reelcitizen - freelance entertainment journalist

It was fellow movie geek Chris’s stag over the weekend and in-between the beer and banter there was still room for no less than 6 trashy films over a 24-hour period. Some might not believe that these movies even existed, or that they could be brought together in one place, so I thought it was worth capturing the line-up for posterity and pay tribute to what was possibly the greatest stag attempted by professional movie buffs…

Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983)

I watched a lot of movies when I was a kid but have particularly vivid memories of one film that I could never remember the title to. All I could remember was a group of people getting zapped into some parallel dimension, something about a watch that told the time in several different time zones and a scene where a woman is attacked in a lake and shouts “Shit, what was that?!” I recall detailing that scene to a teacher of mine who wasn’t impressed with the colourful use of language.

I also subconsciously picked-up on the hero’s all-American attire; jeans and a red checked shirt. A good red checked shirt was a favourite of mine during my teenage years so it was weird to see Richard Hatch sporting the same when this film began. Within the first few minutes I realised that it was my ‘lost’ movie! At last I had a title, a reason for my awful fashion sense and, more importantly, the explanation as to why I’d only remembered the first 20 minutes of this laughably dreadful piece of cinema.

Directed by Terry Marcel, the visionary behind Hawk the Slayer, it sees the aforementioned Hatch-man teaming up with ditzy scientist Kay Lenz and kind of leaning over a weird computer which knocks them into a universe run on medieval technology and stereotypes. Almost straight away Lenz is captured by beard-stroking warlord John Saxon and Hatch gathers together a Dungeons & Dragons type party to rescue her. You know the drill; untrustworthy thief, giant caveman, token green dude…

Princess Bride it certainly isn’t and contains one of the most rushed endings committed to film – “It could take years to find a way back home… oh wait, there it is. ZAP.” But then does finish with cinema’s most memorable shout to the heavens - “But what about the waaaaatch!?!?!” We’ll never know.

Death Machines (1976)

I only caught the last 20 minutes or so of this one so plotwise I can’t really give a very good description, despite the guys trying to fill in the gaps about the hero with one arm trying to save the day. Apparently he doesn’t do a very good job and the bits I saw involved him driving slowly, watching a plane land (almost endlessly) and him walking very slowly towards the front door to the baddies house, where he’s promptly assaulted by some mad Chinese woman. As a film it’s a spectacular failure but it excels as a masterclass in how to waste running time. It doesn’t even have any end credits and instead chooses to freeze frame on the three Death Machines of the title (who are three robot assassins, one wearing the most ludicrously huge bowtie known to fashion) for 3 solid minutes of robot assassin goodness.

Interestingly this marks the start of Paul Kyriazi’s directing career, a man who peaked with Omega Cop in 1990 which also stared Ronald L. Marchini along with a rather desperate Adam West.

Frogs (1972)

Mark Kermode recently said that Sam Elliott always comes with his trademark moustache, apart from one or two exceptions. Here is one of those exceptions, marking Elliott’s transition from TV to the big bad world of film and it’s got to be said he was a proper action man hunk back in the day, almost as if the ‘tache was added specifically to tone down the raw sex appeal that must have had women clawing at the screen.

Frogs itself is pretty much The Birds but with, like, frogs and shit. This must have been the first draft of the script. Subsequent drafts added an environmental angle involving Elliott’s photographer getting stranded in the Deep South homestead of wheelchair-bound industrialist bastard Ray Milland who still has black servants and wants everything perfect for his 4th July celebrations. The creatures in the surrounding forest have other ideas and slowly close in on Milland and his playboy guests.

Tension is built slowly, involving plenty of shots of frogs looking all innocent and green. Other amphibians don’t hang around and snakes are soon hunting down stray people while lizards are cleverly smashing bottles of poison. It’s quite reminiscent of Maximum Overdrive where things suddenly work out how to kill humans. The deaths themselves aren’t gory but often painfully drawn out, the one where an old woman is viciously hunted being particularly unpleasant.

The big irony? The frogs themselves don’t do a damn thing! Just continue their doom-laden chorus of “ribbit, ribbit” until their underlings have carried out their dirty work. They’re obviously the Blofeld of the animal kingdom.

C.H.U.D. (1984)
Definitely in the Gremlins, Critters, Ghoulies, monsters-gonna-get-you sub-genre of horror, C.H.U.D.’s nasties are ‘Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers’ that have taken residence in New York’s sewer system to terrorise tramps. It was a film markedly different from the others as this one had a semblance of a budget, some decent creature effects and a few star names; John Heard as the photographer no-one believes, Daniel Stern as the reverend no-one believes and Christopher Curry as the cop no-one… you get the idea.

