Film Reviews by NP

At two hours long, it might be argued that the story is spread a little thin. It looks so good, however, and is played so well, that isn’t really a problem.

At times during the early part of this film I was finding it hard to keep up with the flurry of characters that were introduced apace, sometimes in flashback, sometimes not. As events rolled on, though, I found they all had a place, and a story to tell.

I really enjoyed this. A great, sprawling, artily directed production, for all its echoes of classic horror films (‘Eyes with a Face’ and ‘Frankenstein’ come to mind), the result is nevertheless less of a horror than you might imagine – but I can’t see it disappointing anybody.

Of the players, Antonio Banderas gives a menacing and measured performance as Robert Ledgard, and Elena Anaya is excellent, her portrayal of the strangely self-harming Vera giving nothing away as to what is going on behind those big brown eyes. Mt score for this haunting film is 8 out of 10.

An English village endures the filming of a Zombie film on its doorstep. As if that were not enough, locals are found dead, their bodies torn apart.

This is a low budget horror comedy, and glories in it. Silly, funny, with some good performances and some reasonable jokes - some work better than others, which is fair enough – and it actually makes sense.

Director and writer Pablo Raybould isn’t interested in anything too sophisticated, preferring rather to dish out a few giggles during the 83 minute run-time. My score is 6 out of 10.

To begin with, ‘Bone Breaker’ introduces us to a bunch of casually attractive go-getters whose dialogue consists mainly of motivational speeches and modern day cliches, either to themselves or their fellows: ‘Not gonna lie’, ‘that’s the badger’, ‘we only want people that look the part’, ‘I need to be taken seriously’, ‘I’m not just a pretty face’… and so on. It’s established that in this clique, only pretties are allowed, only toned, fitness obsessed skinnies are wanted. On their vibrant platform of the internet, it’s all about self-promotion and followers. If you like spending your time with people that talk like this, you’ll enjoy the characters. Or not, of course – the bitchy exchanges between them encourage us not to take them too seriously. But really, their ‘hashtag’ quotes and exchanges and ideas about their own self-worth are *loathsome*. The gym-bods on very self-satisfied display are surely to be despatched by the mad hammer-dragger at loose in the woods as displayed on the DVD cover. That’s the hope.

The pacing of ‘Bone Breaker’ is odd. The girls are attacked by someone who receives no-build up, and then left. The audience is then treated to drawn out scenes of them in varying degrees of pain, out in the biting wilderness (and it really does look freezingly cold). Their plight is communicated very well (especially Rachel, played by Sophie Jones), but there’s no subsequent progression for ages, before the villain returns to administer a little more bloodless violence.

Exasperatingly, the girls actually see the killer as a fitness rival. “I’m better than you, faster than you,” Ruby (Lucy Arden) taunts the weapon carrying psychopathic antagonist. Not only is this unwise, it demonstrates the swathe of the arrogance and shallowness displayed by the people we are supposedly meant to route for. There’s no need to make our heroines this dreadful.

I noticed a location toward the end that seemed familiar - turns out ‘Boner Breaker’ is produced by many of the same team responsible for ‘Dark Path (2020),’ including writer/director Nicholas Winter. There are further similarities: a cast of mainly strong-minded females, with a handful of ineffectual males; pursuit through woodlands, and the finale, both of which end in a similar manner. My score is 5 out of 10.

This film is nicely acted, richly atmospheric, memorably scored and often very dull.

The opening scenes are effective, but not really intriguing enough to hang 1 hour and 40 minutes of anyone’s time onto. David Cronenberg makes a rare acting appearance as Walter. The performance isn’t memorable, unlike Tuppence Middleton as main character Abby, who is the most consistently good reason to keep watching. For its slowness, there’s also a chaos about the way in which the thin story is told, possibly to engage our interest.

The incidental score by Alex Sowinski and Leland Whitty has attracted comment. A mixture of minimalist ambience and a jazzy cacophony, it reminded me in parts of Yvon Garault’s music for French director Jean Rollin’s early films. An acquired taste for sure, but I really enjoyed it.

