Monthly Archives: January 2017

Nerds of Oz: Week Ending 6th January 2017

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Week Ending 6th January 2017
Happy New Year, everyone, from the TWP and from the Nerds of Oz. Sales were continuing this week, so a bit of crap was grabbed!
Comics


Only managed to read a couple before this post, so only a few gets proper commentaries.

Batgirl #6 from DC Comics.

Harley’s Little Black Book #5 from DC Comics.

Justice League VS Suicide Squad #2 from DC Comics. I had to grab this variant cover one as I love Terry Dodson’s work, maybe as it’s slightly derivative of Adam Hughes’.

Teen Titans #3 from DC Comics.

Titans #3 from DC Comics.

READ! Doctor Strange and the Sorcerers Supreme #3 from Marvel Comics. Writer Robbie Thompson and artist Javier Rodriguez have sculpted an amazing story here where the Sorcerers Supreme through time are banded together to fight one evil. It’s a pretty cool tale focusing on a Native American character who is possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance from Ghost Rider.

READ! Hulk #1 from Marvel Comics. Wow! Occasionally a comic comes along that changes your perspective about comics, and this is one of those. Jennifer Walters, aka She-Hulk, has discovered that her cousin Bruce, the Incredible Hulk has been killed by a friend, Hawkeye during the second superhero civil war, a war that left her in a coma. She’s better now, but having trouble adjusting to being a regular person again, and resisting ‘Hulking out’. This is a story about loss and trauma, and making an attempt to restart your life, even though you are no longer the same person. Incredible storytelling, and subtle art.

Infamous Iron Man #3 from Marvel Comics.
Blurays and DVD


Grabbed an Australian DVD called ‘Red Billabong’ which looks bloody awful, but it’s Australian, so I thought I’d give it a go. Actually, I was wrong, it’s pretty good but has some ordinary CGI.

On bluray I grabbed the Australian release of The Hallow, based on a trailer I saw on the All Through The House Bluray. From Shameless Screen Entertainment I grabbed The Church and The Sect, and from Arrow Video I scored Hell Comes to Frogtown and The Guyver. Don’t Breathe was from last week, but cheekily made its way into this pic!


At the last minute, I also grabbed a steelbook of Stephen King’s IT!
Books


A ‘Strange’ week this week! See what I did there? I grabbed the Art of the Doctor Strange movie book, and one of the D&K encyclopaedias of Dr Strange!


Also I grabbed an awesome book about my favourite types of films, Euro horror, called Euro Gothic by Johnathon Rigby. 
Toys


Many years ago a had a full set of the Justice action figures until my Superman and Brainiac figures suffered from a little water damage, and now I have at least been able to replace the Superman one! I also have a Justice Society Superman one which has suffered the same fate, and I spend my days searching.

This other is a Figma Archetype Next: [she] which I intend on using as a model for drawing. I have been thinking of doing a comic again, and thought this would be a good idea to use as a model for it… and it’s cool!

Video Game Stuff


I grabbed Titanfall 2 when it first came out, but didn’t want to make the investment of $400 odd bucks to grab this helmet… thankfully, the Boxing Day sales continued and this, helmet only, not the game and other stuff, I managed to grab for $65. I’m as happy as I could be, this thing is awesome, and goes nicely with my Assassin’s Creed Hidden Knife and my Gears of War gun!

The Theatre Bizarre (2011)

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One from the to watch pile…
The Theatre Bizarre (2011)

The cover for Severin films The Theatre Bizarre


Film: I am sure in previous movie review I have mentioned my love of anthology films. From Creepshow, to The Twilight Zone Movie, to Holidays to Tales of Halloween I have always dug them, and I especially like, which is prevalent in the last two of the four mentioned, that have a similar theme.

The Theatre Bizarre is the brainchild of David Gregory, and the idea is to do an anthology film which recreated the ideal of Grand Guignol but for cinema audiences rather than ‘live’ theatre audiences.

