0.50 Action Express

Anyone with a child under the age of 10, who owns a television, must have stumbled onto Channel 5's 'Milkshake'. What appears at first glance to be for children soon reveals itself to be the channel of choice for the casual pervert.

The programmes themselves are the usual fare, and include the entertaining 'Mr. Men Show' (which has inexplicably changed some of the characters - Mr. Nosey doesn't have a big nose anymore). Where the channel comes into its own is the continuity announcers. Discarding Derek, the remaining three are girls of the highest quality. The main reason for watching, despite Beth, Naomi and Kemi being true foxes, is Jen Pringle. Small, petite and northern, Jen often does the (surely for dads) 'Jolly Body Jig', a dance routine, supposedly for a bit of exercise. A quick perusal of youtube will show the real demographic.

Perhaps the best excuse to leer is 'The Milkshake Show', where all 4 presenters supposedly live in the same house. The format of short sketches and songs give ample opportunity for dressing up, and unless I dreamt it, the girls once went to cheerleader practice.

Ms. Pringle can even perform the impossible - she can make crimped hair look almost attractive, although she usually sports bunches and tight t-shirts. So, Channel 5 (or five, if you like), from about 0630 onwards!

Make a list of your favourite films: Cannibal Apocalypse,Tenebrae, Enter the Dragon, From Dusk til Dawn, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Napoli Violenta, The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Queen of Blood? Who is the common denominator? Carmine Orrico, better known as John Saxon, the thinking man's Michael Ironside.

Now, consider your list of favourites that do not contain Saxon: Taxi Driver? If Saxon had played Bickle, he wouldn't have taken that crap from Cybill Shepherd, Palantine would be a dead man and Bickle and Sport could have set up together, pimping out Iris and company.

Now, picture Saxon in Raging Bull. No fatboy wife-slapping for him, he'd still be champ now. Avatar? Those blue bastards would be toast, and Saxon could watch Pandora burn with Sigourney Weaver sat on his knee. A Saxon Terminator? No crusher for him. The resistance would be finished before it got started, and the T-800 would have a string of dried Connor-ears around his neck.

He even makes Posse From Hell look almost watchable.

In the days before The Human Centipede and A Serbian Film, Takashi Miike's ultra-violent Yakuza offering caused a bit of a stir, featuring human tempura, face-slicing, schoolgirl rape and extreme S&M. Somewhat of a departure from Miike's other Yakuza films, such as the Dead or Alive series, Ichi warps the nominal plot of two warring syndicates, and brings to it skeins of child abuse and deviant sexuality.

Deviating somewhat from the manga series upon which it is based, the main protagonist, Kakihara, an enthusiastic masochist, endures a violent quest to find his missing boss, punctuated by graphic and bloody scenes where pimps are cut clean in half by the titular Ichi, legs are sliced off, skewers are used as torture implements, and Miss Singapore Universe (1994) is killed with a lethal pair of shoes.

The crude psychology common to many Far-Eastern movies is present here, with a simplistic explanation for Ichi's murderous rampages presented to explain the over-the-top mayhem. The performances are uniformly excellent, especially Tadanobu Asano as the masochistic enforcer, and Nao Ōmori as the cringing Ichi.

The movie has what can only be described as one of the most iconic images I've ever seen: Kakihara draws on a cigarette, and blows the smoke through the large slashes cut into his cheeks.

A notoriously hit-and-miss director (remember One Missed Call?), Miike is on top form here, leading us from one elaborate set piece to the other. Who can resist a film where two corrupt cops dress as dogs to 'sniff out' a fugitive gangster?

The level of violence has long been surpassed, but Ichi's style and impact still makes this a superior addition to the genre.

In today's culture of banned sports days and downgraded educational standards, it is increasingly difficult to fail at school. Johannes Roberts' movie follows the consequences of a student being given a 'F' for a half-arsed assignment.

The reliable David Schofield is the offending teacher, who is suspended after failing a student, and returns months later as a haggard alcoholic. Further complicating things are the fact that his daughter and her boyfriend are in his English class, and Schofield's drinking is making his return to work more difficult.

Before long, faceless youths invade the school, incinerating security guards and torturing the caretaker.

What starts as an interesting variation on Carpenter's 'Assault on Precinct 13' degenerates into the usual faceless-killers-stalking-in the-dark fare. the shocks are predictable, and the only worthwhile sequence is the murder of a female teacher who has an ill-advised, scantily clad workout in the school gym. There are plenty of gratuitous shots of Eliza Bennett, who plays Schofield's teenage daughter, crawling around the floor dressed in a school uniform, but even this fails to ignite much interest in the fate of the cast. The characters are little more than caricatures, especially the security guards, who threaten to derail any tension, much like the poorly written cops in 'Last House on the Left'.

The film is well shot and acted, but, while the killers look impressive, with their faces obscured beneath their hoods, and the ending is pleasantly pessimistic and ambiguous, one can't help feeling that this is a wasted opportunity. While its good to see more British horror films on the market, it really is a shame that the quality is so variable

Are you prepared to be "Sterilized With Fear"?

Take Robot Monster, add Plan 9 From Outer Space, plus any other 50s b-movie and combine with Airplane and you may get something like this. Director and star Larry Blamire has created a fiendishly accurate parody which, like Airplane, has plenty of fun with the genre.

The plot, such as it is, involves aliens, mutants, a creature made from woodland animals and the most inanimate creature since the octopus in Bride of the Atom . The lead alien has obviously watched Robot Monster, sports the fantastic name of Kro-Bar, and the mutant costume would make George Barrows green with envy. Highlights include deliberately rotten acting, wobbling sets and bizarre alien 'dancing'.

