Are you the type who wears striped pyjamas? Have you seen The Exorcist about 167 TIMES, AND DOES IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU SEE IT? Well, Fright Rags has something for you this Saturday!!
Available at one place only: Fright Rags!!
One from the to watch pile…
X-men: Apocalypse (2016)
X-Men Australian Bluray Steelbook
Thankfully Marvel eventually mostly abandoned these imitations and went back to what they do best: solid stories with great art and innovation (though recently best Marvel and DC seem to have lost their ways again, what with Marvel re-living past glories with new versions of Secret Wars and Civil War, and DC with their constant 5 years cycle of rebooting their entire universe).
Aside from all that I do have to admit to loving most of the X-men films. I loved the first two, thought the first was overblown and overdone, then loved the First Class and Days of Future Past films, but how do I feel about X-men Apocalypse? I must prologue this review but pointing out I was never a fan of the character of Apocalypse…
Oscar Isaac as Apocalypse
We start in ancient Egypt, where En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac), an ancient mutant, is engaging in a body transference to extend his life when two traitorous members of his group cause the temple he is in to collapse around him. En Sabah Nur absorbs the strength and powers of any mutants he body transfers into, and has with his four henchmen, ‘horsemen’ if you will, to help him on his quest for power. All of whom are destroyed by the collapsing temple.
Several centuries later, another group resurrect him and he sees this new world of 1983 to be full of power that he can tap into…
Meanwhile, Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) has turned his family home into a school for mutants so they can learn how to use their powers. Hank McCoy (Nicolas Hoult) help him at his school also. He has several new students, Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) and Kurt Wagner (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to add to his others that he is already teaching, but when Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) turns up to tell him that Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) has gone bad again after the murder of his family that he formed whilst hiding from the law after the events of the previous film.
Michael Fassbender as Magneto
If you’ve got so much happening, you may as well throw fan favourites Quicksilver (Evan Peters, in a sequence that is quite possibly the most fun ever had with super powers in a film), Alex (Lucas Till) and a certain clawed mutant that some people kind of like too.
Will all these good mutants be able to defeat these four horsemen and Apocalypse?
One would assume so, but how will they do it?!?
As you can immediately see by my synopsis, the movie has a LOT of cast and a LOT of stuff happening, and it almost requires the superpower of ‘ultimate attention span’ to keep up with it. Fan service is good in comic to movie situations, but this is ridiculous.
The key to the X-men films, and I guess all comic-to-film adaptations, is that your comic fandom has to be checked at the door, and X-Men Apocalypse is no exception. The movie history and the comic history follow different paths, but one still gets a thrill when one sees favourite heroes pop up, even if their comic history is in a different context.
Outside of those criticisms, the story isn’t bad though, it’s just plot and character heavy. Bryan Singer’s direction is as good as it ever was, and honestly I wish he would do more science fiction outside of the X-men scope.
The key to how clever these post X-men: First Class (2011) X-men films is though is how they still sit in with the other films, even though the timeline has been changed. It was an incredibly clever deus ex machina that was able to relaunch the series from the first trilogy to this one, and realistically, Apocalypse is another one to relaunch the series yet again.
X-Men Apocalypse is a pretty good film for sure, but there is constantly a hell of a lot happening, so don’t turn your back for a second. Thankfully due to their resets, the X-men movie universe doesn’t suffer from the entire weight of, say, the other Marvel Avengers films, in which the viewer has an obligation to see every film across multiple franchises to get the full story. Here at least one only has to watch the ‘X-men’ series, and the Wolverine and Deadpool films are merely garnishes.
Score: ****
X-Men Apocalypse Bluray Menu Screen
Score: *****
Extras: A nice bunch of extras on this disc:
Deleted and Extended Scenes with Optional Introductions by Bryan Singer. There is a great tribute to John Hughes films in the scene titled ‘The Safety Dance’, these can be watched either with or without introductions by Singer.
