Bride of Reanimator (1989)

The sequel to Stuart Gordon's 1985 classic horror picture REANIMATOR gets an impressive / exhaustive 3-disc release from Arrow Films in a new Blu-ray / DVD dual format limited edition set that also comes with a perfect bound edition of the prequel comic Dawn of Reanimator.

Let's get something out of the way right at the start. REANIMATOR is one of the greatest horror films of all time, a frenetic and perfectly paced mix of outrageous splatter, well-timed humour and some good old-fashioned horror tropes given a delightfully enthusiastic spin. Add in some good acting, including a riveting central performance from Jeffery Combs ably assisted by some great villainy (David Gale) and an engaging, sympathetic female lead (Barbara Crampton) amongst others, and a music score that should incense with its unoriginality but actually, somehow, turns out to be the perfect accompaniment, and it's no wonder that REANIMATOR is a film that never feels old.

So, REANIMATOR is a classic.

BRIDE OF REANIMATOR is not.

To be honest, it's probably unfair to compare the two. While the first film is something of a case of catching lightning in a bottle, BRIDE is more an attempt by someone who has seen the lightning caught to do the same thing but doesn't really understand some of the major elements that caused that lightning to get trapped in the first place.

So what's the plot?

Eight months after escaping the end of the first film, Herbert West (still alive and not strangled by a length of large intestine as was previously suggested) and Dan Cain are in Peru, experimenting with war casualties using a version of Herbert's reanimation serum that had been modified by an extract from a species of iguana. They travel back to the US where they somehow get jobs as doctors at Miskatonic Hospital despite having caused so much havoc there as students less than a year ago (did they even qualify?). All that's left of Megan is her heart in a bag, next to Dr Hill's head in a bag, which is next to various other body parts in a cupboard in the pathology department. Herbert finds the heart and a pathologist (Mel Stewart who for some reason has a bat pinned to his bench (?) gets to play with Dr Hill's head. Herbert convinces Dan they should make a woman using Meg's heart. Herbert gets bored and randomly glues bits of bodies together. The Manchester University Atlas of Anatomy makes a guest appearance (Hooray! Seeing one of our textbooks was the best microsecond of the film for me and my friends when we saw it on its original release) and is used to crush a little scuttling thing made of fingers and an eye.

A very badly acted policeman keeps bumbling around (Claude Earl Jones in desperate need of the direction he probably didn't get). Fabiana Udenio turns up as 'the girl'. Dan makes love to her and has possibly the most appallingly uninspiring dialogue in the entire film. We don't care because we're too busy saying 'Alotta Fagina' in an AUSTIN POWERS accent every time Ms Udenio appears on screen. Kathleen Kinmont plays the bride (really quite well, actually). Dr Hill's head acquires bat wings. Everything goes mental at the end but sadly that isn't enough to save this rather insipid film.

The one really important thing BRIDE OF REANIMATOR lacks is any sense of the vitality than infused every frame of its predecessor. Dialogue is flat, and acting is even flatter. Jeffrey Combs is still great as Herbert West, but his fiddling about with body parts 'for a laugh' doesn't feel consistent with the driven-and-mad young scientist we know from the first film. In fact if anything, Herbert West seems as bored with this sequel as we are. Richard Band's music cues are very similar, but this time they couldn't afford an orchestra and so it's on synthesisers instead. Is that why it sounds so much less inspiring? Or is it just because the magic isn't there this time around? The pacing is off, everything drags, and the hole-ridden script(which is nowhere near as exuberantly daft as the first film) gets even more shown up for being, well, all a bit stupid, really. It's a shame, but one really needed someone of James Whale's talents (never mind even Stuart Gordon's) to give this BRIDE some life.

If the film itself isn't that great, Arrow's presentation, however, is second to none. BRIDE OF REANIMATOR has never looked very good on home video. The previous Tartan DVD looked like an Eastmancolor print someone had driven a car over (and sounded worse), but Arrow's Blu-ray looks crisp and vivid, so full marks to them for that. Two versions are presented here on Discs 1 (the unrated version) and 3 (the R-rated version). There's actually very little difference between the two.

Extras include three (!) commentaries - a new one by director Brian Yuzna and archival ones with Jeffery Combs and Bruce Abbott, and another with cast and crew. There's a new featurette with Yuzna and another featuring interviews with the special effects artists who worked on the film. There's a deleted scene (Meg is reanimated) and discussion of the excised carnival sequence. The same material is presented on Disc 1 (Blu-ray) and Disc 2 (DVD). Disc 3 is the R-rated cut with some behind the scenes footage as extra.

