and some genuinely startling overacting from others. 

Fabulous Films' disc also contains some featurettes and a number of deleted and extended scenes if you really want to see more of this once the film has actually finished. 

THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN is out on DVD & Blu-ray from Fabulous Films now.

The Gateway aka Alpha Gateway (2018)

"Intriguing SF Thriller"

After a successful festival run, John V Soto's new science fiction film comes to VOD as either THE GATEWAY or ALPHA GATEWAY depending on where you live.

Jane Chandler (Jacqueline McKenzie) is a particle physicist researching a method of contacting parallel universes. She eventually succeeds, transporting an apple that is returned with a bite taken out of it, along with a handwritten message of greeting. When Jane and her colleague Regg (Ben Mortley) send a video camera across they get a recording back showing that the universe they have contacted is very much like their own, right down to it being populated by their doubles.

Jane's husband Matt (Myles Pollard) is killed in a car accident. Jane sends herself into the parallel universe to find the Matt over there still alive. She brings him back to her world. But New Dimension Matt isn't quite like Old Dimension Matt, as Jane soon finds out to her and her family's cost. 

Belonging to the same SF movie subgenre as Nacho Vigalondo's Spanish TIMECRIMES (2007) and this year's MEGA TIME SQUAD from New Zealand, here director John V Soto gives us an Australian take on the theme of messing with realities one should leave well alone. He does a very good job as well, working within what must have been a low budget. In fact along with the above movies, THE GATEWAY feels very much like a superior episode of the late 1990s OUTER LIMITS TV series. 

I reviewed John V Soto's NEEDLE on here a few (six!) years ago, & it's good to see he remains a film-maker interested in pursuing thought-provoking genre projects. Ideally what he needs is Hollywood studio backing with the kind of budget that would allow him to more widely explore the ideas raised in THE GATEWAY. 

In the meantime, catch up with THE GATEWAY (and NEEDLE for that matter) so you can say you were there before John V Soto hit the big time. 

John V Soto's THE GATEWAY aka ALPHA GATEWAY is out

 on various VOD platforms now, including Amazon Prime in the UK).