Reviews

It's difficult to overestimate the significance of Dracula. Far more so than its predecessor, The Curse of Frankenstein, it set the tone for Hammer's movie output over the next two decades - the two decades (1956-1976) when British films, or at least British horror films, were among the best, most admired and most imitated in the world. A far cry from the terribly English whimsy of the Thirties and Forties, or the provincial, "arty" stuff that's predominated since the end of the Eady levy in the 1980s.

With this movie, Hammer not only created an international star out of Christopher Lee, but a worldwide phenomenon that persists, in series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and films like Sleepy Hollow, to the present day. Taking the Kensington gore quotient of The Curse of Frankenstein, and combining it with an unprecedented dose of eroticised violence, Dracula revolutionised horror, ultimately leading to the breasts and blood exploitation movies of the Seventies, as well as the heavy sexual overtones of films such as Alien and The Company of Wolves.

The movie benefits from two astonishing central performances. Christopher Lee's Dracula is a creation of passionate intensity, to whom Cushing's monomaniacal Van Helsing is the antithesis – fire and steel; hot-blooded animal instinct versus cool scientific rationalism. This has led some critics to identify Van Helsing as the real villain of the piece, a brutal fanatic who coldly pounds a stake through the vampirised Lucy. Either way, both actors give supremely effective performances. The final confrontation between the two remains the single most iconic scene in any Hammer film. Hardly surprising, given their on screen charisma, that Lee should reprise his role six times and Cushing four.

The most influential British movie of all time, Dracula's electric mix of sex and death fuelled a global revolution in genre film-making, and presented Hammer with a formula that they would return to again and again over the next two decades.

Hostel is that rare thing these days - an American horror movie that actually delivers. Whereas most current Hollywood "horrors" are anaemic affairs that sacrifice scares for laughs and tend to have their characters sneer instead of scream, Hostel goes for the jugular with some genuinely harrowing moments (you'll never see toenail clippings in the same way again). Eli Roth seems to have taken a tip from the 1970s, the golden age of horror, by placing his protagonists in unfamiliar surroundings, stripping them of all comforts and subjecting them to such horrendous ordeals that, to paraphrase Tobe Hooper, the audience really doesn't know 'who will survive and what will be left of them.'

Beginning innocuously enough with two fresh-faced American backpackers doing hash and whores in Holland, Roth slowly cranks up the tension by having the hapless teens encounter a guy who tells them that if they're looking for hot chicks then they just have to visit a hostel in a remote town in Slovakia. Mocking the young Americans' ignorance by casually referring to a non-existent war, and making out that the women of Eastern Europe are still living life as though they were in a Soviet state of the 1980s, pretty soon this silver-tongued creep has convinced the teens and their Icelandic buddy to take a chance. One unsettling train journey later, and the boys believe that all their wishes have come at once, as beautiful, buxom, naturist girlies frolic for them at the legendary hostel.

Of course, this is just the flypaper. Pretty quickly, the Icelander is missing, and it gradually becomes apparent that the hostel is the front for something sinister.

Crossing over into exploitation by featuring acres of female skin and full frontal scenes, Hostel fondly recalls the political incorrectness of so many 1970s British horror movies, combining this with the gutsy gore of 1980s American shockers. However, Roth ensures that this is more than just a tribute with some neat directorial touches and motifs, contrasting the light S&M fetishes in the Dutch brothels with the truly awful fate of the Slovak hostelers. He also keeps things interesting with a twist two thirds of the way through the movie.

Hostel's not a perfect film - the script lacks the anger or isolation that defines the greatest genre films. The greatest horror directors (Walker, Kubrick, Romero) seem to retain an ambivalence towards the material that Roth lacks - it feels like he enjoys this to much to be repelled by it. But this is worth more than a hundred Screams or Final Destinations because it does not try to humourise the horror, or make light of the characters' ordeals: no-one can come out of this smiling. Superior to Cabin Fever, most certainly, and pretty much on a par with recent hits such as Wolf Creek and The Descent, Hostel is the best US horror I've seen for some time. See it.

