Across the Whoniverse: "Dark Season" (1991)

Eldritch says Relax

Russell T Davies' “Dark Season”may not have been his first work on TV but, from the point of view of a Whovian, it is certainly one of his most interesting; a science fiction serial aimed at young adults which has since become a sort of cult classic, leading to its release on DVD not long ago.

Whatever you might think of Davies tenure on “Doctor Who”, it's hard to argue that he has shown himself to be a very talented writer. “Second Coming”, “Queer as Folk” and “Torchwood: Children of men” are all brilliantly written and critically acclaimed series. On Who his work might have been inconsistent, but alongside dreck like “Love and Monsters” and “Doomsday” he was also responsible for brilliant fare such as “Midnight”, “Utopia” and “Turn Left” and is, if nothing else, not limited in ambition.

In fact, part of the problem with Who is that, unlike Dark Season which plays everything very straight, he tried to include humour and it devalued the seriousness of the plots. The slitheen, Love and Monsters and other such atrocities arguably originated from the sudden desire to write down to kids instead of treating them as mature viewers.

One thing that’s less excusable is Rose Tyler, an irritating smug Mary Sue with no nuance and many unlike-able traits, and who seems like a totally retrograde step to the great, strong, female characters present in “Dark Season”.

The “dark” in the title of the programme is arguably entirely justified. The show can best be described as “millennial” in its tone, with the threat of apocalypse looming large over the whole series. Split into two story arcs of three episodes each, which eventually come together in the last 2 parts, the series deals with millennial concerns such as technological anxiety and the recursion of past evils into the present. In some ways it appears strangely prescient of both the Y2K panic and the emergence of various crazy cults auguring the end of the world at the close of 1999.

the series centres its plot on three secondary school students drawn unwittingly into an increasingly sinister series of events involving a mysterious billionaire named Mr Eldritch and Lady Pendragon, an eccentric archaeologist, both of whom seem to have strange ulterior motives for their seemingly benevolent intentions towards the school. Why has Eldritch given away free computers? Who are the blonde army surrounding a local archaeological dig and what exactly is the “behemoth” that sleeps beneath the school? Are just three of the questions that only our heroes think of asking.

Of these stories the first one is probably the strongest of the two: a psychological thriller that almost prefigures later school based sci-fi, such as The demon Headmaster and RTD's own Who story “School Reunion”. The second isn't bad, but it seems much less coherent, seemingly heading for a supernatural story along the lines of “The Daemons” or “The Curse of fenric” before revealing a much more mundane plot, though it does eventually find its feet when everything eventually comes together.

To say that the programme is Whovian is an understatement. Not only does the story resemble such classic serials as “Logopolis” and “The War Machines”, but many of the characters deliberately recall some of the best loved figures from Who.

Marcie, the heroine of the series, is an anarchic and eccentric prodigy is more than a little reminiscent of Tom Balers interpretation of The Doctor, while Kate Winslett's sidekick Reet is very close in attitude and personality to Sophie Aldred's Ace. It;s worth noting that the acting from the young stars is terrific and utterly convincing, though its interesting tin retrospect to see a future Oscar winner such as Winslett appear second fiddle to moist of the others.

The real scene stealer is Grant Parsons as Mr Eldritch, a buzz cutted, bleach blonde cmissing link between The Master, Billy idol and Simon Le Bon. He puts in by far the best performance: charismatic, sinister and charming in equal measure, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses the whole time and, to be honest, it's hard not to root for him over the heroes, so enthralling and mysterious is the character.

He gets all the best lines too, speaking almost exclusively in veiled threats and grand monologues, nobody else holds a candle to him, especially not poor Jacqueline Pearce who, despite camping it up a treat, isn't anywhere near as effective a foil and seems almost ireelevant.

The most remarkable thing however is just how seriously the plot is treated and the respect and maturity with which RTD treats his audience. The farting gooseberry aliens of Dr Who can only appear juvenile and regressive by comparison.