Gag Reel is what it says it is, not the greatest of its type but certainly has a couple of funny moments. It’s not an all-day guffaw fest though!
Wrap Party Video is a series of behind the scenes clips put together to music. The title would suggest it was shown at the wrap party.
X-men Apocalypse Unearthed is a series of 6 mini features which go together to make a complete ‘making of’. I don’t know why this had to be made into 6 smaller features when it could have been one total one, that’s not to say they aren’t interesting though! I have to say one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen is Bryan Singer face timing Patrick Stewart so he could watch James McAvoy get his head shaved so he could be a ‘proper’ Professor X. Is that meta or surreal? I can never tell.
Audio Commentary by Bryan Singer and Screenwriter Simon Kinberg is pretty good, but they get caught up in watching the film and there are a few breaks in the commentary.
Photo Galleries are something I normally hate if it’s just movie stills, but this is an amazing series of pre-production paintings and on-set photographs, so i’ll belay my normal complaints.
There are also a bunch of trailers of the film.
Easter Egg is just a hidden bit that could have been stuck in the gag reel that goes for about 5 seconds. Yawn.
This bluray edition also came with a digital download of the film.
Score: ****1/2
WISIA: Being an old comic fan means I love watching comic movies, over and over again, this won’t be any different.
One from the to watch pile…
Arcade (1993)
The cover of 88 Films Arcade
Those few early years of the 90s just were terrible, and even Fangoria knew that there was something gumming up horror’s plumbing as some of the articles, and covers of this period included mainstream films like Jurassic Park and Batman Returns!
Thankfully due to fresh blood like The Blair Witch Project (not a film I like but I appreciate what it did for the genre) and revamped old blood like Wes Craven’s with his successfully, cynical and self-aware Scream films, horror survived and didn’t go the way of the western or the musical, a topic discussed occasionally at the time.
Arcade is one of the not so successful attempts at franchise creation, but it does stand out as having, for its day, some pretty incredible computer effects not done by a big Hollywood company like ILM.
Arcade: Megan Ward and Peter Billingsley
Dante’s Inferno is a club/ video game arcade that they hang out in, and some of them are quite excited to try a brand new virtual reality game called ‘Arcade’ which is introduced to them by a video game executive from Vertigo Tronics called Difford (John De Lancie), but there is something not quite right about the game.
The games antagonist, Arcade, can bring people into the game peemanentky, and manipulate reality to his own ends…
So I’ll get a few of the bad points out of the way first. The characters are the most facile, awful bunch of turds I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Seriously, they are like the worst of each of the jerk characters from the Nightmare On Elm Street series all put together in one film, and they grate on every single nerve you have. Now this wouldn’t be a problem if any of them could act, but there were less wooden performances in 18th century puppet shows.
Next is the character of ‘Arcade’ itself. Remember how the killer from Bad Dreams was like a poor man’s Freddy, and then the bad guy from Brainscan was like an even cheaper version of him? Well Arcade is an even cheaper version of him, but they spent a fortune on now-archaic special effects to realise him. He’s (it’s?) a taunting smartarse just like the rest of the group, so I am surprised he wants to kill them, and not just join their gang of butt-plugs.
Next, it’s Albert Pyun’s direction. Normally I like his direction, and count The Sword and the Sorcerer as one of my favourite fantasy films, but here it meanders along with the adore mentioned sub-par acting and clunky dialogue.
Arcade: Megan Ward and Peter Billingsley
It’s a circle of suck.
On the plus side, the computer effects, considering their time, are a fun look at where we were in computer graphics was at this time.
I must say though that my favourite bit is when the surviving kids meet the game programmer, who doesn’t look like a cool, hippy-nerd in a superhero shirt, but instead is a 40-something, porno-moustached nerd in a labcoat and spectacles.
As a weird aside, one thing I did find interesting was I kept getting reminded of the film Pulse that starred Kristin Bell and Ian Somerhalder, which in itself was a remake of the Japanese film of the same name from 2001. It was probably just me, but I just felt a few suggestions made by the film made me think of that one.
