Max Schmeling: Fist of The Reich (Review)
Max Schmeling is a German sporting icon, perhaps the most revered sporting legend in Germany, the equivalent of Henry Cooper, Stirling Moss and Bobby Moore combined in Britain and certainly the most important boxer that country has ever produced. With a career spanning two decades and the Second World War (in which he served as an elite paratrooper), Schmeling is known by most boxing fans to his...

The Blood Reich: Bloodrayne 3 (Review)
As someone who loves both great movies (the ones that have a great deal of critical acclaim) and the ones generally regarded as B-movies, trash or schlock, my interests are far and wide. However, the only films I can't really get away with are stupid big budget blockbusters without any artistic merit, the ones directed by the likes of Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich and Brett Ratner. Another category,...

Laputa: Castle In The Sky - Double Play: The Studio Ghibli Collection (Review)
There are very few, if any, directors who have become synonymous with their studio in the same way as Hayao Miyazaki has become synonymous with Studio Ghibli. One could easily make the same argument for John Lasseter and Pixar Animations, but Lasseter has brought along other directors such as Pete Docter who have made Oscar-winning films themselves. On that point, Lasseter treats Miyazaki as a...

Norwegian Ninja (Review)
There are many films that it is almost impossible to prejudge because of their association with other films that you have seen and have a strong opinion about. If it is the latest instalment in a franchise, you pretty much know whether you will watch it or not or, if it made by a writer-director team whose work you particularly like, you will be sure to watch the film. In the case of Norwegian...

The Black Pirate (Review)
If one were to compile a list of the most acrobatic and physically gifted actors, it would probably contain Buster Keaton, Gene Kelly, Burt Lancaster and Douglas Fairbanks. Fairbanks, like Keaton, predominately worked in the silent era and, with his wife Mary Pickford, was part of the powerful group (along with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith) that established the independent production company...

The Doors (Review)
It doesn't feel that long ago that I reviewed When You're Strange, the fascinating documentary on The Doors and the first film that really told me about the band dynamics, how they wrote their songs and Jim Morrison's personality cult. I had previously seen Oliver Stone's film The Doors and it didn't mean much to me because I knew nothing about the band. With this now being released on Blu-ray, I...

The Man From Nowhere (Review)
As I'm not the world's greatest fan of action films, I can't remember the last time I watched a serious American action movie which had full on 18 certificate (R rated) violence and swearing. Actually, it was probably Rambo (2008), but that was one of the film is harking back to the days when violence was violent, people were blown up, shot through the head and destroyed by explosives. I have yet...

Monsters (Review)
Within about a two week period in December 2010, I saw two alien invasion films: Monsters and Skyline. Although ostensibly two films with the same premise – aliens have arrived on planet Earth and the film follows a small group dealing with the consequences – they really couldn't be more different. Skyline is set, Cloverfield-style, before and during the first few hours of invasion whereas...

The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh: Shameless Fan Edition (Review)
During my gradual descent into full on film obsession, I came across many different aspects of horror films and sub genres and the one that got its hooks into me the most was giallo. Part of this process of buying, collecting and watching as many gialli as I could was compiling a list of those films that I hadn't seen but wanted to die, watch and add to my DVD and BD collection. Unfortunately,...

City Island (Review)
The general protocol when reviewing DVDs and BDs is that a title will become available, you request that title and hope that you receive it so you can watch the film and the extra features and then sit at a computer and write your review. Amongst the discs you have requested the are pushed through your letterbox are others that arrive unsolicited; some welcome, some not. City Island is one of...

Wake Wood (Review)
For some people, if you said the word 'hammer' to them, they would immediately conjure a mental image of a wooden stick with a piece of metal at the end. But, for those interested in film, and particularly horror movies, a different image will appear: either of Christopher Lee has Count Dracula or of a rustic pub with villagers warning a newcomer to the area of a great evil. For a fairly long...

Altitude (Review)
There are a range of horror films that, rather than go for a supernatural element or giant monster, rely on realism and a plausible synopsis to drag you in as the events could really happen. This works in films likeOpen Water,Frozen andWolf Creek when it is easy to identify with the protagonists as you can imagine yourself in their situation which really helps to bring the horror home. The latest...

And Soon The Darkness (Review)
It seems that, in recent years, there have been numerous films featuring Americans travelling abroad and becoming victims of unspeakable horrors, whether it is in the two Hostel films, Turistas or Taken. It seems as if the film industry is doing everything it can to warn people that the world is a strange and dangerous place where there are black market organ dealers, psychopathic murderers or...

Damned by Dawn (Review)
There are many mythical and fairly recently (within the last 200 years anyway) created monsters from the vampire to the zombie, werewolf to the 'unnamed thing', such as Frankenstein's monster but one that has been fairly neglected in horror cinema has been the banshee. This important piece of Irish folklore tells of a woman, sometimes a repulsive hag and sometimes a woman of rare beauty, who is...

Stonehenge Apocalypse (Review)
When I first stumbled across this film, the idea struck me that this would make for a brilliant game or computer program in which you, or the computer, come up with film titles by simply making two columns. On the first column you have locations or major world landmarks and on the second column you write down calamitous events so – and some of these may already be in production – you could have...