Overall, “Dark Season” is a forgotten gem with much to recommend it. Smart plotting, good p[performances and ambitious scope combine to create a genuinely engaging and gripping little series that seems like a forgotten classic.

Highly recommended

9/10

Across the Whoniverse: The bizarre world of Doctor Who Spinoffs.

I'll avoid the sob stories and family history, but things have, frankly, been very grim of late at home and a lot of things have been happening beyond my control that has made me drop everything to concentrate on my family.

Now that everything has settled down a little, I've decided to try and resurrect this blog and thought I would try something a little bit different. It struck me recently how there are an awful lot of Dr Who reviews on the net and that, while I love the programme and have an almost religious appreciation for it, there are a lot of high profile reviewers (such as Nash, Diamanda Hagen, Welshy, Linkara etc.) and a lot of fansites that have done a lot of reviews of the good Doctor.

While I do intend to do a serial by serial review sometime in the future, I thought that I'd look at an area of Who fandom that is much less explored- no, not Big Finish (I've never had the money to afford purchasing the seemingly unending selection of audio dramas, nor the comics (which I've never read) or the New Adventures (ditto), but something slightly more esoteric- the spinoffs, sidequels and related shows that are sometimes overlooked and very often unseen.

I haven't seen a lot of these myself, so this will be a new experience whatever the shows are like. In terms of the programmes that I intend to look at, the bulk of them were produced by a company called BBV, an independent production group founded by fans of Doctor Who, and some former crew members, following its cancellation in 1989.

Many of the productions share cast members with Who, have similar concepts or are pseudo-sequels. The main productions I will be looking at are:

• The Stranger (Starring Colin Baker as the eponymous stranger)
• PROBE- A spinoff from the Pertwee era starring Caroline John as UNIT scientist Liz Shaw.
• The Auton Trilogy- Three films that again follow Pertwee serials.
• Cyberon- An unrelated film that shares concepts with the Cybermen.
• Zygon (If I can get my hands on it, a sequel to the Tom Baker classic Terror of the Zygons)

I won't be reviewing “The Airzone Solution” because it has no real Who connection besides cast and has been dissected brilliantly by Linkara elsewhere. Plus it's crap and I don't want to have to sit through it again.

Aside from BBV, there are several productions by a company called Reeltime Pictures that also tie into Doctor Who and, again, are of dubious canonicity. These include:

• Wartime- A UNIT spinoff featuring Sgt Benton (haven't been able to get hold of this)
• Shakedown: the Return of the Sontarans
• Downtime- A follow up to The Web of Fear with the Brig!
• Daemos Rising- A sequel to the Pertwee classic “The Daemons”

There's also something called “Mindgame”, but I haven't been able to find a copy of that, or indeed any details of it, so its unlikely that i'll be able to review it, but that may change.

I'm also eager to look at Russell T Davies early TV work. I've heard that two of his series “Dark Season” and “Century Falls”, both SF serials written for young adults, are excellent and that they are almost the spiritual link between classic and NuWho, so I'll definitely be checking them out.

Watch this space.

"Buried" (2010)

Imagine waking up underground in a box, the air hot and close, the only sound your own laboured breathing, confusion giving way to horror as you realise the dreadful magnitude of what exactly is happening. Premature burial is surely one of the most horrific ways to die imaginable; the idea of a slow, agonising death with no means of escape is one that has has permeated our culture and had a profound effect upon horror literature.

Edgar Allan Poe in particular was obsessed with the issue to the extent that he barely slept for fear of being mistaken dead and buried alive, and many of his greatest horror stories hinge on a “buried alive” twist (Fall of the House of Usher, A Cast of Amontillado etc), and in a way it's surprising that it hasn't been used more often in horror films and thrillers, with only The Vanishing springing to mind.

“Buried” uses the idea to genius effect and is pretty much a one man show. Ryan Reynolds wakes up in a box buried underground with only a zippo lighter, some pens and a cell phone with low battery life left. We follow him as he tries to unravel the mystery of his situation and escape. To give away any more would ruin what is one of the smartest and tensest thrillers in recent years.

