Though having lived in north-west London for nearly three years I had not as yet bought a ticket to see a film in the much-loved Everyman in Hampstead, which has been open as theatre and cinema venue since 1933. ‘Have you been to the Everyman?’ was often a question eagerly asked of me and then followed with a look of confusion and discrediting of my love of film whenever I answered said question in the negative. Finding myself with a Friday that turned out to be more out of the usual than usual, I realised that Friday 11th May 2012 would finally be the day that I sat in the seats of the Everyman Hampstead. An early evening showing of Dark Shadows was selected and deciding to not go for some food in the venue – which looks rather nice – tickets were bought for the show.

There was a bit of independent cinema confusion about customer service but done in a forgivable way as new(ish) staff were getting to grips with the till. There was actual eye contact and pleasantries shared which is so lamentably absent from the zombie-like eyes of so many Vue and Odeon employees.

Returning on time to our allocated seats, my husband and I were greeted with a genuine smile at the door by a member of staff who had remembered us from earlier. Quite a nice start to a cinema visit. Walking up the darkened stairs I turned left instead of right to find a lovely small intimate screening room. This looked perfect for a birthday celebration for any cinèphile. However, we were up the stairs further on and to the right of the gallery.

The seats were comfortable with cushions being provided for extra comfort. The gallery itself has a frosted glass front which still allows even this 5’7” woman to see over it. That said, the glass does somewhat draw your eye away from the screen, but that is a minor quibble. Not used to the table service element of the cinema I was a little startled when a woman plopped down merrily beside me asking if I had ‘seen the menu?’ Personally, I’m all about a silent lock down once anything comes up on the screen at the cinema but the waitress was really friendly and nice.

Being a lover of very dark cinemas, the Everyman, probably due to its food service aspect, is not the darkest of cinemas once the lights are lowered. The main room is quite broad to accommodate all the sofas. The screen seems more like a large mounted plasma screen. Big for sure but not as big as a sumptuous cinema screen that envelopes the eyes and mind into the world of the film being shown. True the sofas and armchairs are comfortable but, and this is probably far more of my issue here, the main room resembles a very large sitting room than a cinema. Some people love this idea of a sitting room type experience but at £16 a head, my own couch with multiple cushions is more comfortable and my television, proportion-to-room-wise is a better screen to watch a film. Also when people are sitting on sofas, they seem to forget that once a film rolls its quiet time and not talking time. Sofas appear to bring out stage whispers in people which a deep red velvet individual cinema seat helps to usually prevent.

Arguably people don’t start discussing the cost of things if they felt it was worth the money. If an experience overrides what it took to earn the money to pay for it, well then there will be return visits. Admittedly we were up on the gallery, but the screen just felt too far away and the first thing discussed once the film had ended was that we had paid £32 to see a film and the venue wasn’t overly impressive. Points should certainly be allocated for the impeccably clean toilets that had ‘For Everyone’ on the door instead of the usual ‘Men’ or ‘Women.’ Again the staff were all really approachable and were happy seeming human beings instead of bored teenagers longingly feeling for their pocked phones instead of having to deal with customers. Perhaps a second visit will be paid to see a film in one of the appealing looking smaller screening rooms. What was on offer was not something that completely appealed to this reviewer, but I can see why The Everyman Hampstead would be loved by local and visiting cinema goers alike.

Cinema Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Read an earlier edition of The Cinema File which checked out Genesis Cinema, Mile End

What’s it about?

It seems near unthinkable 1930s Hollywood would be capable of making transgressive horror films given the notorious conservatism of ‘the dream factory’. Stipulations and requirements existed both through external pressure (the media, religious groups, etc.) and an important sense of in-house image. However the studios, after the success of Universal’s Dracula (1931), jumped on the box office bandwagon often appropriating classic literary texts and in this pre-Hays Code environment several pictures can be labelled as containing surprisingly taboo and transgressive notions. Erle C. Kenton’s Island of Lost Souls, an adaptation of .H.G. Wells’ Island of Dr. Moreau is one of those films.

