Available from Amazon priced at $16.99

In the months since I last saw STOP-LOSS, the American economy has continued to spiral downward, despite the hallucinogenic imaginings of the outgoing President Bush (good riddance!). Much of the downturn is directly related to the war in Iraq, as well as the continuously-pounding drums of war on the borders of supposedly sovereign nations in the Middle East. They need freedom, and they’re going to get it, says Bush, even if we need to fuck them in the ass with nuclear weapons!

Yee-motherfucking-haw.

As you can see, I am in the proper frame of mind for an anti-Iraq-war film. Unfortunately, STOP-LOSS is not quite the one.

THE FILM

Rather than rehash, I will just post a link to my previous review of the film, with a few snippets…

Click here!

Director Kimberley Pierce moves the film along nicely, incorporating some gritty flashbacks that allow us access to what the soldiers see in their heads. Unfortunately, the film, as written by Mark Richard and Pierce, plays out like a St. Elmo’s Fire version of the War On Terror. Much like that overblown Joel Schumacher yuppie-fest, this movie puts its cast of beautiful actors into contrived confrontations that seem a bit too Hollywood for its subject matter. The Iraq war is still a raw nerve in the public consciousness, yet the film plays out like a soap opera. It reminded me of the AIDS movie The Cure with Joseph Mazzello and Brad Renfro - well meaning and treacly at the same time.

But no matter how good the intentions, this Iraq situation - and the young people involved in it - deserve something more probing, more outraged … and ultimately, more honest.

From that review, I would like to emphasize my disappointment at the handling of the JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT character in the film. He is the barely-used, stereotypical post-war psychopath. Even though Levitt does well enough with the material, the character is shoddily-written before being tossed unceremoniously to the dogs.

EXTRAS

Surprisingly slim considering the talent involved. However, I really liked the “Making of Documentary”, primarily because it shows how much attention was paid to the plight of actual veterans and their situations.

It might have been nice to hear more from the talented young cast, though.

OVERALL

While the film plays a bit like an Afternoon Special Movie about the Iraq War, it still tackles its subject matter with a certain dignity and insight. The performances are very good. I absolutely think the film is important for Americans to either buy or rent, if for no other reason than to understand how very wrong it was to put these men in harm’s way in the first place when they gave their dictator four more years.

Maybe I’m just too angry to properly review this movie. Check it out and send me your thoughts.

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Available at Amazon priced at $17.99

I am one of a handful of people who left 1999’s THE RING unfazed. Everyone claimed it was the scariest film since ISHTAR, but I simply shrugged. Sure, the imagery was cool. Unfamiliar with Japanese horror films (at the time), the sight of the little girl with the long black hair seemed creepy. But I felt the whole movie was based on a faulty and fairly ridiculous plot; I could never turn my brain off long enough to let the visuals distract me.

Since then, I have seen a long parade of remakes following in the tradition of THE RING: take one dark haired female ghost, add a grudge, and then utilize some sort of technology for the ghost to haunt. Mix liberally with strobe flashes and overly-lit cinematography. Viola!!

Which brings me to the newest remake to follow this formula to the letter: SHUTTER.

THE FILM

The plot - remember, in a good horror film, it’s always best to have lots and lots of plot devices!! - involves a young married couple named Ben (JOSHUA JACKSON) and Jane (RACHAEL TAYLOR), who move to Tokyo for Ben’s job as photographer. Strange things start happening with the sudden appearances of a young woman with pale skin and dark hair (uh oh!). The images captured in Ben’s constantly-flashing camera reveal ghosts haunting them. Plot contrivances start to pile up idiotically. Deaths ensue.

Can we please - PLEASE - put a moratorium on dark haired ghost movies?? It’s tired beyond words. Can we also put an end to horror films involving a piece of technology? Televisions, cell phones, and cameras are not fucking scary. EVER. Now, if someone wants to make a horror film about a dark haired woman haunting a vibrator in a creative way, then I’m up for it. Otherwise, let’s give it a rest, shall we?

The performances are pure garbage; the film should be called DAWSON’S CREAK. The writing is beyond insipid. The direction and cinematography fail to produce interest, let alone scares.

Avoid this film.

EXTRAS

Are you kidding me?

