No.308 : Wolf Totem (2015)

Wolf Totem at the IMDb

Who’s up for some Chinese language period cinema? Just me then!

Made in 2015, ‘Wolf Totem’ is set in 1967, two years after the cultural revolution in China. Two students are sent from Peking to teach the Mongolian natives Mandarin for two years. Could have been worse, they might have gotten Port Glasgow.

A guy from the Ministry of Production dumps our lads with an old guy from a nomadic tribe. He tells him to put them to work and he’ll be back in a couple of years. And he doesn’t even leave the wi-fi password.

We flash-forward six months with our guys settling in and becoming able horsemen. One gets a bit cocky and goes off the path only to be confronted by a pack of wolves. He gets away by clanging his stirrups, but we’re pretty sure that lead wolf gave him a pass.

Our man develops a fascination for wolves and resolves to find a cub that he can rear and study. The locals are not so keen, what with the wolves eating all their sheep. The fine balance between people and wolves is disturbed when the tribesmen steal all of the wolves’ food. I don’t know if this is true, but it was a good scene where the wolves stash all their dead gazelles in a snowdrift to eat later in the winter. This has happened from generations and the humans have always left enough for the wolves. This doesn’t suit the man from the ministry however, and he orders the people to grab the lot, despite warnings from the wise old man in charge.

Of course the old man is right and the wolves get their own back by driving a herd of prize horses into a freezing lake where they all drown. Despite it being tit for tat the ministry sets out to kill all wolves by hunting down and killing the cubs. Our hero manages to save one and starts to bring it up, despite local hostility.

The nomadic tribe are ordered to work with another more settled group and things start to go badly wrong. The old man is injured by a bomb set to kill wolves and a child is hurt when he gets a bit too close to the slowly growing cub. With the wolves now starving all out war is declared (not literally) and when the wolves have a sheep eating party , the ministry resolves to kill off the wolves for good.

Can any survive and can the symbiotic relationship between man and wolf be restored?

This was an excellent film with cracking cinematography and animal action. It was almost like a Disney film, but with more killing and death. It is subtitled but you’d probably manage without them as the plot is a pretty simple progress v nature narrative. The wolves were shown sympathetically and they are wonderful creatures. That said, I could see why the villagers thought them to be a pain in the arse.

There was a tacked on romance story that I didn’t buy into but the Mongolian grass people getting royally shafted at every turn was an interesting watch. Real wolves were used in the production but they did look a bit stage school in some scenes. You could tell they slowed the film down and adjusted the lighting to show them at their best. And why not? It was their show and they provided great entertainment and a bit of learning too.

I wasn’t keen on the cub killing, which involved them being chucked them in the air, and the cornered wolf committing suicide rather than being caught seemed a bit daft.

There was a lot of focus on the spiritual, with the God Tennger getting most of the credit, with some fancy cloud work letting us know that everything will be all right.

The production was lavish with some cracking set pieces including a lake of frozen horses which was fantastically realised.

Overall, not one for the squeamish but an interesting parable on the age old ‘man v beast’ issue with plenty of scenes that will stick with you.

Best Bit : Horse Lake 20/23

No.301 : Witches in the Woods (2019)

Witches in the Woods at the IMDb

If you are only in the market for a two word review, here you go : ‘Don’t Bother’.

This was a dreadful waste of time that has nothing to recommend it. It borrows heavily from many other films, but only the dull bits, nothing that would make you sit up and pay attention.

It starts out in promising, but predictable fashion with seven friends heading out for a wilderness weekend in rural Massachusetts. The opening is full of sweeping shots that scream ‘quick use the drone, it’s going back on Monday’. The film opened with a pretentious quote about the nature of beliefs so you can guess it’s going to a more in the head than on the screen type of film.

The gang’s plans are derailed when the police send them back due to a road closure. They stop at a remote gas station and one of the more vocal ladies in our entourage takes issue with a hunter who has killed a bear out of season and by using an illegal claw trap. The hunter blames mobile phones for upsetting the bear’s sleep cycles and he’s menacing enough to make you think that he may be the inevitable killer who will kill our crew one by one.

The group soon manage to get lost and the truck gets stuck in a snowdrift. The dynamic is breaking down too, with a couple revealed to be having affair behind another’s back. There is also a bitchy one and a weird one and tempers soon fray. Two go off to find help and two blokes start to fight. We get small suggestions that more is at play here with dead crows strung to trees in a ‘Blair Witch’ kind of way.

The girl who goes for help comes back traumatised and the bloke gets his foot stuck in one of those bear traps we saw earlier. Full blown paranoia starts to take over with accusations of possession and ‘did you shag my bird?’ soon flying around.

Who will survive and what is the force that is whittling our group down, one by one?

I thought this film had potential but it took 30 of the 90 minutes to get the truck stuck and the remaining hour was a dull dive into a world of screaming and accusations. I’d hoped the scary hunter would be the villain ‘Deliverance’ style but thought it was more likely going to be a coven of witches, given the title.

It turned out to be neither with nothing more than a potential witchy influence being the cause of all the deaths and mistrust. There is no pointy hats or cauldron here, just a pamphlet for a witch trail and some good old fashioned cabin fever which set in after 20 minutes.

There were a couple of bloody deaths but nothing memorable and the cast were so unlikeable that you didn’t care anyway.

I’ve seen enough of these lost in the woods type films to know that cheap does not have to be dull. This one was dull and a waste of a decent premise. Maybe the demons that dwell within us are more scary than a pointy hat and a green face but this was flagrant false advertising.

Stay out of the woods and keep this one out of your DVD player!


Best Bit :  Millennial argues with redneck  ‘W’ Rating 4/23

No.283 : Winter’s Bone (2010)

Winter's Bone at the IMDb

The title here refers to being tenacious, like a dog trying to get at a (frozen) bone in the ground. Our heroine, Ree, certainly displays tenaciousness and you will too, if you manage to sit through this grim but enjoyable offering.

Jennifer Lawrence plays the 17 year old Ree, who is the eldest of three siblings. Mum is a basket case and Dad hasn’t been seen for a while, as he is being pursued by the cops for cooking meth. Ree has to live off the land - mainly squirrels - and the kindness of neighbours as they are saving up to have a pot to piss in.

A bad day gets worse when the cops show up to advise that Dad is due in court in a week and if he doesn’t show the family will lose the house which he has put up as a bond. Ree sets out to find the errant parent and what follows is a big game of hide and seek as she asks round the neighbourhood for her dope fiend Dad.

Everyone is poor but offers a drink or a doobie, but also a warning to stay well away. The code of silence is strong and to talk to the cops would be a death sentence. Ree’s uncle Teardrop says he thinks his brother's dead and tries to put Ree off by taking her to the site of a meth house explosion saying that’s where he died. Ree isn’t convinced and knows that if Dad is dead, proof will be needed to satisfy the bail bondsman.