Unfortunately those couple of musing things didn’t make up for the rest of the film, and I kid you not, every 20 minutes feels like an hour. Don’t bother.
Score: *
88 Films Arcade title screen
Score: **1/2
Extras: There’s a couple of extras on this disc, but not a great deal. First we have a ‘making of’ in the form of ‘Videozone’ which Full Moon Pictures used to put on VHS tapes at the end of the feature. This one’s pretty good as it has an early look at how what we now call CGI is created for the film.
There is also a trailer for Arcade, and an 88 Films Trailer Park featuring trailers for The Corpse Grinders, Two Moon Junction, Blood Orgy of the She Devils, Hideous, Girl in Gold Boots, Robot Wars, Dollman, The Doll Squad, Castle Freak and Slice N Dice.
Score: **1/2
WISIA: I am never, ever, ever, ever, ever going to watch this ever again.
Do you have your Michael Myers shirt really for Halloween this year?
No?!? Well you better click THIS LINK to check out Fright Rags new Halloween collection!! Fright Rags are being quite secretive about it, but there is going to be heaps of Halloween stuff dropped on us this year, and October the 12th has the first lot… yep, FIRST!! Why am I excited? Well Halloween socks, obviously!!
One from the to watch pile…
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
The Cover of the Australian Bluray for The Conjuring 2
My more recent battles have been regarding my dislike of a lot of these post millennial ghost movies. I am no great fan of ghost stories anyway as I don’t have a great belief in the supernatural, particularly ghosts. Of all these ghost movies that have come out the only one that I really enjoyed was the Ethan Hawke vehicle Sinister, but as far as the Insidious series and these Conjuring films, including Annabelle, well, I’m not a fan.
(I will hold one caveat to the previous statement: I did really dig the initial ghostly j-horror films like Ring and The Grudge when they first came out, but the ‘wet girl’ ghost became old quite quickly)
The Conjuring 2 is another adventure of Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga), ghost hunter/ psychic investigator/ exorcists who in this instalment travel to rainy Ol’ England in 1977 to help the Hodgson family.
Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson in The Conjuring 2
The Warrens are recently accused of being charlatans after an investigation of the Amityville house, and can’t be seen, as agents of the church, to be involved in any sort of chicanery… but is the evil in the house even MORE clever than first suspected..?
Straight up I have to compliment Wilson and Farmiga for their excellent performances. They are the rocks in the middle of the entire tale and are just so well cast and perform with so much conviction and they are a pleasure to watch. Add O’Conner to that mix and you have a pretty solid central cast. The kids are mostly all great though one of the young characters is supposed to have a stutter, and rather than be a realistic stutter, it sounds more like lines from Morris Minor and the Major’s Stutter Rap.
On a personal side note I have to say I was delighted to see Anatomie and Creep’s Franka Potente back. I feel like I haven’t seen her in years!
The spooky nun from The Conjuring 2
There were two epic missteps that I found a shame though. One was the realisation of a ‘Crooked Man’ character who seemed too cartoony for the look of the film, and the final reveal, which I won’t explore for spoiler reasons, was just a little generic.
A small shoutout to the soundtrack as well. The ghostly incidental music is perfectly juxtaposed with music of the time, which both set the scares and the period. I’ve no doubt this soundtrack will end up in my collection.
The story was OK and whilst I am still not convinced by ghostly movies, I did quite enjoy this but it was about performance rather than the tale. It was a improvement of the first Conjuring, and a galaxy away from the bursting gall bladder that was Annabelle.
Score: ***
Format: As one would expect a modern film in a modern format looks excellent. The Conjuring 2 review copy is an Australian region B which goes for approximately 134 minutes and is presented in 2.40:1 with a Dolby Atmos 5.1 soundtrack.
Score: *****
Extras: There’s a pretty good bunch of extras on this, the shame is none of them run for very long.