OVERALL

Pointless and derivative. Watch the original HALLOWEEN again if you want a horror film, not shit like this.

It’s been out for ages in the States and it’s finally about to hit UK shores, the most anticipated robot since rumour first spread of the first TERMINATOR movie, it’s WALL.E. We all know the premise, it’s 700 years in the future and mankind has fled the earth, leaving it covered in gunk, completely uninhabitable. Originally a fleet of small robots were left to do the cleanup operation but when it became clear this wouldn’t work they were all turned off… except for one. In all this time alone Wall.E has developed some quirks, he’s become very curious and, as you might expect, very lonely. But this all changes when a probe named EVE is deposited nearby and Wall.E falls in love.

If you’ve missed the hype surrounding this one then you’ve probably been cryogenically frozen for several decades, in which case: FREEZE YOURSELF AGAIN, RECESSION IS LOOMING. But before you do, watch this move. Ray’s argument a few weeks back that WALL.E is worthy for the best film Oscar was right on the money, this is certainly the best film of the year so far, hell it’s even one of the best of the last five years. Why? I hear you ask. Well aside form the usual stuff you can read in every single one of the reviews available in the vastness of cyberspace, there are some superbly thought through aspects of the film which make it so special.

Firstly, it’s core message. Everyone has noticed and most people have praised the fact that, unlike many Dreamworks contemporaries (KUNG FU PANDA et al) WALL.E and the rest of the Pixar creations have at their heart a very real and very important message, in this case take ownership of the planet. But this alone isn’t enough to make the film special. What makes WALL.E stand out is that it doesn’t talk down from an ivory tower, there is no glimmer of accusation or of desperation; it is a message of hope, pure and simple. The people in the film aren’t shown as bad, or even as lazy. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do. And as soon as they’re confronted with a real challenge, sparked to life by a real glimmer of hope, they all pitch in and start to rise to it. Even the massive corporation Buy ‘n’ Large, whilst clearing wrong, isn’t painted as evil per se, they try and fix the planet, they build the ships and make everything easy for people. It’s not that anyone is bad, just that the system clearly isn’t working. So we’re left with no pontification, no didactic whining, just positivity and hope. Brilliant.

Secondly, there’s the whole universality of communication embodied in the wordless narrative that fills a majority of the movie. Conveying the broad range of emotions contained within the wonderful characters populating the screen (most viscerally in Wall.E and Eve) is truly a marvellous achievement, but there are some great little touches which make the film not just totally engaging, but hilarious too. The ‘voice’ of each robot fits its character perfectly, it’s not just Wall.E and Eve whose beeps and bleeps mould so well to their image, but the whole host of other automatons from M-O to AUTO were spot on. Then there’s little details like the administrative robot Wall.E encounters whilst pursuing Eve on board the Axiom, whose wingle peering eye encapsulates the role perfectly, and whose keyboard covered in dozens of keys all bearing either a ‘0′ or a ‘1′ is just genius. Even the use of the Mac noise when Wall.E is recharged is inspired.

And finally, there’s the short that comes before the film. So little has been commented about PRESTO and it’s just not fair. Nothing could’ve put me in a better mood than this old-school cartoon about a magician and his rabbit, it’s so funny, so cleverly drawing on the old traditions of Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny that you cant help but shake your head in apprecition as soon as you can stop laughing. Pure slapstick glee with no malice, no slyness and no sarcasm. Unadulterated joy, a thoroughly worthy companion to a masterpiece of a feature.

This film deserves the Oscar. It deserves every Oscar. And a Nobel Prize for brilliantness. And I bet it would win it too if I hadn’t just made it up…

Available on DVD from Amazon priced at £10.98

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Ok, calm. Calm. Breathe Mike. Although, with the remaining adrenaline rush I may just hunt down and kill director Johannes Roberts and his team of brain-damaged writers who saw fit to inflict this pile of crap on the world. I felt like I’d just had human faeces wiped in my eyes after an hour and a half of what is possibly the worst mini series ever made.

Originally distributed for exhibition on mobile phones (I do not jest my firends) this tripe has somehow made it’s way to DVD and it’s not pretty.