Jennifer Blaire, who plays Animala, the human-creature thing, actually makes the part surprisingly sexy, giving it her all. The rest of the cast deliberately vacillate between oh-my-gosh overacting to seemingly improvising the dialogue on the spot. The titular Skeleton is a marvel of ILM-style special effects, being swung around on strings or thrashed about during the climactic fight with the mutant.

The film was actually filmed in Bronson Canyon, home of many of the movies being parodied, giving more authenticity, and showing real attention to detail.

The soundtrack also deserves a mention, with stock tunes erupting from nowhere, almost coinciding with the action,

Inevitably, a sequel appeared, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again, followed by the unrelated, but very similar, Trail of the Screaming Forehead.

Check out youtube for the trailers, which are dead-on spoofs, compete with portentous, Criswell-like voice overs.

If you like the sound of 80s popster Tiffany dressed in a red bikini, sat in a hot tub, then this may be worth a look. To be honest, that's the only thing going for this turgid straight-to-video rubbish.
Ostensibly, the plot involves the usual group of photogenic youngsters holidaying at a isolated cabin, high on a snowbound hilltop.In the opening sequence, there is a flashback to a group of early settlers getting trapped on the hill in a snowstorm, and resorting to cannibalism. No prizes for guessing the rest.

Michael Berryman from The Hills Have Eyes shows up looking embarrassed to be there. He gives a few dire warnings, then disappears for a while before being mercifully bumped off when things go tits-up. To be fair, the cast do their best with the clunky dialogue, but fans of dire acting will enjoy Tiffany's fantastically wooden delivery when she wakes up after a nightmare.

The ghosts move with the jerky, fast-forwards motion that they all seem to nowadays, and one actually says the the horror film favourite "Save yourself". There are a few moments of unintentional humour, but the funniest is when one of the girls slides down a slight incline, screaming all the way

The film ends in what can only be described as a great anti-climax, similar to Carpenter's The Thing, but without the impending menace. All in all, there really is nothing to recommend this.

What could go wrong? Hire possibly the only truly sexy porn actress, David Hess, Michael Berryman and H.G. Lewis (yes, that H.G. Lewis) and make a homage to cheapo gore films, but with a decent budget and real production values. Unfortunately, it totally misses the point of a good exploitation film: its no fun to watch.

Planet Terror, Death Proof, Machete and the upcoming Hobo With a Shotgun prove that the aesthetics of the Grindhouse married to talented directors can yield impressive results: Planet Terror was, for me, the best film of 2007, and Machete shows that Danny Trejo and Jeff Fahey should be major stars.

Hess plays a rotten director of terrible horror movies. After a showing of his latest effort goes about as well as the one in Tim Burton's Ed Wood, Hess accidentally kills his girlfriend and uses the body parts as FX for his movies.

What could have been a knowing update of trash like Blood Feast soon reaches its nadir with the appearance of poor Michael Berryman in the worst toupee ever seen in motion pictures. Things pick up with the appearance of Porn actress Sasha Grey, who is undeniably sexy, but looks lost with the material. Think what Jenna Haze could have made of the role.

The plot meanders along, involving a detective and the dead girl's sister, but who cares? The gore itself is pretty impressive, with garish, Argento-red blood and reasonable prosthetics, and Hess tries his best to inject some life into the proceedings. Unforgivably, Ms Grey remains fully clothed throughout.

Michael Dubue score, however, is well worth mentioning, perfectly matching the onscreen action. It really is wasted on rubbish like this.

The only real reason to watch this is to see a Sasha Grey movie that you won't feel dirty watching, but if you're not bothered about that, then watch Fuck Slaves instead. It's far more enjoyable than this.

Here is a film that ticks all the boxes: a group of porn film-makers shooting at an isolated cabin are attacked by Ron Jeremy's penis. What could very easily been a cheap excuse for nudity and gore actually transcends the genre and becomes a reasonable film.

The film wears it's influences on it's sleeve, stealing the plot of a whole raft of 'good-looking-youngsters-trapped-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-flicks', and a cheeky nod to the Alien films. The performances are better than you would expect for this genre, and all parts are played straight. The whole thing could have come off the rails if not treated seriously- the plot is so ridiculous, the temptation to play it for obvious laughs must have been strong.

Perhaps the most horrifying image in the film is the Hedgehog himself coupling with fellow retro porn star Veronica Hart. While Ms Hart has aged surprisingly well, Ron wobbles dangerously whilst 'in action'. The interplay between the two veterans comes across as sincere and poignant, and throws into focus the differences between the Golden Age of pornography and the modern-day equivalent.

Ron's member soon moves to centre stage, after an encounter with a UFO, and systematically slaughters it's way through the cast. The penis itself is only seen in glimpses, possibly in tribute to Ridley Scott's Alien, but more likely because it is a really cheap effect. There are several amusing POV shots as it moves in for the kill, and the penis finds a wince-inducing method of possessing a corpse.

All in all, I was expecting far less than I got. One-Eyed Monster will never set the horror world alight, but the ambiguous finale raised the possibility of a sequel, and any film in which Ron Jeremy can melt the snow on an entire mountain has got to be worth watching at least once.

Here are some of my favourite paintings by my favourite artist, Amedeo Clemente Modigliani. I've seen a couple of his pictures in 'the flesh' so to speak, and they really do take your breath away. Modigliani, in the best artistic tradition, died penniless in 1920.

No comments are needed from me.

The last picture, Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne, is possibly my favourite work of art in any medium.

The on-screen disintegration of the nuclear family, which was hinted at during the 50s, and became a common thread during the 70s, is the premise of writer/director Simon Rumley's début. The setting is a dilapidated stately home, which gives Rumley and his art director plenty of opportunity for unusual camera angles and effective externalisation of the state of mind of the protagonists.