She heads off to the local kingpin of crime but gets a solid kicking from the womenfolk for her trouble, and is only saved by the intervention of Teardrop who promises to be responsible for her actions. Running out of options Ree looks to enlist in the army for the $40k incentive and to tries and place her siblings with her neighbours.

But wait! A chink of light is offered that may get her out of her predicament. Unfortunately it’s a grim and nasty chink of light but we’ll take what we can get. Will Ree manage to save the homestead and escape from her grim reality?

This was a horrid slice of life from modern day Missouri. The film is shot  vérité style with a dull palette and genuine backwater types filling out the cast. The grinding poverty was well realised with some dead squirrels the equivalent of the big shop.

Lawrence does well in the lead but is a bit pretty despite her unflattering wardrobe. Her Southern drawl is a somewhat distracting but she’s not shy in getting her hands dirty or of taking on some questionable tasks.

The air of menace in every character was good and you got the sense that life was cheap. Even the police with their old cruisers and their complicit actions weren’t immune from the general malaise on show, and I liked that the grimmest possible conclusion was eked out for the ‘where’s Dad’ mystery reveal.

The ending does offer a smidgen of hope for the future, but you get the sense that that will soon be overtaken with some new desperate situation. Not an uplifting tale but an interesting and engaging one.

Best Bit : ‘Pass the chainsaw’ 19/23

No.279 : Whatever It Takes (2000)

Whatever It Takes at the IMDb

Back to school now for a look at this formulaic but still fun high school film that sees early outings from Jesse Pinkman and James Franco. If you have seen any film where the prom is a feature of the finale you’ll have pretty much seen this, especially if you are a student of Cyrano De Bergerac and the all-time classic ‘Pretty in Pink’.

Our hero is Ryan, a nerdy accordion player who is starting to outgrow his dweebish friends including Pinkman, doing a poor man’s Jeff Spicoli, and Tom Hanks’ son. He lives next door to Maggie and the two talk across their unfeasibly close balconies. From the first scene you know that they will end up together, but we’ve got 90 minutes to fill so let’s have them as just good friends for now.

Ryan fancies the high school sweetheart in the shape of the unobtainable Ashley, whilst high school jock Franco likes Maggie. With both men having no chance of landing their chosen babe they hatch a plan to help each other pimp out their friend so that some stranger can get his hole. Lovely.

There are some slim slide plots including Pinkman’s quest for a bit of a statue and a funny and sadistic games teacher played by that guy off ‘The West Wing’ who throws baseballs at the kids and tells them to “Walk it off”. Grrr hope he gets his comeuppance!

The sordid plan goes well but Ryan soon realises the hot girl isn’t all that. She has a hairy back and scabby feet. Seems nice enough though, until she disparages a midget at a carnival and pukes up, so she deserves all she gets. Meanwhile Ryan is feeding Franco lines so that he can make some headway with Maggie.

This involves the world’s oldest computer and a scene ripped off, fully intact from ‘Roxanne’, but soon we’re off to the prom. Who will end up with whom and will the mildly bad people get a fitting finale? Of course!

This was mild ‘12’ certificate fun but there was enough subversive humour to keep me entertained. Most of it was due to Pinkman in his first role, who has most of the best lines and, it looked like, the most fun. The lead is a bit dull and the hottest girl in school wasn’t all that - the blossoming next door neighbour looked a better bet from the start.

It was hard to care about a load of white privileged kids having their fancy prom but there were enough laughs to keep me invested. Not subtle stuff you understand but when the old woman farted when getting lifted to the toilet I did smirk. I’m not proud.

The cast was largely good and I enjoyed seeing several familiar faces including Champ Kind sporting the last traces of his hair.

The values espoused were dubious at best but love won out in the end and all the bad people got humiliated in public so that’s all right then. I don’t think Ryan earned his happy ending as he was a right prick throughout but when you mix a formula you have to stick to the recipe!


Best Bit :Prom over a swimming pool - what can go wrong?    ‘W’ Rating : 15/23

No.278 : Watermelon (2003)

Watermelon at the IMDb

Rochdale born actress Anna Friel mangles her way through this 2003 ITV TV movie with the worst Irish accent this side of the Blarney Stone.

Friel plays Claire who is meant to be a free spirit but just comes across as a total nightmare. She drags her dim-witted boyfriend from Dublin  to London on the pretext that she has a job lined up. Of course she doesn’t, and it’s only an interview which goes terribly apart from some flirting with a dishy young man on the panel. The interview ends suddenly when Anna throws up on some fish, but yer man isn’t put off and the two head to the pub.

After a full sesh she spurns the young man’s advances only to find that, in a surprising moment of wisdom, her boyfriend has decided to head back to Ireland. Without missing a beat Anna calls back the shorn suitor and the two spend the night together. Things are soon looking up, with Anna getting a photocopying job at the same magazine she threw up at along side the new smitten boyfriend.

But wait! We need drama, and Anna finds out she’s pregnant. The two move in together and in a quick montage we see Anna’s belly swell up so that she looks like the watermelon of the title - think I’d be taking my watermelon back to the green grocer if it looked like that! Anna knows the baby’s father is boyfriend one, but being a conniving wee cow, sorry free spirit, she doesn’t tell the hapless fool. Things come together when her waters break at work and she has to tell the hospital that she’s gone full term. Even the dopey new boyfriend manages to work out that he only started boffing Anna 7 months ago so he’s holding another man’s baby.

Mildly upset he stomps off and Anna heads back to Dublin and into the home of her shamed parents, including mum Brenda Fricker off ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer‘. Anna suffers some minor travails and Dad has a heart attack owing to his daughter being a tart and all that. She also bad mouths the innocent father who gamely offers to come back on the scene. Meanwhile, the London lover has shacked up with his frankly better option boss but loses the rag when she tries to repaint the nursery.

The scene is set for a big confrontation as the two men, for reasons unknown, vie for the affections of the free loving Anna and her screaming kid.

This wasn’t so much a modern day morality tale as some sink estate wish fulfilment. I couldn’t see any redeeming features in Anna’s character at all, although to be fair, she did do some excellent bath work. The two male leads were dreadful with neither having a spark of personality. The big restaurant denouement was a shouting match with handbags that was more cringey than gallant or brave.

Overall this was a throwaway piece of fluff that offered nothing in the way of social commentary or even entertainment. The character arcs were unbelievable and the happy ending didn’t ring true at all.

Best Bit : Bath Time! W Score 11/23

No.274 : Winchester (2018)

Winchester at the IMDb

Helen Mirren is always good value for fully immersing herself in a part and for doing what is necessary to show that she is free spirited and invested in the role. She doesn’t often let the lads go home empty handed, so to speak, This isn’t one of those films however, and I doubt she has ever been more buttoned up in her illustrious career.

She plays the title character, Sarah Winchester, who wears mourning clothes throughout this film which is set at the beginning of the 20th century. I was familiar with the premise of the story from my ‘Big Book of Weirdos’, but it’s fair to say that the writer of this effort took a few liberties with the plot and characters, hence the ‘Inspired by actual events’ title card.