Brighton Rock (Review)
Although I have yet to read a single novel by Graham Greene, I have seen film adaptations of his work including Our Man in Havana, The Quiet American and The Third Man. Although Carol Reed's film set in post-war Vienna is perhaps the greatest film based on a novel by Graham Greene, one that always runs it close is the 1947 gangster drama, Brighton Rock. Against a backdrop of people happily playing...

Paradox Soldiers (Review)
It is quite often the case that you see a film without knowing a great deal about it as there is only a small synopsis, a couple of quotes and maybe a mention of the main actors names. Sometimes this works out well as you go to the cinema not expecting very much and are completely sideswiped by a brilliant film or it could work out very badly as you end up watching a film that bears almost no...

Vamp (BD) (Review)
It was perhaps no real surprise that I completely missed out on Vamp as I was a bit too young for it when it was first released and wasn't into horror when it came out on VHS so is one of those titles that I heard about recently, read about and couldn't wait to see. I'm not sure whether that was because it features Grace Jones, someone probably best known as a diva, fashion icon or pop singer,...

Alien vs. Ninja (Review)
There have recently been a spate of films with 'vs' in the title and most of them have been particularly low quality so I wasn't quite sure whether this would be along the lines of Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, Aliens vs Predator: Requiem or even the Mega Shark sequel: Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus! Anyway, this is not an American film made by The Asylum production studio but a Japanese film that is...

Dracula (Review)
There are some books that have made an invaluable and long lasting contribution to English literature with those by the likes of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters probably amongst the finest examples whereas others have stood the test of time because they are just great stories and not necessarily great works of fiction. It seems that the general consensus on Bram Stoker's...

TT On-Bike 2010 (Review)
When it comes to sporting events, there is nothing better than a camera angle that shows you exactly what is going on and puts you at the heart of the action; obviously POV angles are impossible in contact sports such as rugby, American football and soccer and they only really have a place when there is equipment on which to fix them. The sports in which they are used vary from those in the Winter...

Red and White (Review)
There are numerous incredibly important pieces of world history about which I know little or nothing as there are myriad countries that have been occupied, involved in wars, played a crucial role in some life changing event or have revolted against their occupiers with massive repercussions. Among these numerous countries is Indonesia, a state that, like so many others, was seized by the more...

Titanic 2 (Review)
If you've been around the Internet long enough, you must have come across the production company The Asylum, responsible for such low budget nonsense as Mega Piranha, Giant Shark vs Mega Octopus and The Terminators and about to release such wonderfully titled films as: Almighty Thor, 2012: Ice Age and 2 Headed Shark Attack. They are normally a joy for purveyors of crap movies, the sort of things...

Bare Behind Bars (Review)
The Women in Prison genre is a curious one as it tends to revolve around sadism, sex or both; Spanish sleaze-master, Jess Franco, made several WIP films involving South American jails, barely dressed inmates and violent lesbian guards. On the flip side, you have the family drama TV show Prisoner: Cell Block H which ran for 692 episodes over nearly 8 years and has become a cult classic. Bare...

The Mole People (Review)
if anyone were to ask you about Universal horror and science fiction films from the 1940s and ‘50s, you would probably come up with at least one of the following franchises: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon or The Mummy. Universal made scores of pictures during this time, many with a B-movie feel and those would probably extend to this 1956 offering from...

Deadfall (Review)
It is hard to think of some actors or filmmakers as anything other than the great and respected industry figures they are today or the trailblazing directors, cinematographers, screenwriters or producers who have revolutionised cinema. One of these is Michael Caine; it is almost impossible to think of him as a virtually unknown actor but, given that his ‘proper’ film debut was The Ipcress File in 1...

Crying with Laughter (Review)
One of the great things about being a film critic/journalist/reviewer (delete as applicable) is that you can see a huge variety of films from foreign arthouse movies to recent blockbusters and everything in between. Sometimes you know almost nothing about a film until you put the disc in your DVD/Blu-ray player and press play and this was the case with Crying with Laughter as it is a DTV film and...

The Other Guys: Extended Cut (Review)
Reviewing this film was one of those cases where you prepare yourself for the worst yet hope for the best as The Other Guys is a film written and directed by Adam McKay whose previous work, particularly films like, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, has left me rather cold. I'm also not a great fan of Will Ferrell as he occasionally comes across as a little...

Bedlam (Review)
Growing up, I thought the word 'Bedlam' referred to a state of near-anarchy and extremist behaviour with people saying things like "It's Bedlam in there" and it wasn't until I saw the rather forgettable Liz Hurley movie Beyond Bedlam when I was 14 that I actually realised Bedlam was a mental institution from where the expression came. Inspired by The Rake's Progress, a series of paintings by...

Circle of Pain (Review)
This was one of those discs that arrived unsolicited and I thought twice before even watching the film, let alone putting my thoughts on a website for anyone to read. It was abundantly clear from the synopsis on the press release that Circle of Pain is not the type of movie that I would generally watch as I'm not a fan of cage fighting or mindless action movies. Nevertheless, I thought 'Why not?'...