Visually, the overall look is reminiscent of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, especially in the later, nightmarish segments of Lynch's masterpiece. The mansion is full of sickly greens and yellows, and the faded décor allows for good use of chiaroscuro in the dark corners of the large, mostly unfurnished rooms.

Details are kept not spelled out, but the Lord of the Manor (Roger-Lloyd Pack) is called away on a vague errand in order to stop the family home being sold off. His, presumably, terminally ill wife (again, details are vague), played by Kate Fahey in a fearless performance, is left in the care of their mentally handicapped son (Leo Bill).

The plot is a little predictable, with the son refusing to take his medication, and the situation soon becomes desperate. The treatment of mental illness is fairly well handled; the son is no monster, and just wants to be 'the man of the house', possibly to impress his cold, distant father. Unfortunately, the performance from Bell is not at all convincing. His histrionics appear too 'acted', and not for a moment does he seem sympathetic. Things are not helped by Lloyd-Pack giving his usual non-Trigger performance of enunciating very clearly, in an unemotional, slightly upper-class accent. All acting honours must go to Ms Fahey. Her character is completely shorn of dignity, whether being dragged to a filthy bath after soiling her bed, or being force-fed pills by her well-meaning son. The character's discomfort, and later, terror, is palpable.

The mental state of the son is often shown in distracting fast-forwards sequences, accompanied by pounding dance music. While initially effective, the technique is repeated too many times, and becomes annoying.
The police eventually arrive, and all seems well, but the Lynchian theme continues. Possibly in the tormented mind of the son, proceedings take a hallucinatory turn, with characters (Mulholland Drive-like) not appearing as they seem. The dream-like sequences appear amateurish at best, with an uncomfortable looking Lloyd-Pack in bizarre make up. The last third takes on the appearance of a film student's homage to Un Chien Andalou, and severely tax the viewer's patience.

Rumley is obviously a stylist of considerable skill, especially in his skewed, static shots, and slow, gliding camera work. Unfortunately, while disturbing at times, the film doesn't stay with you in the way that similar works, such as Jee-woon Kim's A Tale of Two Sisters, or Scorsese's Shutter Island do. Despite the sometimes grim proceedings (especially the multiple injection scene), the plot is slight and the nowadays obligatory multiple readings seem tacked on.

Written after his mother's battle with cancer, Rumley is achingly sincere in his intentions, but his writing and cast let him down.

Small Town Folk (2007)

Sub-League of Gentlemen style frolics starring everyone's favourite Ewok. I got about 15 minutes in, and gave up in disgust. One man band Peter Stanley Ward gives us country folk stereotypes and amateur acting. The only plus point are the 70s retro backdrops, especially during the driving sequences (think the beginning of Kill Bill part 2).

99 Women (1969)

Only a film maker as spectacularly inept as Jesus Franco could make a film set in a women's prison unerotic. Herbert Lom and Mercedes McCambridge look suitably embarrassed. Gave up after 15 minutes.

Venus in Furs (1969)

Franco again (curse you Horror Channel). Klaus Kinski is as good as ever, but this psychedelic tale about a Chet Baker type is truly tedious. Gave up 35 minutes in, bored to tears.

The Blood Beast Terror (1968)

Brilliant Tigon horror, featuring Dave from Minder (sporting an awesome set of sideburns), Roy Hudd, a giant moth-woman (who looks like a 2nd division Mexican wrestler) and Grand Moff Tarkin. The film is great, but my 4-year old daughter came home whilst I was half way through, so off it went, and on went Grampa in my Pocket.

Into the Mirror (2003)

Korean director Sung-ho Kim's creepy horror was remade in the states as Mirrors, starring Keifer Sutherland. Heretically, 50 minutes into this, I think I prefer the American version. Kim's tale is too slow to develop much tension, and lacks any real shocks. I'll watch the rest in a day or two, but I'm disappointed thus far.

The latest in a line of exploitation pastiche/homages is Jason Eisener's Hobo With a Shotgun. Whereas Planet Terror, Machete, et al are content to ape the sleazy, cheap look of their antecedents, Eisener and his cinematographer Karim Hussain give us a visual treat. The dominant colour is a sickly yellow (as seen in the poster), which gives the 'old-Detroit' style city a real atmosphere of disease.

Exploitation fans need not worry though. Seven minutes in, a head is ripped off by a barbed wire noose attached to a car, and a bikini-clad slapper has danced in the arterial spray. Rutger Hauer stars as the nameless Hobo, a lawnmower-coveting, meths-swilling vagrant, who arrives by railcar in the ironically named Hope Town, which is run by the Televangelist-like Drake (Brian Downey). Aided by his Tom-Cruise-in-Risky-Business-look-a-like sons, Slick and Ivan, Drake terrorizes the local population. No self-respecting Hobo could put up with this shit, and when Hauer's purchase of his beloved lawnmower is interrupted by a robbery, he spends his $49.99 on a pump-action shotgun, and a seemingly infinite supply of shells.

Aided by his only friend, a prostitute (Molly Dunsworth: a Ho' with a shotgun?) who he saved from a beating from Slick, Hobo gut-shots his way through the local scum, who are turned against Hobo and friend by Drake. The gore now moves to the fore, with large splashed of blood and intestines, murder by JCB, and the flamethrowing of a bus full of schoolchildren. In one of the funnier scenes, Hobo blows the head off a paedophilic Santa, who is masturbating while watching children play through a pair of binoculars.

In due course, genitals are shot off, people are electrocuted by a toaster and our hero escapes a lynch mob by hiding in the corpse of a cop who he eviscerated with a few well-placed shells. Special mention must be given to 'The Plague', a pair of armour-plated villains, who bear a striking resemblance to Metal Mickeys demon cousin, and the old 70s comic character, Brassneck, complete with WW2 German helmet. The bullet-proof pair slaughter their way through a hospital, leaving interns swinging from the ceiling, trying to find the Ho', who has had her head partially sawn off (yes, you read that right, don't worry though, she'll be fine).