The three main characters find out about the C.H.U.D’s in their own special way, creep through the sewers for a bit and generally try to stop the government covering it up/blowing up the city. It’s a touch predictable but the glowing-eyed, snarling C.H.U.D’s are well done and Heard’s inexplicable collection of swords is put to good use.

Death Game (2001)

Who’d have thought high school basketball could be so dangerous? Certainly not Bo Brown as the unfortunately named prodigy Jackie Stewart who’s lured by dodgy manager Billy Drago (from The Untouchables) into a world of drugs and hookers. But not if Brown’s coach Joe Lara has anything to do with it.

It seems Lara is prepared to put just about anything on the line to ensure Brown gets back on the straight and narrow. This includes: getting beaten up, having his son’s dog brutally murdered in front of him, seeing his wife in a coma following a rape and getting shot. All in order for Brown to play one crappy match in some shoddy sports hall in Russia and really not give enough of a shit about Lara to make his hellish journey worth it.

As we’d already seen throughout proceedings, there can be bad movies that make good entertainment and then there are movies that are just offensive. Death Game is the latter. It contains horrific violence that its lame story fails to justify or even acknowledge as particularly horrific. It’s all meant to push Lara over the edge to fight back against Drago but Lara isn’t Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs. He isn’t Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence. He isn’t even Charles Bronsan in Death Wish. All those movies were a comment on violence and what it does to men who take revenge. Death Game is supposed to be an action film where a basketball coach storms the bad guy’s hideout by driving his soft-top through a gate a drunken rambler could have easily traversed. It shouldn’t have a scene in which a kid is found crying in a bathtub drenched in blood as he clutches his dead dog and it certainly doesn’t need a protracted scene in which a woman is beaten and brutally gang raped by men in monster masks.

But what’s even more shocking is director Menahem Golan’s complete flippancy to what he’s including onscreen. This is best demonstrated when he has Lara’s wife show she’s out of the coma and hasn’t got brain damage by hiding in her hospital room and literally, literally, jumping out on Lara and saying “Ta-daa!” Look, you thought I was dead! But I’m not, I’m cured! Of course I’m coming to the big game later!

C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D. (1989)

Of course you wanted a sequel! If by sequel you meant something that bears no resemblance to the original whatsoever or feature any ‘Underground Dwellers’ then you’re in luck. Gone are the twisted monsters of the original and instead we get more of a zombie film in which Robert Vaughn is trying to create undead super-soldiers. The problem here though is that the reanimated corpses bite other people and turn them into C.H.U.D.s. Trouble ensues when two dopey high school kids steal Bud’s corpse for a science class (it’s a long story) but then promptly lose it.

It starts like Weekend at Bernie’s meets California Man but quickly becomes Night of the Living C.H.U.D. as Bud takes over most of the townsfolk – including an early appearance by comedian Rich Hall. The human characters are largely rubbish, except for Vaughn who’s on tremendously trashy form (“That was fucking fantastic!”), whereas Gerrit Graham is nicely sympathetic as Bud who just wants to be loved. Graham’s performance blends a bit of Mr. Bean with Herman Munster but the best touch is the little Thriller dance step he does with the rest of the C.H.U.D.s on the way to the Halloween ball. The C.H.U.D. ideology seems to be one of togetherness and friendship so it’s a shame the snot-nosed kids have to save the day.

So this short-lived franchise ended the way most horrors do – with the villain as the real hero.

To commemorate the fact that it was the Oscars at the weekend I thought it’d be fun to see who would have come out on top from our little movie marathon…

So, the Staggie Awards are…

Best Picture
Nominees:
Frogs
C.H.U.D.
C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D.

Winner: C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D.
The best sequel since Godfather 2 with a love-your-zombie message.

Best Actor
Sam Elliott (Frogs)
Gerrit Graham (C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D.)
Richard Hatch (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)

Winner: Sam Elliott (Frogs)
Yes, he was young once and a damn fine specimen of a man he was too. The trademark ‘tache must have been added later as a way of lessening some of the raw sex appeal that this man wielded.

Best Actress
Kay Lenz (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)
Kim Greist (C.H.U.D.)
Tricia Leigh Fisher (C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D.)

Winner: Kay Lenz (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)
Or winner of the Actress Who Did Best With a Painfully Stereotypical and Underwritten Role.