Everything is based on a single concept: students at a small British school get a text offering them one wish (the whole saga appears to be inaugurated by a freaky clown who appears from nowhere) and when they make the wish it comes true, but in the most predictable way possible, involving death or mutilation in the most feasible way using only corn syrup, red-food dye and some plastic body parts.

The DVD is composed of a ‘movie’, being the 20 wish sketches crammed together and it really gets tiring by the end. There is nothing actually disgusting or scary in all the attempts to shock, in fact the only disgusting thing about this DVD is the constant attempts to make it ’sexy’ by dressing all the female pupils of the school in short skirts and occasionally having them get their tits out. What’s more, the writers capability for comedy is limited to puns and puns alone: the deaths are puns, the mutilations are puns and if that wasn’t enough every single mini-episode/wish scene is introduced by a pitifully acted and unbearably scripted janitor who does nothing but spout puns! I think that I’m now suffering from pun saturation, if I see one more pun in the next week I will have some sort of total organ failure. So be careful in your comments on this or OWF may lose a reviewer.

Aside from the barrage of flaws from which this feeble shit is spun, there are plenty of other problems I can hold up to you all as the figurative head-on-a-spike to warn you off. WHEN EVIL CALLS was originally a 20 episode mini-series, that’s 20 short (maybe 5 minute) episodes. In each one when someone gets the text we lose 30 precious seconds simply seeing “CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE WON A WISH” etc flash up on screen to the same damn music every time, every character who recurs is introduced with the same stereotypes to establish their role in the sketch, and each of these hideous caricatures grows about as much as my toenails have in the time I’ve spent writing this review.

Please don’t watch this, and please please please don’t send your money buying it. If my review has failed to persuade you the guilt will hang over me for laugh, and possibly in result in my eternal damnation in the afterlife.

Extras are a pointless “Making Of Documentary” which makes this sound like it might not be shit, and also illustrates quite nicely the fact that everyone involved couldn’t decide if it was meant to be funny, ironic or scary and thus failed to make it any of it. Oh, and the obligatory trailers.

If you ever watched DEAD CALM (the 80’s thriller-on-a-boat with Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill and Billy Zane) and wished it would be remade in Spain with drugged up morons having sex before killing each other as a substitute for dramatic tension, then this is the movie for you! A predictable thriller that adopts a textbook format, DONKEY PUNCH is a bland affair (perhaps the jacket potato of the cinema world) but, to the credit of writer and director alike, it does manage to get some of the basics right.

For those of you who don’t know, “donkey punch” is the slang term for a sexual practice best avoided and it is this very event that forms the lynchpin of the film. We start out with three young lasses from Northern England who have come to Mallorca for a girly holiday away from their problems back home.

Thus we begin with the usual shots of glossy bikini-clad bodies as they lure the masculine half of the cast. When the three lads appear they do the obvious thing and get drunk before agreeing to get on their luxury yacht and sail out to the open sea to party. Drink is drunk, drugs are dosed and banter is shared before we get to the sex scene, which would actually be worth watching if you’re into soft porn if it wasn’t for the hideous and immensely annoying Bluey (Tom Burke) whose mildly amusing chav speak quickly changes from being entertaining to being a complete mood killer. After this particular scene however, it all goes downhill as an accident leads to division amongst the group, suspicion and ultimately a hilarious series unfortunate mishaps and insane acts of violence.

The close quarters of the luxury yacht does provide a decent setting for some tense stand-offs, as well as some interesting ways to kill people, and director Olly Blackburn does some good work with the actors to build up some of the fear factor, but there’s just not really anything special about this film.

DONKEY PUNCH is a horror/thriller which stands out above a lot of its recent American counterparts which have lapsed into absurdity in recent weeks with films like THE HAPPENING, and which is a welcome return to the crucial core of the genres which are sometimes shamefully neglected. Blackburn and Bloom are at pains to create tension, realistic characters and the bad stuff that happening without a clearly identified ‘bad guy’, but there just isn’t that magical edge that allows the movie to rise above mediocrity. And that’s a real shame.

DONKEY PUNCH WILL HAVE A LIMITED RUN IN THEATRES FROM FRIDAY 18th JULY 2008!

