Close up

Now for something we can all enjoy.

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Luther

In light of the film finally being penned i’m going to tell you why you should love the BBC crime drama series Luther.

1. Idris Elba is bad ass. He’s the modern day Gene Hunt. He’s a DCI bending the rules to bring down the bad guy in whatever way possible.

2. Its ridiculously scary for a BBC drama. A man hiding underneath your bed, a guy who dons a puppet mask and jumps out at you in the streets, a maniac who walks into your office building and hits you with a hammer. Every scene is so realistic and gritty it’ll make you never want to open your front door again.

3. Alice. You just cant but help love Luthers murderous sidekick. Ruth Wilson is the redhead who killed her parents and teamed up with Luther to help him in his hour of need.

4. The quality of camera work. Every now and then a scene stands out that just makes you appreciate the guys behind the camera. Be it a slow motion scene of Luther dosing himself in petrol.

5. And finally, Luther is very clever. Twins playing a fantasy killing game in real life? you cant figure that out in 2 minutes.

If you read this and get hooked on Luther theres good news. A prequel film is in the works showing Luthers life with his wife Zoe and the final scene of the film will take place just before the first scene from the 1st series. There have also been rumours of a 4th season that will be longer than the previous 3 but that’s yet to be confirmed.

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You're next

A victim of wrong marketing. From the trailer 'you're next' looked terrifying, another invasion horror like 'The strangers' but that's not what this is.

The main downfall of 'You're next' is its predictability. We've seen it done a million times before and any horror fan would be able to point out the scares before they happen.

As more of a black comedy than an actual horror its easy to see through the blood and realise 'you're next' isn't very clever. It turns into a dumbed down version on Cludeo with the antagonists being so blatant they might as well be wearing signs saying 'we did it'.

The 'big' final twist isn't a Keyser Söze moment either. If you'd watched the film from the start you will have guessed it in the first 30 minutes and will wonder why they built it into such a big reveal.

However, it isnt all bad. There are some great violent scenes, the blender to the head is a stand out moment and the 80's sounding score adds a strong layer of tension throughout. But there is a plague of bad acting and the odd line like 'I want to fuck you next to your dead mum' thats just thrown in to shock feels so out of place it sounds ridiculous rather than disturbing.

Overall

Its just a little bit simple.

6/10

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The Conjuring

If you liked Insidious you'll love this.

Stepping further away from the crazy side Of Insidious the conjuring stays heavily rooted in the real world. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson play two supernatural investigators that are based on real life investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Theres creepy looking dolls, a back story that involves death, witches, creaking doors and of course an exorcism. Its not a game changer, it wont redefine the horror genre but it does what few horror films do well, it uses the clichés but uses them well enough to still scare us. 

7/10

(longer review coming soon)

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Only God Forgives

An over ambitious thriller that looks good but dosn't deliver.

Only God Forgives looked promising, with Nicolas Winding Refn taking the Directors seat. His past films Drive and Bronson have been stylised, thrilling pieces of cinema. However, God forgives weighs too heavily on the first part. 

Similar to his character in Drive Ryan Gosling here plays Julian, a shy, recluse with a violent side who runs a drug smuggling business in Bangkok. Billy, Julians older brother is murdered by a Thai father in revenge for the brutal killing of his daughter. It becomes complicated when Julians mother, a cold hearted, controlling bitch arrives in Bangkok to identify her first sons body and take her revenge. 

The short running time of 89 minutes is surprising for the crawling pace that everything happens at. The violent scenes are the best parts of the film as its the only time anything actually happens. The other 60 mins or so are filled with long silences, blank stares and inaudible dialogue. The lack of talking in this film doesn't build an atmosphere like it thinks it is, it just makes the scenes confusing for the audience and makes the plot lack depth.There are the few exceptional scenes like the tense dinner Julian has with his mother, but they only hold up because of the strength of the dialogue, the scenes where we are told about the inner workings of his family are the most interesting and actually give us characters to define.

Overall

A few well done but drawn out scenes of violence can't bring to life 89 minutes of staring, whispering and repetitive karaoke scenes that deprive the audience from the real story hiding beneath mood lighting.

5/10

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A Field In England

With a nod to arthouse cinema, this twisted trip certainly sends you on a journey.

A Field in England is Ben Wheatleys most adventurous film to date but not his best. Shot in black and white it tells the tale of a small group of civil war confederates who abandon their duties and take refugee in a field where they find more than they bargained for. 

With inspiration drawn from old witch stories Ben Wheatley creates an unusual sequence of events which are brought out by the magic mushrooms the characters stumble across. 

Reece Shearsmith and Michael Smiley create the perfect opponents of good and evil. In one of the films best scenes we see the two enter a tent and hear chilling screams from Shearsmith as a sinister Smiley attempts to use him as a guide for a hidden treasure. Not much is given away about what happened inside but a warped Shearsmith appears slowly from the tent with his chest bound by rope in one of the most eery performances i've witnessed.