Obviously the film hinges on Reynolds performance but fortunately he is simply brilliant in the main role, showing the same great acting abilities he did in “The Nines”, and which have been sorely underused since. He conveys brilliantly the confusion, anger and fear of the protagonist as his situation gets progressively worse, and grabs the audience's sympathy from the start, making the twists and turns all the more horrifying.

For the most part, the situation, with its gradually heightening stakes, is utterly compelling and is executed with great narrative economy, with barely a shot or plot point or line of dialogue wasted, yet at the same time the characters feel real and well developed without us being spoon-fed exposition and while there is one particular moment of peril which feels contrived, overall it hangs together incredibly well and by focusing entirely on the interior of the box, ratchets up the tension to breaking point.

One of the best thrillers of the last ten years.

A brief note about the October challenge

Many of you will have noticed that I have never finished my account of the October horror challenge and the series of reviews accompanying this. There are two reasons for this that I will offer as an excuse. Firstly, at the beginning of November my family suffered a sudden, shocking bereavement which we are all still struggling to deal with, and so I have had very little free time to work on the blog, nor the inclination to do it and though I am now obviously contributing again a little, I am not yet up to speed.

The other contributing factor in this is the sheer volume of films left for me to review. By my reckoning i still have thirteen reviews to do, and while I have started some of them, there's a lot of work outstanding, made worse by the fact that i have lost the notes I made while viewing them.

Still awaiting review from October are:

Dead Ringers (Cronenberg)
Splinter (Wilkins)
Rabid (Cronenberg)
The Howling (Dante)
Splice (Natali)
Scream 4 (Craven)
New Nightmare (Craven)
A Bay of Blood (Bava)
House of the Devil (West)
Inside (Maury)
Theatre of Blood (Hickox)

I shall try my best to get them done, but I can't guarantee this will happen soon.

"Darkman" (Raimi 1990)

Sam Raimi's overlooked sci-fi, horror superhero curio has become something of a cult classic since its modestly successful release in 1990, so much so that I approached it with a sense of palpable trepidation. What if, after all the hype, the great reviews, the endless recommendations, I didn't like it? What if my experience was similar to that of my “Winter's Bone” review all over again?

Luckily, for Raimi, I liked “Darkman” a lot. While flawed in places and not quite reaching the almost masterpiece status by which I regard the Evil Dead movies, it is an original and interesting film in its own right, a sort of strange hybrid of superhero film and Gothic melodrama.

Liam Neeson plays Peyton Westlake, a scientist researching an artificial skin to treat burns victims. Inadvertently caught up in a criminal conspiracy, Westlake's laboratory burns down with him inside and he is left for dead. Westlake survives but is disfigured and unhinged by the accident and goes into hiding beneath the city. Having lost his career, his life and his girlfriend (Frances McDormand), he resolves to kill the gangsters responsible. Fashioning temporary disguises from the skin he created, he becomes a silent vigilante; like Batman but more unstable and violent.

Actually, from a narrative and thematic perspective, the film takes as its basis two distinct threads of 1940s popular culture: obviously Golden Age superhero comics, especially The Shadow and Batman (both of which Raimi unsuccessfully tried to acquire the rights for before deciding to pursue an original idea instead) with the emphasis on tragic origins, organised crime and vigilante justice, but also the Gothic horror films made by Universal Studios in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Indeed, Westlake as a character owes much less to seemingly obvious figures like Bruce Wayne or Matt Murdock, and much more to the disfigured anti-heroes of the Lon Cheney ilk, especially the Phantom, striking with malice from his sewer lair and The Invisible Man's Hawley Griffin, also a brilliant scientist pushed to the edge of madness by unfortunate circumstance.

In fact, it is one of Batman's enemies, the shape-shifting Clayface, himself inspired by these horror films, which Darkman is most similar to. As a concept for a hero, he's fascinating, a really nuanced character who is much more morally ambiguous and unhinged than the average super-powered do-gooder; more of an anti-hero, worthy of our sympathy but not necessarily our support.