Rarely is a film this chaotic and insane, but so well made. The character development is nil, the performances knowingly broad, the gore Troma-like, the plot hackneyed, the music is an 80s nightmare, but it works. Made with real skill, Hobo is far from a lame entry on a cycle that has perhaps run out of steam. There are touches of sheer brilliance, most notably on the surprise reappearance of a scorched school bus, which arrives as an unlikely psychopomp. The ending, while not as abrupt as that in Death Proof (which was brilliantly effective in a straight-to-video way) certainly comes as a surprise, as does the horrendous closing theme. All in all, this film cannot be recommended enough. The blu-ray is only a tenner, so there is no excuse.

This is probably the epitome of a high budget, high concept film. Combine two of the most interesting films of the last couple of years, Inception and Shutter Island, throw in a little Sailor Moon, Tokyo Gore Police, Martyrs, Moulin Rouge, Appleseed, and don't forget Lord of the Rings. Now, get a good-looking bunch of girls, preferably one from High School Musical, dress 'em all in kinky outfits, and give 'em guns. Mix in a script that isn't quite as profound as it thinks, and sit back and see what happens. This is exactly what director Zak Snyder does, and by golly, it works a treat.

The story begins with a girl, Babydoll (Emily Browning), falsely institutionalized by her evil stepfather. Lobotomies are mentioned, orderlies bribed, etc. This portion of the film is fairly perfunctory, but Babydoll soon retreats into a fantasy world, where the action really starts. Ostensibly, Babydoll, in her dream world, ends up in a brothel run by a Clark Gable-a-like, Blue (Oscar Issac, who also plays an orderly in the asylum). In order to promote his new acquisition, Blue forces Babydoll to perform an erotic dance, which is where the fun starts. As soon as the music begins, the scene (very nicely) shifts to feudal Japan. A sailor-suited Babydoll is given a set of swords by a Master Po-style wise man. Here, important plot points are given about escaping the brothel. three giant Manga samurai appear, and in a super-stylish live action anime sequence, all are dispatched by Babydoll.

The main plot point is that five items are needed to escape, but really this is an excuse for one set-piece after another. Recruiting several more 'dancers', Babydoll embarks on her quest, which leads to a Steampunk version of the Somme. Steam-powered German zombies, giant mechs, modern weaponry and truly impressive direction results. Zeppelins are shot down, evil Germans crushed by a stray Gundam, the undead are mown down. Peter Jackson must have winced at the next part, where orcs, knights and dragons clash. The girls arrive in a 1940s B-25 bomber, battle a giant dragon, liquidize orcs on the propellers, and generally cause mayhem.

More breathless sequences follow, including an assault on a mechanized train. Girls are shot, men are stabbed, and things end up a little Martyrs/Shutter Island. Sucker Punch has been criticized for being shallow, misogynistic, derivative, exploitative and looking like a video game. Probably guilty on all counts. In terms of visual flair, Kasuaki Kiriya's 2004 Casshern outdoes it, and the sexy-girls-dressed-in-dodgy-outfits angle is nothing new. However, Snyder plays it dead straight. Done tongue-in-cheek, this could have been a straight to video, geeky wankfest. It will definitely appeal to a certain demographic, but the strong performances, spot on art direction and state of the art visual effects raise it above the Paul W.S. Anderson crowd.

If the viewer wants deep, thoughtful drama, the stay away. If you want to turn up the volume, draw the curtains and see a good-looking bunch of girls take on the Kaiser's finest with samurai swords, then look no further. Okay, its a big, dumb action pic, and in the wrong hands could easily have become a Machine Girl type thing. Sucker Punch brings nothing new to the language of cinema, many of the ideas are appropriated from elsewhere (especially Manga), but as a package, it works brilliantly well. Not all films can be Mulholland Drive, just like in the art world, there is room for Jeff Koons and Giorgio de Chirico. Only one caveat: the soundtrack contains several horrendous cover versions. If you thought it was impossible to ruin a Pixies song, then think again.

How can anyone not love a film which ends with a guy with a pencil moustache singing a Roxy Music song?

I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do, but watch this film...

It seems to be everywhere at the moment: remakes of classic and not-too-classic films. At first glance, it looks as though every horror film ever made has been redone, or is about to: Halloween, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Last House on the Left, Fright Night, The Eyes of Laura Mars and so on and on.

Some have no right to be done again, the most obvious being The Wicker Man and I Spit on Your Grave. Both classic, controversial films, which lost all of the elements which made them great. Their only purpose is to sully the memory of a couple of great films.

The success of the J-horror films led to an ill-advised spate of Westernized rehashes, most of which didn't survive the cultural transition across the Pacific. The oriental memes of evil children and women just didn't work in the translations. Compare Sadako and Samara in Ringu and The Ring respectively-I know which one I would rather not be stuck in a well with. Even the Ju-on: The Grudge remake, which utilised the same director, and much of the same cast, utterly failed to reproduce the sheer terror that the original invoked.

Trying to avoid the temptation of simply listing the failures, the remakes have been almost uniformly inferior: The Eye, Dark Water, Phone, Tale of Two Sisters, etc. All lacking.

The trend is not only restricted to the horror genre either: remakes of The Wild Bunch; Wargames and Battle Royale are in the works. Of course, this isn't a new thing. Since the beginning of cinema, successful films have been redone, often at fairly regular intervals, especially those adapted from major literary works. Perhaps in these new, media savvy days, people take ownership of films more than they used to. Personally, I was disgusted when I heard the news that Sam Raimi was about to remake The Evil Dead, a film I loved as a teenager, and still do. Another slap in the face from the man who never achieved the potential he showed in 1981, and single-handedly wrecked the Spiderman franchise so badly its being rebooted already (more on this later!).

