Review - Revelation (2001)

Filed strictly  under "I didn't know they made 'em like this any more" banner, Revelation is, sadly, not much of a revelation. Apart from the revelation that films like Revelation still get made. Or the revelation that no-one went to see Revelation, and damned what must have been quite an expensive film to the indignities of bargain basement DVD buckets and late-night showings on BBC1.
That must have been a revelation to the makers, at least.Yep, Revelation is a 21st century film made in the style of all those 70s globe-trotting Euro-pudding horror thrillers (Medusa Touch, Holocaust 2000 et al), with an assortment of mismatched Euro stars interacting with the occasional box office tempting Yank to diminishing returns (literally, in this case).
It's also a bit like a horror version of The Da Vinci Code, with lots of running about, clues to be solved and references to Mary Magdalene. And we all know that one film of The Da Vinci Code was one film too many.
This film lays its cards on the table with a quick scene of Christ on the cross, followed by a load of shenanigans with a box. This box keeps cropping up through the ages, being chased by the Knights Templar (oh no, not them again) and appearing to be led by one and the same man - Euro penis-for-hire Udo "Expose" Kier.
As we move to the present day, we are told that the box is "The Loculus" and Terence Stamp is on the verge of discovering its secrets. Stamp's character, one Lord Martell, has a shady past which has resulted in his son Jake (James D’Arcy) ending up in prison.
But now he's out, and is told by his dad: "We need your expertise with codes... this time it's perfectly legal!"
Martell has set up a team of oddballs to investigate all kinds of cosmic junk, and meanwhile a hippy bloke who also works for him has triangulated his way to Greece, where he immediately gets crucified upside-down by Udo Kier. With the hippy dead, Martell entrusts his work to Jake, passing on a CD ROM and instructions to destroy the Loculus.
As this happens, the ghostly Knights Templar attack Martell's castle and murder everyone inside (apart from Jake and his Jenny Agutter-alike love interest, a hippy chick called Myra) by nailing their burning corpses to doors and skinning Martell alive.
Jake and Myra go on the run across Europe, Jake enlisting the help of his old prison padre, Ray, who just happens to also be an ex para with access to an unlimited supply of guns and ammo (every home should have one).
After checking up on the works of Isaac Newton (played in flashback by Ron "gotta pick a pocket or two" Moody) and finding out that the great man failed to find the secret of the Loculus, they are told by Derek Jacobi to go to France. In France the trail leads  to Malta, then Turkey, where the Loculus is found in a church. But it's empty.In a Raiders Of The Lost Ark moment, Jake shoves the box into a slot in the wall and a sunbeam lights up a spot on the floor. For some reason this leads to Jake and Myra having a quick shag on the floor of the church, then they call on Ray for a bit of help (with the Loculus, not the shagging) and he turns up, suspiciously quickly.
It turns out that the Loculus itself is the important thing, not what it might or might not contain. It is held together with the very nails used to pin old Jesus to the cross, and therefore contain his DNA. Yes! It's the second coming! Or, as Ray puts it: "The age of Aquarius? The age of bollocks!"
He then nicks the Loculus and runs off to the Vatican with it, playing right into the hands of old Udo - who's there to receive it. He wants to mix his own cells with those of Jesus, clone them, and raise the resulting child evil (as you do).
There then follows a lot of mucking around and torture, a but more Raiders Of The Lost Ark sand-trap shenanigans, and when the dust clears Udo has got his child and Myra is pregnant and decided that she is actually Mary Magdalene. Then the whole thing just finishes in a hugely unsatisfactory fashion.
It's no real wonder why Revelation failed to set the box office on fire - it's a mish-mash of half-baked religious mumbo-jumbo and conspiracy theories all filmed in a TV movie style with very little sense, which leapfrogs through Europe without pausing to breathe (they literally spend about 10 seconds in Malta before buggering off to Turkey). Imagine an episode of Wish You Were Here in which Judith Chalmers is skinned alive and nailed to a door. Actually, don't imagine that, because it would be far more entertaining than Revelation.