Best Supporting Actor
John Saxon (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)
Billy Drago (Death Game)
Robert Vaughn (C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D.)

Winner: Billy Drago (Death Game)
Weird teeth, weird eyes, weird fingernails, this guy really nailed the role of ‘dodgy high school basketball manager’.

Best Supporting Actress
Dawn Abraham (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)
Mari Honjo (Death Machines)
Charlotte Crossley (Death Game)

Winner: Mari Honjo (Death Machines)
Indescribable accent but don’t let that fool you, she’s very handy with a sword.

Best Green Dude
The frogs (Frogs)
Ray Charleson (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)
C.H.U.D.s (C.H.U.D.)

Winner: Ray Charleson (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)
With seemingly no make-up Charleson proved it’s not easy being green.

Best Song
C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D. Theme Song

Best Line
“But what about the waaaaatch!?!?!” (Prisoners of the Lost Universe)

Worst Film
Death Game

Smells Like a Gun Crazy Carry On

After 11 years in the making and countless production problems, Jim Groom’s love letter to classic film noir finally gets delivered. Of course, there are problems with it; the dubbing can grate, some of the external scenes expose technical issues and the acting is patchy, but these are merely limitations of an extremely low-budget. Despite these constraints, Room 36 is still a delicious slice of hard boiled thriller, and one that refuses to simply ape American movies, adding in wry British farce and rough London grit to deliver a cine-literate pastiche of genre conventions.

The plot of Room 36 sounds like something out of Blame it on the Bellboy – in a seedy Paddington hotel, a randy salesman waits for a prostitute and, in the next room, a hitman waits for a contact. An accident changes room 38 to read 36 so does hilarity ensue? Not quite, murder and mayhem follow instead. Welcome to director Jim Groom’s off-kilter homage to old crime movies, a sort of retro-fitted world where errors and mistaken identity lead, much like a Coen Brothers movie (think Fargo), down a dark, bloody road.

The hitman is simply known as Conner (Herzberg), supposedly at the hotel to exchange money for a piece of microfilm supplied by a government insider – Miss Woods (Booroff). It’s never clear exactly what the microfilm contains, although it has something to do with the election of the next Prime Minister, so in true Hitchcockian style it is merely an object various parties desire. But Conner is also there to dispose of Miss Woods herself, something she realises when she discovers the dead prostitute stuffed under his bed.

Though the film is shot in stark black & white the characters…

Continued on The Smell of Napalm

Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s savage take on the use of child soldiers in Africa’s violent and bloody revolutions is one of the most compelling films the continent has ever produced. Based partly on the 1999 – 2003 conflict in Liberia, it’s set in an unnamed country where a ragtag rebellion is trying to overthrow the government. At the heart of the chaos is 14-year-old Johnny Mad Dog (Christopher Minie) who leads a ‘platoon’ of wild boys through a constant barrage of gunfights, rape and executions. Sauvaire’s approach is one of pseudo-documentary, his camera racing to keep-up with the drug-charged gang who think themselves righteous and bulletproof.

The film evokes the work of Kubrick; the freedom to commit grotesque acts reminds us of the unrepentant droogs of A Clockwork Orange while the dehumanization of war builds on Full Metal Jacket, but with children in the firing…

Continued on Film & Festivals

One of Africa’s most controversial films, Flame was even seized by police during editing due to its incendiary nature. It was eventually released in 1996 to controversy that still exists today because of its portrayal of female fighters in Zimbabwe’s civil war during the 70s. The film itself is fiction but British-born director Ingrid Sinclair based it on years of research and interviews with the woman who fought in the revolution but still go unrecognised as heroes.

The story follows two friends - Florence (Marian Kunonga) and Nyasha (Ulla Mahaka) – who abandon their village life in favour of fighting for their freedom but they quickly realise that war is brutal and unglamorous. Nyasha is renamed Liberty and uses her skills as a writer to distance herself from the frontline while Florence becomes Flame, a brave warrior but one abused by her superiors. She’s raped and becomes pregnant, forced to become a mother while trying to fight for independence.

Flame is both intimate and inspiring as Sinclair follows the pair’s friendship through the hardships of war and into the decades that followed in which men were called heroes but the women still oppressed. Kunonga’s performance is powerful, refusing to be the victim while also honouring all the women who fought and died for Zimbabwe as Flame is both maternal and fearless. Sinclair’s film is a testament to those that gave their lives to their country but also demands that the government acknowledge them properly. In the film’s final scene, Florence and Nyasha can only watch the all-male Hero’s Day celebrations on TV. Despite what they’ve gone through their struggle still continues.