When my indignation had died down, I thought to myself "Why am I so bothered?". I love the original, and would probably watch the remake out of curiosity. In this little Double Slit experiment, there could be two outcomes: the remake is better than the original, so I get two good horror films; the second outcome is that the remake is dire, I've wasted 90 minutes, but my love of the original has deepened. My volte-face surprised even myself. I was no longer angry at the filmmakers.They just want to make the maximum amount of money with the minimum effort, and what easier way than to make a film with an already-established fan base. Ironically, the remakes rarely make much impact, so the joke is on them.

Indeed, some remakes are great films on their own: A Fistful of Dollars, The Front Page, The Lost Patrol to name but three. Okay, for every Mogambo there is a dozen Mean Machines, but the morally-dubious remake machine has given us some classics. Think of them as cover versions. Some are Hendrix's All Along the Watchtower, some are Paul Young'sLove Will Tear Us Apart.

Another controversial are is the reboot. The nature of the superhero genre marries itself to this particularly well. Comics periodically 're-invent' heroes, especially when a new writer takes the helm (Alan Moore's Killing Joke springs to mind). The Batman film franchise was moribund after a series of absolutely terrible films when Christopher Nolan took Bruce Wayne back to his dark, Gothic roots with the aptly-titled Batman Begins. Similarly, Spiderman 3 was seen by many as a total disgrace, and so Marvel have moved quickly to resurrect the series with the impressive looking Amazing Spiderman.

All I can say to those who were once like me is: if a film close to your heart is being remade, then think twice about watching it. You will probably be disappointed, going by the law of averages. If you do take the chance, then, as I said earlier, it could be a win-win situation. A director may have pissed on your cinematic memories, but, hey! the original is still there, and probably closer to your heart. The film business has always been about making money, and ideas are rehashed all the time. Perhaps we look back on the past with nostalgia, an complain about 'all these remakes', but they have always been around. Some superb, original films are still being made, and plenty of generic, unoriginal crap too. Just like its always been.

Just to contradict myself a little: If anyone remakes Ichi the Killer or any of Park Chan Wook's Vengeance trilogy, then I will happily Hostel-style torture them myself (and yes, I've heard the Lady Vengeance rumours too).

Can a remake of a remake of a literary adaptation be any good? Its common knowledge that Wes Craven's 1972 film was a remake of Bergman's The Virgin Spring, which itself was based on a Swedish ballad, Tores dottrar i Wange. The overriding theme is the rape and murder of two young girls, followed by the bloody revenge taken by the parents of one of the girls. Craven's 1972 original was seen by many as a condemnation of the breakdown of the Western nuclear family: the corrupt 'family' of Krug and company was mirrored by the less than perfect familial relationships of the nominal heroine. The killing of the gang of criminals by the 'straight' family indicated that beneath even the most outwardly respectable surface, we are all the same, given the appropriate circumstances.

The original film was slated upon its release, due to the then extreme violence, and even now retains its notoriety. Before watching the remake, I thought I'd better watch the original version. I must say that I was disappointed-I've not watched it for a few years, and was struck by the cartoon nature of Krug and friends. Their list of criminal offences is laughable, and, David Hess aside, the playing is more pantomime than serious villain. The investigating police are, seemingly, played for laughs, and seriously affect any grim tone when they appear on screen. On the plus side, the rape, degradation and murder scenes in the wood are appropriately grim and dirty (if marred slightly by an unnecessary disembowelment), with the protagonists seeming ill at ease and lost after the killings.

The brutal revenge of the parents (Gaylord St. James!) never sat right with me: given a houseful of potential killing implements, what self-respecting mother would bite off the penis of one of your daughter's killers? The ending, however, strikes just the right tone. As in Craven's similar The Hills Have Eyes, the realization of the final act is hammered home (despite the slightly unrealistic 'death by chainsaw'). Gaylord is as bad as Krug. The 2009 remake, however, changes things slightly. Director Dennis Iliadis and writers Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth expand on the skimpy character development of the original, and provide the Collingwoods with a little more back story.

The gang themselves are slightly more realistic, but all too often resort to eye-rolling. Krug himself is slightly less of a complete psychopath, and his relationship with his son is not quite as bad. The story has been updated slightly-no pre-rock concert hash-hunt, but follows the same general plot. The rape etc scene in the woods seems to be over much quicker than before, and surprisingly, there is far less Hostel-style torture than I was expecting. The actual rape itself is considerably more realistic-looking. Of particular note is a nicely low-key double stabbing scene, albeit into a rather unrealistic rubber torso. AND there is no cringe-inducing 'ribbit' scene. Crucially, there is far less contact between the two girls during their ordeal, which made it a little more unsettling for me.

After these scenes, the major differences begin to show. What follows are a few spoilers, so turn away now if you don't want to know. In the original, Mari is shot and killed, but in the remake, she survives and makes it back to her house. The violence in the new version is a touch more realistic, with prolonged beatings rather than the more abrupt scenes in the original (possibly due to more liberal views nowadays). Roger Ebert must be pleased that his 'Talking Killer' is still alive and well, and I'm certainly pleased that I've not got a garbage disposal system in my sink.

The major philosophical change is the ending. The original was downbeat and nihilistic, with a shattered family and an uncertain future. Now, the Collingwoods are still together, if a little battered and bruised. Craven's original, while flawed, was seriously thought-provoking, with some claim of being a serious work. By fatally ruining the ending, and thus the point, Iliadis has made a competent, if unremarkable, film. Special mention must be made, though, to the Gremlins-style 'death-by-microwave.