So there you go. Nowhere near as good as the first film (as is always the case unless you’re called MAD MAX 2), BRIDE OF REANIMATOR will still have the appeal of its totally insane ending for those of us who have to see everything. And now, thanks to Arrow, we can see it all in a really nice print. 

BRIDE OF REANIMATOR is coming out from Arrow Films in a limited edition Blu-ray and DVD three disc set (with some cracking artwork on the box) on 11th April 2016

Frightfest 2019 Day Five - Monday

The Black String

        Is Frankie Muniz going insane or is he really at the centre of a witches' plot to infect him with the black string he keeps tearing from his veins before it can be harvested by a demon? A satisfying 'rubber reality' horror in the vein of BLACK SWAN with an excellent central performance and a nicely cloying, paranoid atmosphere. 

Driven

        Utterly charming comedy horror in which taxi driver Casey Dillard picks up man with a mission Richard Speight, Jr and has to drive him to various locations to help him save the world. A tiny budget is used creatively and the leads are charismatic and likeable. A winner. 

The Barge People

WRONG TURN on the canal. Charlie Steeds' movie is slickly directed and shot, with a synth score and title sequence that almost seems to be making you want to remember movies like THE HILLS HAVE EYES. Some of the dialogue needed polishing, and much of the plot is exactly what Drew Goddard's THE CABIN IN THE WOODS is making fun of, but if you're not that familiar with this kind of storyline THE BARGE PEOPLE does what it should economically and with good effect.

Rabid

        One of the films greeted with the greatest anticipation at the festival, the remake of RABID by the Soska sisters is... all right. By trying to pay tribute to Cronenberg with numerous in-jokes and scene references the film is in perilous danger of being accused of having no style of its own. Which it doesn't really. On the whole the film feels flat and bland, like an episode of the TV series we see being filmed. 
        The climactic reveal is less a revelation and more a copy from a Lovecraft RPG manual or a heavy metal album cover. An over dwelling on Rose's daytime job in fashion threatens to diffuse any tension developed by the plague storyline, which all but disappears. Would a town under martial law really go ahead with a fashion show? This and other questions were more interesting than what was actually going on onscreen. The nicest thing I can say about the RABID remake is that it wasn't terrible. But its not especially worth watching, either.

Here Comes Hell

Channeling an interesting mix of influences from Agatha Christie-style period drama to EVIL DEAD to (bizarrely enough) the film-making style of Andy Milligan, this black and white, 4:3 aspect, shot for £20 000 British piece exhibits if nothing else an exuberantly amateur enthusiasm. Guests convene on a remote country house (obviously a very real - and very falling apart - location) for dinner and a seance. This results in the conjuring up of the spirit of satanist and former house owner Ichabod Quinn (Nicholas Le Provost) within the body of the now semi-headless medium. Splattery Sam Raimi-style shenanigans ensue as Quinn tries to open a portal to hell.

HERE COMES HELL tries its best to do something a little bit different, and do it with plenty of gusto, but the end result doesn't hang together that well. The acting ranges from professional to 'local village players', the effects are good and there's a decent music score. The film cost so little and exhibits so much ambition that I'll certainly be watching out for the next effort from the same personnel involved here. Worth a look if you're forgiving and in the mood for something a bit different. And barking mad.

HERE COMES HELL will be released on Digital HD on the Frightfest Presents label from Signature Entertainment on Monday 11th November 2019

A Good Woman Is Hard to Find

Sarah (Sarah Bolger) is finding it hard bringing up her two young children on a Northern Ireland council estate. She has little money, a mother who resents the life choices she has made, and the police are being supremely unhelpful with regards to the recent murder of her husband Stephen, a murder that was likely witness by her now mute son. 

Into her life (and her flat) barges Tito with a stash of cocaine he has just stolen from a local crime boss. He refuses to leave and starts using Sarah's flat as a place to keep his illicit bounty safe. But the mob are looking for him & Sarah isn't too happy about him using her either.

A brutal kitchen sink crime thriller with a crown-pleasing final act, the main reasons A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND works is because of the careful director by Abner Pastoll and most of all a winning central performance from Bolger. Grim without being grimy, it's a film that more than rewards sticking with it and a fine film with which to close Frightfest 2019.

