Drag Me to Hell - Out on DVD Now

Drag Me to Hell seems Sam Rami return to the horror genre after directing the Spiderman franchise. Written ten years ago with his brother Ivan Drag Me to Hell centres on easy-going bank employee Christine (Lohman) who tries to impress her boss by refusing a loan extension to Mrs Ganush (Raver). Later that day when Christine returns to her car Ganush attacks her and places a curse on her. Christine then has three days to lift the curse before she is dragged to hell.

Rami has the skill and vision as a storyteller to lift a basic horror ‘curse’ story into something strangely enjoyable. Mrs Ganush is a suitably horrible, weird eye, claw like nails and false teeth whereas Christine is suitably put on as she suffers from ordeal after ordeal. Christine’s one flaw was to try to impress her boss but this triggers a series of horrible events that she is unable to escape from.

Lohman is great in the lead role, shes naive, insecure and definitely got my sympathies, I hope to see her in more roles in the future and Raver presents us with a suitably memorable horror villian. I didn’t find the movie scary but I did jump and cringe at some of the scenes, notably being when Christine’s habit of leaving her mouth open when horrible objects and liquids get poured in made my stomach turn.

It’s a good horror film, makes you jump, makes you cringe and keeps you guessing. Well worth checking out.

Director – Sam Raimi

Cast:

Alison Lohman – Christine Brown
Justin Long – Clay Dalton
Lorna Raver – Mrs Ganush

For the official website click here

Drag Me to Hell - Trailer

Looking For Eric - Out on DVD now

Looking for Eric is Ken Loach’s latest film where he introduces us to Eric Bishop (Evets) a middle-aged postman who has managed to mess up his life. The film begins with Eric in a state of despair and depression he’s alone, he has two disrespectful stepsons, and he is finding it difficult to cope and cannot see a future. Enter into this Eric Cantona, Eric’s football hero who helps him get his life on track.

The film sometimes slides into a slightly predictable gritty drama as Eric’s life increasingly spirals out of control when one of his stepsons gets involved with the local gangster. Overall though this is a hopeful, funny and ultimately uplifting film. Eric is a man who has bottled up the past and tried to hide it away but because of a change of circumstances and using the confidence of Cantona he confronts it and tries to make amends as he comes to terms with the ghosts of his past. Eric is also a man who doesn’t realise what he has – amazing friends, a gang of posties who will stand by and help their friend with whatever is needed.

This film made me laugh, which is not something I would usually say about a Ken Loach film, it’s a film that was uplifting and warm hearted, the second chance that can pass people by and how to find the strength to change your life. Personally I wouldn’t have chosen Cantona but if it works for Eric then that’s more than fine by me.

Director – Ken Loach

Cast:
Steve Evets – Eric Bishop
Eric Cantona – himself
Stephanie Bishop – Lily
Gerard Kearns – Ryan
Stefan Gumbs – Jess

For the offical website click here

Slumdog Millionaire – Out on DVD now

Danny Boyle’s multi Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire centres on Jamal Malik (Patel) an orphan from the slums of Mumbai. Jamal is appearing on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and is one question away from the 20 million-rupee question when the programme finishes filming for the night. Off air Jamal is arrested accused of cheating and is forced to explain how he knows each answer. The answers form a sequence of events in Jamals adventure filled life.

Slumdog won 8 Oscars at the ceremony earlier this year and because of that viewing it comes with a weight of expectation of great things. The story is colourful and vibrant the audience is invited along for the story of Jamal, his brother, Salim, and the love of his life Latika and their struggles to rise above the slum they were born into to find a better life for themselves. Each answer on Millionaire, Jamal gives directly corresponds to a chapter in his life – a life that is already multi layered and is both tragic and amusing.

I liked the film but I didn’t love it, the film itself looks great the cinematography is amazing, Jamal seems to spend most of his life running from one situation to another and we are treated to dizzying views of the Mumbai slums and the surrounding increasingly industrialised city. There are beautiful shots and amazing colours as well as children in abject poverty picking their way over rubbish heaps, children being prayed on by adults willing to exploit them, lazy policemen, corrupt gangsters, slick game show hosts and in the centre is Jamal searching for the love of his life. I think for me the story was a little too predictable and it felt too contrived.