The film is Australian but set in San Jose, California. I thought it was all sets and models but I see from the IMDb page that some scenes were filmed in the actual Winchester house which is now a tourist attraction. Most of the cast are Aussies however and the locations look a lot more Oz than L.A.

The real Sarah Winchester inherited the Winchester firearms fortune on the death of her husband. Her child died soon after and, feeling cursed, she set about trying to appease the spirits of those killed by her company’s products, whom she blames for her misfortunes. Rather than get in a good exorcist she chose to expand her home to allow the ghosts somewhere to stay. To keep them happy the building work continues around the clock and did so for more than 30 years before her death.

I can accept that this in itself may not be that an exciting film so the writer has chosen to imagine a lot of stuff including zombies and possession.

The story unfolds through the eyes of  Dr Eric Price, a boozed up psychiatrist who has grief issues of his own. The board at the Winchester Company are worried about the mad widow spending all their cash and hire Eric to check her out and to see if they can get her ruled incompetent. Owing to large debts Price agrees but we get the sense that despite the boozing he has retained his integrity and he won’t just rubber stamp her ticket to the Nut House, as the board require.

Price is at first sceptical, but over the course of a few days he sees things that start to challenge his pre-conceived notions. Is the house truly haunted or is he suffering the effects of coming off the booze and drugs? Sarah starts off a bit standoffish with him but after a few experiences involving her possessed nephew, some common ground is found.

Can the possessed boy Henry be saved? - get rid of those milky contact lenses for a start! - and will Sarah be removed from her sprawling home and the company’s board? Will Eric find his own redemption or is he destined to haunt some old house himself?

I quite liked this film but it was, like the house, a bit of a mess with too much stuff tacked on and other bits going nowhere. It was good that they used the original house and the bits they recreated were well realised with stairs going nowhere and doors opening onto sheer drops. The sense that work was always ongoing was well done, although there was a lot of pointless hammering and painting onto bits that had already been completed - that’s tradesmen for you I guess!

Jason Clarke as Eric was good - you’ll recognise him as John Connor from ‘Terminator : Genysis’ - or maybe not; I can’t remember it either! His dishevelled haunted drunk act was decent but he was undone by lots of cheap scares as a zombie faces poked out every time he looked through a window or keyhole. Mirren looked like she was going thorough the motions, dealing with a script that was mostly complete bollocks. They left any pretence of dealing with a woman with mental health issues to having it a full on haunted house with bogey men in every room.

I guess they’d call it a re-imagining of the story but it’s a disservice to a troubled widow to have the cast of ‘The Walking Dead’ wandering through the house at all hours. There is an element of ‘is she mad?’ Is Eric mad? Is everyone mental, especially those who stick it out to the end?

Given a true life story was used here it seemed a bit off to have such extreme elements added - why not just do an original story without making a real one seem ridiculous? It was passable entertainment with nice sets and decent straight faced performances, but overall you came out knowing less about the story, with the facts lost amid a lot of supernatural gubbins and jump scares.

Best Bit : Room full of loaded rifles? Bound to end well.
W Rating 13/23

No.253 : Waterfront (1944)

Waterfront at the IMDb

Here’s a bit of an oddity - a 1944 American film that barely scrapes past an hour and is essentially a propaganda film. Still, we’re a broad church at the ‘W’ Movie Blog so let’s have a look.

The film opens as a man is being wrestled down at the docks after dark. No, not like that. Some passing drunks alert the cops but the man denies he’s been molested despite the drunks’ protestations. It turns out he’s the local optician and after getting in a predictable ‘they should get their eyes tested’ line he’s sent on his way.

It quickly transpires however that he was indeed robbed and the reason he couldn’t tell the policeman is that he’s a Nazi spy and all that was taken was his code book. Soon he’s joined by Marlow (John Carradine) who is also a Nazi agent keen to get his orders deciphered - a task rendered impossible by the loss of the code book. The two plan to shake down some local suspects but not before Carradine has scored himself some lodgings a guest house, having threatened the landlady’s family with a concentration camp back in the homeland.

The landlady’s daughter is stepping out with a young insurance agent who is near a life changing deal and he works for a German American who runs the insurance company - keeping up? Carradine doesn’t believe that the code book theft was a random robbery and he’s proven correct when the thief makes contact seeking $5000 for its return. The remainder of the film is taken up with cross and double cross as the code book remains elusive. Will it be recovered and will the nest of spies be rounded up?

As an oddity this film was OK but it lacked any credibility or tension. There was never any doubt that the spies were going to get caught and the method to make it so was somewhat drawn out and convoluted. There was plenty to aid the war effort not least the German American writing a confession to the FBI so that others wouldn’t make the same mistakes he did.

Carradine was always watchable but as a spy he was rubbish - no one notice the foreign chap with the large floppy hat down the docks then? Did his excessive tips not draw attention or his subtle plan of buying editions of every newspaper before throwing them away in frustration in front of the news vendor seem unusual?

He was quite brutal with three enemies dispatched in the same way - his Mauser raised (note : don’t use a German gun for your murders!) and fired while the victim died off camera - ‘Reservoir Dogs’ this was not.

Despite being just over an hour the film managed to tack on an unnecessary romantic subplot which added nothing apart from some wholesome values for the folks back home.

I wouldn’t go and seek this one out but if it shows up on TCM or somewhere, it will pass an hour without too many demands being made of you.

Best Bit : Why are you hanging about the docks?
‘W’ Rating 12/23

No.252 : Wendigo (2001)

Wendigo at the IMDb

A strange horror/monster/ghost story mash up now in this 2001 chiller. Patricia Clarkson stars along with the youngest out of ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ as well as an English actor I didn’t recognise but he was in the ‘Dawn of the Dead’ remake.

The film opens with the three family members heading for a weekend in the mountains. Gawd knows why as it’s freezing and the area is populated by hillbillies but maybe the Paisley Glynhill was fully booked. They don’t get far in their Volvo before a stag appears in the road and comes worst off in the collision. The deer was being stalked by some hunters and they aren’t happy that the antlers were damaged in the collision. The Dad manages to talk them off but we see that arch hillbilly,Otis, remains unimpressed.

At the lodge they find a window broken and a bullet embedded in the wall. Rather than run for the hills they settle down for the night where the Boy is troubled by visions of a hillbilly home invasion. The couple also get it on on the sofa unaware that they are being watched by Otis. So far so predictable but the titular Wendigo has yet to show up.

The next day in town they are buying curry ingredients so that Dad can continue with his racist impressions. The boy is confronted in the thrift store by a supposedly enigmatic Native American who gives him a small statue of a Wendigo and spouts off some mystical gubbins. When he shows it to his Mum the man is gone and the assistant makes them pay $4 for the model - the oldest scam in the book! As they set off the mysterious Indian appears again - no doubt off to spend his share of the four bucks.