Neeson is very impressive, really bringing out the depth of the character is his performance, while Raimi's direction is excellent, obviously acquiring all the skill that he would put to such excellent use when finally given the Spider-man franchise. Having said that, the film is not without its flaws.

The plot works well as an origin story, but not as much else. The mobster plot is, to be honest, not that interesting. Darkman runs rings around the clichéd mobsters and McDormand is given very little to do. A super-powered hero needs an adversary with real character, not a bunch of two bit hoodlums and the film lacks that character to provide tension. There is no Joker, no Green Goblin, no Lex Luthor here and the film suffers as a result.

Still, as a superhero film it is a little bit different, and should entertain fans of Raimi's horror output even if it doesn't quite reach the standards of his Spider-man or Evil Dead films. 

6/10

"Winter's Bone" (Debra Granick 2010)

Before commencing with the review, a caveat:

“Winter's Bone” is a film that I was really, really looking forward to seeing. It received huge critical acclaim, award nods and lots of great word of mouth recommendation. It's a gritty, low budget thriller with neo-noir elements, social commentary and moral ambiguity. This is all stuff I like usually and I thought the central plot, young girl in dead town has to track down her missing father before they lose the house, was intriguing. So, please don't accuse me of not getting this film or not giving it a proper chance. Now, for the review:

I fucking hated this film.

OK, so, Jennifer Lawrence was excellent. I agree. Great performance, really believable, really nuanced. Now we've got that out the way lets be realistic about

It was boring, very repetitive, and, for a 100 minute film had a plot which you could fit on the back of a beer mat. Most of the characters are red-neck stereotypes and caricatures that all blend into one another and barely break beyond one dimension, most of the dialogue is barely coherent and nothing of consequence happened until it was too late for me to care. The structure was shaggy and badly paced and from a technical point of view is far too languid to make the thriller aspects thrilling.

It feels in parts like a Western, the lone hero on a quest, but the problem in this is that the quest is ultimately meaningless. An odyssey style plot is fine if the hero actually overcomes challenges and develops. Here, everything goes wrong for her until suddenly, the villain has a change of heart and fills her in. It seems illogical: denouement ex machina, to garble a phrase. Why remain silent for so long? Why not tell her at the start, let her get on with her life?

I suppose it's nicely shot, and does manage to find beauty among all the decay and deprivation, but that's more troubling than admirable with no real strong statement to back it up, making it at best incongruous and at worst “poverty porn”, lovingly depicting scenes of suffering purely to get a reaction, rather than because it has anything new to say.

“Crime is bad”, “Poverty sucks” and “Drugs ruin communities” are hardly original sentiments and there is so little virtue to be found among the cast of unfortunates that it confirms societies prejudices about the unemployed, the criminal and the dispossessed rather than shatters them. There is no nuance, everyone is either part of Jennifer Lawrence's gang of saints or are sadistic drug peddling wife-beating hill-billies who look like rejects from “Deliverance”. Compared to the work of, for example, Ken Loach or the serious movies of John Sayles or even the documentaries made by Michael Moore, there's nothing interesting or original here.

It feels like a by-numbers film designed by committee to win awards and, one good performance aside, felt to me totally vacuous. I didn't like the characters, I didn't feel drawn into the community and I just got sick of seeing the same scene (she finds relative, asks where dad is, gets brushed off) about 100 times. None of it felt real to me, it felt like if someone asked me to write a description of hicksville USA, having never been there, I would come up with something similar.

I just felt I'd seen this all before. This isn't a great film, it's an emperor that people haven't yet realised is wearing no clothes.

3/10

PS Also, what the hell is the title supposed to mean?

"Bunny Lake is Missing" (Otto Preminger 1965)

“Bunny Lake is Missing” is a really strange little flick from maverick film noir director Otto Preminger (“Laura”, “Fallen Angel”, “Whirlpool) that feels like the missing link between Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski, a paranoid thriller that is somehow both claustrophobic (focussed inward on psychological turmoil) and agoraphobic (depicting a huge hostile world staffed entirely with psychopaths, perverts and eccentrics).