A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND is out in cinemas and on Digital HD from Signature Entertainment on Thursday 25th October 2019

And that's it for another year! Time to get back on the train and treasure our Dario Argento autograph (on his book), our Andre Øvredal autograph (on someone else's book), our plastic fangs, and other bits and pieces we got given along the way. The best thing we'll have is the memories, though, of the best Frighfest ever, with at least one excellent film per day (Day 5's was DRIVEN by the way) and the chance to meet old friends. Next up for us is Nottingham's Mayhem Festival in October. Watch this space for reports of that. 

The Blue Dahlia (1946)

Arrow Academy continues its series of film noir Blu-ray releases with this Alan Ladd / Veronica Lake picture from 1946.

         Navy officer Johnny Morrison (Ladd) returns home from the war to find his house host to a party and his wife Helen (Doris Dowling) host to rather too much booze and what looks like a lover in the form of Eddie Harwood (Howard da Silva), owner of the Blue Dahlia nightclub. The guests clear out and Helen confesses that she lied to Johnny about their young son dying from diphtheria. Instead he was the victim of Helen’s drunken driving.

         Understandably upset by all of this, Johnny leaves home and ends up being given a lift by Harwood’s wife Joyce (Lake) to a hotel where they end up spending the night in a totally above board separate rooms kind of way. Meanwhile, Johnny’s wife is murdered & her body is found the next day by the cleaning lady. The hunt for Johnny is on, despite it being obvious that he’s not the killer.

So who is? Could it be Helen’s lover (and Joyce’s husband)? Could it be Johnny’s chum, the unfortunately named for UK audiences Buzz Wanchek (an excellent William Bendix) who has a metal plate in his head and is driven insane every time he hears jazz? Or is it someone else entirely?

A big success in its day, and following on from THE GLASS KEY as the next Ladd/Lake costarrer, THE BLUE DAHLIA will satisfy fans of old-fashioned mainstream Hollywood detective dramas. George Marshall’s direction is competent without ever being especially creative, and the two leads have an onscreen chemistry that’s actually rather pleasant.

         If you’ve been enjoying some of the other recent noir releases I’ve been writing about (like Robert Siodmak’s CRY OF THE CITY, Byron Haskin’s TOO LATE FOR TEARS or Norman Foster’s WOMAN ON THE RUN) be warned that THE BLUE DAHLIA feels a lot more...ordinary. There’s very little visual flair, quite a few of the dialogue scenes feel a bit flat, and there’s not much music to speak of. While those other movies feel deliciously cynical and subversive, THE BLUE DAHLIA feels like much more mainstream fare. 

You’ll want to switch off your HD settings for Arrow’s Blu-ray as HD is just a bit too much for this print. Extras include a commentary by Frank Krutnik, who also provides an introduction. There’s also a 1949 radio dramatisation featuring the same stars, trailer, promo materials, and if you get the first pressing there’s also a booklet with new writing on the movie by Adrian Wootton. 

THE BLUE DAHLIA is out on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy on Monday 19th September 2016

Die Before You Die (2024)

Director Dan Pringle's British variation on theme of being buried alive gets a cinema release from Bulldog Distribution.

Adi (co-writer Ziad Abaza) has his own youtube channel, is chasing 100 000 subscribers, and is always on the lookout for material to use as content. A chance meeting with Lee (Harry Reid) in a restaurant leads him to agreeing to a stunt where he will be buried six feet underground for three days (with water and an air supply) after which he will be dug up again.

However, when he and his colleague turn up to the assigned meeting place, it looks very much as if he has agreed to take part in a ritual. Deprived of his clothes and, most importantly, his phone, Adi decides to go along with the burial anyway as he can always report on it after. But then the blindfold comes out and Adi is driven to the middle of nowhere where he's then buried. But after three days have passed he begins to wonder if anyone is actually coming to dig him up. 

DIE BEFORE YOU DIE certainly goes in directions you aren't expecting, with the result that on the whole this is an intriguing and well told story. Unfortunately the ending is confusing rather than ambiguous, To say any more here would be to spoil it, suffice to say that after all that has gone before it feels a somewhat unsatisfying way to resolve things. Here's a trailer:

DIE BEFORE YOU DIE is out in UK cinemas on Friday 4th October 2024 and on Digital from Monday 28th October 2024

Fear in the Night 4K (1972)

 

Studio Canal are releasing the last of Hammer’s B-movie psycho thrillers (most of which were originally made to form the bottom half of a double bill) on 4K. The collector’s edition will include the film on both UHD and Blu-ray, as well as a 64 page booklet with new writing and a couple of posters.