Crafting the Conjuring as you may guess by the name, is a making-of deal, and is brief, but interesting.
The Enfield Poltergeist: Living the Horror investigates the ‘real’ case of the Enfield Incident, including interviews with the now-adult sisters that the film portrays, and Lorraine Warren herself!
Creating Crooked explains the invention and execution of the Crooked Man character, which I reckon would have been a cool make up effect and creature, but not in this film. Here he just seems to be a tacked on scare, which suits no purpose other than that,
The Conjuring 2: Hollywood’s Haunted Stage looks at paranormal investigator Johnny Matook and his investigation of one of Warner Bros soundstages which is apparently haunted. It’s pretty stupid and essentially a waste of disc space.
The Sounds of Scary checks out the score. Being a soundtrack nut I was excited to watch this, and was only disappointed by the brevity of it. I mean, horror soundtrack featurettes usually hit the same notes: it’s moody, scary, etc. I guess I might be a frustrated musician.
Deleted scenes are as occasionally correct in their absence from the film.
Score: ***1/2
WISIA: Like I said, I’m not really a fan of ghost movies, so I’ll only watch this again if my family, who love these sorts of movies, want to watch it, otherwise it’s a dust gatherer.
One from the re-watch pile, and dedicated to our dearly and recently departed godfather of gore, Mr. H. G. Lewis…
Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
The Australian DVD cover for Two Thousand Maniacs!
Film: Those of us who love lots of gore owe a lot to a man who started the fashion of making horror films ‘gory’: Herschell Gordon Lewis.
Nicknamed the godfather of gore, H.G. Lewis got his start in nudie cuties before throwing guts into our lap with his debut splatterfest Blood Feast. The popularity of that film brought us this, his, and producer David F. Friedman’s second horror film, Two Thousand Maniacs!
Two Thousand Maniacs! tells of the beautiful Southern town of Pleasant Valley which is celebrating a ‘centennial’, and need a few ‘Northerner’ guests. So using a duplicitous Detour sign, the townspeople lure two cars, containing a total of six people into town to help with their celebrations.
Two Thousand Maniacs! Thomas Wood and Connie Mason
Who will survive? Will they survive intact?
This film is the second instalment in Lewis’ so-called ‘Blood Trilogy’, along with the aforementioned Blood Feast and the follow years Color Me Blood Red. That’s not to say that’s all he made as his first filmmaking career lasted until 1972’s The Gore Gore Girls, and after a 30 year hiatus, in 2002, he returned with a sequel to Blood Feast, and a new film The Uh-oh Show in 2009!
There’s not much not to like about this film. Sure it’s hokey, and the acting is of a level that aspires to be amateur, and even the effects are not what one would define as ‘special’ but it is just so much stupid fun.
Two Thousand Maniacs! A call to arms!
The awesome thing here though is that Lewis wrote, directed, filmed and wrote the music for this film, including singing the song that’s heard several times through ‘The South’s Gonna Rise Again’.
Basically it comes down to the fact it’s a simple story that’s a ball to watch, and should be included in any movie watching weekend, especially if you have a newly converted horror fan, and know you’re watching an unheralded classic.
Score: ****
The Australian DVD menu for Two Thousand Maniacs!
Format: This film was reviewed on the Australian release of the U.S.’s Something Weird Video’s approximately 84 minute DVD of the film. It is presented in a surprisingly good 1.33:1 aspect with a decent Dolby Digital Stereo audio track. What should be expected that a film of this vintage, and made by an independent studio isn’t necessarily going to have the sharpest image. There’s a few sound issues as well, insomuch as there is ‘hissing’ when a few characters speak, but it’s intermittent.
Score: **1/2
Extras: Only three extras on this disc. There are trailers for both Two Thousand Maniacs! and Blood Feast, and some outtakes from the making of the film, which aren’t exceptional except for the fact that they are so old and the fact they even still existed was a miracle.
Score: **1/2
WISIA: It’s a gore-lovers classic, you bet it gets rewatched!