It seems director and co-writer Albert Shin was aiming for a small-town David Lynch-ian atmosphere here, but whilst the style is there, the ability to concoct an engaging or eccentric narrative drags a little over the running time. This is a shame, because with about 20 minutes pruning, the quietly effective moments could have been a lot more powerful. For all that, there is an interesting (possible) twist at the end. My score is 6 out of 10.

This is a remake of an early 1980s ‘video nasty’, and features four girls travelling to a wedding. Instead of making their way through American wilderness as in the original, the location is shifted to picturesque England – so why the girls should still be American, especially as the actresses are clearly not native Americans, is a mystery. The accents aren’t too bad, but they’re noticeably not genuine, and that’s to a UK ear. This is a shame as it is the first thing to grab the viewer, which masks the fact that the performances of the four leads are very good indeed, getting even stronger once they find themselves in jeopardy.

However, while it is a given that characters in horror films, especially horror slashers, make illogical, ill-advised decisions, this bunch just keep making nonsensical choices.

The glimpses of the killer are interesting, although the voice is rather silly. There’s inventive use of a rake in one attempted killing, bringing back fond memories of Brigitte Lahaie in Jean Rollin’s classic Euro-horror ‘Fascination (1979)’. Director Dan Allen makes good use of the small budget available – the results are far from ground-breaking, but enjoyable.

My score is 6 out of 10.

In 2013, Film4 Productions released ‘A Field in England’, about a group of characters thrown together during the English Civil War. Filmed in black and white, it threw the men into a maelstrom of hallucinogenic horror. Perhaps it is coincidence, but there are more than a few similarities between that production and ‘The Necromancer’ – and that can be no bad thing. Whereas the 2013 release was filmed in stark black and white and directed by Ben Wheatley, this is in glorious colour and directed and written by Stuart Brennan.

‘The Necromancer’ strives to be a weird and spiritual piece, with moments of strange and demonic horror. The soldiers’ uniforms provide a splash of colour amidst the lush forests and foliage in which the group spend the majority of the 88 minute running time.

While the acting is good, and the cinematography is terrific, the film is sadly dull, spending far too long between anything particularly interesting, or much less frightening, happening. For a low budget venture, it looks great, and the sinister moments are pretty good when they come, but lack the necessary spectacle to sufficiently liven things up.

My score is 5 out of 10.

It starts grim, it ends grim. The locations are beautifully photographed, and the minimalist score helps convey the bleakness and isolation of the piece. Guy Pearce growls intensely through his brief bouts of dialogue as Eric, and Robert Pattinson is effective as slow-minded Rey.

It is all very one note. When grimness is all there is, and there’s no lightness or shocks to break it up, the film becomes sadly dull. I found myself drifting away quite often, and I wasn’t given the impression I missed anything.

Others liked this, and that’s great; but for me, I found it a bit of a chore. My score is 4 out of 10.

At first, I wasn’t at all sure about this. The orchestral swirls and rolling countryside seemed to be ushering in a bigger budget episode of ‘The Waltons’. It’s a slow burner for sure, the thin plot taking second place to mood and atmosphere, which director/writer Sergio G. Sánchez ensures is rich and haunting.

An independent venture, this boasts some excellent performances and never looks like it has skimped on its budget – in fact the locations and set design are reminiscent of a Guerro De Toro production: a haunted house straight out of a child’s nightmare.

The terrific cast includes the mighty Mia Goth, so good the following year in the ‘Suspiria’ remake; Anya Taylor-Joy, equally convincing in 2015’s ‘The Witch’; and Charlie Heaton, from ‘Stranger Things’. But it is George MacKay who really nails it, rising to the challenge of having the most interestingly written role.

Things become distinctly murky in the telling toward the finale, the effect of which doesn’t measure up to what has gone before it. A twist that doesn’t quite work. However, ultimately, this is a highly effective slice of period horror. My score is 7 out of 10.

At first, this seemed to be unfolding as a typical American teen thriller, with everyone you meet being bland and casually attractive. There are times when such films are perfectly entertaining, so I was inclined to continue watching.