Directed by Kenton, an unremarkable journeyman who dipped his toe into horror waters after a career in silent comedies might well have produced a master work almost by accident. Whether it was Kenton’s or cinematographer Karl Struss’ idea to have the beasts rush from mid-ground into startling close up doesn’t matter – the effect is astonishing. Bela Lugosi’s small role as ‘Sayer of the Law’ – with his great big bushy, manic face – gets a few of these ugly but electric close-ups.

Eighty years on, Kenton’s film remains something of an obscure gem waiting to be re-discovered. It is a strikingly odd picture dealing with themes of bestiality, miscegenation and can have an anti-colonialist reading. Ramping up the sexual element seems to have upset the censors back then and it feels wickedly perverse to this day. Dr. Moreau’s nefarious scheme involves poor, hapless Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) mating with Lota (Kathleen Burke). The female is a mix of human and cat. She’s dubbed The Panther Woman and in one scene Edward notices her claw-like hands and freaks out (as he’s every right to do so) – he’s getting the horn for a cat.

Island of Lost Souls was banned in the UK until the late 1950s, which demonstrates how unpalatable its ideas were to censors and perhaps they were struck by the anti-colonial stance too. Moreau is a strutting peacock of pure vanity and outright evil. Charles Laughton is fabulous as the fucked up doctor who wants to ‘feel like God’.

Like the Bride of Frankenstein (played by Laughton’s wife Elsa Lanchester), Lota is a tragic creature designed to be smoking hot yet unnatural and doomed. She is undoubtedly Moreau’s greatest creation because the rest of the beasts are deformed, savage and wholly the product of a fevered brain. Proving that every dog has its day the semi-feral manimals rebel against their master and decide to give him a taste of his own medicine in the House of Pain.

The finale is tense and creepy. We know what goes on in the House of Pain as Parker stumbles across its lurid secrets after a tip-off from Lota. He accuses Moreau of performing live vivisections but Parker is a truly ineffectual protagonist and merely stumbles around doing nothing until rescued by his fiancée. This really is a movie without a central (and proper) hero. The characters are puppets in Dr. Moreau’s game.

At seventy minutes, the narrative is seemingly perfunctory stuff mixing jungle adventure with nightmare horror. The subtext is where the richness lies along with Laughton’s sterling performance. There’s even time for black comedy among the transgression. Parker first sees something odd when sticking up for a odd-looking servant taking abuse from a ship’s captain. He notices the poor chap has furry dog-like ears. You see strange things abroad but what the hell is this?

How’s the picture and sound?

This restoration job was needed because the original negative is lost and the print this MOC release was taken from consists of three different sources – a 35mm nitrate positive, a 16mm screening print and 35mm fine-grain master positive. As the booklet notes tell us, the film was constructed using the best quality scenes from the trio of prints. The unevenness is apparent, however, is certainly better than nothing at all. Karl Struss’ expressionist photography creates a dream-like atmosphere aided by some impressive, claustrophobic set design which makes the whole place feel like a lunatic asylum gone to pot.

Any extras?

Along with the usually brilliant booklets Masters of Cinema produce for their releases, extra disc features here are scarce. Simon Callow is interviewed to place Island of Lost Souls in the context of Laughton’s career. Film historian Jonathan Rigby’s interview is absolutely jam-packed with information on the film’s production, its reception and just how profoundly weird it is for a Hollywood picture – up there with M-G-M’s Freaks, another film that went down like a lead balloon. Also included is a trailer. The booklet features a great essay by Kim Newman along with production stills and behind the scenes images.

Summary

Island of Lost Souls is a screen gem waiting for a new generation. Kenton’s film may have been a box office dud but over the years its cult credentials have been established aided by Charles Laughton’s performance, a master class in villainy. The seemingly hokey premise masks a very disturbing subtext and a hideously kinky romantic sub-plot. Not only that, there are well-staged scare tactics in which grotesque beasts rush towards the camera so the viewer gets the full effect of the excellent make up work by Wally Westmore.