Next day the father and son go sledging and Dad falls from the sled mid run. The boy heads back to him but is scared off by some snow flurries and what looks like a monster made out of twigs. After passing out he’s revived by Mum who is worried for the husband whom they eventually find in their driveway having crawled home. It turns out he’s been shot - possibly accidentally by stumbling into a rifle range but more likely deliberately by Otis who thinks their house is rightfully his.

The family make a desperate dash to the hospital while the police seek Otis - will the Wendigo show up again to save the day?

I quite enjoyed this film despite it’s thin plot and far fetched premise. There’s not a lot going on apart from the standard strangers vs. locals squabble with a tree/deer monster thrown in to add a bit of value.

From the off the boy character is a bit strange and I think they are trying for a bit a ‘The Shining’ vibe from him. He’s meant to be a bit complex and introverted, and perhaps more in tune with nature than most but he just comes across as a bit dull and slow. Clarkson does better as the Mum although a lot of her scenes involve her running about a bit upset.

The hillbillies were more fun but a bit stereotypical as was the Sheriff who failed to convince - he deserves a hammering for that performance!

The Wendigo itself was ill-defined despite the wise old Indian in the thrift shop banging on about its powers. It was funny to see its P.O.V. shot when chasing the boy as it consisted of only a few twigs stuck around the camera lens. Towards the end it turned into a two legged ferocious deer which was confirmed by the Indian saying it could shape shift - my guess was that the costume shop was late in its delivery.

There wasn’t a lot or horror or scares here but it was a decent effort with some nice snow covered locations and a scenario that stayed just the right side of outrageously silly.

Best Bit : Twig man’s gonna get you!
‘W’ Rating 17/23

No.251 : Wer (2013)

Wer at the IMDb

I went into this film knowing nothing about it which turned out to be a good choice as there were plenty of surprises and wrong foots to keep me entertained. In retrospect the title is a bit of a clue but if you want to avoid spoilers read this after you’ve seen the film and we can compare notes.

The opening of the film isn’t too promising as it looks like it’s going to be another of those crappy found footage offerings. We see a young family of three enjoying a camp out in the French countryside. Happily two of them are grabbed by an unseen menace meaning we get to the film proper with the shaky camcorder consigned to the bin.

The narrative is driven along by the usual cavalcade of rolling news clips and we learn that a French local has been arrested for the crime. This hairy brute of a man seems a fair choice as he’s most hirsute  and doesn’t say much. The case however attracts the attention of an American lady lawyer who looks to defend the suspect and get to the bottom of the killings which now number three as Mom didn’t make it.

She butts heads with the French detective in charge of the case and conducts her own investigations which suggest that the authorities may have a vested interest in chasing the suspect off his land which is a prime location for a proposed nuclear waste dump, that the locals seem strangely keen on.

Things look good for the suspect when tests show he may have a crippling disease that would preclude him from any late night murdering and dismembering frenzies. He also looks to be off the hook when a fragging great grizzly bear is found in the countryside despite them being extinct in Europe for a century. The strobe test goes ahead however to determine if our man has the rare disease - huge mistake. He breaks his bounds and kills a load of people before escaping.

The lady lawyer, who is now starting to doubt her early protestations of our man’s innocence, resolves to try and track him down. Meanwhile her assistant has a worrying wound that’s growing by the day…

I really liked this film and am surprised that it isn’t better known. It’s largely shot in a manner similar to ‘Rec’ with a lot a steady cam work and running about in an almost drama documentary style. The pace is relentless and I like how it flipped from a straightforward detective story to a full on monster picture about half way through.

The violence was extreme with jaws pulled off and body parts scattered with abandon throughout. Some of the dialogue was subtitled which was fine for me but I know some people dislike it. I think the French setting was appropriate however with legends and ‘the old ways’ seeming more believable - unlike the bear which seemed totally out of place and was left unexplained.

There were a few too many cheap scares or my liking with all sorts of stuff jumping out like birds, bats and even a pig to give you an unearned jump.

They danced about the werewolf legend for almost all the film with diseases and reactions to the moon being full used in place of calling a wolfman a wolfman. This was OK and added to the film’s modern take on an aged and clichéd genre.

If you like a lot of gruesome violence and dislike the French this could well be the film for you as the body count must be in the dozens. I liked its reinvention of the genre and its fast paced and inventive script. Definitely one to look out for.

Best Bit : Jaw Dropping!
‘W’ Rating 19/23

No.249 : We Are Still Here (2015)

We Are Still Here at the IMDb

It’s winter 1979 and a middle age couple are heading towards their new Massachusetts home. We learn that they have recently lost their only son and the house, that they have bought cheaply, represents a new start. We know from the off that the house is a bit creepy and very beige, but the early signs of trouble are the usual false starts like a ball bouncing down the stairs and a broken photo frame.

They are soon greeted by a pair of neighbours with the man, Dave, strangely saying the house has not had fresh souls for 30 years while his wife presses a note into the woman’s hand telling her to get out of the house - she was unaware that her curtains were that bad.

They get around to unpacking and doing up the house but the sense of unease continues until an electrician, brought in to investigate a over hot basement, gets fried for his trouble. The suggested terror motif is quickly dispatched as he is confronted and Cajun cooked by some smoky figures with bright eyes. The couple aren’t put off - possibly because they got out of paying the electrician’s bill - but invite over a couple of relatives and their son and his girlfriend to visit.

The couple who are written off as ‘hippies’ have experience of the supernatural and the hope is that they can cleanse the house of the evil spirits and presumably the Kentucky fried electrician in the basement. The two couples head off to the local restaurant where they are made about as welcome as a turd in a swimming pool by the locals who know the secrets of the house, I'll be bound! Meanwhile the son and his girlfriend let themselves into the empty house and pay for pilfering the Scotch by being carved up by the evil house dwellers. This pair are effectively fodder as the monsters tidy up after themselves and these atrocities are left unknown to our heroes who assume they’ve just been stood up. Nice that the monsters were keen to keep their security deposit intact!

The hippy couple start their efforts to clear the house of the unwelcome visitors but they are about as effective as a fart against a tornado. Whilst the man hippy is eating his sock and poking himself in the eye the townsfolk decide to take matters into their own hands - if our heroes escape the evil in the house will descend on the town, so they head over to help the cinder people - huge mistake. Who will survive? And why didn’t they just burn the house down years ago rather than let it kill a bunch of folk every 30 years?

I liked this haunted house horror despite it’s threadbare plot and OTT violence. The 1970’s setting was well realised with the leads sporting no end of stylish turtle necks and double knits. The actors did a decent job as looking shocked a lot and no one was scared of getting their hands dirty, as more claret was spilled than in a winery explosion.

The premise was a bit weak with the burned bodies of a wronged family showing up every 30 years in need of a fresh family to feast on. There was no reason offered for this timescale or what they were after - nourishment? revenge? A straight to DVD horror? Who knows?

