RE-ANIMATOR Blu-ray review

Starring Jeffrey Combs as H.P. Lovecraft's Dr Herbert West, out now as a 2 disc special edition Blu-ray is the splatter classic Re-Animator.

CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES review

Directed by Jackie Earle Haley and starring John Travolta, Dan Stevens and Michael Pitt, Criminal Activities is out now on DVD and VOD.

ROSENCRANTZ & GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD DVD review

Starring Tim Roth, Gary Oldman and Richard Dreyfuss, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead sees two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet take centre stage as we learn of their importance to the Prince of Denmark's tale. This is the other side of the same coin, if you like.

The 25th anniversary of the film (and 50th anniversary of the original play) is being celebrated with this new DVD, which comes with a bonus disc full of extras. Written and directed by playwright Tom Stoppard, it has a curious set up that will certainly pique the interest of many. In a time when sequels, side-sequels and spin-offs are increasingly prevalent, I was intrigued to see such an interesting idea applied to the work of Shakespeare; Hamlet, no less.

And there are things to admire about the film. There's a great interplay between Roth and Oldman as Rosencrantz and Guildernstern (I'll leave you to figure out which one is which), two contemporaries of British cinema who have worked together a number of times and who clearly have a great trust in their fellow performer. It's odd to see Oldman in a role that is mostly whimsical comic relief, but he's very good at it. A young Iain Glen takes on the role of Hamlet, resembling Alfie Allen in a way I'm surprised hasn't set many a Game of Thrones Reddit thread alight. His performance as the potential future King of Denmark is fresh and exciting, if not more suited to a theatre experience.

It would be appreciated more by those who've studied the Bard, but to fully appreciate the film, I think you would have to be a minor obsessive of Hamlet, of which there are some out there. As well as being about the trivial goings-on of a pair of minor characters, it's surprisingly dense, and as a film, it's a better play. With Stoppard's cheeky stabs (sometimes literally) at actors and their perceived pomposity (as evidenced through Richard Dreyfuss's troupe of travelling performers), it is a play about the theatre, and that doesn't quite translate to the big screen. It certainly has moments of wryly funny, sarcastic humour, and there is a charmingly off kilter approach to its obsessions with the minutiae of life and bizarre non-sequiturs that recall the cinematic works of Richard Lester. One scene sees Oldman holding a bowling ball and a feather and dropping them from a height. "You'd think this would fall faster that this..." Thud. "And you'd be right".

For fans of the Bard it's an interesting curio, featuring two performances from Roth and Oldman that are never less than watchable. Sadly, its overlong running time and often impenetrable text will struggle to capture the interest of a wider audience. It's cinematic limitations are clear, and the DVD even includes a candid interview with Stoppard from last year, where he discusses his motivations and limitations as a director. This was his sole directing effort, and despite some plaudits laid on the film at the time (Stoppard controversially won the Golden Lion ahead of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas), his strengths do not lie behind the camera lens.

3/5

THE FEAR OF 13 DVD review

After 20 years on death row protesting his innocence, convicted murderer Nicholas Yarris asked for all ongoing appeals to be cancelled and the conclusion of his sentence be carried out. David Sington's The Fear of 13 asks what lead him to make this decision.

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2015 - The Round-Up

The 59th London Film Festival took place this October, bringing the usual mix of celebrity galas, red carpets and new discoveries. This was my fourth year of being able to attend the festival, making sure to experience as many of the small, odd little films alongside the bigger behemoths as possible.

CIRCLE review

Fifty strangers wake in a circular room to find that they are pawns on a sundial shaped game board. Every couple of minutes one of them is killed by the eye in the middle, making it a race against time to try to work out the system, along the way revealing the social, racial and class prejudices each individual harbours. If you move from your spot you die. If you don't vote tactically, you die. If you reveal too much about yourself that the others don't like, you die.

MAYHEM FILM FESTIVAL - AAAAAAAAH! review

Written and directed by Sightseers' Steve Oram, Aaaaaaaah! screened at this weekend's Mayhem Film Festival in Nottingham and is now available on VOD.

THE MESSENGER review

Out now in cinemas, The Messenger stars Robert Sheehan as Jack, a young man troubled by visits from the newly dead.

When a man is found dead underneath a railway bridge, local oddball Jack (Robert Sheehan) becomes involved in the case when he is visited by the spirit of the dead journalist.

Robert Sheehan, the former star of teen sci-fi drama Misfits, has yet to achieve the big screen success that was once predicted when he jumped ship from that show after the second series. It's a pity that, after appearances in Season of the Witch, Demons Never Die and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, Misfits is still the best he's ever been.

Here, he's skirting around familiar otherworldly territory, but Jack's story is more concerned with his fractured family life; specifically, the relationship between him and his sister. As played by Lily Cole, Emma has seen her brother deal with his demons since the death of their father, assuming his condition is one that can be dealt with by heavy medication. Cole is perfectly fine in the role, but (despite Sheehan covering up his Irish accent) they're unconvincing as brother and sister.

The film has numerous flashbacks to Jack and Emma's childhood, and the emotional damage that was caused by the loss of their parent and Jack's subsequent visions of him. For a film that bills itself as a supernatural horror, here would have been the perfect opportunity to use its set-up to create some tension. But instead of using the father's lingering presence to hint at any malevolent intentions it's played for sentimentality. That's fine, but don't say you're a horror film when you're not. Writer Andrew Kirk's previous work includes time as a story writer for Emmerdale, and at times The Messenger feels a bit soapy. And not even good old fashioned Emmerdale soapy. Doctors soapy.

Unfortunately, The Messenger can't escape from underneath the shadow of 1990's Ghost. There's even a complete facsimile scene where Jack talks to a grieving widow through a closed door, trying to convince her of his ability by relaying messages from their dearly departed. Ghost had a similar issue with an overblown death conspiracy plot, but at least it had the romantic pottery of Swayze and Moore to fall back on. When you think about that film, it's those tragic/romantic elements that you remember.

It's a shame that the film is unsure of what it wants to be. There's elements that could have been used to create something better, for example a scene between Jack and his nephew where it appears that history is repeating itself and the family has found itself a new Haley Joel Osment. For a split second Sheehan becomes Scatman Crothers in The Shining, warning young Danny about sharing his gift with too many people; but then it's gone, and the film returns to the uninteresting murder of a journalist. Ditto the scenes with Joely Richardson as his therapist and David O'Hara as a suspicious police detective. They could have been so much more.

Sheehan plays the tormented Jack well, and his performance is one of the few highlights. His role as intermediate between the living and the dead does not sit well with him, and he is a talented actor capable of expressing that peculiar kind of torment. What's missing is Sheehan's comic talents, of which he only gets to display brief flashes towards the end of the film. He's clearly capable of playing the brooding twentysomething, but some of the charm he has shown in previous work would have improved the character immeasurably.

Sadly, the mystery surrounding Mark Lewis's death isn't interesting enough, and the flashbacks to Jack's childhood quickly make their point and then keep dragging on. It's bogged down in mawkish sentimentality and spends far too long focusing on the less interesting characters.

Verdict

DARK SUMMER review

When he is placed under house arrest for stalking one of his female classmates, Daniel soon starts to experience horrific visions when she kills herself in front of him over Skype. Now streaming on Netflix is Dark Summer.

FAULTS review

The directing debut of Riley Stearns, out now on VOD is Faults, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Claire, a young woman removed from a potentially dangerous cult.