Jackson's King Kong, which has wowed British critics and led the lugubrious Guardian film reviewer to award a rare five stars (Star Wars III got just one), is all style over substance. Jackson, like George Lucas, seems to have forgotten how to make the kind of compact, compelling fantasy film his original success was founded on. Instead, King Kong, like the great ape himself, is an overblown monster, pounding its chest and bellowing its greatness, and generally setting itself up for a tremendous fall.

Presumably buoyed up by the glut of Oscars awarded to the last (and weakest) instalment of the Rings trilogy, Jackson has turned in The Lord of the Rings Episode IV. Running to the kind of heart-sinkingly extended length of the Rings movies without any justification (the Tolkien novels were long - the source for King Kong isn't), this King Kong is a far cry from the brilliant economical storytelling of the original classic. It takes an hour for Denham's film crew to reach Skull Island by which time the audience in the cinema was already flagging. Once there, Jackson subjects us to the kind of Dutch tilts, excruciating slo-mo and impressively choreographed but over-egged fight scenes that marred The Return of the King. Plundering his own work on the Rings films, Jackson presents us with Skull Island natives who are basically the uruk-hai, a spider-pit sequence that's basically a nastier version of Shelob's lair, and a climax, as in The Return of the King, that just keeps going on. And on. And on.

As with The Return of the King, Jackson loses track of the thrust of the story. Is this about beauty and the beast? If so, why cut away so frequently and for so long from Ann and Kong's weird romance? When the original film featured the sailors fleeing voracious dinosaurs, it was an extended chase sequence that was focused on trying to rescue Ann from the clutches of the beast. Here, there's no such focus. In the original, the spider pit sequence was rightly cut because it presented the audience with an unnecessary interlude, a break in the narrative thrust. That Jackson chooses to restore the sequence, and to lengthen it interminably, demonstrates a failure to understand what made the 1933 Kong such a triumph of pure adventure story.

It's not all bad. The effects are great, of course, and the acting is more or less top notch (although the decision to include the egregious Jack Black was surely a mistake). Jackson's CGI ape is almost as charming as the original, and a damn sight scarier. All this means that the inevitable ending does bring a lump to the throat. It's just a shame that it takes over three hours to get there. Don't believe the hype, though. This is Jackson's Phantom Menace. It's not a patch on the Rings trilogy, or his economical earlier work. And it's not a patch on 2005's other blockbusters: Goblet of Fire, Narnia or Revenge of the Sith. Let's hope if there's a DVD Special Edition it cuts to the chase.

This odd short tells the story of a young virgin who is invited to spend time with her friends at a remote farmhouse in the English countryside. It soon becomes clear that someone - or something! - has demonic plans for her. Add into the mix a desperate race against time before a dark force is resurrected, a possessed handyman, and a heavy homoerotic subtext, and you have a very weird movie indeed. Thanks to the miniscule (and very obviously amateur) cast, and lingering shots of the countryside, the film possesses an eerie, empty quality that is reminiscent of such 70's British classics as The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Vampyres and Frightmare. However, there's also a dose of giallo-type gore, and a bizarre ending that could belong in an Argento movie. Invitation to Hell is an obscure film that was released in the early 80's on video. It's long-since been deleted (I picked up my second- or third-hand copy from eBay), but if you're an afficionado of British horror, or in search of something a bit different, this is worth seeking out.

Having recently re-watched both The Fellowship of the Ring (FotR) and The Two Towers (TT) before going to see The Return of the King (RotK), I was surprised to find that the first film stands up far better than either of its sequels.

There are a number of reasons why this should be the case. The opening of FotR is spectacular. Epic in vision and realisation, the prologue sets the scene for what is to come, immediately engaging the audience by turning the weighty history of the Lord of the Rings into an enthralling narrated story. The battle against Sauron on the slopes of Mount Doom, whilst not as lengthy or technically accomplished as the fight scenes in TT or RotK, achieves genuine grandeur in a short space of time.