The twin baddies of the monsters and the compliant townsfolk were well done, although it was more for laughs at the end when the locals showed up to help and ended up as the main course themselves. The crackling and smoking family of basement dwellers were well done and exuded some real menace.

The ending was pretty satisfying and I liked the end credits sequence that featured a lot of local newspapers recounting the horrors that had occurred over the life of the house.

I don’t think this film was particularly scary but there were plenty of gruesome kills and a nice air of unease throughout. Definitely one to check out.

Best Bit : ‘We’ll help…aaarrrrghh!’
‘W’ rating 19/23

No.248 : We Are Monster (2014)

We Are Monster at the IMDb

Uplifting family fun now as we enjoy a knockabout British romp set in a young offenders institution. Actually, scratch that - this is one of the nastiest and most depressing films you’ll ever see. It could be claimed to be a drama documentary profiling a shocking case of murder and institutional ineptitude but it’s just a horrible watch that offers nothing in the way or answers or, God forbid, entertainment.

The film opens at its inevitable conclusion with a blood soaked youth being bundled out of his cell as he stands over his bloodied victim. There is no explanation but we are then shuttled back a few weeks so that we can understand how we got here. To be honest they could have covered the ground in two minutes - mental racist kills Asian cell mate. Still if they’d went that way we wouldn’t have had the full 90 minutes of nihilistic fun and racial slurs.

The subject of the film, which is ‘based on a true story’, is Robert a self tattooed racist who has been in the system for years. He is in for threatening a call centre worker and seems off balance from the start. Before long he starts talking with himself - literally as his nasty persona takes form as himself whom only he can see. This leads to lots of scene where he is egging himself on to greater and greater feats of nastiness whilst the P.O.V.s of other prisoners show him to be talking to an empty seat.

The prison officers, who include Clem Fandango, aren’t much use and aren’t shy of a bit of casual racism themselves. They put Robert in a cell with Asian youth Zahid who is in for stealing razor blades - before long he’s going to wish he went with a beard! Zahid tried to be friendly but backs off when Robert gets more aggressive and introverted. Zahid is due to be released in a few days so resolves to keep his head down.

Robert meanwhile starts to delve into his past and tries to rationalise his situation. The film does the same with an abusive childhood and faults in the system the reason for Robert’s mental state. Some of these scenes were well done with his brown underpants wearing father beating him up as a child for wetting the bed. The film isn’t too apologist for Robert’s ultimate act but you do get the sense that they are showing him to be a victim too.

As the film moves towards its inevitable climax we are left to wonder what could have been done differently and what have we learned. Should we have watched that Adam Sandler comedy instead? Maybe!

This is an impossible film to like with its endless racist rants and unsubtle swipes at authority and society. They was an effort to explain Robert’s actions but that veered away from his own responsibility and while he was broken by the system he’s still a murdering scumbag with no redeeming features.

The film was hung on the central performance of Leeshon Alexander as Robert and he did OK with a difficult dual role. As ‘normal’ Robert he was too starey and manic and as his alter ego he was annoying and shouty. He did have difficult material to work with though, as he was spouting a lot of garbage that even the KKK would see as a tad extreme.

The closing captions of the film lay all the blame at the authorities’ door, and of course there were shortcomings, but to make apologies for the central scumbag didn’t sit right and you have to wonder about the point of the whole enterprise. The film’s vibe was hateful throughout and all I came away with was a grubby feeling for having watched the whole grim spectacle.

Best Bit - No I can’t hear you Clem Fandango
‘W’ Rating - 8/23

No.246 : W.M.D (2013)

W.M.D. at the IMDb

You won’t of heard of this film, and I bet it doesn’t grace the C.V.s of its principals, but it’s out there and I sat through the whole 80 crappy minutes of it.

The film opens with a trio of soldiers walking is a desert which is supposed to be Iraq but looks suspiciously like California. One of them steps on a mine and after five minutes of chat they engineer a way to free him without the device going off. This scene has nothing to do with the rest of the film so it must have been shot to bump up the film’s run time or to show why our men may be damaged having served in a war zone. Or maybe they found an extra $5 in the budget and fancied a day out?

Anyway the film proper opens at a Baghdad military base on Thanksgiving, where the President is coming to visit. He isn’t named but he is dressed up like George W. Bush and references are made to his father also being President so if it’s not him it’s a pretty unoriginal new character!

The President makes a few glib jokes before a soldier pulls a gun and takes the President hostage. Unfortunately the fat and bomber jacket wearing ‘Secret Service Agents’ aren’t really on the ball and soon the President and four soldiers are holed up in the kitchen where the majority of the film takes place. The five are soon joined by a lady reporter and a cameraman and so begins a drawn out conversation where the rights and wrongs of the Gulf War are explored. If that sounds a bit dry, then that’s because it is.

The leader of the kidnappers, Garrison, is large and overbearing. As well as a loud, annoying and devoid of acting skills. He also has a semi-reluctant lady soldier with him as well as a dull one and a shouty random one. Like ‘The Rock’, from where much of the film is lifted, a rescue operation goes on whilst the President is interrogated and tortured by the soldiers who want answers for the motivations behind going to war and why their friends have been killed.

Will the President be saved and what sin will the media put on the events?

I really disliked this film and it was hard to see it through. It’s agenda was clear from the start and it was almost like liberal wish fulfillment with a Bush clone being made to atone for his sins. He gets his face fried, shoes thrown at him and is water boarded and you could almost hear the long haired liberals high fiving each other off camera. Take that Republicans!

The film closed with the tired old staple of various news outlets spinning the story as a Muslim atrocity while the stock ticker on screen shows share prices rising. It wasn’t subtle and definitely not objective. It was also very low budget, poorly acted and had no redeeming features whatsoever. One to avoid!

Best Bit : ‘How do you like your face cooked?’
‘W’ Rating - 2/23

No.243 : World War Dead : The Rise of the Fallen (2015)

World War Dead : The Rise of the Fallen at the IMDb

Towards the end of this British ‘found footage’ horror one of the soon to be scoffed characters does an earnest piece to camera. “This is the craziest shit I’ve ever experienced” he says. Well, he’s half right - it certainly was shit!

Of course, with a title like this one you can’t expect much and it certainly delivers nothing at all, except for a series of predictable jerky encounters with some out of focus and anachronistic solder zombies.

Still I’m getting ahead of myself - let’s do the plot - that should cover a sentence! The film opens with some captions and stock footage about the Battle of the Somme - neat way to pad the already skinny 75 minute run time. We learn that a distinguished documentary film maker (who seemingly works out of a Transit van with a bunch of amateurs) has gone missing and what follows is cut from footage that was later found. So far so very predictable.

The characters have none to speak of and they all bitch about each other and argue pointlessly to either build up the tension or to disguise the fact that there is no script and that the zombie extras have only been paid for 20 minutes. The shoot is interrupted when mysterious figures appear in the background and a ‘French’ passer-by advises that it is ‘tres dangerous’ to be in the area.

