Wickedly Evil (2023)

        Ultra low budget 'home-made horror' strikes again with the digital release (from 101 Films) of Garry Walsh's gory comedy set in Ireland.

After robbing Irish crime family the Lynches while dressed as Ninja frogs, three incompetent crooks hide out in a remote bungalow in the Irish countryside while they wait to hear form their contact. They have money, beer and drugs, and having consumed the latter are in no fit state to deal with what might just be supernatural goings-on during the night they have to stay there.

WICKEDLY EVIL has just a few of actors and for the most part the movie is restricted to the one location. In that way it resembles Sean Hogan's THE DEVIL'S BUSINESS. However, whereas Hogan's film was distinctly Pinteresque,  WICKEDLY EVIL is far more Chuckle Brothers in its execution. 

        That said, if that kind of comedy makes you laugh you'll find a couple of moments here of such silly comedy that they cannot help but raise a smile. I seem to say this about a lot of ultra-low budget UK & Irish product but if you're in the right mood and not at all demanding then WICKEDLY EVIL will help pass an otherwise uneventful evening. Here's a trailer:

WICKEDLY EVIL is out on Digital from 101 Films on Monday 13th November 2023

Showdown at the Grand (2023)

"Full of Love For 80s Action Pictures"

There's a strong nostalgic feel to Orson Oblowitz's SHOWDOWN AT THE GRAND, which is getting a digital release from Signature Entertainment.

George Fuller (Terrence Howard) is the owner-operator of the Warner Grand, a movie theater that has been in his family for generations. His latest scheme to sell more tickets is to invite 1980s action movie star Claude Luc Hallyday (Dolph Lundgren) to introduce and host a retrospective of his movies.

Unfortunately, evil property developers want George's prime site and, having met with no success in getting him to sign over the cinema, launch an all-out attack on the building during the night of Claude's guest appearance. Needless to say, neither George nor Claude are going down without a fight.

SHOWDOWN AT THE GRAND wants so much to be in the style of old action movies it hurts, and the clips we see of Claude's old films are the best thing about the picture. Unfortunately Orson Oblowitz is no Joe Begos, who would have really made the most out of the concept. Instead, the movie lacks vigour and can never quite make its mind up if it wants to be funny or serious (unlike something like Begos' VFW, which managed both). If you love movies that are themselves nostalgic for older movies you'll want to catch this, but it could have been so much better.

SHOWDOWN AT THE GRAND is out on Digital from Signature Entertainment on Monday 13th November 2023

Give Me Pity (2023)

"Ambitious But Ultimately Unsatisfactory Oddity"

Older readers of this site will remember television specials, when popular variety entertainers of the day were given an hour of prime time TV in which to sing, dance and perform in little sketches, often with guest stars of equal talent. In the UK some of these personalities (usually singers) would sometimes get a whole series instead of just an hour. Examples from back in the day would include Cilla Black, Toni Basil, and Leo Sayer.

Amanda Kramer's GIVE ME PITY, which is getting a cinema and on demand release, takes the form of one of these old television specials from the 1970s, 4:3 aspect ratio and all, and uses it to give us 80 minutes of entertainment from fictional star Sissy St Clare (Sophie von Hasselberg). As the programme of songs, sketches and monologues proceeds things start to go a little bit strange and we gain an insight into Sissy's world.

Except we don't, not really. GIVE ME PITY takes a very good idea but squanders it, offering veiled and muddled references to what might be Sissy's past but by the end all the viewer is left with is a confusing and unsatisfactory mess. If you want to see this kind of thing done well check out Steve Coogan's TV Special spoof The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon, which contains more satirical barbs and disturbing subtext in 50 minutes than GIVE ME PITY manages in its entire running time. In fact, rather than a professional piece of film-making, GIVE ME PITY feels more as if you've stumbled into the end of year show of an especially pretentious drama school, featuring a central performance that's a cross between 1970s Bette Midler and a refugee from a John Waters movie, and a script that thinks it's far cleverer than it actually is. Here's the trailer:

GIVE ME PITY is out in cinemas and available on demand from Bulldog Distribution on Friday 10th November 2023

Interview with the Vampire (2023)

"Excellent New Adaptation of Anne Rice's Novel"

AMC's seven part dramatisation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, previously filmed by Neil Jordan in 1994, gets a Blu-ray, DVD and Digital release from Acorn Media International.

        Journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian from Oliver Stone's TALK RADIO) receives an invite to attend the palatial residence, located in one of the towering architectural structures of Dubai, of Louis de Point du Lac (Jacob Anderson, best known up until now for his role as Grey Worm in Game of Thrones). 

Louis wants to resurrect and revamp (sorry) an interview they did together many years ago, correcting mistakes, filling in gaps and providing more honest answers - perhaps. Daniel connects up his laptop and the story begins. 

In the New Orleans of the early 20th century, Louis is a pimp who is so successful he has attracted the interests of a number of wealthy businessmen. When he meets the recently-arrived Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) his world is turned upside down, as it turns out Lestat is a vampire with designs on his new acquaintance. By the end of the first episode Louis is Lestat's partner as well as a fledgling apprentice vampire. By the end of this first season World War II has just kicked off and the dynamic has changed considerably, but to say any more would spoil things for those who haven't read the book.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE is glossy gothic horror done very right indeed, taking the PENNY DREADFUL approach of not skimping on the graphic gore and sex while airbrushing the period setting so that it more resembles a lush Hammer film than a realistic portrayal of the times. And that's just fine because if we're ever going to really believe in someone with a name like Lestat de Lioncourt it's in the kind of environment created here. 

Everyone brings their A game to the production. The costumes and sets are lavish, Daniel Hart's music score is complex and varied, ranging from silent movie-style piano to full-on blood and thunder when needed. The first two episodes are directed by Alan Taylor who seems to well and truly have his mojo back after the disappointing blockbuster sequels THOR 2: THE DARK WORLD  (2013) and TERMINATOR: GENISYS (2015). 

Acorn's two disc Blu-ray or DVD set contains all seven episodes, with running times averaging 45 minutes each. The only extra is a panel from the 2022 San Diego comic con, but it's nearly 40 minutes of Q&A with the principal cast members as well as show 'creator' Rolin Jones. With the presence of films and shows on streaming being as transient and prone to disappearing as the vampires the show portrays, it's even more important that as fine a show as this is being preserved in a medium you can keep. Excellent stuff and highly recommended. 

AMC's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE is already out on Digital, and is being released on Blu-ray and DVD by Acorn International Media on Monday 6th November 2023

Bite (2023)

"An Everyday Story of Suburban Folk"

That's a play on the tagline for Pete Walker's superior 1974 FRIGHTMARE by the way, for those who didn't spot it, and while director, co-writer and co-producer James Owens' film isn't really up to matching that classic, BITE is still an entertaining, and extremely gory, timewaster if you fancy a bit of eccentric suburban grue.

Nina (Shian Donovan) and Yaz (Nansi Nue) plan to go straight after their scheme to rob an illegal dog-fighting ring goes wrong. However, they plan to do one last job at a house where they know £3000 has been stashed in a biscuit tin. It also happens to be the house where Nina recently spent four nights with no memory of what happened after she was given a lift by Beryl (former child star Annabelle Lanyon probably best known for Ridley Scott's LEGEND as well as Harley Cokeliss' DREAM DEMON) who lives there with her husband Gerald (Stuart Sessions). Unfortunately for the girls Gerald has a basement full of semi-dissected corpses and the family has a penchant for eating human meat.

Starting off like a gloomy, brutal crime picture, BITE soon changes gears and, once we're in the house of horrors it starts to feel a bit like an episode of Inside No.9, albeit one where it's difficult sometimes to tell if the humour is intentional or not. The film is pretty rough around the edges but in its favour are a couple of decent performances and the fact that it's never dull. There's the sense that Owen knows his horror and has gone out of his way to homage both Tobe Hooper's TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and Herschell Gordon Lewis' BLOOD FEAST and if you know those movies you'll be able to spot which bits I mean. The ending peters out a bit but if you fancy something cheap and cheerful with some jolly throwing around of blood and body parts this might fit the bill on a quiet evening. Here's the trailer:

BITE is out on digital from Bulldog Film Distribution on Monday 27th October 2023

Pandora's Box (1929)

Eureka are releasing an excellent restoration of G W Pabst's 1929 silent melodrama on Blu-ray, using materials sourced from three different prints and with some decent extras, as part of their Masters of Cinema series.