Prolific French writer/director Olivier Assayas receives another outing on British screens this summer with the fittingly titled SUMMER HOURS. But before I start I have to warn you that this film is incredibly high brow, even for an arthouse movie. In fact it was so high brow and so crammed with high society characters that I returned home from the screening with altitude sickness. That said, this film is a wide-ranging story of family, love and money in today’s international, postmodern world. An ambitious project, SUMMER HOURS is composed of layers and layers of detail that take lots of concentration to peel away.

The structure of the narrative is centred on three siblings (each with their own family and career) who meet at the country home inhabited by their mother and he long-serving maid Éloïse. It’s the only time of the year they’re all together and it’s a long standing family tradition. But this year their mother seems morbid. She has begun planning for her death and wants arrangements made for the house and its collection of valuable antiques, among them many works, sketches, and general bric-a-brac belonging to their uncle who happens to be a famous artist. After the gathering we witness her passing away and the siblings become divided over the resultant decisions, with the inevitable dissolution of family unity without their focal point in the aging mother and her country home.

But however dull this may sound, the movie is not just a mundane look at family politics, accessible only to to those who have or covet expensive objects, wealth and property. This is a piece of art whose insights run deep. The progression of time in the film is not the usual plodding timeline laid out to herald new events and plot twists, it is almost a representation of the universal passage of time itself. One family splits into many, one object of value translates into another, meanings attached to them shift and transmogrify as they pass hands, and significant historical moments figures come and go. This ordinary upper middle class family thus becomes the embodiment of the fluidity of postmodern existence.

The privileged aspects that form the substance of the characters’ existence, whether these are the properties inherited by landed elite, the stylish symbolics and focus on trend shaping held by the cultural elite, or the finances of the business bigwigs dabbling in global markets, are somewhat alienating to the majority of us. I’d even go as far as to say that millions of cinemagoers escaping from their own serious problems may find this pontification somewhat self-indulgent and irrelevant. Nonetheless I am confident that everything painted on screen is created in the cause of art, and its significations for the various themes interwoven within the narrative, although not universally accessible, are carefully chosen and highly intelligent.

A film for thinkers out there, a slow burning, intricate portrayal of the complexities of contemporary family life, SUMMER HOURS is a thoroughly rewarding film if you are willing to brave its flaws. It’s detachment from the majority experience of everyday life means that it will be a joy to watch for some, but a painful chore for others.

THE MOVIE IS PLAYING ON VERY LIMITED RELEASE IN THE U.K. FROM FRIDAY 18th APRIL 2008! 

Available at Amazon priced at £12.98

Director TODD HAYNES is a weirdo, and he makes weird movies that always sit off-kilter from societal norms. Films like SUPERSTAR: THE KAREN CARPENTER STORY enacted with Barbie dolls launched him into the public consciousness, while VELVET GOLDMINE set him up as a critical darling.

Many of Haynes’ films uncomfortably blend innovative techniques with pretentious, look-at-me posturing that alienates large sections of the viewing public … me included. I enjoy films that can make me think while also making me feel something; the films Haynes makes usually come off as cold, pseudo-intellectual research papers rather than full-fledged films. Such is the case with his latest experiment, the Bob Dylan-inspired I’M NOT THERE.

THE FILM

First of all, this is not in any way a documentary or strict biography of the famed musician. Instead, Haynes crafts a “story” out of the music of Bob Dylan. To do this, Haynes uses seven wildly different actors to personify what Haynes sees as Dylan’s various personas over the decades.

Much of your appreciation of the film depends largely on your appreciation for the music of Dylan. Personally, I have never much cared for Dylan’s music. He sings like someone is shredding his testicles in a cheese grater. His lyrics come off like an intelligent eighth-grader’s free-association poetry. His accompanying music is usually fairly typical chord progression and blandishly meandering strumming.

Similarly, the film meanders between time periods and personas. We see a young Dylan as a young black boy who hitchhikes across the country expounding on the blues. Then we see his folky side as he joins the beat musicians of the sixties. Then we see him as an actor portraying the singer. Then we see him as a full-fledged star, and the trappings of his fame. And finally, we see him as a broken recluse in a little town called Riddle. Get it?

While nobody is explicitly called “Bob Dylan” here, his presence is felt through music and body language. Haynes allows his script and direction to follow his muse through various incarnations, hypothesizing mightily on who makes up the real Bob Dylan through faint glimpses of character.