The cinematography has been well thought out by Wheatley. With each scene starting as it would in a play. The characters stand still and pose almost portrait like to set the scene, a technique that cleverly breaks up the film.

A search for treasure or a never ending nightmare in a field, the overall plot is left open to interpretation but the camera tricks throughout make you feel like you were part of the trip.

Overall

A field in England is an acquired taste (It wont impress your friends), but if you just 'go with it' you'll like where it takes you.

6.5/10

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Stoker

Park Chan-wooks revenge trilogy which cumulated in the breathtaking cult classic ‘Oldboy’ and his unique vampire film ‘Thirst’ were all brilliantly crafted and beautifully shot.

Stoker which is Chan-wooks first English speaking feature film loses none of his signature style. Some viewers may be put off by the incest themes that run through all his films but its just a twisted idea he likes to play with.

Stoker however does differ largely to his Korean films. The lack of motive is what struck me straight away and made the plot significantly weaker. India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) receives the news of her fathers death on her 18th birthday. Left with just her unloving mother (Nichole Kidman) and her estranged uncle Charlie a dark series of events start to plague the house hold.

Matthew Goode is eerily brilliant in his role as Charlie. He’s charming but his wide eyes let us know he’s hiding some dark secrets. The short dialogue and long drawn out scenes create undeniable tension but it does take a while for the action to start and any clues to Charlie’s personality are made so obvious that anyone can guess the plot before the big reveals.

Mia creates a surprising sinister character from her young shy Stoker. She’s a lover of hunting who has a dark nature that is brought out by her uncle Charlie. Her lack of emotion and physical reaction throughout makes her a complex character to understand.

Chan-wook is a master of revenge, but here there is no satisfaction felt when India finally gets hers as the dialogue isn’t strong enough to support the visual. Instead he chooses to leave her final actions without motive which ruins what it felt the film was building towards.

Overall An immensely tense look into the mind of a psychopathic young girl. A feast for the eyes with beautiful cinematography but a plot that leaves us without gratification.

6/10

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World War Z

Zombies have been done to death, literally, but World War Z stands alone from the classic zombie films and breathes new life into the genre. This isn’t your average blockbuster either. It’s smart, scary and incredibly well made. The script might be a little weak in parts when they repeatedly try to add emotion from Brad Pitts family but it dosn’t ruin the main thing this is about, and that’s the zombies. Anyone who was skeptical about the affect of CGI zombies will immediently change their minds. These zombies are horrifically brilliant. Like a herd of relentless predators they stampede through the streets, ferociously tearing through and leaping over anything in their way to get to human flesh. The CGI lets us experience the undead like we haven’t before, these zombies scale city walls, dive from buildings and take down helicopters by throwing themselves through the air.


The benefits of the blockbuster budget are beautifully shown by the scale of WWZ. Other zombie films touch on the spread of the virus to the world but here we witness it for ourselves. From America to Korea to Isreal we finally get a realistic look at the global affect of the undead. 
The only downfall of WWZ is the attempt to keep it a 15. They cut away when zombies get too close for comfort and there’s a surprising lack of blood, even when a solider gets one of her hands cut off.


The ending is a little Disney too but the build up to it is well executed with Brad Pitt sneaking his way through darkened hallways and past the undead to find a cure. Even with the stereotypical search for an ‘anti virus’ they still manage to make it unpredictable. The small ‘crumbs’ they leave throughout the film for us to follow make the ending a satisfying one.

Overall 
Tense, breathtaking and a fresh addition to the long line of zombie films. 8/10

Just a note, I haven’t yet read the book but i have heard it differs greatly. If you have read it you may find yourself disappointed like I have been with many film adaptations in the past.

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Favourite trailers of the week:

Only God Forgives.

Ryan Gosling stars in this brutal revenge thriller set in the busy city of Bangkok.

With the Director of 'Drive' Nicolas Winding Refn, i'm expecting Only God Forgives to be a sleek, stylish yet exceptionally violent thrill ride.

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“The Blair Witch Project is one of the smartest horror films around”

- Bold Statement Bro

Whenever I ask someone whether they’ve seen the Blair Witch Project they usually reply with ‘yeah, its shit’. A simple statement to sum up a film they’ve probably never actually seen.

The Blair Witch Project is highly acclaimed as being the most popular indie movie of all time earning $248,639,099 worldwide. As one of the first films to use hand held cameras and use them well; it kicked off a whole series of films like Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield. And yet it still has this stigma amongst audiences.

To be fair the suspense building at the start can be seen as boring but it’s necessary for the payoffs. Every little bit of noise or dialogue adds to the plot, it’s not just 3 teens chatting for an hour in the woods.

What’s most impressive is what they created with such a ridiculously small budget. They still managed to make it scarier than a lot of high budget horrors. It’s the same technique paranormal activity used years later; you don’t need to see the antagonist to be terrified of them. The Blair Witch Project does to woods what Jaws did to the sea. Guaranteed no one’s going camping for a while after seeing it.

