The Grim Cellar

1998, US, Directed by Peter Berg

Colour, Running Time: 100 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Universal, Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

What’s this - a bunch of mainstream actors in a Hollywood film that contains brutal violence, boobs, and the blackest, nastiest streak of humour this side of Braindead? I seem to remember not many liking this film back in the late nineties, and in reflection of that it took years to materialise on DVD too. Contrary to popular opinion (as usual) I was one of the few that really enjoyed this film on its theatrical run so lets consider how it stands up to repeat viewings… It all starts off sort of like Swingers with a bunch of boys heading off to Vegas for a stag do, leaving their ladies behind to worry about what they’re going to get up to, or get off to. And debauchery it is: excess alcohol, cocaine, insane babbling, and the hottest prostitute Vegas has to offer. But you can almost feel something is going to go wrong as their behaviour leaves them increasingly open to unpredictable consequences, you just don’t realise how wrong it’s going to go! During violent sex at the hotel room the prostitute is accidentally impaled on a bathroom hook by Michael and the guys are left standing around, suddenly slightly more sober, staring at a corpse in a pool of blood. Then follows a dramatic conflict of interests: Adam immediately wants to dial 911, while Boyd reasons that they’d pretty much be hammered by the law given the nature of events that night, despite the actual death being an accident. While arguing about what to do a security guard knocks at the door in response to complaints of a little noise, and at first he’s appeased by some lad talk and a bit of cash but when he notices the body Boyd reacts to the situation and brutally stabs him before he has chance to talk. Now they have two bodies and no options but to get rid of them, so they arm themselves with spades and other useful items and head off into the desert after cutting up the bodies, cleaning up the hotel room, and packing the limbs, etc. into suitcases to get them out of the building. After the nocturnal burial they make a pact never to tell anybody, even (or particularly!) their respective women, before heading off back home to carry on their lives as normally as they possibly can. Alas it was never going to be that ‘easy’ and soon guilt is getting to one or two of them, tension increases, conflicts arise, and the situation begins spiralling even further out of control.

The premise focuses on friendship stretched to its ultimate limits while doused in the blackest comedy you could ever have imagined squirming from Hollywood imaginations: this is the Farrelly Brothers on Speed. It begins in light with a group of mates looking forward to the night out of a lifetime, one of them - Kyle - more so looking forward to marrying a well structured but erratic woman (Cameron Diaz), however their self control is lost somewhere in the mix and they begin their descent to Hell. Michael is distraught at causing the death of the prostitute and it’s only a matter of time before he goes off the rails, not helped by the fact that he’s almost constantly at odds with his brother Adam. Adam himself finds the guilt increasingly difficult to deal with while Boyd on the other hand is the one keeping a cool head and perpetually delineating possibilities through ordered reasoning devoid of morality. Through all of this the only thing Kyle is really interested in is marrying the woman who is almost certainly going to add to his personal hell one day, such is her blatant obsession with getting married for the sake of the wedding day itself rather than love. But nobody in this film gets what they want… nobody! By the film’s end even the dog has lost a leg, and however grim you thought things were going to get, it’s worse. What the film’s success depends on is whether it makes the viewer laugh, such is the duty of black comedy and I suppose this is where it might have failed for many, because the humour is niche. The fact that it finds humour in such nastiness could be considered bad taste but in an industry where bad taste has all but been eradicated by the easily offended it’s a welcome asset from my point of view. Plus Berg and the principal actors with their acute comic timing hit the mark for me, therefore what is potentially a disgusting experience becomes one of elation. Tension is not only maintained consistently but it escalates to madness, underlining Berg‘s adept handling of the material. Even better is the fact that it has the same effect even after having seen it a number of times, therefore it makes a good buy for the movie buff.

After waiting so long for a DVD the Universal disc didn’t exactly tick all the right boxes. The US disc featured both wide and fullscreen versions but extras were almost nonexistent. Transfer is okay but quite soft and possibly over-saturated although the 5.1 track (it defaults to two channel so make sure you switch) is enveloping and dynamic. Aside from average DVD presentation, Very Bad Things is almost the ultimate sit-back-with-a-few-beers movie and can suitably take your mind of whatever’s going wrong in your own life, because that’ll pale in comparison to what’s going wrong in the lives of these characters.