The actors assigned the task of personifying these aspects of Dylan’s character are uniformly inspired. CHRISTIAN BALE tackles the young, fiery protesting folkie with considerable restraint and thoughtfulness. HEATH LEDGER brings shades of ego and and charisma to the Hollywood side of Dylan. And RICHARD GERE, barely recognizable, shines as a mystical recluse in a lonely town.

The truly astounding performance, though, is CATE BLANCHETT. She is completely transformed here, convincingly playing a male character at the height of his creative and charismatic powers. Not only does she believably convey Dylan at his most iconic; she also perfectly captures the self-important hipster nonsense of the late sixties. She rightfully deserved her Oscar nomination.

Haynes deftly uses a variety of film stocks and clever edits to craft his period-hopping film. Some points in Dylan’s life are rendered in deep, rich color, while others are seared onto the screen in high-contrast black and white. The cinematography by EDWARD LACHMAN is superb, bringing vibrant life to Haynes’ interesting shot composition. Despite the radical storytelling device used here, this might be Haynes’ most accessible film to date.

While there is much to recommend here, the film remains a cold and fairly clinical fictional recreation of Dylan’s supposed personas. This is definitely an art-house film, filled to the brim with the trappings and techniques that so enrapture the indie audience. This is the type of film that those types love to discuss over coffee or white wine, bantering politely about layers of meaning and subtextual imagery. For me, I think it’s an interesting experiment that left me feeling slightly empty. Perhaps it’s because I feel like Dylan, much like the film, is a detached, over-intellectualized, and overrated artist. Some would say that is then the great achievement of the film - that it so elegantly captures the truth of the artist - but all I can say to that is SO WHAT? However, I get the feeling that Haynes is truly a fan of Dylan, and attempted to make a film that both honors him as an artist and a human being … and if that’s the case, then the film falls flat with me because I simply do not agree with its adoration.

EXTRAS

For a film with such a unique approach and a an acclaimed cast, the extras seem a bit wanting. One thing vitally necessary to the collection is a detailed textual discussion of the film itself. Clicking through it allows the viewer to understand what Haynes attempted to do with this film. It details much about each phase of his life, and how the film portraye it thematically.

However, I would have liked to see more interviews with each cast member on their approaches to the character. Instead of this, we get some deleted scenes and outtakes that deservedly belonged on the cutting room floor. There are two extended conversations with Haynes himself; one as a film commentary, and another as an interview. While it was Haynes’ original vision, I would have liked to hear more from those who managed to bring this vision to breathtaking life.

OVERALL

The film is interesting but cold. To fans of Dylan’s work, this is a must-have; his music is showcased wonderfully here. To non-fans like myself, the film is a curiosity filled with marvelous cinematography and some interesting ideas. The performances are mostly extraordinary.

The collection might end up being the best this film will get, so if you’re interested in the subject at all, then now is the time to buy.

Available from Amazon priced at $20.99

The marketing department of Dreamworks repeatedly touted THE RUINS as a horror film, but they really missed the boat. The film, based on a creepy 2006 novel by SCOTT SMITH (who also wrote the screenplay), is more like a survival drama with fantastical elements included. Like PAN’S LABYRINTH, this film uses horror elements to examine human survival instincts and dramatic themes, rather than simply to titillate.

THE FILM

THE RUINS opens on two couples vacationing in South America. They meet a nice German man who is preparing to visit his archaeologist brother at a Mayan ruin deep in the jungle. Not wanting to spend their entire trip lounging at the pool, the two couples accept his invitation to join him on his expedition. Once there, they discover that the ruin is covered by a beautiful, deadly, and sentient vine that seems to crave blood. Trapped on the top of the ruin by the local Mayan people - who want to hold them quarantined there to contain any infection - the young people fight for survival against the creeping advance of this nightmarish predator.

Much of the credit for the film’s successful tone goes to the script, which generally follows a believable train of logical development. The tension ramps up nicely, building toward the inevitable conclusion with considerable skill. Additionally, much of the mystery of the vines is left ot the audience to solve or understand through available clues or through the beats of the story, which is a nice change in a film of this sort. One terrific idea - that the vines can mimic their prey through a rudimentary whistle from the flowers on the vine - is unveiled masterfully through a long series of carefully constructed scenes.