Gradually, things became far more interesting than that, and then more interesting still. Just when the viewer is given every reason to believe they know where the plot is going, a twist occurs – and very skilfully, the story takes on a new and unexpected angle. When even that is absorbed, another new development hits out, and once again we have to adjust our expectations. Director Mark Tonderai – who has built up a fine resume since this film, including a couple of episodes of Doctor Who – and writers David Loucka and Jonathan Mostow really know how to manipulate audience expectation, and tease out the truth gradually and expertly. The players, including Jennifer Lawrence (Elissa) and Elisabeth Shue (Elissa’s mother, Sarah), are excellent and invest in their roles wonderfully, underplaying certain scenes and letting things rip when the opportunity arises – and it does!

Not that reviews really matter – mine less than most – but I was surprised to see that this film has received a less-than-stellar reputation in some quarters. Opinions vary as well they should, but I found this so very well done, that it amazed to me that more found it so difficult to enjoy. The twists are wonderful, and they don’t let up, even at the very end. There are reviews assuring us that ‘The House at the end of the Street’ is full of plot holes and doesn’t make sense. Well, as far as I could see, there are no real plot holes (we are teased to think one thing is happening, when the reality turns out to not be what we expect) and it does make sense (at least, within the ongoing instability of the villain). It’s as well to give this film your full attention.

My score is 8 out of 10.

Misleading packaging isn’t anything new. ‘Dark Path’ is a good example of this. On the DVD cover, we’re treated to a close-up of a snarling, multi-fanged creature. The monsters in the actual film, however, don’t appear to be of the same stock. This may explain a lot of the drubbing this production has had from some reviewers, which is fair enough. What isn’t so easy to take seriously, however, is when reviewers watch a low-budget independent film and then slate it for not having a huge amount of money spent on it.

While the monsters themselves my lack bite, a lot else is well done. On the technical side of things, the mostly night-time scenes are well lit and moody, and the sound design – so often a problem in projects of this nature – is perfectly balanced. The characters are mostly well-played and defined, although main player Abi (Makenna Guyler) is relentlessly acerbic; although we find out the reason for it, her spikiness could have done with being dialled down a bit. She and wayward sister Lily (Mari Beaseley) enjoy a kind of ‘ladette’ banter which for the most part works well.

The story was engrossing enough for me not to have noticed that this is a mostly all-female cast until the simpering character of Peter turns up. Played by Jimmy Essex, his involvement is a brief one.

I quite enjoy the way the film is left open-ended; Abi does everything right, and yet her fate doesn’t look promising. Again, some reviewers have decided the film ‘just stops’, which isn’t fair. We’re left at a pivotal moment, which is clearly a deliberate creative decision.

Associate producer is Lucinda-Rhodes Thakanacker, (along with husband Jeet Thakrar) who people may remember for her performances in ‘Harry and Cosh’ and ‘Cavegirl’ among other things. Her recent career seems to have steered her toward the horror genre, which is good to see.

‘A Dark Path’ doesn’t try and reinvent the horror film. Rather, it provides 75 minutes that I found enjoyable, cheesy, absorbing and well produced. My score is 7 out of 10.

There’s no doubt about it: mobile phones have made life so convenient, it’s impossible to imagine being without one. For horror story writers though, they must be a nightmare. If you can get a signal, you’re never truly alone, and help is always a distinct possibility. That’s why in many films, so many explanations are given as to why a phone has no reception, or the battery has died – it doesn’t often ‘ring’ true and makes it improbable that characters are truly isolated.

So it is good to see a horror thriller that makes such a virtue out of a mobile. Here, both the heroes and villain ensure this film’s fast pace by conducting much of their business with their phones – business that is fairly central to the plot, too.

It’s difficult to hear David Tennant’s American accent without thinking, ‘this doesn’t sound as naturalistic as his Doctor Who’, before recalling that his Doctor also spoke in an accent that wasn’t David’s own (excepting the story ‘Tooth and Claw’, where circumstances determined he use his own Scottish brogue). As a UK viewer, I have no problem with his accent as Cale Erendreich, other than perhaps why the character needs to be American at all.

With so much attention heaped on Tennant’s terrifically arrogant Erendreich, it would be unfair not to mention the other performers, all of whom are very impressive, especially Robert Sheehan as Sean Falco.

I really enjoyed this. It might have been gorier, but some will disagree. In this age where, thankfully, the good guys don’t always win, it remains uncertain, right until the final frame, who will come out of this intact, or come out of it at all. My score is 7 out of 10.