Film Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Extra Features Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

When’s it out?

Monday 28th May

A teaser trailer has made its way online (as they tend to do) and we can get a glimpse of what looks a solid, if hardly inspiring horror drama. The ‘based on a true story’ tag is old hat and more than likely a marketing gimmick. It’s based on a legend and that’s it. The Possession does make a change from the predominantly Catholic subgenre given it takes inspiration from a Jewish tradition. Will that make a difference once the scare-o-meter gets going?

Given it is released on August 31st, I’ll take a punt and say this will appear at FrightFest. Starring is Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, and Natasha Calis. Director Ole Bornedal is most famous for the Norwegian horror film Nightwatch and also helming the remake starring Ewan McGregor and Josh Brolin.

A young girl buys an antique box at a yard sale, unaware that inside the collectible lives a malicious ancient spirit. The girl’s father teams with his ex-wife to find a way to end the curse upon their child.

UK Release Date: 31st August
US Release Date: 31st August

Source: Collider

I’m calling Elijah Wood’s remake of Maniac ‘Frodo with a Shotgun’. If you’ve seen Bill Lustig’s 1980 original then you might laugh … or not. Anyway, the Cannes Film Festival teaser trailer for Maniac has been put online ahead of its screening and you can catch a glimpse of what looks like a great psycho thriller.

The film is directed by Franck Khalfoun with Alexandre Aja (co-author of the script) on producer duties. The original Bill Lustig-directed splatter flick starred Joe Spinell as a serial killer haunting the streets of NYC who likes to get handy with a shotgun on lover’s lane.

Khalfoun’s flick definitely looks a mean and moody (potentially controversial) promise and we know from Sin City that Wood can do psycho killers very well. Co-starring with Frodo is America Olivo and Nora Arnezeder.

Just when the streets seemed safe, a serial killer with a fetish for scalps is back and on the hunt. Frank is the withdrawn owner of a mannequin store, but his life changes when young artist Anna appears asking for his help with her new exhibition. As their friendship develops and Frank’s obsession escalates, it becomes clear that she has unleashed a long-repressed compulsion to stalk and kill.

Source: Youtube

Like other fans of Dario Argento and classic horror films in general, I’m not exactly over the moon that Suspiria is being remade. That Terrence Malick turned Cheech and Chong man David Gordon Green is helming just makes it all sound even fucking weirder than it already is. Yes, the man who brought us Pineapple Express and The Sitter thinks he can bring something ‘new’ to Suspiria. Probably fill it with stoners? That Green’s career has gone from strong indie cred to box office dread (see what I did there?) is one of modern day cinema’s great ‘What The Fuck?’ career turnarounds.

Anyway, in case you think this ‘Suspiria being remade’ news is a hoax, it one hundred percent isn’t. Green has cast French acting legend Isabelle Huppert (possibly in the role of Madame Blanc) along with The Hunger Games bit player and Orphan actress Isabelle Fuhrmann in the lead role played by Jessica Harper in Argento’s original. Is she still called Suzy Banyon? We don’t know. Also added to the cast is Janet McTeer and Michael Nyqvist (the Udo Kier role, we reckon).

Green’s remake will have the same plot: an American girl intends to study at a Euro school for top ballerinas and discovers there’s a witches coven after hours. Argento set the original up as a trilogy inspired by co-writer Daria Niccolodi’s grandmother who dabbled in black magic and the work of Thomas De Quincey.

That somebody like Huppert has joined the production makes this a bit more interesting. She’s a wonderful actress but that’s not to say Green’s flick will be wonderful. Argento’s original is a master work horror show of exquisite design. It’s also gory as hell.

Stay alert for more news. Cinemart will be following this outrageous production like a bloody hawk. Suspiria starts shooting this September.