2002, US, Directed by Alexander Payne

Colour, Running Time: 120 minutes

DVD, Region 2, EIV, Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: DTS

After a lifetime of working hard and leading a respectable, conventional routine we catch up with Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) during the final minutes of his career as he sits there watching the clock count down towards his retirement. A nice big fuss is made with a dinner in his honour, speeches, etc., and Warren eventually wakes up on a new Monday morning not entirely sure what to do with his newfound freedom. A trip back to his old workplace paints a picture that suggests his purpose is served and his presence no longer welcome beyond surface gestures. His sympathy piqued by a television advert, Warren decides to sponsor the life of a third world child, Ndugu, in recognition of some deeper desire to do something worthwhile. In conjunction with this he also begins writing to the child to keep him up to date with what’s happening in his own life, this forming occasional parts of the story’s narrative. His optimistic wife Helen is looking forward to trying out their new motor home but a few weeks later she drops down dead and he’s left pretty much alone. After doing her bit following Helen’s death, their daughter Jeannie all but wants him out of the way until her wedding in a few weeks so when he sets off in his motor home to join up with her early a mid-trip phone call prompts her to emphasise the point that she doesn’t want him around until a couple of days before the wedding. So to kill time he embarks on a spontaneous road trip with the intention of revisiting places from his past, etc., seemingly on a quest to simultaneously eradicate boredom and find out what the point of his life was.

I often tend to warm to soul-searching kind of scenarios, ideas that force the central character(s) to explore their value to themselves and the world, the meaning of their existence (as well as that around them), who they are, etc. It’s something I can personally relate to and if the story is executed intuitively with talented people it can often result in a profound experience that goes beyond the fantastical confines of film. That’s what I found in About Schmidt. Despite being played by a very well known actor Warren Schmidt the person is thoroughly delineated to a point where he’s exceedingly real in many ways - his mind is visibly ticking away in response to many of the things that are happening around him and the script does not become so patronising as to have him verbalise every single thought. We can imagine what’s going on in his mind and very often empathise with it, or at least those with a tendency towards introspection and acute awareness may be able to. In fact it’s mostly in his spoken letters to Ndugu where we learn what’s going on inside his brain. The situations that he finds himself in often give way to a level of realism that is quietly embarrassing, such is their ability to tap into the nature of that which is fundamentally and contemporarily human, while at other times his encounters approach more of a traditional comedic style that’s not quite over the top enough to ruin it. It’s not, however, quite the straightforward comedy the marketing campaigners would have had you believe, more so a drama mixed with humour cum road movie - this sort of film almost creates its own cinematic category if one is even needed. What I also like is the air of unpredictability. What you very often expect to happen, given the experience of watching hundreds of movies before it, doesn’t - you may expect Warren to realise how much love is worth after his wife’s death, but then he finds out she’s had an affair years before and ends up throwing out her clothes in anger. Or you might expect him to find love in the divorced mother of Jeannie’s new husband, but it doesn’t quite work out like that. The people he comes across during his adventure are colourful and mundane at the same time and may in some cases remind you of some you know. It’s a truly meaningful story that’s ultimately about aging and the reflection of one’s own worth after a lifetime of doing what you’re supposed to, therefore becoming relevant to almost anybody and thus a significantly rewarding experience.

An amazing transfer that boasts a natural colour scheme with just about as much detail as standard definition can muster, combined with both DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks that, whilst not exploited to the full with this kind of material, do their subtle job very nicely. Extras are a tad limited but I like this kind of work to speak to the viewer for itself without the writers/directors/actors having to come along and explain it all for us. By the conclusion of the film, and as could be considered the case with real life, it’s really down the viewer to decide what the point of Schmidt’s existence was.

1981, France/Germany, Directed by Andrzej Zulawski

Colour, Running Time: 123 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Anchor Bay, Video: Anamorphic 1.66:1, Audio: Mono