Peggy (Judy Geeson) believes she has been attacked by an unseen assailant with one arm. She goes with her teacher husband Robert (Ralph Bates) to his new job at a remote public school. It’s out of term time so the only other people there, aside from a groundsman we see in a couple of shots, are the one-armed (aha!) headmaster Michael Carmichael (Peter Cushing) and his wife Molly (Joan Collins busy developing the persona that would do well for her in 1980s soaps). 

Peggy is attacked again. She believes it’s the headmaster, whom she shoots with a shotgun conveniently left by Robert when he goes to a convention. But when Robert returns Peggy’s in a daze and there’s no sign of a body. What’s going on?

With only four principal cast members, two of whom have very little screen time, it’s not too difficult to work out what must be happening, as we’re in ‘are they mad or are they being driven mad’ territory once again here. While FEAR IN THE NIGHT isn’t one of Hammer's best, it does boast a terrific setting of an empty boys’ school where the classrooms and corridors have been rigged up with the sound of the pupils so the headmaster can wander around and feel it’s still term-time. It’s a concept that makes the film worth watching and pretty much saves this from being nothing but the most routine of Hammer’s psycho-thriller output.

Studio Canal’s disc has a new extra of Kim Newman talking about the film for 26 minutes. Other extras are archival, including Studio Canal’s own making of from 2017 made to accompany the original Blu-ray release. There are also two commentary tracks, one with producer, director and co-writer Jimmy Sangster moderated by Marcus Hearn, and another with Troy Howarth, plus the usual trailer and stills galleries.

FEAR IN THE NIGHT is out in 4K in a two disc (UHD and Blu-ray) collector’s set from Studio Canal on Monday 23rd March 2026

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969)

 

Was there ever a producer of children's television more famous among his intended audience than Gerry Anderson? Certainly there wasn't when his shows originally aired. Driven by a desire to make big budget action spectaculars when he had actually been given the job of making TV for the younger generation, Gerry didn't let that get in his way, instead producing a unique, in fact one could argue auteurist, body of work that is still appreciated and remembered (along with the man himself) to this day.

Having found success with shows like Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Joe 90, Anderson made a rare foray into the world of live action features in 1969 with JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN, about to get a DVD and Blu-ray release courtesy of Fabulous Films. Anderson had already been involved with the feature films THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO (1966) AND THUNDERBIRD SIX (1968) but this was the first not to feature his trademark Supermarionation.

We're still firmly in Gerry's world, though, from the font on the opening credits to the intricate model work that looks as if it's just dying to be knocked over by Godzilla or the Giant Turnip Monster From Beyond the Moon. The plot of JOURNEY is more sober, however. A new planet is discovered on the far side of the sun and astronaut Glenn Ross (Roy Thinnes) and astrophysicist John Kane (Ian Hendry) are sent to explore, but they don't find what they're expecting.

JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN boasts excellent special effect for its era and an interesting cast that also includes Patrick Wymark,  Herbert Lom - whose eyeball-removal was a highlight of many a post-screening school playground conversation back in the day - and Lynn Loring, perhaps best known to readers here for the 1973 William Shatner Vs Menhirs TV movie HORROR AT 37 000 FEET. 

JOURNEY spends a lot of its running time getting our astronauts to the planet, but then this was the era of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the model work and scenes in space were probably designed to take their time to appeal to audiences wanting more nuts and bolts of spaceships coupling and uncoupling. In fact this is dwelt on so much that the concept of the mirror world our heroes discover isn't given half as much time to be developed before it's all over, with quite the downbeat ending in keeping with other SF movies of its era (this was the year of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES after all).

Fabulous Films' Blu-ray comes with a trailer and lovely cover art from Graham Humphreys but that's all. 

Gerry Anderson's JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN is out on Blu-ray and DVD from Fabulous Films on Monday 22nd March 2021

The Wailing aka Goksung (2016)

“Great K-Horror with No Easy Answers”

I’m stating that up front because, while THE WAILING is a great film with lots of atmosphere, some excellent performances and a lot of very interesting ideas, if you like a film that ties everything up neatly at the end with an explanation be warned - THE WAILING doesn’t do that. At all.