Most surprising was the quality of acting, it’s actually not bad. Main lead Heather Donahue makes her characters breakdown believable. When they end up getting lost and going round in circles in the woods you start to share their sense of ‘oh shit, there’s no way out’.

The night scenes are brilliant. Yet again, like Paranormal Activity, the use of sound when everything is dark on the screen is highly affective. Screams heard from the woods are terrifying when you can hear the shallow breathe of the teens over the camera.

And there it is, everything the film has been building towards. The final showdown in an abandoned house in the middle of the woods. Your heads been filled with local tales of murderers that lived there and the increasingly scary encounters the teens have had with the Blair Witch. It does not disappoint.

You might not have watched The Blair Witch Project but you will have subconsciously seen a lot of references to it, with techniques so commonly used you might as well see where it all started.

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Blade Runner 2

Michael Green, co-writer of the Green Lantern is going to pen Blade Runner 2.

The confusion I had with this was that I read Ridley Scott wanted Harrison Ford back to play his original character. For anyone who’s seen the film you will know we are left with the ever debatable question to whether Rick Deckard is a replicant or not. It’s a crucial ambiguity that lets us experience the film how we want. We also know that a replicants lifespan is only 4 years, so with Harrison Ford coming back on screen nearly 3 times the original age of his character it kind of spoils this ambiguity we have in the original film.

There are many things I want to see from this sequel. Firstly, I want to explore the world in more depth. Hopefully the artists working on the film will create some unbelievable and endless set designs. Secondly, I don’t want to see Rick Deckard. Although he was an amazing character and learning his back story would answer a lot of questions, I think it would ruin too many of the answers we already made up ourselves. Blade runner is best left as the incredible feat that it is. I’m excited for a 2nd film but I hope it’s a re-vamp, in the same way Ridley Scott made Promethous to resemble but not directly link to Alien. It needs new characters, beautifully vast sets but the same basic ideas.

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Ben Wheatleys new twisted trip of a film is released in cinemas, on DVD and on Film4 on the 5th July.

With so many mediums you have no excuse not to see this! However, I suggest not reading anything about the film before you see it. If its as darkly twisted as Kill List you want to slowly delve into its madness as it plays out on screen.

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You've got blue on you.

The final part to the Cornetto trilogy will be hitting cinemas July 19th. Circle the date in your calender, its not one to miss.

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Evil Dead (2013)

How do you re-make a film that gave birth to a mass of horror cliches without making it... cliched. Trick is, you don't. You have fun with what you've got but be innovative to scare the audience. But that's not what this does. This evil dead is serious.

The first 20 minutes are like a bad soap opera, the dialogue seems like its from scriptwriting 101 and the actors use less expressions than Kristen Stewart. But after those 20 minutes of drivel and pep talking we get into the good stuff.

Without being able to make the story particularly scary (as there's nothing scary about a lass with yellow contacts breathing heavily at you) they rely on the gore for thrills. Which works surprisingly well and makes the latter part of the film decent. Evil dead might also be the bloodiest film I've watched all year, there was a shared sense of shock and awe in the cinema at the razorblade to the tongue scene.

And of course there are references, with the original producers working on this re-make most of it is just old ideas redone with new technology. Some are done well, others aren't. The 'molesting tree scene' seems to have just been thrown in in an attempt to shock anyone who hasn't already seen it.

Overall

It's never easy to re-make a beloved cult classic but with Evil dead they seem to have missed the point of why the original is so loved. No one watches that film without finding it hilarious and then immediately being scared to death by a gruesome deadite. This evil dead seems like its grown up and lost its sense of humour.

6/10

(click for trailer)

Be warned there is a post credits scene.

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John Cusack shouting at a fridge.

- Room 1408

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V/H/S

Six tapes, six directors and one mixed film.

V/H/S sounds exciting, you have six directors all talented in the horror field coming together to put in their ideas for short video nasty’s but with so many clips the repetition of watching tapes gets old quick.

The film revolves around a group of guys who’s past time is smashing up buildings and running a seedy film making scheme. They are hired to recover a rare tape from a desolate house for a big pay off. Once there they find more than they expected by means of a passed out guy in the living room surrounded by a selection of video tapes, each one containing disturbing found footage.

The main problem with V/H/S is that half the clips are great and half aren't fully developed. Ti West and David Bruckner easily outshine the others with their ‘Second Honeymoon’ and ‘Amateur Night’. While Glenn McQuaids ‘Tuesday the 17th’ is plagued by bad acting and unrealistic gore and Joe Swanbergs ‘The sick thing that happened to Emily when she was younger’ is scary and interesting but too confusing and undeveloped to deliver a proper story.

They definitely saved the best for last with Adam Wingards 'Tape 56' being the high point of the film. Its the stereotypical cult story that was easy to convey in the short time and offers plenty of scares. The creativeness put into this 'house of horrors' is what really sets it apart from the rest.

Overall

It looks authentic and has a few jumpy moments but with every good tape comes a bad tape straight after.

With a second V/H/S already in the works I hope to see better things from the new mix of Directors.

5.5/10

(click for trailer)