The plot is reminiscent of early Hitchcock, especially “The Lady Vanishes” and the original version of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. Ann Lake (Carol Lynley), an American who has just moved to London drops her daughter, nicknamed “Bunny”, off for her first day of school. When she returns, there is no sign of Bunny, and nobody at the school seems to have seen her. Despite the help of her brother Stephen and the teachers, Bunny is nowhere to be seen and soon the police launch a manhunt to find the missing child led by straight-talking detective Superintendent Newsome (Laurence Olivier on excellent form).

Things then get really strange when it seems all items pertaining to Bunny have gone from Ann's house, leaving behind no sign the child ever existed. Suspects are rife: a bizarre German cook, an elderly teacher obsessed with recording children's nightmares, Ann's lecherous masochistic landlord (a debauched playwright played with relish by Noel Coward) and even Ann and Stephen themselves, both of whom seem alarmingly inconsistent in their respective accounts of Bunny. As nobody has seen Bunny (including the viewer- the film begins with Ann leaving the room that Bunny is supposedly in), there is a genuine ambiguity hanging over the whole film: has Bunny been kidnapped? Is she dead? Did she ever exist in the first place? And if not, just what the hell is going on?

The film is, before it all comes out in the denouement, a fascinating puzzle box, gripping, slightly surreal and greatly unsettling. There seems to be no-one that we, as a viewer, can trust as we struggle to make sense of the case and Ann's situation becomes ever more dreamlike and nightmarish: an uncomfortable come-on from her landlord, a candle lit search of a creepy doll shop following a disturbing chase through Soho, a stint in hospital surrounded by menacing doctors: the whole thing is Hitchcockian, but with the kind of more explicit psycho-sexual threats found in say “Repulsion” or “The Tenant”.

The film is brilliantly shot, moody, partially expressionistic monochrome turning everything into an oppressive Kafkaesque nightmare, the script is ingenious and littered with clues and red herrings that keep the viewer second guessing, while an ensemble cast who play every character as being slightly off. Preminger's direction and sense of pacing are sublime and, in this age of hysteria over paedophiles and in the wake of the Madeleine McCann disappearance and many other cases of child abduction, Preminger's film remains relevant and fascinating film.

A true underrated classic that deserves to be seen by a much wider audience.

10/10

October Challenge Retrospective: Body Horror

Films 23 to 27 of my macabre little marathon last month were structured around the themes of body horror and metamorphosis. Largely defined by the work of Canadian auteur David Cronenberg, Body horror is basically existential in nature and Freudian in subtext and takes the step of showing psychological trauma in a physical, visceral way through gore, unexplained transformation and elements of surrealism. though not all the films in this section necessarily include all these narrative and iconographic elements, they do share themes and meanings and are all good examples of this particularly unsettling subgenre of horror.

23. "Dead Ringers" (first time)- Though Dead Ringers is a Cronenberg film, it isn't immediately identifiable as a body horror piece for the simple reason that it tells a true story, and focusses far more on psychological horror than gore and viscera. However, when you consider that the deranged and perverse Mantel twins are not only obviously losing the plot, but are actually gynaechologists, the implications become horrifying. The actual dynamic between the twins is extremely bizarre, with implications of incest and an almost supernatural, symbiotic connection between the two, something which comes to a head in the shocking climax. Jeremy Irons gives the performances of his career as the radically different, yet somehow also incredibly alike, Mantel brothers, while Cronenberg's cold, clinical direction complements the medical subject matter, with parts of the film descending into lavish, baroque excess to coincide with the descent into madness of our twisted protagonists. "Dead ringers" is emphatically not comfortable viewing, it isn't entertaining, or particularly excessive. It is however shocking, disturbing and quite outstandingly gripping. A real work of greatness and the film which embodies a change in Cronenberg as a director, a switch from culty body horror to more obviously artful fare. 9/10