Source: Screen Daily

Radu Mihaileanu’s latest feature, The Source, is an entirely admirable but sluggish tale of Berber women going on a ‘love strike’ after a rebellious housewife pulls the menfolk up for their sexist attitudes. Life in the Atlas mountains has gone unchanged for centuries. The men are settled in tradition and the women settled in near-slavery.

The Moroccan backdrop and the bucolic rhythm ensure it moves at the pace of a donkey burdened with pails of water. Whilst packed with poignant sentiment and comedic moments this is far too long for its own good and the second act love triangle plot smacks of deus ex machina. The golden, sun-kissed photography and ethnic music soundtrack also ensures there’s a fair amount of romanticisation going on here for what could have been a much tougher and political picture. Despite the domestic abuse and subjugation of women as focal points there is no real interest in polemic. Instead it goes for whimsy and ensures good old fashioned wisdom saves the day.

Leïla Bekhti is excellent as the enlightened young wife who makes a stand against the village. She’s already an outsider and makes matters worse for the female villagers when she starts putting revolutionary ideas in their heads. ‘Why don’t the men help out once in a while?’ This causes much anger and discussion which propels the plot.

The Source definitely has its moments. An early scene featuring a bus load of tourists lapping up the song and dance routines whilst failing to understand what they’re singing about (how the men treatment them) is very funny. However the tone of Mihaileanu’s film veers all over the place when it should have settled for something a bit more dramatic and less whimsical.

Film Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

UK Release Date: 18th May

To celebrate the release of True Blood Season 4 on Monday 21st May, we’re giving you the chance to win the complete fourth season on DVD!

The sexy, spooky and wildly entertaining TV series returns with TRUE BLOOD: THE COMPLETE FOURTH SEASON released on DVD and Blu-ray on 21 MAY 2012, from HBO Home Entertainment. Bursting with even more charisma and allure, satisfy your addiction and get sucked in right from the very start as the Complete Season 1 – 4 box set is also released on both formats.

Mixing romance, suspense and mystery with a taste for humour, TRUE BLOOD: THE FOURTH SEASON takes place in the not-too-distant future. Vampires have ventured out of the coffin thanks to the invention of a synthetic blood drink meaning they no longer need humans as a nutritional source – but is that enough to stop everyone?

In the latest spell-binding series, Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) finds herself entangled in a supernatural love triangle where she must decide between Bill (Stephen Moyer), the new Vampire King of Mississippi and Eric (Alexander Skarsgård), who is not the Viking he once was. However, are there bigger dilemmas on the horizon? When a charismatic Witch named Marnie (Fiona Shaw) threatens to overpower the Vampires once and for all, her Coven of white witches and mediums tempt Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), Tara (Rutina Wesley) and Jesus (Kevin Alejandro) with other worldly powers.

As old alliances crumble and new relationships form, Season 4 of True Blood proves that nobody’s safe when there’s magic in the air.

The fourth Season arrives on Blu-ray and DVD May 21st.
Available on iTunes.

For your chance to win, simply answer this question: Season Four features a charismatic witch – what is her name?

A) Marnie
B) Carnie
C) Armani

To enter the competition, e-mail: m.conterio[at]cinemart-online[dot]co[dot]uk. Competition closes 20th May 2012. UK residents only (sorry about that), only one entry per person and you’ve got to be aged 18 or over. If you’ve got Facebook please click the Like button and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @CinemartNow. Many thanks to Premier PR and HBO Home Entertainment. Winners will be informed by carrier pigeon (actually e-mail) after the closing date. Editor’s decision is totally final. Godspeed, and good luck!

A few months ago a dodgy looking trailer appeared online for Dario Argento’s latest horror flick, Dracula 3D. It was dodgy because the effects work was incomplete and everybody pretty much said ‘It sucks’, and not in an irony-laced manner. It just looked rubbish. Now a proper trailer (seemingly for the Cannes market given the French subtitles) has appeared online.