The 1972 version can't stand up the the other controversial classics, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I Spit on Your Grave, but at least it spiced things up a little. Its probably not a good indictment of the times that a remake which is far more violent than the original slips out, and the only noise made is by fans of the original.

From the fecund imagination of enema-fetish director Noboru Iguchi comes this offering, a combination of Iguchi's own Machine Girl, RoboCop, Tetsuo and Power Rangers. As with most of Iguchi's films, the plot is secondary to attractive girls dressed in fetish gear, usually with cybernetic enhancements, dispatching people in increasingly bizarre ways. The storyline, such as it is, concerns the kidnapping of two geisha sisters by an evil corporation, and their conversion to robo-assassins. Whereas OCP merely had Alex Murphy and ED-209 on hand, Kageno Steel have a harem of killer geishas, kept in line by two underwear-clad Tengu.

Anyone who has seen Machine Girl or Tokyo Gore Police will know what to expect: histrionic acting, deliberately bad special effects and the sanity levels of a Bedlamite. One of my favourite ideas is ported across-the bereaved relatives turned attack squad from Machine Girl are replaced by a team of geriatrics and mummy's boys, whose relatives have been abducted by the Corporation. As with many films of this type, projectile weapons are strangely ineffective-machine gun breasts blaze away, clouds of shuriken are launched, all having little or no effect. Okay, any film with fried shrimp used as weapons isn't reaching for high levels of realism, but it is a curious thing.

The director's experience in fetish porn is especially evident in a fight scene which involves a (just) legal-looking girl, dressed in the obligatory school uniform, being stabbed in the backside by a kitana. The resulting loss of blood is, perhaps, a reference to Iguchi's nakadashi films. The story includes the crude psychology typical of the genre, with the two sister's enmity given an explanation that would make Carl Rogers vomit.

The list of weapons alone would make most film fans want to watch this: the afore mentioned Fried Shrimp, Geisha Chainsaw, Handicap Gun, Tengu Milk, Geisha Transform (yep, Transformers gets a look-in too), Butt Sword. All present and correct. Unfortunately, the film-makers have tried a little too hard. Whereas Machine Girl, while undeniably trashy, stayed just the right side of crazy. This time, the heroine transforming into a car and the Corporation's HQ turning into a giant robot with a super-bomb around its neck grates a little. The finale on the peak of Mount Fuji is hilarious, but the effect is diluted by the overload of insanity that preceded it. If Iguchi had toned things down a little, then the effect of two Tengu with swords protruding from their arseholes would have much more impact. Instead, the scene is just another camped up sword fight.

I'm pretty positive that Iguchi's motives were not those of Paul Verhoeven, but given the right treatment, RoboGeisha could have been an Eastern b-version of RoboCop, with added perversions. The Geiger-esque fetishism and the serious social comment of the Tetsuo films use a similar theme, but with a far greater impact. Having said all that, there is still much to recommend RoboGeisha. The visuals are striking, the CGI blood splatter is still as unconvincing, the sheer energy is infectious and the tengu are a heck of a lot better looking than those in Kobu-tori Jiisan. The best film of this type, I think, is still Tokyo Gore Police (if only for an image as striking as the quadruple amputee with limbs consisting of swords, and later assault rifles). Nishimura's epic was considerably more sophisticated, despite the eyeball-bullets and severed-hand miniguns.

The usual cliches apply: if you enjoy films like Yo Yo Girl Cop or Japanese Pink Films (and I certainly do) then RoboGeisha is OTT, but fun.

Takashi Miike is one of the most satisfyingly perverse directors around. Audition, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q, Gozu: all deliberately pushing at the boundaries of the acceptable, without resorting to cheap sleaze. One of his more extreme scenes, necrophillia with an incontinent corpse in Visitor Q, is not done in an exploitative way, but as an ingredient in a subverse, witty contemplation, and a deliberate provocation. Beneath his acupunture needle-wielding, face-slice-offing protagonists, Miike has the cinematic skill to pull off controversial films which would, in lesser hands, be consigned to the bargain bin. The Yakuza genre of films from Japan is full of the standard stuff, but Miike's Dead or Alive is a hyperactive, kinetic visual treat, which transcends the generic script and crude characterization. Likewise, The Happiness of the Katakuris is a bizarre musical based on a luckless family running a bed and breakfast. Despite an unpromising premise, Miike gives us an interesting take on the Japanese trait of the fear and shame of failure and a surprisingly touching portrait of family life. It is a rare director indeed that can have a film which features a sumo wrestler crushing his girlfriend when he dies during intercourse, followed by a beautiful shot showing the passing of the family's grandfather.

With an oeuvre as compelling as Miike's, I was intrigued to discover that he was attempting a remake of a 1963 samurai film, Jūsannin no Shikaku. Most people are familiar with Jidaigeki films such as The Seven Samurai and Ronin, shot in a cool, rigorous style by directors such as Akira Kurosawa, so for an artist as singular as Miike, it seemed an interesting choice of project. The storyline follows the attempted assassination of a psychopathic brother of the Shogun by a band of samurai hired by governmental officials. The deranged lord, Naritsugu, is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, raping and murdering with abandon. The leader of the samurai band, Shinzaemon, gathers a group of 11 more fighters and plans an ambush of Naritsugu and his retinue.

Proceedings begin promisingly, with an authentic-looking seppuku, and Mikke's prowling camera is kept at an Ozu-style low level. The main characters are introduced efficiently, and 1840s Japan looks suitably Shogun-like. Fairly soon, one of the main shortcomings becomes apparent: the samurai are, probably by definition, too similar to make any individual impression. While this was arguably the case in The Seven Samurai, at least there were only seven. Of the original 12, only a few stand out, with the rest disappearing into the background. Naritsugu, as played by Goro Inagaki, is a sinister, effete presence, contrasting nicely with the rough-hewn soldiers surrounding him. In a flash of typical Miike, he is surrounded by the twitching, arrow-riddled bodies of the family of the official who committed suicide.

