Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) - A review by Paul Worts

To check out my review of the new Blu-ray release of Peter Cushing's second (and last) encounter with the infamous Daleks, please click HERE.


 

Dr. Who & The Daleks (1965) - A review by Paul Worts

To check out my review of the new Blu-ray release of Peter Cushing's first outing as the Doctor, please click HERE.



 

Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever (2012) - A review by Paul Worts

 

To check out my review of this brand new documentary on the history of the slasher film, please click HERE



 

Come Out and Play (2012) - A review by Paul Worts

To check out my review of this remake of the 1976 shocker: WHO CAN KILL A CHILD, click on the link HERE .

Dark Skies - A review by Paul Worts

With architect dad (Josh Hamilton) having recently been made redundant, and estate agent mum (Keri Russell) seemingly unable to seal any house sales, financial pressures are starting to take their toll on the suburban Barrett household. Relations with their 13 year old son are becoming increasingly strained and their younger son Sam is beginning to worry that dad may be about to move out after hearing his parents arguing at night...

And so far we’re just in an ordinary domestic drama played out against a manicured lawn street in average middle-America. Then things start to turn spooky. The contents of the fridge are strewn across the kitchen floor. Domestic items appear stacked in an intricate formation. All the family photographs on the mantel-piece are suddenly missing from their picture frames. The recently reactivated security alarm system goes off in the middle of the night and it appears the sensors were tripped at all 8 potential entry points into the house. Oh yes, and 3 separate flocks of starlings crash into the house simultaneously.  

The Scala Cinema - A love letter from Paul Worts

My first visit to the Scala cinema in Kings Cross was in 1991. I’m not entirely sure quite how this sleazily salacious and gloriously gory fleapit had escaped my radar for quite so long. But somehow it had - and it may have done so for longer still had it not been for an unrated screening of ‘The Borrower’ (John McNaughton’s follow-up to his ferociously stunning debut Henry: Portrait of a serial killer.) I’m pretty sure it was the “unrated” prefix which drew me like a moth to the flame; the allure of an uncensored non-MPAA/BBFC butchered piece of celluloid. If memory serves me well The Borrower wasn’t all that great – but it introduced me to the Scala – and for that alone its importance in my cinematic voyages cannot be underestimated.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 3D - a review by Paul Worts

"Whatever you do, don't eat the f*cking candy".

Having dispatched the wicked witch into the intended infanticide inferno, (so far so Grimm), little Hansel and Gretel grow up to be professional witch slaughterers.

As far as plots go, director Tommy ('Dead Snow') Wirkola's US debut feature isn't exactly candy-coated in complexity or character. Instead we are treated to oodles of weaponry and witch offal flying into our faces in spirited 3D. Gemma Arterton's Gretel firstly headbutts and then later on bites a lump out of the Sheriff's nose. Jeremy Renner's Hansel wisely steps back to avoid the fall-out from a vomit-exploding witch and gets to canoodle in a forest pool straight out of an advert for Timotei shampoo with a strikingly statuesque white-witch. 

Acting honours go to the giant troll 'Edward'. It says a lot about a film when the only character to illicit any real emotion or sympathy is essentially a huge animatronic head with Derek ('Jason Voorhees) Mears inside it. Then again, it shouldn't really be a surprise when the head bad-witch 'Muriel' played by Famke Janssen, admitted in a press-conference that she only took the role to pay off her mortgage!  

PIRANHA 3DD - a review by Paul Worts

Piranha 3DD’s director John Gulager signals his intentions to deliver on the 'doubling-up' promise of this sequel right from the off by enlisting two veteran actors in cameos for the pre-credit mayhem. In Alexandre Aja's 2010 reboot we were treated to Richard Dreyfuss in a not-so-subtle nod to Jaws. This time we get the double delight of Gary Busey and the director's dad Clu Gulager wading into a dark lake to investigate a dead floating slab of livestock (deadstock?).

 

Previously, we were treated to the gloriously gross stereoscopic sight of Jerry O'Connell's character's chewed off penis floating in front of our eyes before being gobbled down and then promptly spat out by a discerning razor-toothed beastie. In Piranha 3DD, we get coitus piranhas interruptus thanks to one deadly fishy swimming against the spawning incoming sperm and exiting through a vagina and latching itself onto an unfortunate chaps love gristle (thereby turning it decidedly grisly). But that's not enough for Piranha 3DD, so he decides to chop it off at the stem. We then double-up with a 3D close-up of a piranha wedged into the backside of one chap whose favourite past time appears to be pleasuring himself with the aid of the suction from the pools outflow pipe.

AMERICAN MARY - a review by Paul Worts

The twisted Soska Twins indie debut feature film: Dead Hooker in a Trunk, a gutsy homage to grindhouse exploitation, made seismic ripples throughout film festivals worldwide when it surfaced in 2009.  Destined for cult status, it was a remarkably assured ballsy calling card for the twins, and their follow-up project, American Mary was hotly anticipated.

Medical student Mary (Katherine Isabelle), studies by day and practices her suturing techniques on dead turkeys by night. Money problems impinge on her studies and as she turns to alternative methods of financial sponsorship she finds herself being drawn deeper and deeper into an underground world of ‘body modification’ surgery.

GRABBERS - a review by Paul Worts

“It’s the quiet places where all the mad shit happens”.

Director Jon Wright’s Grabbers is a good old-fashioned monster B movie. Good in the sense that it takes its time to introduce its characters (it’s genuinely likeable characters). Good in the sense that it has a no-nonsense pleasingly simple plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Good in the sense that it doesn’t outstay its welcome, and, above-all, good in the sense that its two main leads aren’t played by Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. In fact, the only element that’s not old-fashioned about Grabbers is the excellent CGI creature effect work which given the film’s modest budget puts some major studios efforts to shame.

A meteor crashes into the sea off the coast of Erin Island, a sleepy Irish fishing village. A fishing boat (fatally) mistakes it for a distress flare. An old man out walking his dog along the shore comes across the sight of a pod of dead Pilot whales washed ashore, and a local fisherman catches a strange kind of lobster and puts it in his bathtub...