THE WAILING opens with a passage from the Bible that becomes relevant close to the end (I’ll leave you to discover exactly how). Then we find ourselves in a dreary, rainy village in South Korea (the film’s original title refers to the mountainous region where the village is located). Strange things are occurring, including a series of murders where the killers have gone mad and in some cases been affected by a skin condition akin to boils. 

Local police sergeant Jong-Goo (Do-won Kwak) learns that the deaths only started following the arrival of a mysterious Japanese man (Jun Kunimura with his leg all better after Takashi Miike’s AUDITION) who lives in an EVIL DEAD-like cabin in the woods. When Jong-Goo’s young daughter starts to behave bizarrely, it’s time to call in a shaman, who claims that a demon has arrived in the village and if it isn’t driven out everyone in the village will die. He seems to know what he’s doing, but does he actually end up making things better or worse? 

That’s just one of the questions you’ll be asking yourself long after THE WAILING is over. Before that you will have been treated to a plot that keeps you guessing as to just who can and can’t be trusted as Jong-Goo deals with horrible murders, demonic possession, at least one zombie (I think) and a sense of almost Old Testament-style Smiting. 

As I’ve said above, the ending leaves you with plenty of questions unanswered, & if you’ve a mind to there are plenty of message boards on the internet trying to come to grips with what THE WAILING is all about. It has been compared to David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DRIVE in its complex plot, but whereas the Lynch film makes perfect sense once you find the right way into it, I have a feeling THE WAILING isn’t the kind of film that’s designed to have a definitive explanation. 

As long as you don’t mind that, I’d very much recommend THE WAILING. The running time clocks in at over two and a half hours but the film doesn’t feel that at all. In fact, it’s a rare film that gets to ninety minutes only for me to be relieved that there’s at least another hour to go - that’s how well made and engrossing this one is.

THE WAILING is only getting a DVD release in the UK. If the transfer that hits the shelves is anything like the review disc I was sent I’m afraid to report it’s pretty grotty, with blurring of the lush countryside every time the camera moves. As far as I can tell the release will have no extras. 

THE WAILING is out on UK DVD from Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment on 30th January 2017

The Assassination Bureau (1969)

Arrow Films start the year with a winner with their new Blu-ray of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph's THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU, which features a quite glorious transfer as well as all-new extras.

It's just before World War I and the Assassination Bureau of the title is a Europe-wide organisation dedicated to the requested bumping off of individuals who are deemed to pose a threat to the world order. Enterprising journalist Sonia Winter (Diana Rigg) backed by newspaper magnate Lord Bostwick (Telly Savalas) requests a hit on the very chairman of the organisation itself - Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed). Dragomiloff accepts the challenge with a twinkle in his eye & sets off around Europe with Sonia in tow, avoiding assassination attempts left and right. But there's a greater, more evil plan at work here, too.

A cheerful, colourful film about organised murder, THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU takes the same approach to its subject matter as Robert Hamer's 1949 KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS or Brian Forbes' 1966 THE WRONG BOX while packing it with familiar faces in the style of MONTE CARLO OR BUST and similar colourful epics from the period. It's all very jolly stuff and will no doubt be remembered with affection by many from all its TV screenings in the 1980s. 

Producer Michael Relph was also the production designer and has a whale of a time coming up with some (occasionally James Bond-like) gorgeous sets. If he did the hats too this must have been the job of a lifetime for him. Ron Grainer supplies the bouncy score and some of the harpsichord-driven bits will remind 1960s TV obsessives of some of his work for The Prisoner amongst others. 

THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU has already seen release in Blu-ray by Imprint / ViaVision in Australia. However, if you are a fan and bought that version you are definitely going to want to double dip as not only are the extras all different but Arrow's transfer is infinitely better. Reliable hands (and voices) Kim Newman and Sean Hogan provide a chatty, knowledgeable commentary track while Matthew Sweet gives is a 28 minute piece where he talks more about the book and the times in which the book was published and the film was released in and how the word 'Assassination' wasn't really suited to a jolly romp with exploding zeppelins. There's also a trailer and a stills gallery, plus a booklet with new writing on the film by Katherine McLaughlin.

Basil Dearden and Michael Relph's THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU is out on Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 5th January 2026