Never a director to rush things, Miike allows the plot time to develop, but there isn't really enough material to stretch out. There are hints that the time of the samurai is passing, with frequent questioning of the bushido code, and a few competently-staged swordfights, but none of the iconoclasm you would expect from the great man. The whole thing seems too 'straight' and conventional to mark it out as anything special. Even in Miike's lesser films, the viewer knows they are in the presence of a master, but here, he all but disappears behind the subject matter. There are hints at his genius- the scene mentioned earlier, and a brilliant POV sequence towards the end of a dying samurai watching his master kill and be killed.

On the way to the inevitable showdown, the band are joined by a hunter, Kiga, who is the film's most interesting character. Ostensibly used as a critique of the samurai caste, Kiga's character is possibly a mountain or forest spirit, and certainly survives severe injuries with little ill-effect. The much-vaunted final third of the film is an epic close quarters battle between the 13 assassins and 200 soldiers, set in a small village. The usual limitations of the genre are evident here: enemy soldiers are instantly killed or incapacitated by single slashes, and helpfully hold back, instead of rushing the heavily outnumbered heroes. The fight never comes across as a desperate struggle, has little flow and, surprisingly, less gore than you would imagine. The climax is predictable, but nicely done, with much crawling in the mud and refreshingly short dying words.

13 Assassins is a professional job and, from a different director, it would perhaps be enjoyable. However, coming as it does from the man who brought us some of the most provocative films of the last 20 years, it comes as a major disappointment. Another 2010 Miike film is Ninja Kids!, a family film, which doesn't bode well for the future. Hopefully, 13 Assassins is not Miike's bid for mainstream acceptance, but a Salaryman Kintaro-style glitch. Cinema needs agent provocateurs like Miike and Lars von Trier to spice things up between the latest 3-D shitfest and Michael Bay's latest atrocity.

These new smartphones make it distressingly easy to buy films, and the Amazon and eBay apps have been taking a hammering lately. Having a wife, daughter and a job, there aint too much quality film-watching time, but I can't resist buying more. There are the usual pushed-to-the-back-when-I-bought-three-new-films titles that I've had for months, and the pile that were delivered on Wednesday.

Star Wars Episodes IV, V and VI

I know purists are annoyed that Lucas has fiddled around again, but I don't care. These are three of the best films ever made, and I'm genuinely excited, and can't wait to watch them.

Eden Lake

I've deliberately not read up much on this, but now a few people have recommended it. I don't know the first thing about the plot, so I'm intruiged. Only cost 6 quid from Amazon too.

The Children

Another one I know nothing about, but all kids are scary, right? I picked it purely because it was cheap, and the cover art looked good, and I've come a cropper many times doing that.

I Saw the Devil

I've read reports that Jee-woon Kim has gone a bit far with this one, but as A Tale of Two Sisters was so good, its got to be worth a look. Being subtitled, it'll be a good one to watch with the sound turned down while they're both in bed.

Gran Torino

I've had this for months, and still haven't watched it yet. For some reason, I don't think I'll enjoy it, so it gets pushed further and further down the pile. Sorry Clint.

Zatoichi

I bought this at the same time as Gran Torino, but, despite being a huge Beat fan, and having owned it on DVD, its never found its way onto the Sony. I really don't understand it.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

I'm really not expecting great things of this, but its got the bloke from Band of Brothers, and one of The Black Eyed Peas, so it can't be that bad, can it? I always used Chun-Li or Blanka when playing SF2, and that (as well as getting it for 2 quid) is the main reason for getting it. I managed to avoid the van Damme original Street Fighter film though.

Pan's Labyrinth

Excellent, excellent film, which I've also got on DVD. Sad, moving and featuring a great creature with eyeballs in his palms. Del Toro's best by a long way, I think.

Raging Bull

For some reason, I've never owned a copy of this on any format. That's been remedied now.

So, thats 11 films I've got to watch (not including the half-dozen on sky+) before I buy any more. Yeah, right...

Detectives in fiction usually have major foibles, from Sherlock Holmes' drug addiction to Adrian Monk's OCD (and he must have been seriously deranged not to have a pop at the curly-haired temptress who tailed him). Directing duo Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai add another to the list with Chan Kwai-Bun, an ear-slicing, literally 'mad' former detective. The directors had previously come to my attention with the brilliant, Buddhist Running on Karma (although my favourite alternative title is An Intelligent Muscle Man) starring Andy Lau, and Election. Impressive as these films are, Mad Detective is a step up both stylistically and thematically.

Whereas the Intelligent Muscle Man could see other people's past and future reincarnations, Bun (the ever-excellent Lau Ching-Wan) can see the different facets (represented by one or more people) which make up an individual's personality. While the psychology may be dubious, the visual effect is impressive, particularly in a scene where a suspect is shown as being split into seven distinct people (one of whom is Rikki-O's wonderfully named Lam Suet). The effect is a little disconcerting at first, but soon becomes a great game of 'guess the facet'. Any fan of Asian cinema will know that these are two gifted directors, but some of the static shots here are the epitome of balance. Where Takashi Miike's tableaus are, probably deliberately, usually asymmetrical and off-kilter, here they take on a Zen-like harmony of composition and stillness.

The plot, featuring missing policemen, gun serial numbers and possibly-murderous Indians, is a touch convoluted, but the sheer imagination of the film makers makes up for any shortcomings. The look of the film is, superficially, similar to David Fincher's Seven (no numbers instead of letters here!), with dark, rainswept streets and noir-ish characters. However, instead of being saddled with Morgan Freeman playing a slightly miserable Morgan Freeman, we have Lau Ching-Wan giving a superbly nuanced performance. Cinema hasn't, perhaps, been kind to mental illness over the years: treating it as a 'Movie of the Week' style issue, or as a reason for murder frenzies. In the annals of horror, trauma usually leads to a Michael Myers or Hannibal Lektor, but To and Wai give us a sad, dysfunctional man, living with his imaginary wife who has almost supernatural 'gifts', not a million miles away from Millennium's Frank Black.