Two Thousand Maniacs! The Barrel Roll!
One from the re watch pile…
Contamination (1980)
Arrow Video’s Contamination Bluray
This film was written and directed by Luigi Cozzi, also known for Starcrash and one of my favourite films The Killer Must Kill Again, but here under the alias ‘Lewis Coates’. It has a super score by my favourite band Goblin, and really feels of it’s time, especially if you are an Italian horror film regular.
Contamination: Louise Marleau as Col. Stella Holmes
An investigation is started, headed by Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) along with the survivor of the first egg encounter, police lieutenant Tony Aris (Marino Masé). They experiment on a few of the eggs and come to the conclusion that they are not of this earth, and perhaps the only person who could help them is the only surviving member of a Mars mission, returned astronaut named Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch).
Contamination: Ian McCulloch as Cmdr. Ian Hubbard
Contamination: eggs… so many eggs!
For years people have said it’s an Alien rip off, and even though Cozzi claims to have been inspired by it, I think it’s unfair to make the comparison. Yes there are eggs, and yes, there are exploding chests, but just because these two elements feature in it to me don’t make it slightly comparable.
Contamination is heaps of sci-fi fun with a dash of 80s gore, and it’s a fit that sits well!
Score: ****
Arrow Video’s Bluray menu screen
Score: ****
Extras: As ever, Arrow have the goods with this release!
Luigi Cozzi on Contamination is an older… sorry, I mean ‘archive’ interview with the director of the film, where he discusses the origins of the film and the process to make it. Cozzi narrates the whole thing, and gives us a look as some behind the scenes footage as well.
Contamination Q&A is an session of questions proposed to Cozzi and McCulloch, hosted by Arrow’s Ewan Cant. It’s an entertaining and amusing discussion for sure.
Sound of the Cyclops is a talk with Goblin keyboardist Maurizio Guarini which for me, as a Goblin fan, was really interesting.
Luigi Cozzi vs. Lewis Coates is a career retrospective interview with Cozzi.
Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery delves into the ‘Italian Copy’ films that aimed to emulate the success of films like Jaws, The Warriors and Dawn of the Dead, amongst others.
We also have a trailer and black and white graphic novel based on the film, which has some pretty cool indie styled artwork. I don’t get why you’d make a comic an extra on an actual disc, as I’d much prefer an ACTUAL comic included in the packaging like Arrow’s release of Demons.
Also, there is a commentary by Fangoria’s Chris Alexander which is a fan commentary, but Alexander knows his stuff!
Hidden within the disc, one will also find really cool alternate covers for the cover, one with original art and the other with cool new art by Ghoulish Gary Pullin (whose amazing artwork can be found HERE!) and there is also a fully illustrated booklet with a piece by the aforementioned Mr. Alexander, and details of the restoration.
Score: *****
Contamination: Marino Masé as Lt. Tony Aris
Fright Rags have a very exciting new limited edition T coming this Saturday, and it is apparently never to be reprinted!!
One from the to watch pile…
Warcraft: The Beginning (2016)
The Australian Bluray cover to Warcraft.
Film: Unfortunately for video game to film adaptations, there have been several cinematic crimes committed over the years that have scarred the eyes of all who watched them: Super Mario Bros., Far Cry, Alone in the Dark, Doom, House of the Dead and Double Dragon. I do have to own up and claim that some of the ‘guilty pleasures’ in my regular spin list, even though they aren’t the greatest movies, are video game based: DOA and Pixels (sure not a ‘proper’ video game film, but there are enough 8 bit legends in that film for me to count it).
People seem to forget about the actual hits though: the first Tomb Raider was good enough to spawn a sequel, Resident Evil is a multi-sequeled series of various quality, but generally enjoyable, the Silent Hill films have ticked several boxes and I liked the Hitman films as well.