The film sees Argento working in stereoscope for the first time ever and sees him reunited with Luciano Tivoli, the man who shot such Argento master works as Suspiria. Argento also chose to make Dracula using digital cameras. Back in August he told Fangoria magazine he experimented with RED digital cameras but decided to shoot using Sony F3s:

“We previously tried RED and Silicon Image 2K cameras, but the Lexa and Sony F3 are amazing. This is the first time the new Lexa cameras are being used for a 3D picture. This technology is certainly more complex, difficult and time-consuming than standard 2D filmmaking, but I have an amazing Italian team helping me out with it, supervised by Jean Antoine Delille.”

Argento also says he’s being faithful to Bram Stoker’s novel. I’ve read the synopsis and he’s telling porky pies. The Italian maestro also has plans to link his own visual and thematic preoccupations with the classic horror novel.

“I wanted to insert something original, so that the audience could recognize it as a Dario Argento movie. I then thought: Dracula is a creature that could mutate into a wolf, a bat and even into fog, so why couldn’t he transform also in a insect? So my Dracula will metamorphose into flies, a rat, a giant mantis and even a spider!”

Dracula 3D stars Thomas Kretschmann, Marta Gastini, Asia Argento, Rutger Hauer and Unax Ugalde. Hopefully it will be with us sometime in 2012. If you haven’t yet read the full synopsis (packed with spoilers, be warned dudes) and some first look images, check out them out here: First Look at Dracula 3D.

Source: Youtube

Oh, and here’s the link to the latest UK trailer: Prometheus UK Trailer.

Synopsis:

Visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott returns to the genre he helped define, creating an original science fiction epic set in the most dangerous corners of the universe. The film takes a team of scientists and explorers on a thrilling journey that will test their physical and mental limits and strand them on a distant world, where they will discover the answers to our most profound questions and to life’s ultimate mystery.

UK Release Date: 1st June
US Release Date: 8th June

Source: Youtube

Rookie SWAT member Rama, who relentlessly hones his body into a mess you up machine in his spare time (of course he does) and whose wife is pregnant (of course she is) gets a doozy of a first assignment: to raid (see? Clever) a crime boss’s tower block. Unfortunately it’s not a tower block where the worst to fear is cackling hoodies or an elevator full of piss; this tower block is full of floor after floor of machete wielding lunatics, that the police don’t even go near – let alone try and bust.

When the attempted raid goes to bollocks in a can, Rama finds himself alone, unarmed and out numbered (he’s not really alone or unarmed), his only choice (it’s not really his only choice) is to fight his way to the top of the tower and take out the big bad on his lonesome. It’s not so much attack the block as knee the block’s face in (thank you).

It takes a while for the kicking in to kick in (thirty six minutes, timing fans) and when they did I stopped kicking the chair in front like a moody teenager and sat rapt. If you like fights, you’ll love The Raid’s fights. Whether it’s with a knife and a night stick or just his elbows and knees, leading man Iko Uwais is an unstoppable, athletic, impossibly fast force. His scraps are so visceral that they actually feel dangerous and the action itself is quick, mean and unpredictable. With some motherflipping bad ass finishing moves.

The reason for the aforementioned chair kicking wasn’t a Starmix come down (sometimes it is a Starmix come down) but because even though the set up’s not actually that long, it felt long. I didn’t really care for any of the characters and I couldn’t tell you a single one of them’s name without paying IMDb a visit. The fights are fast and energetic, but between bouts, the respites sag.

A lot of excitable people have said a lot of excitable things about The Raid and don’t get me wrong, it’s very good at people getting twatted; but it’s not better than Die Hard, or the best action movie ever made or whatever; it’s an Ong-Bak, it’s a D-13. That’s a good thing, just keep your pants on.

Although I had issues with the pacing, bottom line: the fights rock. Hard. The Raid is the Indonesian Ong-Bak and Iko Uwais is a fierce and fearless fighter in an inventive and exciting, machete wielding, elbow-everyone-a-lot fest.

Film Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

UK Release Date: 18th May