The Theatre Bizarre: Virginia Newcombe


Our framing sequence is that of a girl (Virginia Newcombe) obsessed with a local dilapidated theatre, which she finds, upon entering, is populated by an automaton (Udo Kier) who proceeds to show her a series of stories, introducing each one with a new automaton…

First is The Mother of Toads, by director Richard Stanley and starring Catriona MacColl (The Beyond, City of the Living Dead) tells of the strange things that happen to a young couple when they become involved with a strange woman in France. It’s very H. P. Lovecraft.

The second is I Love You by Buddy Giovinazzo sees a man, Axel (AndrĂ© Hannicke) wake up in the bathroom of his apartment with a nasty cut on his hand. He is in the middle of a nasty break up with his wife, Mo (Suzan Anbeh) and when she returns he insists on knowing why she is leaving… and he may not be happy with the answers.

The next, Wet Dreams, is directed by Tom Savini tells of Donnie (James Gill) who is having repeated dreams about his penis being cut off by a monstrous vagina, and then fed to him by his wife (Debbie Rochon). His psychiatrist (Tom Savini) gives him a way of getting out of the dream, but which is the dream and which is reality?

The Accident by director Douglas Buck sees a mother (Lena Klein) discussing death with her daughter (MĂ©lodie Simard) in respect to an accident they witnessed. It’s a delicate, beautiful piece about death in the middle of all this gore!

Vision Stains by Karim Hussein tells of a woman (Kaniehttio Horn) who has discovered that she can see a persons life by extracting the viscous fluid from their eyes and injecting in into hers so she can document them. She, of course, has to kill them to do so, but she picks women she believes want to die to perform her bizarre experiments on, but why does she feel a responsibility to do such a thing? 

The Theatre Bizarre: you might not want to eat during this film.


The surrealistic Sweets by David Gregory is another break-up story like I Love You, but this time snivelling Greg (Guildford Adams) is being dumped by Estelle (Lindsay Goranson) who has a food fetish, but maybe it’s worse than what you think.

With all the short films having women as the antagonist, I am sure there is some deep and meaningful anti, or pro feminism thing going in, but I’m a horror movie fan, not a psychologist, so I’m not going to get into that.

What I can definitely say though is that this film is a cracker of an anthology film. It’s all told dead straight and made me squirm on more than one occasion. The influences of Grand Guignol are definitely present as there is no shortage of blood… or vomit… or frog slime… or guts… or retina fluid… you get the idea!

The tales are all of a high standard, really, aside from Sweets, I loved every one. That’s not to say Sweets was bad, it just wasn’t the greatest film in this collection. Props must go to Richard Stanley too: I am not a fan of his and was blown away by The Mother of Frogs, so I might now go revisit some of his older works again!

It was a real pleasure to see a horror film that was horror-full, instead of horrible.

Score: ****1/2

The Theatre Bizarre menu screen


Format: The reviewed copy was a US DVD from Severin which runs for approximately 1 hour and 53 minutes. It is presented in a nice 2.35:1 vision with a clear and excellent Dolby 5.1 soundtrack. 

Score: ****

Extras: The disc opens with a trailers for Smile, which actually looks pretty good!

The first extras option is a director’s commentary, first we have a muddy sounding wraparound bit with Jeremy Kasten before each segment gets a commentary from the various creatives who made the film. It’s a many and varied commentary but wholly interesting. The sound quality is varying as the commentaries are clearly done in a variety of environments.

ShockTilYouDrop interviews is a series of interviews about the film with David Gregory, Buddy Giovinazzo and Jeremy Kasten. It talks about the origins of the film and what it took to make. There almost 40 minutes of interviews and it’s quite interesting.

There is also some Behind the Scenes stuff for the various segments but it’s not informative, just people on the set doing stuff. Each section goes for about 2 minutes and it’s not really worth watching, except for the last one, Vision Stains, which reveals a needle in the eye effect.

The Theatre Bizarre trailer is just what it claims to be.

Score: ****

WISIA: It’s pretty intense, so whilst it won’t be regular on the rotation list, it will get at least another watch. I’ve actually had this film since 2011 and never watched it…. what a mistake!

The Theatre Bizarre: Peg Poett (Udo Kier) spins a tale or two!