24. "Splinter" (first time viewing)- There isn't much to say about Splinter except that it was made on a shoestring, isn't especially original but delivers the goods in spades. Essentially a siege movie, the film follows a small group of strangers who find themselves trapped in a gas station by a kind of parasite spread through wood splinters that transforms its hosts into mindless creatures whose only desire is to spread the infection further. The characters aren't especially interesting, but the cast is decent enough and the central idea (of a malevolent creature coming from wood to avenge fallen trees) is good, even if it is lifted from an X-Files episode. It's tense, well made and has some really skin crawling moments. If you love "The Thing" and want something similar, you could do a lot worse, 7/10

25. "Rabid" (first time viewing)- One of the big dissapointments of the challenge for me. As a fan of Cronenberg in general, and his earlier work in particular I was really looking forward to finally seeing "Rabid". "Shivers", "The Brood", "Scanners" and "Videodrome" are among the most provocatoive and inte;llectually satisfying horror films that I've ever seen and I expected a similar level of depth here. Unfortunately, the social commentary of "Shivers", which put a really interesting psychosexual and satirical twist on the body snatcher archetype, seems to be entirely lacking in "Rabid", which is a far more straightforward zombie/vampire film. I'm not saying the film doesn't have a message, but somehow it lacks the style, the narrative and structual innovation that typifies his other work.

The story follows Rose (Marilyn Chambers) who is saved from death by an unconventional (but never described or explained) plastic surgerry prceodure. She makes a full recovery but finds herself craving human blood for sustenance. The problem is, her gratification comes at the cost of infecting the person she feeds off, and pretty soon there is an outbreak unwittingly spread by Rose. The trouble is repitition as every scene of Rose infecting someone plays out pretty much exactly the same way and it gets boring after a while. The acting too is pretty poor. Chambers gets a lot of flack, but she's fine compared to the wooden cast of doctors and nurses at the hospital. It just isn't that engaging. Rose is fairly sympathetic, but isn't fleshed out enough to be genuinely interesting while everyone else is dull. It'll kill time and you'll have fun, but it's by no means one of Cronenberg's best. 6/10

October Challenge Retrospective: "Cigarette Burns"

A brief intermission in my October Challenge mini-marathons came when I decided to watch this hour long short, directed by my favourite director, John Carpenter, for the Masters of Horror TV series. Treading similar ground to Robert Chambers classic story "The King in Yellow" and Carpenter's own masterpiece "In the Mouth of Madness" (as well as Joel Schumacher's criminally underrated "8MM"), "Cigarette Burns" follows Kirby,  a young cinephile hired by an eccentric billionaire (played by the incomparable Udo Kier) to locate a print of "Le Fin Absolue Du Mond", an extremely rare arthouse flick that reputedly makes all who see it lose their mind.

As he gets closer to finding the truth, meeting first a critic driven mad after reviewing the film at its premiere and then a disturbed collector with a catalogue of perversions, he unravels the mystery of the film's enigmatic director and begins to experience a blurring of reality, memories of a horrific event in his past and nightmare imagery from the film itself. I don't want to give anything else away, except to say that that Kirby finds the film and the payoff is definitely worth it.

The direction, as with most of Carpenter's work, is near perfect, the film stripped down to lean economical narrative that maintains a ball-tightening tension throughout and throws some truly disturbing imagery at the screen. The performances are competent, rather than great, with the notable exceptions of Kier and Christopher Redman (whose part I don't want to give away) who are both terrific, and occasionally the low budget shows, but this is a film about ideas and it has them in spades.

I'm always intrigued by the idea that sometimes art and culture can be damaging in a way which effects the minds of those who experience it, and can even have a negative effect upon reality and history itself. I'm not talking about the small minded book burners and anti-intellectual morons like Mary Whitehouse and Torquemada, but rather the concerns of more progressive philosophical currents typified in works such as Rousseau's first discourse, Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" and the work of Theodor Adorno and Sigmund Freud.