The cast are good, Patel conveys the idealistic, slightly innocent dreamer Jamal well whereas Freda Pinto is the breathtakingly beautiful object of his affections. For me though the heart of the film are the children who portray the three central characters as they grow up – they manage to be touching without being cheesy, funny, and most of all they are believable as they steer the way through their perilous existence. For me the story of the children is better than the story of the adults.

I loved the look of the film but for all of the hype I found the story predictable and therefore a little disappointing.

Director - Danny Boyle

Cast:

Dev Patel – Jamal K Malik
Freida Pinto - Latika
Anil Kapoor – Prem
Madhur Mittal – Older Salim
Ayush Mahesh Khedekar & Tanay Chheda - as Jamal growing up
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail & Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala - as Salim growing up
Rubina Ali & Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar- as Latika growing up

Click here for the official website



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Coraline - Out on DVD now

Based on Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name Henry Selick (the man behind The Nightmare Before Christmas), Coraline tells the story of young Coraline Jones (Fanning) an inquisitive bored girl, who’s parents have just moved into an apartment which forms one of many in a rambling run down house. The house is home to many strange inhabitants from two faded actresses, a circus performer and even a talking cat. The strangest inhabitants of them all though is Coraline’s other mother and other father – nearly the same as her real parents but they don’t ignore here, they cook their favourite food …. but what secrets are they hiding behind their button eyes.

Coraline is a film that shares a lot of similarities in style with Selick’s earlier Nightmare Before Christmas; weird characters, Kaleidoscopic Technicolor scenes with strange twists and a storyline that rivals one of Grimm’s fairy tales. The animation is great and stylish and the characterisation is good which is such a vital component of an animated film. Its gives the younger audience the scare factor as well as the wow factor a key that makes the best fairy tales stand out from the rest.
As an adult I really enjoyed it, it might not be everyone’s choice but if you liked Selick’s predecessor then you shouldn’t overlook this.

Director – Henry Selick

Cast:

Dakota Fanning – Coraline Jones (Voice)
Teri Hatcher – Mel Jones / Other Mother / Beldam (Voice)
Jennifer Saunders – Miss April Spink / Other Spink (Voice)
Dawn French – Miss Miriam Forcible / Other Forcible (Voice)
Keith David – The Cat (Voice)
John Hodgman – Charlie Jones / Other Father (Voice)

Click here for the official website

Dead Snow – Out on DVD now

A group of medical students go on holiday to an isolated log cabin in the mountains. While at the cabin they discover a box under the floorboards full of World War II Nazi gold. A battalion of Nazi zombie soldiers who are using the mountain as their base aren’t happy with the students taking their gold so they decide to hunt them and eat their intestines!

Excuse me if you have heard this before…there’s a group of young students isolated in a cabin when they start getting picked off one by one they decide to split up to try and get help for the others and in doing so surprise surprise they come to a nasty end.

Ok, so this is a B Movie, it is low budget and more of a disappointment is that it does nothing original at all. Its like a tick list of stalk and slash horror movies, group of medical students - check, one of the student doesn’t like blood – check, there’s a weird local man who drops in to fill everyone in on the spooky local history – check, have only one of the students knowing the way out – check, have a couple of the students die nasty deaths after having sex – check and so it goes on.

It’s not all bad though; the deaths are suitably gory and the blood runs all over the student group. The Nazi’s themselves were a complete disappointment though, the make up is 2nd class, they sporadically act like zombies – one moment they are stumbling like traditional zombies and the next moment they are sprinting across the snow. I found myself laughing at the zombies from time to time as they just looked like a bunch of bouncers, covered in talcum powder, hanging around waiting for a nod from the chief bouncer dressed in a weird uniform

There’s nothing original about this movie although it’s also not all bad, just don’t expect too much!