Once the story proper gets going, we are treated to dozens of engaging and enjoyable sequences: virtually everything set in Hobbiton; the flight from the Black Riders; the scenes at Isengard; the journey through Moria, and the final, tragic events at the end of the film. Perhaps the only parts of the movie that don't quite work are the scenes in Lorien, perhaps because they break the tension that is otherwise almost continuous between the Fellowship leaving Rivendell and the end of the movie. Also, Jackson seems more comfortable in the grimy, frightening world of Men, Orcs and Dwarves than he does in the aloof and ethereal palaces of the Elves. Even Lorien, however, offers one gem: the temptation of Galadriel - the last time Frodo is willing to hand over the Ring, and a scene that reinforces its malevolent power.

The story flows smoothly and logically, with none of the sudden jumps of TT or RotK. Although much of the original novel was cut, there is nothing missing from the film that really needs to be in here. Jackson and his writers have done an excellent job of paring down Tolkien's verbose style to make a film that perfectly fills its length, feeling neither too compressed, nor too drawn out.

The film's sequels sometimes emphasised spectacle over character. The reverse is true of FotR. Although there is enough action here to satisfy - the flight to Rivendell, the battle against goblins, trolls and the Balrog in Moria, and the breaking of the Fellowship - Jackson spends equal time establishing the relationship of the key characters. The Hobbits are carefree Little Englanders, suspicious and dismissive in equal measure of events that take place away from the Shire. Frodo and Sam are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the world of the Ring. Aragorn seems to have lost something: he is cynical and hard, and his relationship with the equally hard-bitten Boromir tells us as much as we need to know about the "World of Men". Gandalf is wise, but not faultless: he fails to discern Saruman's treachery until it is too late, and it is his lack of attention to Bilbo's Ring that means Sauron has not been defeated before he can gather his armies. Gimli and Legolas, whilst less defined than the other members of the Fellowship, get their share of fun scenes, and Gimli's character in particular helps the audience build a picture of what the Dwarves are like. It is doubly fortunate that FotR succeeds so well in establishing the characters, as TT and RotK dedicate much less time to them, and rely on the memory of this film to maintain the audience's emotional investment in their journey.

FotR is a marvellous fantasy movie that captures the essence of Tolkien's complex world and makes it into a genuinely accessible and engaging film that is peopled by believable and interesting characters. Jackson is to be applauded for his achievement here, for it would have been easy for a film that includes tiny men with hairy feet, Wagnerian Dwarves, Wizards, Trolls and Elves that talk like cod-Shakespearean hams to be laughable. That he conveys a world that is not only real, but which has its own long history, reflected in its architecture, its landscape and its people, is exceptional. While the two sequels are worthy in their own ways, neither quite scales the heights that are reached here, by the Fellowship of the Ring.

The Return of the King is certainly the least successful of the three Lord of the Rings movies. It's beset by the flaws that often mar the last parts of trilogies (cf. Return of the Jedi; Back to the Future III), namely that the director tries to do more of the same things he has done previously, but BIGGER! While this gives fans what they crave, it tends to leave others cold - because by doing everything bigger, the bad points are bigger and more obvious too.

The Return of the King is bedevilled by excrutiating slo-mo sequences that were often used in the previous two movies. Here, though, every other scene seems to be played out in half speed. Likewise, the scattergun narrative style of the previous film reaches new extremes here - Jackson is so keen to include as much authentic Tolkien as possible that the overall thrust of the story is lost. The most important part of the journey - Frodo's quest to destroy the Ring (against which the great wars are merely incidental) - is smothered under endless technically impressive but frequently soulless battle scenes. Ultimately, we have a very bitty film that jumps from scene to scene without any ready explanations (suddenly, and apparently on a whim, Arwen's fate becomes tied to that of the Ring; Aragorn finds a deus ex machina army lurking in the mountains, and - most criminally - the main villain of the first two movies, Saruman, is written out with a single, off-hand comment from Gandalf).