There are plenty of false starts before the expert starts pulling on a chain that was next to a lake. This reveals a skeleton which belongs to a soldier from an African regiment who practiced bringing the dead back to life. He has a handy amulet in his stomach which the expert pockets, oblivious to its deadly powers! In no time flat the crew is besieged by resurrected soldiers from the Somme battlefield who strangely seem to be wearing World War 2 uniforms. They also have a taste for flesh which is unexplained apart from that’s what zombies do, I guess.

Some of the cast get chomped and another lot find an abandoned, but curiously well stocked, bunker and plot their salvation. Some handy 100 year old dynamite may help their fight and if they can rebury the skeleton (which wasn’t buried in the first place), maybe the dead will rest again. Can’t fault logic like that!

This was a shocker of a film and in no way is that a compliment. For starters I’ll bet the whole thing was filmed in England with one stuck on number plate and a dreadful ‘local’ the only nods to the actual location of the Somme battlefield. To be fair there is no way rubbish like this would get permission to film there, and if that’s the case you have to wonder about the inclusion of old footage of real and dead soldiers from the time. Regular readers will know PC isn’t my thing but real dead soldiers being used to set the scene for this tosh was plain disrespectful.

The acting was ghastly, as was the script which I don’t doubt was improvised throughout. The jerky cameras were vomit inducing and the added crackles and interference offered only annoyance, not authenticity. Very little was done in the was of explaining the zombies’ motivation or the fact that after 100 years the only decay they exhibited was that pasty face make up that students do at Halloween.

The only scares were of the usual ‘jump out’ variety allied to a screech on the soundtrack which wore thin the first time, never mind the fifth.

OK it’s hokey garbage with no pretense at great art or even competent movie making, but this was an embarrassment to all concerned not to mention an affront to common decency in general.

Best Bit - Head gets pulled off
‘W’ Rating 3/23

No.241 : When Trumpets Fade (1998)

When Trumpets Fade at the IMDb

‘TV Movie’ is often a solid pointer to the quality you can expect from a film but this HBO production was impressive in terms of its cast, scale and effects.

The film is book-ended with scenes of soldiers carrying an injured comrade from the battle field. In between the horrors of the Hurtgen Forest campaign are explored through the eyes of Manning, played by Ron Eldard - he was the nice one in ‘Drop Dead Fred’.

Manning is a lowly private who cares only for surviving the war. His platoon has been decimated and he is carrying his fallen comrade Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice) on his back. We know it’s a pointless gesture as Donovan has what looks like a pink jellyfish stuck on the side of his head and soon Manning has to make a terrible choice.

Back at base his commanders recognize his battlefield skills - basically staying alive - and promote him to Sergeant in charge of a group of new recruits. Manning drills them mercilessly hoping to keep both them and himself alive. Things come to a head when he is charged with capturing a bridge with the promise of a medical discharge if he’s successful. Will he win his discharge at any cost and will a battlefield promise hold any weight anyway?

I wasn’t expecting much from this 90 minute TV movie but it delivered on almost all fronts. There were a lot of familiar clichés and some sections were virtual retreads of the episode of ‘Band of Brothers’ that covered the same engagement. Of course if you have a flamethrower it has to explode and there were a couple of inventive scenes such as the walk through the mine field which kept things interesting.

The cast was excellent although some big named players such as Timothy Olyphant were in virtual ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ roles. It was also a waste to have Bobby Carnivale in the cast and have him as an officer’s assistant rather than some murderous gung-go maverick that we know he does so well.

Ron Eldard was OK in the lead but I wasn’t totally buying his fragile mental state and his self preservation bit was incongruous with his actions when helping out his platoon. I guess he’s a mixed up character but it’s hard to pull for someone when you don’t know where their motivations lie.

For a TV film there is a fuck load of swearing and some of the deaths and dismemberments were up there on the ‘Private Ryan’ scale of gory. The battle scenes were well executed with a well drilled cast of dozens doing well in a fantastically realised battlefield full of debris and body parts.

I don’t think the film had an awful lot new to say about the horrors of war, and as a character study it was lacking too, but overall this was an enjoyable spectacle and well worth a look.

Best Bit : Bridge Offensive
‘W’ Rating 17/23

No.240 : When Calls the Heart (2013)

When Calls the Heart at the IMDb

 You might think that it is hard to still come up with quality entries for the ‘W’ movie Blog after a torturous trail of 239 and counting but don’t believe it - it’s been a slog since we hit double figures! That is not to say that today’s film was scraping the barrel somewhat, more like scraped through the barrel and burrowed down 10 miles through to the Earth’s core!

‘When Calls the Heart’ is a Hallmark film so you can guarantee from the off there will be no sex or violence. Let’s watch it anyway! The annoying daughter who can’t act off the ‘Taken’ films stars in this as an annoying daughter who can’t act - the girl’s got range!

The film is set in olden days America where not an inch of flesh is shown and all the people of colour are on the staff. They try for  high end look but it’s more ‘Downton Shabby’ than ‘Abbey’. Everyone affects a high pitch posh voice which is annoying, as it is fake. Our heroine, Elizabeth, is a newly qualified teacher and looking onward to getting her first job. Her parents are keen for her to go to a prestigious college with Cherie Lunghi doing her best upper class twit bit as Mom.

Elizabeth is offered a top job but the sleazy recruiting agent, Mr Higgins, implies that he expects some favours for granting the post. Dirty bastard, although given the credentials of the film he’s probably just after some laundry being done. Elizabeth is distraught when her refusal to put out leads her to be offered a post in the Wild West. She is torn at first but soon finds her Aunt’s diary which details her own career as a Wild West school teacher.

The remainder of the film jumps back and forth with the diary extracts acted out by ‘Taken’ daughter wearing a blonde wig while her present day travails have her in a black wig; like I say the girl has range! The film plods on as blonde Elizabeth tries to teach the kids and weakly fend off the advances of Stephen ‘Arrow' Amell, while black hair Elizabeth endures the hazardous journey west with her Mountie protector. Things get near to a conclusion on both fronts when it’s revealed the movie is a precursor to a TV series where all the plot threads will go to die - well I’m not watching that so I’ll just assume they all die of the plague!

You can’t really find fault with a film like this as it was clear from the off what sort of gentle peril we will encounter. Things were perhaps best illustrated when black haired Elizabeth’s stagecoach gets held up by the most polite and respectful road agents you could imagine. None of them said ‘motherfucker’ and they didn’t even try to touch the hem of her ankle length dress - ‘Deadwood’ this was not.

You could see some old ladies lapping this up with barely registering scares such as a wolf ‘attack’ followed by a three mouse home invasion. On the romance front it was hard to pick between the past and present candidates both of whom were more wooden than the old homestead.

Knowing now that it was destined to be a serial it was apparent that little mysteries were being seeded throughout such as the fate of the Aunt and why her diary was hidden in the safe. I’m thinking illegal abortions but given the films trajectory it’s more likely she missed ten minutes of church.