Warcraft (which has had the subtitle “The Beginning” attached to it here and there) is based on the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) World of Warcraft, the sensation from entertainment company Blizzard who also gave us Starcraft, Overwatch, and Warcraft associated games like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm, and none of that is to mention my favourite game from them, Diablo (and it’s sequels).
You have to give the filmmakers credit for attempting this film. Not only do they have millions of World of Warcraft fans to keep happy, but a big budget fantasy film in a post-Lord of the Rings/ The Hobbit genre would be a difficult sell to, well ‘normal’ people.
Perhaps in the hands of director Duncan Jones, who previously gave us Moon and Source Code, it could be successful. Jones co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Leavitt, who also wrote Seventh Son, another not entirely bad fantasy film, but different enough from the Hobbit films for it not to be associated, which brings us to the problem this film faced.
Ben Schnetzer as Khadgar
In a world where those aforementioned ‘normal’ folk have become fantasy fans (pfft: ‘muggles’) it’s difficult to sell the tropes of the fantasy genre without seeming to be merely emulating it, even though those of us who have played Dungeons and Dragons or Warhammer, or read associated fiction, have been familiar with ‘orcs’ and other fantasy beasts for our entire fandom, and we are accustomed to them being borrowed from Tolkien’s tomes and other traditional mythologies.
This film does however break the bonds of the traditional fantasy film, and tells a different tale than the ‘a band of brothers of different races overcome their prejudices to fight a common evil’, which is the plot line of SO many fantasy films. Warcraft instead tells the story of two sides of war: of the trials the humans have to endure when an invading force enters their realm, and also that of an army under control of a corrupted leader who don’t all necessarily agree with his motives.
Seeing a fantasy film… or any film that deals with war, fantasy or otherwise, that shows that even in the enemy’s camp there may be dissent is an interesting concept to me, as you perhaps stop and think about the deaths of the bad guys. Though not like in Austin Powers, where it is dealt with in a comedic manner.
I have not played World of Warcraft, but I am a Hearthstone player so I am aware of some of the races and images and even with my limited knowledge it was pretty cool to see some of the beasts and locations that appear in the game pop up here and there (I have to admit to be delighted by the image and sound of a Murloc popping up!)
Haters of CGI are definitely not going to like this film, as there is an astonishing amount of CGI characters and environments, and seeing as how they are keeping to that video game aesthetic, it does all look very artificial. This is no doubt to not alienate those who love the game as they are the people you don’t want to aggravate. I don’t think it’s detrimental to the film at all as the orcs, locations and beasts in general look great. Bare in mind that occasionally the film has little ‘real’ elements in it and it could be best described as an animated feature!
The acting is fine and the direction and fight choreography is exciting, and the production design is certainly on a grand scale. My favourite actor choice though is that of Ben Foster as Medivh. I’ve liked him since I saw him in the teen flick Get Over It and he is quite the intense human being when playing these sort of roles.
Toby Kebbell as Durotan
All in all I enjoyed this film for a couple of reasons. The first is the fact that it is a first, and doesn’t have the plot weight that continuing series’s of films have. This could be just because it’s the first, but I suspect that after the six Tolkien films (which I am still angry at for dumping Tom Bombadil and Goldberry in The Two Towers, but had no problems adding a whole pile of extra crap to three Hobbit films) it might just be a relief to see something free of the shackles of continuing plots. The second reason is it’s just damned fun: just fun with orcs and dwarves and elves and traitors and kings and magic and wizards and giant animals and all that good fantasy stuff.
In my research of this film, to the casual observer and not the obsessive fan, they have certainly been quite faithful to the game with some of the characters and kingdoms appearing, though some of the motives for decisions made may not be entirely fleshed out in the film, but I imagine it is hard to adapt such an open plotted, character driven game in a story driven environment. They managed to do this without that weight I mentioned feeling at all present, but this is due to the fact we are at the origin of the war between orcs and humans. That’s not to say that there perhaps aren’t unresolved plot lines, but we are at the beginning of these plots, rather than halfway through.