The destruction of the Ring and Sauron is also anticlimactic - this happens halfway through The Return of the King book, with the real emotional climax being the Scouring of the Shire and Saruman's final fall. For reasons of time, this was dropped from the script - but there's nothing to really replace it. Perhaps if Jackson had opted for something radical like having Sauron manifest himself - becoming more than just a remote villain whom is endlessly talked up but never seems to do much except sit and stare - this would have been a better climax.

That said, The Return of the King contains many great moments. Shelob is genuinely horrible, the arrival of the army of Rohan is a real air-punching moment, and the pyre of Denethor is a marvellous piece of over-the-top Gothic melodrama. Aside from the above-mentioned surfeit of slo-mo sequences, Jackson's directorial flair is readily apparent, and the film is never less than entertaining, and many of the issues that I've pointed out (Saruman's no-show, the lack of ready explanations) will surely be corrected in the Special Extended Edition. Having said at the outset that this is the lesser film of the trilogy, that's actually not much of a criticism - because Jackson's Lord of the Rings is sure to become the definitive interpretation of Tolkien's novel for many years to come.

This version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not strictly a re-make of the original, but rather a Planet of the Apes-type "re-imagining". The trouble is, it has to be one of the least imaginative horror movies of the year. The only hint of originality comes in the first ten minutes, when a previous victim of Leatherface's family blows her brains out, and the camera pulls back through the hole in her head. After this, the film descends into bog-standard teen slasher/in-bred redneck fare which has been done (and better) countless times before, for example in this year's movies Wrong Turn and Cabin Fever.

Sadly, the film fails to exploit or expand on the more disturbing aspects of the (far superior) original. The sinister home of the family - in the original, a horrifying charnel shrine to death - becomes a slightly messy mansion. Leatherface's abbatoir is reduced to a dank cellar, and the family members themselves come across more like stereotypical Deep South bigots than insane killers. Likewise, the dark humour of the original film is abandoned in favour of more explicit gore and several extended and unscary stalk and slash sequences. And whereas the original film built up tension by gradually introducing the horror (the desecrated graves, the long journey with the mad hitch-hiker past the slaughter house, the dilapidated mansion), this new movie lacks any sense of menace until about halfway through. Even then, the suspense comes strictly from stock. This is a boring story that has no emotional core, no narrative drive and no pace. It is a series of events strung together with very little logic.

The film purports to be set in the 1970's, but it lacks any sense of time. The teens all wear anachronistic clothes and hairstyles, speak in modern terms, and show no awareness that they are supposed to be in a period piece.

Ultimately, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an uneasy compromise between the low-budget indie flick nature of the original, and the slicker, more vacuous style of modern teen slasher pictures. As a result, it's neither a stylish re-telling nor a decent stand-alone. If you're set on seeing a solid teens v. rednecks movie this year, opt for the far more coherent and creepy Wrong Turn. This is a very poor runner up.

The League of Gentlemen is one of the most consistently entertaining series of recent years. Without a doubt, its finest hour (literally) came in the Christmas Special. This hour-long TV movie is based on the Amicus "portmanteau" horror films of the 1970's (cf. Tales from the Crypt, Asylum, The Uncanny et al.). Typically, these films would see a host (generally Peter Cushing) encounter a series of hapless individuals who would relate their horrific experiences, before the "unexpected twist" framing-story climax. This Christmas Special sticks religiously to that formula, with lugubrious vicar Bernice lending an unsympathetic ear to cheese-dreaming Charlie, vagrant Matthew and incompetent vet Dr Chinnery. Each of the three tales is as darkly comical as we've come to expect from the League, with Charlie's tale mixing line dancing and voodoo, Matthew's tale spoofing Hammer vampire movies, Romero's Martin and German expressionist films, and Chinnery's tale a piece of classic Victorian melodrama involving a cursed pair of monkey's testicles. But what raises this special far above the level of a beautifully made and affectionate pastiche is that all the tales (and particularly the first two) are not only genuinely frightening, but more convincingly so than most of Amicus' own efforts. The gory, unremitting horror of the climax of Charlie's tale, and the truly creepy sequences set within the Lipp household in Matthew's story have a real power to them. And the final, terrifying twist - 'It's nice to see you again, all grown up...' - is one of the most disturbing moments in TV history (no wonder it ended up in Channel 4's Top 100 Scary Moments programme).