Summer Review: The Shallows (2016)

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Welcome back to our next Summer holidays film, in this case, we have abandoned piranha and returned to the beach for more sharky goodness. This one is from the to watch pile…
The Shallows (2016)

The Cover of the Australian Bluray release of The Shallows


Film: I was pretty pumped when I first saw the trailer for this film at the cinema. There were three things that really piqued my interest. The first, was that it was a shark film mixed with a serial killer film: abandoned location and a girl trapped whilst a killer stalks her. All the comparisons made about Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers reversed. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read comparisons made between the cinematic serial killer and the ‘dead eyes’ of a shark! Here we have that idea reversed and we see a shark acting with the same dead eyes and intentions!

The second is, believe it or not, even though I am a nerd through and through, I love watching surfing and I love the beach. I actually worked at an average job for far too long just because it was beside the sea, and I could go down to the beach whenever I wanted. The three months of summer made it all worthwhile. So I have seen almost every surf movie I can get my hands on, from the old Frankie and Annette things, to Blue Crush and then to docos like Riding Giants! Even though I am more an inside guy, I love looking at the seas and the sun.

Which brings me to the final, and possibly not quite as honourable reason: bikinis, and in this case Blake Lively in a bikini.

The Shallows: Blake Lively is not so tough on the eyes.


Let’s move on, shall we…

The Shallows tells of Nancy (Blake Lively) who, after the death of her mum, decides to take a break from medical school and travel for a while. She visits a beach in Mexico that her mum went to in 1991 when she was pregnant with her… just to get some kind of connection to her.

It’s an abandoned, secret, ‘locals only’ sort of a beach, with very few knowing of its existence.

She is dumped by her friend, who stays back at the motel, and finds herself on this beach that few know about, all by herself except for two locals having a surf.

She spends the day surfing and after the two locals leave, attempts to catch one last wave, when she is attacked by a shark.

The Shallows: blood fills the water!


The shark knocks her off her board and takes a decent bite into her leg, and leaves her stuck on a small rock that juts from the ocean… but how will she escape? Who knows she’s there?

… and what will happen to her when the tide comes in and covers the rock she’s on…

The first thing that strikes me about this film is how wonderfully it is shot. The seascapes are beautiful (it’s Lord Howe Island, what do you expect), but the director, Juame Collet-Serra, who directed The Orphan and Non-Stop, has utilised some amazing overlays to convey Facetime calls and the time. The story is told quite well through these overlays.

There are unfortunately some dodgy CGI effects. Not horrifyingly bad, but they stick out. When you see the film and see the dolphins and the jellyfish, you’ll know what I mean, that’s not to diminish how good the shark looks though, as it is pretty spectacular.

Considering the film is more or less Lively by herself for the entire film and is essentially a monologue of her survival, she does a great job, and is convincing in the role. 

What we have here is a decent thriller, with some great survival red herrings, a good lead and some cool set pieces, but it doesn’t set the world on fire. It strikes all the right chords, but still just isn’t quite the thriller it could be. There’s some X-factor that it seems to be missing, but that could just be that it’s not Jaws.

Score: ***

The Shallows bluray menu


Format: The release reviewed in the Australian multi-region bluray, which runs for about 86 minutes (I do like a short film now and again). It is presented in a super clear and vibrant 2.39:1 with a cracking DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio soundtrack.

Score: *****

Extras: The disc opens with a trailer for the 2016 Ghostbusters film, before getting to the menu screen.

There are three deleted scenes, which as usual the film is better off without.

Shooting in the Shallows discusses the making of the film, and the difficulties of shooting a film in an aquatic environment, both at a beach, and in a tank.

When Sharks Attack looks at the scientific aspects of shark attacks, with an interview with a shark attack victim.

How to Build a Shark looks at the creation of the CGI shark, from drawing to maquette to actual effect.

Finding the Perfect Beach: Lord Howe Island looks at the beauty of Lord Howe Island, and how it is an important part of the film.

There is also a preview for Ghostbusters.

Score: ****

WISIA: It will probably get watched again just because I like the scenery of the beach.

The Shallows: SHARK!!! (and some product placement of a GoPro)