The Gathering - finally gets a UK airing on DVD

I remember reading about this years ago (probably about 2002, in fact - a British horror film with Christina Ricci in it. Then, nothing. Apparently it got a limited release around the rest of the world, but didn't actually make it to these shores. Until now, that is, almost a decade later. Wonder why?
Actually, I can find out why. The IMDB seems to suggest it didn't get a cinematic release in the UK, but according to Wikipaedia it did come out on DVD, and has been shown on the Beeb at some point. It also got a critical mauling.

I'm assuming this is simply a selection of clips of Ms Ricci in a variety of tight trousers and vesty tops, and NOT the highlights of the film. Cos if they are the highlights of the film, it must be monumentally shit. Although, let's face it, with a release history such as it has, I'm betting that it is, basically, monumentally shit.

Patrol Men trailer

New BHFs seem to be sneaking up on me with alarming regularity these days... here's a trailer for another one. No idea what it's about, or who's responsible - it looks a tad low budget, but since when was that a crime? It also looks like someone's been watching Dead Man's Shoes...

Review - Trog (1970)

To say that Trog is the worst film ever made may seem a tad harsh. But if you, as one of the poor unfortunates to have seen it, think otherwise, I’d ask you this – if it isn’t the worst film ever made, what is? What could be worse than a film in which the leading lady – a faded former Hollywood starlet – seems at times drunk, depressed or in some weird, childlike trance; is obviously reading her lines from “idiot boards” behind the camera or simply making them up? What could be more depressing than knowing that for this woman, Trog marked the end of her movie career?
But it’s not just Joan Crawford’s bizarre antics on-screen that mark Trog out as a truly dreadful film. This is a production that has caves which have never been explored before, but seem remarkably easy to get into by a 70-year-old dressed in a pack-a-mac and a pair of culottes. It has a script in which the fate of a living prehistoric man is decided by a town council meeting, and the killing of a German Shepherd dog overshadows the multiple deaths of assorted potholers, cameramen and onlookers earlier on to such an extent that everyone seems to have forgotten about them. It is a film so lacking in budget that for what seems like aeons, we are treated to the sight of Joan Crawford winding up assorted toys and watching them waddle across the floor, Joan Crawford rolling a ball across the ground, and, most inexplicable of all, a good five minutes of footage from an ancient film showing plasticine dinosaurs scrapping and running away from an erupting “volcano”.
There is no redeeming feature to Trog. No apologists for some films being “so bad they are good” (which includes myself) could possibly think Trog was anything other than bloody awful. It is just so jaw-droppingly painful to watch that it somehow leeches any fun out of the whole shoddy performance. There’s no tongues in cheek here, no nodding post modern irony. Trog is quite simply a bad film, made by people who should have known better for a cinematic audience they obviously considered to be drooling morons. It is a 50s monster movie, 20 years out of time – but if it had been made in black and white with a more with-it Crawford, it would be no better.
However, I would imagine that by decrying Trog so damningly, all I’ve probably done is whet your appetite for more. “What’s it all about, Alfie?” You’re probably asking. Well, what it’s all about follows. And don’t call me “Alfie”.
Three young chaps find an unmapped cave, which has been hidden for millions of years from human view by a tiny gorse bush. After one of them forces his way in through a tiny crevasse, Descent-style, the other two wander in fully upright as if they’ve just sauntered down a flight of prehistoric stairs. After noting that this suspiciously brightly-lit underground cavern is bereft of footprints and must therefore be unexplored, one of them decides to explore further by stripping down to his boxers and jumping into a rock pool. “Ooh, it’s freezing!” He opines, not very convincingly. He wades through a low, water-filled tunnel into another cavern, and is followed by one of his mates. Both are then attacked by a fat bloke wearing a monkey mask and a pair of furry bootees, leaving the third (Emmett from Keeping Up Appearances) to flee and tell the world that he’s found a murderous “Troglodyte”.