Credit also goes to the cast, which is uniformly terrific. Each actor carves out a distinct personality, and each one goes through their own believable arc during the events of the film. Particularly good is JENA MALONE as Amy; she starts off as a whining brat, but she transforms into a steely warrior during the course of their siege.

First time director CARTER SMITH and cinematographer DARIUS CONDJI build the action well, and the shots they conjure together in broad daylight are searing and unflinching. There is a palpable evil in the background of all of the shots, adding to the inescapable tension. A remarkable first effort for Smith.

The highly-touted gore effects are as stomach-turning as promised, but all of them come in service to the story. This is not simply a film about a nasty vine that kills people. Rather, it is a story about how far humans will go when faced with a life-or-death situation. The copious blood spilled here come from situations like emergency amputations performed in primitive circumstances. This is not stupid gore like the FRIDAY THE 13th or LEPRECHAUN. This film uses the tremendous gore to punctuate the desperate odds facing these young people, and they react in believable and startling ways. It’s uncomfortable to watch, but vital to the story being told.

This is one of the better thrillers of the year. Bravo to everyone everyone involved.

EXTRAS

There are a few wonderful behind the scenes docs on this disc. Most fascinating are the ones that look at the shooting of the film with the director and D.P., as well as the extensive makeup effects used in the film. Excellent package for this film!!

OVERALL

If you can stomach gore or love a good horror/thriller, then this movie is an excellent choice. However, if you also want to see a skillful drama about people being pushed to the very edge of survival, this movie is a must see. Just a terrific little gem.

Available at Amazon priced at £9.98

FUTURAMA started out great when it first came to television in 1999—smart, funny, highly imaginative and often surprisingly poignant. Like most great shows, it needed to stretch its wings and find its voice—each season progressively topped the one before it, and the writers continually pushed the envelope into the weird and bizarre (and always fascinating). Like FAMILY GUY it was cancelled, and like FAMILY GUY the outcry of millions of perplexed fans convinced the studio that they could still make money off of it.

Last year, BENDER’S BIG SCORE came straight to DVD in the series’ first feature-length offering. Unlike FAMILY GUY, it did not hit its stride immediately. While I felt it was overall a decent comeback, my fears that it would be difficult to get back into the game after a three year retirement were nonetheless confirmed—a lot of the jokes fell flat, the story was trying too hard to be clever, and things just didn’t bond together with the same magic that the series held in its last and second-last season. Part of the problem, for me, was that it felt like it had so much to prove that it tried too hard to please fans, cramming as many side-characters into the story as it could and referencing every past episode, it seemed, in a plot that just didn’t do much for me.

Nonetheless, BENDER’S BIG SCORE was a decent effort and offered evidence that the show could still do it—they just needed a warm up to clear out the rust. And indeed, BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS, released last month, shows the series storming back with most of the wit and humorous plotting of its final seasons intact. The pace is better, the plot clearer and more interesting, the jokes are funnier, cleverer and more frequent, and the characters seem more consistent. I won’t spoil the storyline, but it’s partially a continuation of the end of the first film—the universe has had a hole torn in it, and what lurks on the other side is a mysterious tentacled monster that could enslave the galaxy.

This film actually feels like two smaller plots stitched together, and they aren’t equally good. The first half concerns the tear in the galaxy and what lurks behind, and it’s as funny and interesting as any of the series’ best episodes. When it proceeds into the meat of the storyline the film doesn’t quite seem as effective, although David Cross does a good job in a prominent guest appearance. I wish the last acts of the film were as quick-paced as the earlier ones, but even still, this is a solid FUTURAMA adventure. If I had to compare it to the series, I would say this would fit in pretty solidly with second or third season material. It’s a massive improvement over the somewhat dull and contrived BENDER’S BIG SCORE, and shows that FUTURAMA is still the best animated show on television right now. Here’s hoping the third film finally brings us to a new peak.

The Video: BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS comes in anamorphic widescreen with a sharp and vibrant look (appropriate since the show is animated digitally). I did notice the odd bit of compression artifacting in early sections, but what was there cleared up quickly. It’s a good looking film with no visual flaws to speak of.