I mean it’s not gonna change your life, and the comparisons it receives both to Peter Jackson’s films, and to the Dungeons and Dragons movie from 2000 are certainly unfair for different reasons, but it certainly is a hoot.
Score: ***1/2
Warcraft bluray menu screen
Format: Warcraft was reviewed on the Australian, JB Hifi exclusive release (with extra extras which will be discussed in ‘Extras’) and runs for approximately 122 minutes. It is presented in an immaculate 2.40:1 image with an outstanding Dolby Atmos soundtrack. I must point out that the colours of this film have been amped up for what I guess would be to firstly give it its own identity in a world where the natural-looking Lord of the Rings series exists, and also to have a slightly artificial look to connect it to the video game.
There is also a 3D edition of this film available, as well as a UHD 4K one, for those who have those home cinema capabilities available to them.
Score: *****
Extras: The disc opens with a trailers for Jason Bourne, and one for the Harry Potter-land thing at Universal Studios before we get to the guts of the disc.
Disc one has a bunch of extras:
11 deleted and extended scenes which are interesting, but as one would expect, not necessary.
Gag reel: I love me a good gag reel, and this provided several smiles and a giggle, but no guffaws.
The World of Warcraft on Film is divided into 6 mini features, including Origin Story, The World of Talent, The World of VFX, Outfitting a World, The World of Mo-cap and The World of Stunts. These features explore all the aspects of making the film, as can be seen by the titles, are are each interesting in different ways, though I think they could have been merged together into one single interesting feature.
Travis Fimmel as  Anduin and Paula Patton as Garona
The Fandom of Warcraft is a cool look at the fans of Warcraft, though it may appear to be a little disturbing for non-fandom folk. From the gaming to the cosplay, the fans are pretty hardcore, and awesome! I totally get people who meet friends from gaming as I made really good friends both from Warhammer and Call of Duty, all of whom are still friends today.
Warcraft: Bonds of Brotherhood Motion Comic is one of those special features I’m not really a fan of. I’d rather buy a comic or see a proper animated feature rather than something half animated with a voiceover. That’s not to say it’s a bad story, but I just don’t like this sort of extra.
Warcraft: The Madam Tussauds Experience explores the beautiful waxwork characters Tussauds have created for the Warcraft display.
ILM: Behind the Magic of Warcraft shows the CGI breakdowns of some of the VFX in the film.
Warcraft Teaser is, as you would expect by the name, the sneak peak trailer for the movie.
The second disc is a JB Hifi exclusive in Australia and is a DVD with even MORE extras on it, including Welcome to Warcraft, which explains the origins of the Blizzard game, The Weaponised Magic of Warcraft looks at the physical performance of magic used in the film and The World Within Warcraft explored the locations within the film.
The consistent theme throughout all the extras seems to be the efforts taken to accurately represent the Warcraft game and lore accurately. I reckon that is a pretty cool aspect to take when basing a film on an existing product.
Also, the packaging contains a digital copy of the film, and some bonuses from Blizzard for the games World of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone.
Score: *****
WISIA: I don’t think it will be on high rotation, but I doubt if it will gather a year’s worth of dust.
It’s one of those days when you know as soon as you wake up that the rest of the day is going to suck.
The first thing on all of my various news feeds today was that of the passing of filmmaker, Herschell Gordon (H. G.) Lewis, aged 87.
H. G. Lewis
In 2002 he returned to filmmaking with Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat and worked in and around the production of films until his death.
My first exposure to Lewis was with novelisations of 2,000 Maniacs and Blood Feast, but I didn’t actually get to see any of his films until the early 2000s when I first picked up DVD releases from Something Weird Video and I was immediately hooked. His films have an odd innocence that films of the 60s feel like they have mixed with a touch of nudity and a bucket of blood and guts.
Something Weird Video also have an excellent documentary about him that I can’t recommend enough. This, and his other films are available here!
H. G. Lewis documentary
Digital Retribution 