Released in 2008, From a Whisper marks the 10-year anniversary of the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Kenya by Islamic terrorists which killed over 250 people and injured thousands. Like many of the 9/11 movies that have been released, it looks at several characters before and after the atrocity, tracing unrelated lives that would become forever intertwined thanks to a single, devastating event.

Director Wanuri Kahiu’s central character is Tamani (Corine Onyango), an angry teenage girl whose mother was never found after the attack and her relationship with her father is distant and strained. An intelligence officer (played by Ken Ambani) tries to help her come to terms with her grief while also dealing with his own. Through flashbacks we learn that his lifelong friend was involved in the bombing and how this put his own Muslim beliefs to the ultimate test.

Kahiu’s production values are incredibly high and the film is tense and realistic. The bombing itself is stark and shocking, combining documentary footage with shots of Kahiu’s characters caught up in the chaos. The film went on to win 5 African Movie Academy Awards in Nigeria, including Best Director and Best Picture, and is a powerful story that’s universal to many in the world who now have to deal with terrorism as part of modern life. The Kenya bombing may be little known to those outside Africa and Kahiu gives it the attention it deserves.

Last month I had the cool job of writing a few reviews for a new DVD price comparison web site called DVD Box Sets. The idea itself is nothing new but the site is fun and simple to use thanks to web designer Greg Findley’s crisp, clear design and concentrating on just the box set side of the DVD market means it doesn’t get bogged down. Box sets are always going to appeal to gift hunters and film/TV completists and this site simply directs them to the cheapest place to buy what they’re after. But what I found unique about the site is that they run independent and critical reviews, not just the usual marketing blurb you’d expect to find on a price comparison site. So it encourages the buyer to make an informed choice, not just based on price but also on what they’re getting for their money and whether it’s really worth it.

Below are some of the reviews I wrote so please check ‘em out… and then buy something…

Red Dwarf Anniversary Edition
Alfred Hitchcock Box Set
The IT Crowd Series 1 - 3
Lost Seasons 1 – 5
Madagascar
The Office: An American Workplace Series 1 – 3
Fawlty Towers
The River Cottage Collection
The X-Files
Dad’s Army
Battlestar Galactica
Stargate Atlantis Series 1 - 5
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Seasons 1 – 4
Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law Seasons 1 – 3
Scrubs Series 1 - 7

Smells Like the Decade Ends with a Big Blue Bang

Look! Stuff! Happening! Constantly! More stuff! Spaceships! Big monsters! Weird blobs floating! Ash drifting in the background! Mech Warriors! Stuff! This is essentially Avatar. In 3-D. For 160 minutes. I walked away with a headache (although that could have been down to the closing Leona Lewis song) but suitably amazed at what James Cameron had achieved. These are the best CG effects in the history of the world, ever. It’s just not terribly original, with bucketfuls of cheesy dialogue about loving Mother Nature – forget the Smurfs, it’s more like a Captain Planet origin story. It’s a spectacular blockbuster but District 9 essentially did the same with a lot more heart.

The trouble with movies like Avatar is that reviews start to sound like they’re talking about videogames. Story and character have been at the centre of filmmaking for decades but in the age of motion capture, 3-D and eye-bleeding CGI the sheer spectacle has become an element in its own right. So, like game reviews break their subject down into visual/technical accomplishment versus playability and originality, we must do the same with Avatar, a movie destined to become renowned for demonstrating the wondrous possibilities of computerized filmmaking but little else.

Avatar’s been in the making since James Cameron’s last feature film Titanic in 1997. The ‘king of the world’ has been busy completely revolutionising digital effects, even creating real-time motion capture technology that allowed him to shoot a scene with actors and then move the camera and objects within that scene wherever he wanted, effectively reshooting it long after the actors had left, or ‘playing God’ as some would say. The result is truly breathtaking. Avatar is set on the world of Pandora – a completely realised living and breathing planet with its own eco system, startling creatures and alien tribes – everything moves, everything is there for a reason.