Lavish, dark and compelling, The League of Gentlemen Christmas Special stands alongside Threads and Ghost Watch as innovative and frightening television, and is perhaps the best one-off programme made by the BBC in the last decade.

From it's stunning opening to its shattering climax, Twins of Evil is an unremittingly brutal movie. Burnings, stabbings and decapitations are unflinchingly displayed, and, because this *is* a seventies Hammer film, there's some softcore nudity as well. But for all that, this is also a supremely elegant film that shies from clear-cut good and evil distinctions, preferring to paint its characters in subtler shades. Peter Cushing gives a magnificent performance, taking the single-minded fanaticism of his Van Helsing character and notching it up several degrees to create the truly terrifying Gustav Weil. Weil, a ruthless, sexually-repressed Puritan, gets his kicks from burning young women whom he accuses of witchcraft. Only Cushing could imbue the potentially laughable line 'the devil has sent me twins of evil!' with a shiver of sexual pleasure as he anticipates the inevitable pyre.

Visually, Twins of Evil is stunning. There are several set-piece moments, including a beautifully directed vampire resurrection, and the climactic tableau on the steps of Karnstein Castle. The film is saturated in blues and greens, which only makes the dayglo-red blood seem all the more shocking. The score, and the opening theme in particular, is memorable.

Twins of Evil is a remarkable film, taking the grandeur of The Brides of Dracula and the brutal intensity of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and combining them with the new house style introduced in The Vampire Lovers. What really distinguishes it from its contemporaries is Cushing's brilliant performance: more villainous than the dandyish Count Karnstein, more heroic than the ponderous Anton, the synthesis of antagonist/protagonist in Weil elevates Twins of Evil to genuine greatness. The best of Hammer's latterday horror films.

This is a much-maligned film that seems to have been tarred with the same brush as the dire Dracula A.D. 1972, simply because it updates the Dracula legend to the present day. Satanic Rites is an infinitely superior movie, however, and easily the best of the Hammer Dracula sequels. Previous sequels had seen the Count resurrected only to lurk in the shadows and momentarily reveal himself to take his revenge on his foes, reducing Christopher Lee's Dracula to little more than a glorified extra. Satanic Rites is different because it uses Lee's scant appearances to its advantage, keeping Dracula aloof and mysterious and instead concerning itself with the disease of vampirism, which is compared to a plague. Because of it's science fiction overtones, this feels more like an instalment of The Avengers or Doctor Who than a typical Hammer film. In its present-day setting and apocalyptic storyline, it also seems to be a definite influence on the highly-regarded TV series Ultraviolet. For the fan of classic Hammer Gothic Horror, this is probably best avoided, but for those who enjoy British telefantasy it's an absolute must see.

The Dalton Bond movies are often praised for making 007 seem more dangerous, recalling the so-called glory days of Connery. While to an extent this is true, and though it's reasonable to say that the production staff needed to rethink the formula following the unsatisfying Bond-by-numbers View to a Kill, to suggest that Bond needed to be reinvented as a sociopathic maverick does seem something of an overreaction.

Reactionary sums up Licence to Kill. In itself it's a fine movie, well directed and packed with praiseworthy action sequences. However, as a *Bond film* it misses the point entirely. The almost total absence of humour is clearly a reaction against the excesses of the Moore era, as is Bond's ruthless edge, the lack of glamour, and the ordinariness of the villain and his "plot". But by shunning the wit, sparkle and hyperbole, the resulting film is a simple action blockbuster with nothing to distinguish it from any other vacuous Hollywood romp. The grandeur of Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice is dumped in favour of some worthy but dull sermon on drug barons in Latin America. The baddie doesn't even have a fiendishly masterful plan a la Grand Slam or Moonraker for Bond to foil - just some drug smuggling that's been going on for years and that the CIA could probably have sorted out without the help of Britain's finest.