Luckily, in a house nearby is Dr Brockton (Crawford), an expert on such things (every small village should have one). She immediately takes charge, much to the consternation of blustering bobby Inspector Greenham (a badly overacting Bernard Kay), who, understandably, wants to conduct a murder trial. Local busybody Sam Murdock (Michael Gough) also puts in his two pence worth, but Brockton is adamant that this is a big scientific discovery which needs handling in a professional and low key manner. Once the television crews have been set up both outside and inside the until-recently-completely-inaccessible cave, the caveman reappears on cue and starts killing everyone in sight. He makes his way up to the surface, kills a couple more unfortunate technicians, and is then stopped in his tracks by Brockton and her highly scientific tranquilliser dart gun.
Despite all these shenanigans being captured on film, the rest of the world seems entirely oblivious to such a monumental event, allowing Brockton to start her highly scientific experiments. This big toothed ape-like killing machine is put in a shaky looking cage and allowed to play with dolls and listen to classical music (rock music makes him angry, of course). She even gives him a scientific nickname, “Trog”, which she then uses to refer to the creature for the rest of the film.
Meanwhile, the local villagers are up in arms. Lead stirrer Murdock reckons that a “demon” has been unleashed and that it should be destroyed (it has to be said that Gough, usually a bit of a ham at the best of times, is on pork overdrive here… it’s like he knows the film is shit so he’s decided not to care). There then follows several excruciating scenes as the whys and wherefores of Trog’s existence are played out before a village meeting presided over by Thorley Walters, who spends most of his time telling Gough to put a sock in it.
Eventually Brockton’s cow eyes and pseudo scientific mumblings win the day, and Murdock is so incensed that he immediately breaks into Dr Brockton’s high security laboratory (apparently killing a guard in the process) and unleashes Trog on an unsuspecting leafy village. Why, I have no idea.
Murdock dies in the process, and he is but the first. In the film’s first (and only) stab at any sort of horror, Trog conducts an early morning reign of terror on the sleepy village, throwing a grocer through his own shop window, spiking a butcher on his own meathook, and tipping a Morris Traveller on its side so gently that it immediately explodes. He then kidnaps a little girl from a playground and carts her back to his cage. Finally, everyone decides that enough is enough and the army is called in. Brockton is convinced she can sort the whole thing out with her dart gun, but the military has other ideas and blows the crap out of the cave, shoots the monster and watches him fall and impale himself on a polystyrene stalagmite.
Trog truly is an awful film, which has no idea which way it wants to go or what it wants to achieve. Just one knowing wink at the camera would have saved it, but the whole thing is played completely and utterly straight faced. From Crawford’s wet-eyed emoting I’d imagine that the idea was that Trog was supposed to be a tragic, misunderstood character, but nothing else in the film suggests this. Every time he sees something he kills it or smashes it up, so when he eventually does the decent thing and pops his clogs, you feel nothing, except a genuine hatred for the makers of the whole crappy farrago.
As an end note I’d like to add that the director of this sorry mess was one Frederick Francis. That’s right, the supposed director genius responsible for classic films like The Creeping Flesh. Freddie, if you were still here, you should be hanging your head in shame.