Airwolf Series 4 gets a rough time from fans and general viewers, even now. Well, I loved it.

To quickly go through the details - due to the expense, behind-the-scenes issues and sinking ratings, Airwolf was laid to rest at the end of Series 3, only to be resurrected again with a diminished budget, all-new cast and no access to the original Airwolf helicopter. This latter restriction was the biggest problem for me - the sequences involving the 'copter flying were either used from earlier series, or from previously filmed unused footage. The weather in these sequences is bright and sunny, and beautifully filmed, whilst the newly recorded footage for Series 4 was filmed in a different location (Vancouver) in often cold, rainy conditions. The contrast remains jarring throughout.

Only original cast member Jan Michel Vincent remains for the first episode. He puts in a great final performance, despite looking a little haggard, and his character String is written out in such a way that the viewers don't know whether he lived or died - which is a detail I rather liked. Ernest Borgnine is represented by a body double filmed from behind, who perishes minutes into 'Blackjack', the first episode - Alex Cord and Jean Bruce Scott don't appear at all.

'Playing' with established continuity, String's brother Saint John Hawke appears and becomes the new lead character. Barry Van Dyke is big and beefy with a jawline to die for - he looks as if his character might be an arrogant posturer, but he isn't. He and the other three new regular cast members are appealing and well-played.

It's true to say not all of the special effects work - Airwolf's new laser looks very cheap, for example, and a couple of the stories are unnecessarily slow-moving. This could also be true of earlier series, however - and I enjoyed the majority of these episodes a lot. Intrigue, a bit of romance, camaraderie, explosions, jeopardy - it's all here, not packaged in as polished a way as previously perhaps, but there's still much to relish. Possibly my favourite episode is 'Malduke', featuring Dick Van Dyke, Barry's dad, as the titular villain. It's as a good as anything under the 'Airwolf' banner.

Reading some online reviews of this film, you would think it is the worst thing ever made, and that top-billed Kelly Brook is the worst thing in it.

I found ‘Black Magic’ (otherwise known as the more memorable ‘Santet’) well-made but run-of-the-mill, with a succession of unexplained horrors afflicting each member of the central family one by one. In-keeping with its rather generic title, there is little original here, but the setting of Indonesia for its main location gives the production a look unlike most other cursed family horrors of this type. Kelly Brook makes a fine job of the constantly horrified wife and mother Laura, and only Marcelino Lefrandt as her husband Rendy lacks a certain gravitas as the main male lead.

Well orchestrated twists and turns abound here, the only problem is that the succession of characters being mortally injured and then fighting fit before being mortally injured again, acting as if possessed and then coming round before being possessed again, has a certain repetition about it – but I’ve seen a lot worse than this.

Written, produced and directed by Richard John Taylor, ‘Vengeance’ is the story of Eric Williams who returns to his home town after spending 27 years abroad, after his estranged daughter has been involved in a brutal attack.

Featuring two of the naughtiest boys on television, Billy Murray and the late Leslie Grantham, this production gets so much right, yet doesn’t quite achieve greatness. A lot of the acting leaves something to be desired, and the thugs on display are distinctly unthreatening. Yet, the cinematography is terrific, taking in sweeping panoramas of a respectable city gone to ruin; the storyline contains some good twists, although some key moments happen too abruptly – including, sadly, the finale.

For its flaws, I really enjoyed this. There’s always something magnificent about watching Murray and Grantham growling at each other in ill-gained upper-class apartments.

Released two years after Grantham's death, this was previously known as 'Acceptance' and originally made in 2012. My score is 7 out of 10.

‘Alone’ (AKA ‘Antidote’) is an independent film, that features a small number of main players stuck in a basement, shouldn’t be this compelling. This slow-moving study on how a global pandemic can affect one couple, when the man becomes infected, is unnerving and grim - with occasional toe-curling scenes of physical disintegration, of course.

The acting, from main players Kate Flanagan and Michael Izquierdo as Teresa and Matthew is extraordinary throughout, going beyond simply recreating emotions, raw and desperate. This is human endurance gone further than it should, several times over.

By the end though, if there is a lesson to be learned, it is probably this: if things appear to be hopeless, that’s because they are. My score is 8 out of 10.