As for Bond's resignation - it's a horrible, cliched and utterly uncharacteristic gesture that belongs in a B-grade US cop show (where the hero rails against the "pen pushers at city central") and not in a series whose star embodies loyalty to his country and service, heroism, and the sacrifice of personal vendettas to a greater cause.

Quite why Bond's makers felt Licence to Kill was needed is a mystery. After all, they'd already produced a movie that toned down excessive humour and fantasy while still managing to retain the essential Bond spark: For Your Eyes Only. Licence to Kill hasn't got wit, escapism or glamour. It's not even a spy film, and it's definitely not Bond.

Another strong showing from Brosnan in this, his second Bond film. Although I think it lags somewhat in the middle, 'Tomorrow Never Dies' holds up well enough. I particularly liked the sadistic Germanic villain Stamper, although his henchman, ably played by Jonathan Pryce, was also very good. The Bond revival continues.

Unlike many people, I thoroughly enjoyed the TV movie. It succeeded in remaining true to the spirit of Doctor Who whilst managing to forge its own distinctive identity (largely based, it must be said, on some marvellous direction, and brilliant and assured performances from Eric Roberts, Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook). The story's not up to much, but that's offset by some slick action sequences and sparkling dialogue. A triumph - of style over substance it may be said, but a triumph nonetheless.

A nice, archetypal Bond movie with a strong performance from Brosnan and some nifty special effects. I'm still not as enthralled by the more recent Bond films, but GoldenEye is definitely an improvement over the last three or four.

'Ed Wood' is a truly brilliant movie. Charting the life of unbelievably talentless director Edward D. Wood, it recreates some of his greatest "triumphs" ('Glen or Glenda' and the infamous 'Plan 9 from Outer Space'), whilst managing to tell a funny and moving story of a man driven by his belief in himself (after all, no-one else will).

Having seen 'The Exorcist' recently, and knowing beforehand how horrific it was supposed to be, I have to confess that I laughed all the way through. It has aged terribly in the last twenty-five years. It is slow, loosely plotted and far too "seventies" for a nineties audience to really appreciate. I'm sure that, at the time, it was a mould-breaking horror. Now it's just a relic that illustrates the sensibilities of a seventies audience and the censors. Sorry to all those fifty-somethings who saw it and screamed the first time round - I just don't see what there is to scream about.

OHMSS, while lacking the pulling power of a Connery film, or the idiosyncratic villains (and expensive effects) of a Moore, Dalton or Brosnan, more than holds its own against the other movies in the Bond series. Lazenby is perhaps less effective than some of the other big-screen Bonds, but he brings a more understated humour to the role than Moore did, while remaining true to Connery's slightly ruthless hero. All-in-all, OHMSS is probably the most Fleming-accurate film in the Bond canon and is none the worse for it.

Having recently re-watched this film in the cinema I was pleasantly surprised to find that it really *was* as enjoyable (if not more so) than I remembered. From the explosive and exciting (but utterly pointless) teaser sequence, through the epochal theme song; the gold-painted Jill Masterson and the outrageous Pussy Galore; the excellent Goldfinger and his iconic sidekick Oddjob, to the climax of the film in Fort Knox I was glued to the screen. All these elements were to be repeated in some form or another in later Bond films, usually to diminishing effect. 'Goldfinger' was the first, and the best. Oh, and Sean Connery is *the* James Bond.

Perhaps the worst film I have ever seen. 'Queen of Outer Space' epitomises the fifties approach to science fiction. It's dully plotted, intellectually weak, misogynistic and so inferior in every respect that it becomes a study in what films should not be. I suppose one could argue it achieves a sort of kitsch glamour, or is "so bad it's good". Personally I think it goes beyond that and right back round again. Truly appalling.

An entertaining, informative, sometimes breathtaking documentary. Thanks to all those involved for making the 35th anniversary a date to remember.