The Audio: A terrific 5.1 surround mix, with lots of directional effects, good implementation of low-frequencies and clear dialog. A very good audio experience for a straight-to-video cartoon.

The Extras: The single disk here is packed with a lot of good bonus material. The commentary track is interesting and entertaining as usual, with a mix of writers and cast members. There’s short video clips of behind-the-scenes in the recoding booths, plus deleted scenes, animatics and storyboards. One of the best things is what is called “The Lost Episode”—not quite, but it’s almost as good. This is an edit of 3D clips produced for the FUTURAMA X-Box game, featuring all the original cast members, and written by the regular series scribes. At 30 minutes long, it’s not only as in-depth as a regular episode, it’s nearly as good as one, and comes with a dedicated commentary track. The DVD package is the same “carbon neutral” cardboard one like the first film, which is somewhat flimsey, but it also has a nice mini-poster/postcard in the vein of the 1950’s-inspired cover art.

FUTURAMA: BEAST WITH A BILLION BACKS is a great little film that sees the show finally clawing its way back towards its prime. With a good assortment of features and great audio/video, this DVD couldn’t be more recommended.

Available to pre-order from Amazon

THE FILM

I gotta tell you, I have had more than enough of the “omniscient psycho killer/game player” horror genre. The ten thousand films that have come out in the wake of the huge success of SAW have almost all flopped badly, mainly due to a lack of originality and a desperate lack of suspense.

The latest attempt at the genre is STEEL TRAP, a slapdash, low-budget horror thriller which distinguishes itself by lacking both.

The film, directed by first time helmer LUIS CAMARA, tells the story of a group of people collected together by an unseen host inside an abandoned high-rise. Each level contains mysterious, nursery-rhyme clues which directs them to elaborate traps. They are stalked in the darkness by a silent killer dressed in black, and he picks them off one by one.

This would-be horror film is not very scary, thanks to a heavy-handed script that telegraphs each killing in obvious fashion. Adding to the non-tension is an amazingly abrasive cast of characters, each one more unlikeable than the next. We begin to root for the villain to dispose of them. Unfortunately, the promise of blood and gore effects - this is, after all, a DIMENSION EXTREME release - is unfounded, with the limited makeup effects shown only in blurry, quickly-cut close ups.

As mentioned earlier, this film falls into the recent wave of films that feature an omni-present, all-knowing villain. The black-clad killer manages to be everywhere at once, anticipating as far back as two years in advance to plan the deaths of his victims. He manages to be on different floors of the building whenever the script requires him to be there, regardless of whether his actions follow simple logic.

For instance, there is a sequence in which some of our “heroes” travel down the elevator, having narrowly escaped the killer. When the doors open, the killer is waiting for them with a gun, and begins shooting at them. At other times throughout the movie, the victims change their course to purposely throw off their captor, yet he manages to anticipate even their spontaneous thoughts and set up booby traps for them. After a while, these elaborate traps become more amusing than terrifying.

The cast, full of C-list actors, is uniformly bad here. The worst performance comes from JULIA BALLARD, who plays her role like a hysterical, out of control animatronic. Only GEORGIA MACKENZIE manages to elicit any kind of depth or charisma in her performance as the host of a television cooking show.

I have no idea why so many horror films fail at the simple premise of scaring an audience. One of the reasons why this one fails is because it is not inspired to be anything other than a SAW knockoff. The best horror films are not derivative; rather, they reach into our deepest remembered fears and place us in them. The boldest horror films tell us who we are, and where we are most afraid of going. Unfortunately, STEEL TRAP has nothing on its mind other than repeating the same old cliches we have seen a million times previously. A wasted opportunity.

EXTRAS

Besides an audio commentary with director Camara, we also have an extensive making-of documentary, which chronicles nearly every single second of production. I mean, we even get extensive footage of the wrap party in this documentary, which may be as long as the movie itself. Unfortunately, this doc reveals the low-budget, unplanned nature of this film. While I am sure a lot of passion went into its making, the final product demonstrates that these people need to spend more time actually planning out their next film.

OVERALL

Not very bloody, and not very horrific. Terrible performances. A tired and cliched plot. Do you really think you need to sit through this when I, your beloved critic, had the displeasure of doing it for you? Hell, that’s the scariest part of the movie.