I'm sure that the conceit of the  film comes mainly from high concept- what if there was a film tha kills people?- but it does raise important questions about films in general. When we think of censorship and the films described as dangerous and subjected to censorship, the gut reaction is films with sex and gore, but when we think about the films that are truly controversial, it is inevitably the more artistic film, the film that says something provocative as well as showing it, that seems to be most denigrated by the censor and the public. Think of Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange", Pasolini's "Salo", Russell's "The Devils", and even arguably Friedkin's "The Exorcist", all important cultural works that are undoubtedly works of art but nevertheless banned.

There is something about true art that makes it frightening on a philosophical level, and this piece reflects that. 9/10

October Challenge: Zombies!

Films 18-21 in this years challenge were all zombie films and, with the exception of the first which I needed to remind myself of to assess the sequel.

18. [REC] (rewatch)- In my opinion one of the standout horror movies of the last decade, [REC] takes the documentary horror style of films like Blair Witch and takes it to the next level. By setting up the documentary aspect (half an hour of firemen chatting about how boring their job is) we really get to like and empathise with the reporter and once the story kicks off we already know about the characters meaning they can get stuck into the scares and the action. The key to the plot is escalation. What initially appears to be one thing (a single zombie trapped in an apartment) quickly escalates and when the inhabitants are sealed in the building by the army, theres an interesting "Lord of the Flies" dynamic in the second act, and more great character moments before the final manic descent into hell, and once everything does kick off, it's visceral, intense and bloody scary. Great stuff. 9/10

19. White Zombie (first time viewings)- Often credited as the first zombie film and the missing link between Universal and Val Lewton, I was really looking forward to seeing "White Zombie" and, to be honest, was massively dissapointed in it. The whole thing is just a bit of a mess. The visuals are moody and effective, and Lugosi is pretty good as the sinister voodoo priest, and there's some really beautiful cinematography. The whole thing has a dreamlike quality that is quite intriguing. Unfortunately, some terrible supporting actors and truly awful dialogue ruins most of this atmosphere and ultimately undermines the film. 5/10

20. Pontypool (first time viewing)- One of the best films I saw in the whole challenge was this ingenious twist on the zombie and siege movie thats basic premise hides a surprisingly intelligent and philosophical subtext. You see, Pontypool isn't about zombies, it's about the power of words and the way understanding and interpreting words affects our perceptions and thus our behaviour. Roland Barthes is namechecked by one of the characters and another mentions Norman Mailer and neither of these is coincidental. The plague of the undead is spread not by voodoo or a virus, but by words. The large philosophical shadow that stretches over Pontypool, but which doesn't get a mention, is that of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great linguistic philosopher who argued that all philosophical problems derive from imprecise use of words and problems with understanding.

The setting, of a small local radio station getting reports of the carnage through correspondents, phone ins etc is sublimely effective, and calls to mind both John Carpenter's 1980 classic "The Fog" and Orson Welles brilliant, radio based adaptation of War of the Worlds, while the whole small town setting with it's well defined cast of characters reminded me a lot of the way Stephen King handles this sort of thing. The characters are very well defined, especially the protagonist, an alcoholic shock jock who has ended up in hicksville after some undisclosed indiscretion in his past.

There are great performances all round and the direction and pacing is wonderful, building tension and raising acres of gooseflesh as our initial instinct as an audience- that this could all be some sort of hoax, proves disastrously wrong.

It's that rare thing, a horror film that makes you think as well as scares the pants off you. One of the smartest and most gripping horror movies of the last decade 10/10

21. [REC 2] (First time viewing)- As you can tell from the review above, I really enjoyed the first [REC] and so when I heard they were making a follow up, I was understandably excited. Taking the Aliens approach to sequels (send in the army to face a bigger threat), this is competently made, but falls flat overall. The whole thing feels more like a jumble of scenes than a cohesive whole, none of the soldiers are as likeable as the journalist from the first film and the way the plot developsis frankly silly, as is the rationale for going back into the building again near the end. Entertaining, but not as scary or original as the first film. 6/10