Bun is bought out of retirement by Inspector Ho Ka-On (New Police Story's Andy On) to investigate the disappearance of a policeman during a chase in a forest with an Indian suspect. The policeman's gun went missing, and has subsequentally been used in a series of armed robberies. With a bizarre methodology, including being buried alive, Bun helps to solve the case. The climactic scene is hardly original (there has to be a Mexican Standoff in a crime film somewhere), is fantastically done. The setting has as many mirrors as Han's hideout in Enter the Dragon, but this gives the directors ample opportunity to use them as literal reflections of the protagonists inner personalities. The images look brilliant, but it must have been a nightmare for the cinematographer to position the camera out of sight.

Basically, Mad Detective could be described as The Three Faces of Eve crossed with Hong Kong Bronx, but the quality of the cast and direction give us a film that really is more than the sum of its parts. Tortured detectives have been with us since cimema began, but the genre just keeps on going. From the early Sherlosck Holmes adaptations, through the Maltese Falcon, many a Western (epecially the spaghettis), Dirty Harry Callaghan, the list goes on. Chan Kwai-Bun is, surprisingly, as original a character as you will get nowadays: mad, complex, delusionable, sad and brilliant. His sacrifice at the climax of the film is inevitable, but still moving, with a pleasingly practical touch in the rearranging of the crime scene.

Perhaps not the best starting place for newcomers to the world of asian crime thrillers, Mad Detective is certainly a brilliant piece of film makers craft.

South Korean cinema, whilst not perhaps quite gaining the same overseas recognition as that of Japan, continues to produce a great deal of interesting films. Bong Joon-ho'sThe Host was a sizable success in the West, and Park Chan-wook's Vengeance trilogy contained the film buff favourite, Oldboy, which gave star Choi Min-sik an international reputation. Kim Jee-woon's latest offering, I Saw the Devil, is a partial return to form after the wildly overpraised The Good, the Bad and the Weird. Whereas his Tale of Two Sisters was a superbly creepy tale of child abuse and aberrant psychology, The Good... was an unfocused Kimchi Western, which meandered like a cheap Leone pastiche.

Choi Min-sik returns here as a brutal serial killer, Kyung-chul, in the vein of Kevin Spacey in Seven, with added brutality. Kyung ill-advisedly murders the pregnant fiancee of a secret agent, Soo-hyun (A Bittersweet Life's Lee Byung-hun), who, predictably, uses his expertise to hunt down and torment Kyung . Much has been made of the film's excessively violent set pieces and neutral moral stance, but the bloodletting is far more restrained and realistic than it could have been, and the good-guy-becomes-a-monster-in-order-to-kill-a-monster is hardly new or innovative.

The hyperbole surrounding Kim's latest appears to be solely due to the presence of Choi Min-sik, who undoubtedly is an icon, but the film itself, while competent, is wholly unremarkable. Kim, for certain, is a talented director. In the first half of the film, he positions his camera almost square-on to the actors, who deliver their dialogue directly to the viewer, and most of the violence occurs just off-camera. In the latter stages, he doesn't pull away from the bloodshed, which looks authentic and painful. Choi's performance stays just on the right side of plausible, but occasionally drifts into caricature, while Lee makes an underwritten part interesting.

The clockwork behind the scene can be heard at several points. In order for the plot to develop, Kyung has to suffer several horrific injuries, including a broken arm, severed Achilles tendon and a beating to the head which would kill a gorilla. Unfortunately, Kyung has to recover supernaturally quickly from what would hospitalize someone for weeks, if not finish them off altogether. This may work in Wolverine, but in a serious film, it just appears ludicrous. Further suspension of disbelief is required as Soo-hyun allows several women to be degraded and two men killed in order for his hunt to continue. A superbly staged double murder in a taxi is undermined by a seriously implausible discovery in the boot, and Kyung manages to fire three shots from a double-barreled shotgun, without reloading, with a broken arm.

There is an intriguing aspect in the violence: Kyung's murders are quick and shown sparingly, whereas the torture inflicted by Soo-hyun is prolonged, sadistic and shown head-on. Characters such as Oh Dae-su in Oldboy and Lee Geum-ja from Lady Vengeance are multi-faceted, complex personalities. Here, the players are little more than ciphers, and generate precious little empathy or interest. Technically, there is little wrong with Devil, but the plot is hackneyed and predictable, the film is about twenty minutes too long and the ending will surprise no-one. More could have been made of the battle of wits between the two, but, apart from the last ten or fifteen minutes, its all one-way traffic. Professionally done, well acted on the whole, but too generic to raise much interest. There's not enough blood for gore fans, and not enough innovation for genre fans. Don't believe the hype.

Jen Pringle: an appreciation

Forget Judge Reinhold! Or, why John Saxon is the ultimate movie star.

Ichi the Killer (2001)

F (2010)

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001)

Necrosis (2009)

Smash Cut (2009)

One-Eyed Monster (2008)

Amedeo Modigliani

The Living and the Dead (2006)

Films I've tried, but failed, to watch this week.

Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)

Sucker Punch (2011)

Reboots, Remakes and Rehashes

Last House on the Left vs Last House on the Left

RoboGeisha (2009)

13 Assassins/Jūsannin no Shikaku (2010)

A Whole Lotta Blu-rays

Mad Detective/Sun Taam (2007)

I Saw the Devil/Akmareul boattda (2010)