Lulu (Louise Brooks) is young, carefree, ambitious and a prostitute. Through a series of liaisons both past and present she becomes a showgirl and contrives to hang onto one of her lovers, newspaper editor Dr Ludwig Schon (Fritz Kortner) after he tells her he has plans to marry. She manages to disgrace him before his future bride and ends up marrying him herself.

Unfortunately for her, and because of her, the wedding night is a disaster and her new husband is killed. Lulu stands trial but escapes with Dr Schon's son Alva (Frances Lederer, best known to readers as the mad scientist in Gerardo De Leon's TERROR IS A MAN and Dracula himself in Paul Landres' RETURN OF DRACULA). On the run, she and Alva slowly enter a life of squalor, culminating in her meeting a sadistic killer when she recommences her old career.

In many ways, the opening half of PANDORA'S BOX presages the soapy hedonistic bestsellers of the 1970s popularised by the authors such as Harold Robbins and Judith Krantz, which would often show posh people being undone by an ambitious youngster from the wrong side of the streets, only for they themselves to come undone. The second half of the film, which details Lulu's comeuppance, is more of a slog, and with a running time of well over two hours, the film probably doesn't need to be as long as it is. 

It certainly deserves to be called a masterpiece, though. Even now, nearly 100 years later, it's possible to be impressed by Pabst's directorial eye, with some shots emulating paintings by Bosch or Hogarth. Extras kick off with an excellent commentary from Pamela Hutchinson who wrote the BFI guide to movie and gives us plenty of excellent observation and analysis of what's happening onscreen. Kat Ellinger provides a 20 minute look at the emergence of a new kind of woman - the 'dangerous feminine' in 1920s cinema, David Cairns looks at how the film adapts its source material, in particular in relation to Pabst's revolutionary style of film-making in Godless Beasts, and Fiona Watson provides a 20 minute video essay on star Louise Brooks. Finally, there's an eight minute piece on the restoration of the film itself, showing the huge amount of work that went into what we now have to enjoy on Blu-ray. Eureka's set also comes with a 60 page book featuring new writing on the film.

G W Pabst's PANDORA'S BOX is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 30th October 2023

The Clangers (1969 - 1972)

"British Television Eccentricity at its Best"

The Clangers, the show Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin created in response to the BBC's request for them to do something modern, perhaps to tie in with the recent moon landings, gets a DVD and Blu-ray release from Fabulous Films.

If you haven't seen the show, the Clangers of the title are large pink mouse-like creatures who wear outfits that look like armour, walk on their hind legs, and communicate via whistling sounds. They live underground and access the surface of their tiny planet by opening the saucepan lids that guard their egress holes. 

Other inhabitants of this strange place include the soup dragon, who guards the soup wells. Soup is a Clanger dietary staple, as is blue string, which looks like badly made spaghetti bolognese with bits of mould stuck to it. 

We also get to meet the iron chicken in episode three, shot out of space by a clanger rocket and reassembled by the clangers so it can fly back home. Don't ask why a chicken can fly - it's already made of metal and talking to pink mice on a planet filled with soup. A flying chicken is the least weird thing about all of that. There are also the froglets, which are tiny orange bits of plastic with eyes. 

The Clangers are probably best known these days for being the creatures Roger Delgado's Master is watching on TV in the Jon Pertwee Dr Who story The Sea Devils, although they were resurrected a few years ago with Michael Palin narrating in the UK and William Shatner (apt choice!) doing the honours for American children.

Fabulous Films' set includes both seasons of 13 ten-minute episodes each, so you get 26 episodes and 260 minutes in all. The restoration job done on the Blu-ray makes the episodes look wonderful. Having been part of the original youthful audience for the show I remember the episodes being rather grainy, making the clangers and their planet look a little cold and grotty. The new Blu-ray transfers are warm and crystal clear and look just lovely.  Extras are the same as were on their previous BAGPUSS set (The Story of Smallfilms, the clip where the show wins the BAFTA) plus an eight minute 'extra episode' - Vote for Froglet, in which Oliver Postgate attempts to explain the democratic electoral system using the soup dragon and a froglet as political candidates and the clangers as the voting populace. Presumably there was a general election on at the time. 

The Clangers 1969 - 1972 is out on DVD and Blu-ray from Fabulous Films on Monday 30th October 2023