The acting was uniformly dreadful with the fish out of water elements, when our girl had to rough it, the worst - putting mashed potato on your face and telling tales of bed wetting are hardly the stuff of legend.

You may see worse gentle and harmless fayre but I doubt it!

‘W’ Rating 5/23
Best Bit : “I piss the bed too”

No.239 : What Now (2015)

What Now at the IMDb

The other night I watched ‘Deep Impact’ and it was funny to see how the fledgling internet was shown with the marvels of search engines a wonder to all. That film was from 1997 and has dated poorly, but not as poorly as ‘What Now’ will have in the next 20 minutes - and it was made in 2015!

I suppose the producers would say that it captures the zeitgeist of the moment but when a film is hung entirely on online dating apps you can tells it’s not going to get a place in the National Archives. To be honest, it has dated already with Ashley Madison talked about as a going concern. Someone also references Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ so there’s another zinger for the folks in 2525!

The film concerns five LA single blokes who are trying for love online. They mostly work in a strip joint so you think there would be the odd woman there but they are ore interested in the ‘swipe right’ kind of ladies. They are presented as a mixed bag of personalities and types but they come across as assholes to a man.

The lead is DJ who works as the strip joint DJ - imaginative naming there. He’s in his 30s and keen for love but for some reason for a guy in the music and stripping businesses he’s a bit shy. He confides in his friends who are all similarly unattached and unsuccessful with the women. After a night of swiping hundreds of ladies they get no matches and decide something has to change.

Sadly the film has no ambition to rehabilitate its characters so one shaves his head and they take new profile pics before broadening their search beyond Hollywood and hey presto - dates! They all take the first girl available with predictably mixed results. One gets an S&M loving MILF while another gets one who is clearly mental as she’s a vegan and spots him as a jock.

Meanwhile a group of girls are also on the dating hunt and rating our men. Can love be found and will our men’s’ shallow approach pay dividends or will they need to see woman beyond a 2-D image to find true love and happiness?

This was a gawd awful mess of a film but I have to confess its terribleness was strangely compelling and I stayed through to the end to see what facile fates our heroes were granted. The old standard of the macho man inadvertently dating a transsexual was rolled out along with many other dating nightmares no doubt designed to get the hen nights cackling at the men’s inadequacy.

To be fair there are plenty of nightmare woman too from the socially responsible nightmare to the moody goth ; but they are all caricatures except for the lovely girl who balks at our hero’s strip show job but we hope to see back to give us all a hope of dating redemption!

The acting is terrible and you get the impression the whole affair was done with favours and cameos from the director’s softball team. One chap ‘Richard’ has the worst English accent you’ll ever hear and the rest have all the charming small talk and chemistry of an SS guard. For some reason Ice-T  shows up as himself and you can only imagine he walked onto the wrong set and earned a credit as a result.

It’s certainly not a film to track down, or even one to watch if you have put off the ironing for a couple of days, but if you are semi conscious and it shows up late night I wouldn’t say you have to turn it off. Fainter praise than that I don’t have.

Best Bit : The worst (at acting) English rock group ever.
‘W’ Rating : 7/23

No.238 : When the Lights Went Out (2012)

When the Lights Went Out at the IMDb

Paranormal activity in 1970’s Yorkshire now in this British frightener.

The film opens with  a husband and wife traveling to their new home with their teenage daughter. It’s 1974 and times are tough, although some affluent neighbours do have satellite dishes! The family is struggling financially but hope to have a fresh start in their new council semi.

Unfortunately for them they have moved into a home occupied by a cliché obsessed poltergeist who goes through the usual routine of slamming doors and moving stuff about. The 13 year old daughter is more attuned to goings on and soon sees a spooky figure in the TV - maybe it was ‘Top of the Pops’? The initially skeptical family soon start to believe when they each have an encounter with the spirit, although to be fair it does do a good job of stripping wall paper.

The torn faced daughter confides in her lovely teacher Martin Compston who does some research and takes the class to an old monastery where the girl has a vision of a monk being hanged. There is also a fortunate museum exhibition with lax security which leads the girl to believe her poltergeist pal is the ghost of a 13 year old landowner’s daughter who was killed by a mad monk. She steals the girl’s pendant from the museum as it’s bound to come in handy or she can swap it for some Spangles at the very least.

The case starts to get some coverage from the press and soon the marriage is under stress due to all the nocturnal fumblings that take place when the husband is away - that old excuse again! As the frequency and potency of the attacks increase can a seance or even the Catholic church save the day?

This was an OK, by the numbers, low budget haunted house tale. It was no ‘The House that Bled to Death’ but it went pretty much as you’d expect and had a decent finale that looks like it soaked up 95% of the budget.

The 1970’s were fairly realised but it was a mistake to throw in lots of ‘funny’ lines about avocado bath suites and ugly curtains just so that we in the present day can have a cheap snigger. It was incongruous and took you straight out of any sense of buying into the film’s reality. There were also a plethora of 70’s toys scattered about for the nostalgia effect only including a fully loaded Buckaroo that went off in the night - who ever left their Buckaroo piled high overnight?!

The plot was slight and although less than 90 minutes the film needed some padding to make it to feature length. The solving of the mystery was somewhat pat and the good versus evil battle at the end hadn’t been fully fleshed out for it to make sense. The special effects were quite good although a bit off kilter compared to the rest of the film - we went from muddy 70’s sepia to Industrial Light and Magic for the last couple of minutes.

All in all this was a decent effort but if they wanted something really scare from the 1970’s they should just have recreated the Radio 1 road show.

Best Bit : Uh-oh Slinky attack!
‘W’ Scot 13/23

No.237 : What We Did On Our Holiday (2014)

What We Did On Our Holiday at the IMDb

 If you like films about bickering couples (and who doesn’t?) this may well be the one for you.

Tenth Doctor David Tennant takes his family on a journey through time and space - well, it happens over a couple of days and they go to Scotland - where marital and family differences are all played out around the celebrations of his father’s (Billy Connolly’s) birthday.

Tennant is married to Rosamund Pike and rather than thank the Good Lord he spends all his time fighting with her - to be fair e never really got over Billie Piper. The pair live in London with their three stage school kids and have a daunting trip ahead of them to the Scottish Highlands where his brother (Ben Miller) and father live.

Ben is a total asshole who bullies his son and values his money over everything else. Bet he learns a lesson soon! He also has the worst Scottish accent you can imagine and it must have been that Alexander Armstrong was busy that weekend.

The family gather and we start to learn some home truths including some infidelity and that Billy has cancer. The innocent kids give away a lot of the family secrets to which wise old Billy dispenses increasingly annoying homilies, as he tries to protect them from the fractious family difficulties.

As the day of the day of the big birthaday party arrives an event occurs that leads all of the family to reevaluate their values and relationships. Yes, I’m afraid it’s that dull!