Directed by Tommy Wirkola

Cast

Vegar Hoel – Martin
Stig Fride Henriksen – Roy
Charlotte Frogner – Hanna
Lasse Valdal – Vegard

Click here for the website

Outlander – Out on DVD now

Set in 709BC in the Iron Age in Norway a space ship crash lands carrying Kainan (Caviezel) and an unwelcome hitchhiker, a deadly alien creature called a Moorwen. The creature begins to attack and kill people from Viking settlements. As Kainan is the only person who knows how to fight and kill the Moorwen he fights alongside the Vikings to free them from the terror he brought into their world.

It was a premise that had promise alien creatures against Vikings but sadly the promise fell a lot short of what the film actually delivers. The script s very predictable and the majority of the film appears to be a collection of borrowed ideas – it brings nothing new to the table.

The fight scenes have been seen before, primarily in Gladiator (when the Romans attack the Germanic tribes) or Braveheart – swords flash, mud and blood splatters in that slightly speeded up and then slowed down effect. The creature itself is the offspring of the trolls from Lord of the Rings and Ridley Scott’s Alien with neon lighting. It’s menacing to the Vikings but not to the audience.

The Vikings, although lead by the normally brilliant John Hurt are a stereotypical poorly portrayed bunch, there’s the feisty wench, drunken strong bloke and even orphaned ‘cute’ child… and many other types that have been seen many times before. There is also a jarring mixture of accents; whereas in Gladiator the cast spoke with all the same ‘classical English’ here we have a mixture of English – cockney and plumy, Irish and American accents, all of which mixed in together sound very wrong.

Its not the worst film I’ve seen – not by a long shot, but I found it predictable, pedestrian and also quite dull, maybe it was the sensation that I had seen it all before.

Director: Howard McCain

Cast:

James Caviezel – Kainan
Sophia Miles – Freya
Jack Huston – Wulfric
John Hurt – Rothgar

For the trailer click here

District 9 – Out in Cinemas Now

Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, twenty years after an alien ship arrived to hover over the city District 9 is a shanty town that has grown up to accommodate the displaced and unwanted alien population.

The film centres around Wikus Van De Merwe (Copley) a company man, married to the bosses’ daughter who is given a promotion and asked to take a team into the lawless District 9 to serve eviction notices on the alien ‘prawn’ population, a population the whole world views with distain.

After a series of events and Wikus becomes the only man capable of using the much superior alien weapons technology and therefore a huge price is placed on his head. He forms an alliance with one of the ‘prawns’ Christopher Johnson (Cope) and begins to work with him to clear his name while Johnson seeks to free his people and get help from home.

District 9 is based on a short film (Alive in Joborg) by South African born first time director Blomkamp and is produced by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings Fame). It is no surprise from a director who grew up in a segregated county that District 9 gives the audience a new perspective on the film concept of aliens. The aliens are segregated, hated, vilified and condemned to live the life of scavengers hunting for everything they can. They are not wanted – a displaced race, refugees, and the government just wants to move them away from the city to a new camp which to me resembled a prisoner of war camp or even a death camp, away from the city out from under the general population’s nose. After doing some research I found out this is a parallel to an actual incident in South African history when in the 1970’s over 60,000 inhabitants of an area known as District Six (in Cape Town) were forcibly removed because of the colour of their skin.

It’s a great film, there is great splatter effects when the alien weapons get fired up, cringe worthy scenes when Wikus begins to loose his nails (ouch) and also a strong (but not forced on you) story of how the ‘civilised’ population deals with displaced populations, along with good effects and believable ‘prawns’. Copley is the centre of the film, the rather cowardly Wikus unwillingly forced to take a stance and help a population he previously treated with contempt and It is surprisingly a ‘prawn’ Johnson who provides the humanity and moral compass for the film.

It’s a great debut, I can't wait to see future offerings, I hope they are as clever and treated in a similarly unique way.

Director Neill Blomkamp

Cast

Sharlto Copley – Wikus Van De Merwe
Jason Cope – Christopher Johnson (and others)
Robert Hobbs – Ross Piennar
Vanessa Haywood – Tania Van De Merwe

For the official website click here