What's with the reviews on the blog?

You might be asking. The answer is simple - I've got a massive backlog of reviews (some going back five years - yes, really), and due to technical dunderheadedness on my part, no access to my own website at the mo. So rather than let the reviews sit gathering dust in a forgotten corner of my hard drive, I thought I'd share them on here. There will be one new (as in previously unpublished) review a day on here for as long as I can be arsed doing it. Enjoy! Comment away! Twitter me! Use those little buttons underneath the posts! Go on, please.

Review - The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)

There was a running joke in 80s rubber puppet satire Spitting Image which featured Roger Moore’s acting ability, or to be more precise, his lack of it. Called upon by his long-suffering director to be heroic, the latex Moore would stare at the camera and then raise one eyebrow. Told to be scared, he would raise an eyebrow. Informed that the next scene would necessitate passion, he would raise an eyebrow. Given a direction to be angry, he would… well, you get the idea. Subtle it wasn’t.
Roger Moore has never really been taken seriously. Unlike his predecessor in the James Bond role, he’s never really escaped it, and even when he was “it”, supposedly the coolest man on the planet, he was a bit of a joke. His Bond was slightly too old, saddled with some dreadful 70s fashions, and given to spouting lame innuendo rather than savage put-downs. No-one really knows him for anything other than Bond (or the Bond-in-all-but-name Simon Templar) and he didn’t do himself too many favours by playing a variety of similar characters in an assortment of forgettable thrillers through the 70s and 80s.
Which is why The Man Who Haunted Himself comes as a bit of a surprise. In it, Moore is actually called upon to act his socks off – and socks off he does act, in not one, but two roles. He’s almost permanently on-screen during the film’s running time as the harassed Henry Pelham, a man who slowly watches his life fall apart as a stranger who looks and acts just like him begins to pick it apart. Who is this Pelham-alike, and what is he up to? To be frank, after watching the film I was still none too sure, but it’s something to do with Pelham’s other self separating from him during the opening sequence on a motorway. The previously buttoned-up Pelham starts to grin like a nutter, his car changes from a stately Rover to a sporty number, and the next thing you know he’s crashed it. Once recovered, he tries to start up his life as normal, complete with same car, same routine, but there’s something wrong – people keep telling him they’ve already talked to him, girls reckon he’s bedded them, and business decisions are made without his say-so.
It’s all very odd, and Pelham finds himself increasingly at odds with everyone, until he is eventually confronted with the truth… and he doesn’t like what he sees.
Because the film is an exercise of duality and “what ifs”, Moore needs to show two sides of a split(ish) personality – one sensible and staid, the other madcap and totty shagging. And he manages to achieve this with no more props than an assortment of sport jackets, a roll-neck sweater or two and a bowler hat (and, in one memorable scene, a pair of scanty speedos).
Sadly, Moore’s performance is the highlight in an otherwise instantly forgettable film. Falling somewhere between thriller and horror (with a healthy dose of clunk-click seatbelt awareness thrown in for good measure) it succeeds in being neither – a sad state of affairs when you see it was directed by none other than Basil Dearden, the man who brought us Dead Of Night three decades earlier. The Man Who Haunted Himself was based on a short story, and had already been made as a TV thriller, and to fill 90 minutes it has been stretched almost to breaking point.
There’s just not much there to make a film out of – it’s a nice idea but has no real substance, and the only interesting bit comes when Pelham is forced to face his doppelganger and see that all of a sudden, his life is effectively over.
The filming is all very handsome, and there’s much to enjoy if you’re a connoisseur of the 1970s, but the story itself is confused and uninvolving. What a shame that old Moore didn’t choose to do his sock removing in a more worthy project.

Top heavy lovely in mooted plane flick

It may be sexist to comment on them, but good grief woman, how do you stop yourself from toppling forward? At least you've got something soft to land on! Anyway, being a sensitive type and not 15, I don't watch Hollyoaks, and until I typed her name into Google for a photo to accompany this piece, I had no idea who Gemma Atkinson was (honest, mum). Took quite a while to decide which pic to use, too (ahem).
Anyway, here she is, in her considerable glory. And no, I'm not resorting to the "bung an enormous pair of gazongas on" approach which has, to be fair, served quite well to improve traffic to the site in the past.
No! There is a reason for this picture, however spurious. And you'll be pleased to know it's all due to that BHF favourite... (drum roll)... Jonathan Sothcott!
For Jonathan is currently promoting his as-yet-unmade plane-based Brit horror Airborne, which will star the pneumatic Ms Atkinson. Here's the boobs, I mean details:

Gemma Atkinson (Hollyoaks, 13 Hrs, Julian Glover (Quatermass, Empire Strikes Back) and Alan Ford (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch) lead the cast in supernatural horror thriller Airborne, which is currently shooting on locations in Surrey, England.
Airborne tells the story of a disparate group of air travellers stalked by an ancient evil aboard an in-flight jumbo jet.
Leading British indie Black and Blue Films have has joined forces with Simon Phillips’ Press On Features to co-produce and Dominic Burns is director.
Black and Blue Films’ Jonathan Sothcott said today “I was attracted by the idea of making what is basically a feature length version of the Terror At 20,00 Feet segment of Twilight Zone The Movie.”