This was a largely inoffensive film but one that became increasingly annoying as it progressed. The characters were all thinly drawn and I didn’t really care why they were bickering never mind hope that they could become reconciled. The kids all did their best but there were a lot of fluffed lines and the wisdom of their innocence quickly became a real niggle.

The pivotal scene after an hour was as mawkish as it was unlikely - some of the impromptu building work carried out would have stumped Brunel!

It was a good cast with a lot of familiar faces popping up for five minutes but they were largely underused with shouting and yelling taking centre stage over any attempts at wit or charm.

The film was written and directed by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton of ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ fame and it’s a shame they produced such an anodyne and forgetful comedy rather than take a few chances, as we’d expect from them. It’s definitely not one to hate but just a twee and forgettable bit of fluff with nothing really to say and no laughs offered either.

Best Bit : No Osprey? Let’s paint one on the film!
‘W’ Rating 10/23

No.236 : When Night is Falling (1995)

When Night Is Falling at the IMDb

Softcore lesbian action now - well it can’t all be Werewolves and Winters! This is a strange film to categorise - there is something there for those seeking mild titillation but it is also a love story and maybe a bit of wish fulfilment for those with their preferences nailed inside the closet.

The film sets its cards of the table from the start with two naked ladies cavorting underwater to some dreamy music as the titles roll. We don’t know who they are but it is probably just letting everyone know early doors what to expect and to double bolt the door  in case of unexpected visitors.

Our heroine, Camille, teaches myths at a buttoned down seminary college. She wears bland and unsexy clothing and even drives a grey Volvo - they may be trying to suggest she’s not much of a risk taker! She has a partner, who had the fish tank blown up on him in the first ‘Mission Impossible’ film, and the two hope to wed soon. He is out of town on business a lot but they hope to secure a job together at the college where they can work closely together teaching wholesome values to all the students.

Hopefully Camille is better at teaching than looking after her dog as it escapes from her home and is later found dead in an alley. She is suitably upset but bungs its body in the fridge and heads off to the laundrette. At this point she is so stuffy she wears a buttoned up cardigan to do her laundry, but still manages to catch the eye of Petra who gives her arm a suggestive rub when she hears of the dog’s demise. Camille is aghast and runs home, but we suspect she was a bit tempted to know her touchy friend a bit better.

Later on she discovers that she has switched laundry bags with Petra, but luckily she has her card so that they can exchange their smalls - oldest excuse in the book! Before the undie exchange can take place however, Camille and her partner Martin have an important interview with the stuffy college elders. Strangely Camille dresses from Petra’s laundry bag and chooses a top which has her knockers practically hanging out. It’s therefore surprising that the interview goes badly!

Camille then goes to exchange her clothes with Petra and discovers that she works in one of those S&M circuses that we’re always hearing about. Petra again tries it on but a weakening Camille says no once again. A clearly torn Camille must choose between her safe but dull partner and a life with a travelling circus with a hot and sexy lady lover. What will she do? Check the poster if you need a hint…

I quite liked this film and not for the reasons you are no doubt imagining. If you were looking for sexy thrills this tame effort with lipstick lesbians would hardly get you motoring, but it was quite touching and almost innocent in it’s attitudes towards lesbian love, which they make out as forbidden fruit rather than an accepted state of being. Still it was made in 1995.

The look of the film is strange; it looks like one of those Hallmark films with a fuzzy focus and a single camera - cheap in other words. They did try to mix it up however with a hang-gliding class shoehorned in for no other reason to run that old ‘I’m never doing it’ before a sharp cut to them soaring in the sky routine. I think even my talents at missing metaphor failed here as her taking a chance at one thing, which she enjoyed, may have been a foreshadowing to something else?

I did feel sorry for the boyfriend who had no chance when the sexy Petra came on the scene. He was given a gentle landing with the promise of some romance in the pipeline for himself, but over all he was reduced to being a peeping Tom squinting into a circus wagon - we’ve all been there!

The agenda was clear from the start and whilst no one was jeering the fledgling lovers all the stuffed shirts who represented society were suitably outraged. If the film was trying for controversy it failed however, as you ended up thinking ‘good for them’ rather than society was doomed.

The sex scenes were few and not too graphic and although 27 year old Camille’s change in allegiance wasn’t believable it was better than the ‘dead’ dog and the circus ringmaster who had all the showmanship of John Major.

Overall a fun and heart-warming distraction which rose above its budget limitations to produce something worthwhile and memorable.

Best Bit : Oh I’ve hurt my knee - better take all your clothes off…

‘W’ Rating 16/23

No.235 : Wild Target (2010)

Wild Target at the IMDb

Some people say British comedies are all the same predictable rubbish and feature the same old faces. Well if it’s ‘Wild Target’ they are commenting upon it’d be hard to argue with them!

Bill Nighy plays a hit man with mother and emotional issues. He’s had a long and successful career as an assassin, which he puts down to meticulous planning and not getting emotionally involved. We can see he’s hurting as he learns French from a tape and has dinner on his own, but surely nothing can break his granite like façade?

Meanwhile free spirited Emily Blunt is organising an art scam. She has hooked poor sucker Rory Kinnear to paint her an exact copy of an old master which she will then sell to Rupert Everett having shown him the original (Rory works at the National Gallery) before switching to the fake. The plan goes well and she makes £900k but the scheme falls apart when the paint is discovered to still be wet - art forgery mistake number one, you’d think!

Anyway Rupert hires Bill to kill Emily and after following her about town for a day Bill starts to take a shine to the thieving harlot. He is however about to shoot her when a rival hit man, Rab C Nesbitt, shows up and Bill has to decide to take the contract or the girl. Things are further complicated when Ron Weasley shows up and Bill, Ron and Emily have to escape together.

The remainder of the film is more or less padding as the three unlikely bedfellows get to know each other and themselves before evil hit man, Tim from the Office, tracks them down for a final showdown.

I don’t think I cracked a smile once during this alleged comedy. I normally quite like Bill Nighy but his character here was such a cliché it was hard to care. The meticulous hit man undone by a target plot is a lot older than Bill and frankly he is getting on a bit for his romance with Emily to be believable or even seemly. She is meant to come across as a free spirited rock chick but only manages ‘shallow thieving bint who gets lots of folk killed’.

Ron’s part is pretty superfluous and although he’s meant to be the son Bill never had he’s more like the guy who can’t act who’ll bring in the Harry Potter audience. Things should have been improved by adding Tim from ‘The Office’ to the mix but he lacked the menace his character was supposed to exclude and his comedy dentures were a mistake.

The climax, which has the most blatant foreshadowing I can remember (“be careful with that gun it explodes when fired”), was terrible but at least welcome as it signalled the film was nearly done.

I wasn’t bothered by the film’s shaky moral compass, only by it’s dearth of laughs and predictable plot.

Best Bit : Bill listens to his radio set
‘W’ Score : 9/23