I’ll say it again, it’s breathtaking. Pandora makes Gollum look like a kid’s flipbook animation. …

Continued on The Smell of Napalm

It’s tough being a sci-fi comedy series. Even the mighty Red Dwarf only managed to cling onto a TV spot thanks to a devoted fan-base. Channels have since tried to recapture Dwarf’s audience with decidedly mixed results, namely the strained Hyperdrive which didn’t exactly blast off into the stratosphere. Vying for attention around a similar time as Hyperdrive (2006/2007) was Andrew Dymond’s Starhyke, a Star Trek spoof starring fan favourite Claudia Christian (Babylon 5) but with more British sensibilities. The show never aired but this didn’t deter Dymond and Lightworx Media from producing an entire series of 6 episodes. Now the series-that-never-was is available on DVD, in all its endearing, yet painfully flawed, glory.

If you check out Starhyke’s official site then you’ll see that Dymond has gone to great lengths to come up with a backstory for the show’s universe. Sadly, little of this makes it to the screen giving the series a very haphazard feel. The pilot episode, Disordered, begins in 3034, in a universe where human’s have suppressed their emotions and are on the verge of wiping out the last alien race of the galaxy. But the Reptids counter-strike by sending a ship back in time to the Earth of the 21st century where they plan to detonate a weapon that will reawaken human emotion. The Dreadnaught Nemesis is tasked with going back in time to stop them but is hit with a smaller version of the weapon so the crew must deal with their new, heightened emotions while hunting the Reptids.

Dymond’s main aim is to put some sex appeal back into sci-fi. The crew of the Nemesis will be familiar to fans of The Next Generation – there’s an android, a warrior, a brilliant engineer – but Dymond flips the stuffiness of Star Trek’s ordered and boring Enterprise by having the characters suddenly injected with feelings. Now they’re angry, crying, horny… mostly horny. Although Dymond’s premise is intriguing and allows for a few dramatic moments, including one where they all realise how horrible they’ve been to other races, the show very quickly descends into Benny Hill territory with nurses in short skirts and tired double entendres.

What’s first noticeable is that the Bridge of the Nemesis is mainly made up of women. Hot women who are soon all cleavage and legs. Obviously, the main selling point of the show is Christian as Captain Belinda Blowhard, who, let’s face it, is in a different league to Kate Mulgrew’s very prim Janeway, but they’ve travelled back to the 21st century, not the 1960s. In a later episode, Plug and Play, some of them get jobs in a strip club, yes, a strip club, which is a pretty handy way of getting Rachel Grant (as the aptly named Wu Oof) to show off her assets.

The men don’t come off any better and are aloof and unlikeable. Commander Cropper (Brad Gorton) is supposedly the dashing male of the group but is deeply uncharismatic, yet all the women fancy him, fighting for his attention. For some reason, Chief Engineer Sally Popyatopov (Stephanie Jory) lusts after him the…

Continued on Sci-Fi London

The Welsh coastal town of Aberystwyth might be a quiet, unassuming place but, as horror films have taught us, nothing is ever what it seems. It may boast picture postcard scenery and historic forts but when the Abertoir Horror Festival opens its doors, it’s a place haunted by tales of bloody murder.

In November, Abertoir marked its fourth birthday and, thanks to funding from the Film Agency for Wales, director Gaz Bailey was able to screen over 20 films as well as masterclasses and macabre performances from the Grand Guignol Laboratory. Although the line-up included big releases such as The Descent 2, Abertoir is not just about the future of horror, it is about exploring its roots in film and beyond, and for many the big treat was the festival’s opening feature – a chance to see the rarest of the rare – Michael Mann’s The Keep (1983).

It has become an Abertoir tradition to kick off with a cult movie and The Keep is the Holy Grail. Unreleased on DVD, it is often talked about but little seen, and film fans are always on the lookout for a worn-out VHS copy in a bargain bin. It’d be logical to assume that to get an original 35mm print Bailey must have taken on a diabolical series of challenges, each more fiendish that the last… Not quite: ‘I didn’t think we had a hope in hell,’ he said, ‘but Paramount had a print and just sent it over. I was really quite surprised! We want to make use of our Welsh-ness and The Keep was ideal’.

Filmed up the road in Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd, in-between the mountains of Snowdonia, The Keep was notoriously dogged by problems that led…

Continued on Electric Sheep Magazine

Two career pickpockets (Rene Liu and Infernal Affairs’ Andy Lau) get caught up in a cat and mouse game aboard a train when Liu decides she wants to protect a naive country bumpkin (Wang Baoqiang) and his money to make up some karma. Once the train gets moving so does the pace as Lau battles against a rival gang with crafty tricks and heavy metaphors about wolves and lambs.

Director Feng Xiaogang went on to make The Banquet and Assembly after this 2004 blockbuster and you can see where…

Continued on Combat Magazine