Genre amalgamations go back a long way, whether it be the obvious mixing of science fiction and horror abundant during the fifties, or gangster/vampire combinations such as From Dusk Till Dawn, etc. From what could easily have been the uninspiring and unproductive event of marital break-up in the life of Zulawski was borne Possession (not the one with Gwyneth Paltrow in it!) - something that might be described as an odd collision between social drama and gory horror. Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani play Mark and Anna, a couple in the midst of a marital crisis where permanent split seems like the only viable outcome. Aside from having a young child to consider, Mark appears to be unable to live without Anna but has difficulty communicating what he’s feeling without descending into maniacal, emotionally charged babbling, often turning to manifested aggression in frustration. His psychological state spirals downward while Anna seems ambivalent about what she truly wants, often portraying a need to terminate the relationship between them whilst possibly still exhibiting some feelings that are positive towards her husband, amidst the obvious torrent of confusion. Mark finds out that she’s having an affair with someone and this does the situation no favours. Finding out who it is he goes to see the man, presumably without intention to discuss the problem diplomatically - the strangely androgynous Heinrich beats Mark up during the ensuing conflict. Arranging to have his wife followed it’s revealed that Anna is frequently retreating to a derelict area of the city (Berlin) where in a run-down apartment she’s mating with some sort of hideous multi-limbed monster.

So, rather than being a story of demonic infiltration à la The Exorcist, this movie investigates the results of the ‘possession’ of one human being by another, something that generally occurs in intimate relationships and is suggested here to ultimately have a destructive effect on its closest participants. The film distributors, particularly in America, didn’t really know how to market this project and in all fairness that’s quite understandable, especially in an era when films of a fantastically disturbing nature were good box office business - not only is the trailer a superficially ambiguous advertisement for what could easily be just another monster movie in its audience’s eyes, but the film itself had forty minutes or so removed by a studio who didn’t understand the content. Similarly here in the UK it was placed on the banned list by the BBFC and effectively condemned as a ‘video nasty’ (something that ironically probably helped gather a small cult reputation for the film). The film has since been restored in the US and permitted an uncut release in the UK under thankfully revised opinion. Controversies aside, what remains now though is something that’s difficult to understand with its apparent symbolism and personal meaning to the director. It’s clearly a response to the despair produced by the disintegration of his own relationship with his spouse but there is much here to decipher, and that’s where many viewers will drop off (to sleep in some cases). However, there are rewards to be had should you be able to mentally focus on what’s going on - the intricacy of Mark and Anna’s relationship is disturbingly realised and the physical product of their interpersonal deterioration is quite fascinating; that is, the terrifyingly passionate hatred between them seems to create the very monster that Anna ends up mating with (thereby producing more offspring). The creature itself is not seen too much but what’s visible is hideous, a bedridden octopus-like monstrosity that conceals something distortedly human in its nature. Anna’s occasional dismissal of her real husband hints at the possibility that she (i.e. the female) sees him purely as the machine that will impregnate her when required. The fact that she’d rather mate with something so horrific (than her husband) in order to produce more offspring possibly offers support to this idea. While Neill does a good job Adjani is simply astounding as Anna. The extremity of emotions she displays is worryingly realistic (indeed she won a couple of awards for this role), most notably in the train tunnel sequence where she goes into prolonged violent spasms before a disgusting miscarriage - this scene must be one of the most disturbing ever committed to celluloid, surely something very few actresses could have achieved, and it pretty much elicited outrage in some people. Its impact is profound and underlines the state of Zulawski at that time. As far as the film as a whole is concerned it can be a painful experience rather than specifically an enjoyable one, but the latter was hardly the director’s intention, plus it is too long. However films don’t come a great deal more challenging than this and its imagery and overall impact is quite unique.

Released a couple of times in the US by Anchor Bay Possession was restored to its full running time and Zulawski’s original vision, plus it was presented correctly at 1.66:1, anamorphically enhanced in a pillar-box fashion and generally pretty good looking. The DVD also came with director commentary and interesting text notes on his work. The second disc release was identical apart from the fact that it was coupled with Mario Bava’s final film Shock as a double-bill. Whilst Possession was passed uncut for home viewing in 1999 by the BBFC here in the UK, that was for VHS and I don’t believe there has been a DVD release on these shores. Wherever you look it’s quite a difficult film to get a hold of these days.

1997, US, Directed by Harmony Korine

Colour, Running Time: 89 minutes

DVD, Region 1, New Line, Video: Anamorphic 1.85:1, Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo

It’s quite difficult to informatively describe what the Gummo experience is like unless the reader has already immersed themselves in its grim realm, partially because it has no specific plot as such (at least in terms of conventional cinema narrative), partially because the images and sounds burnt on to celluloid speak louder than explanatory words ever can. The viewer is dropped hard on their ass into a location somewhere in smalltown America, populated by unsophisticated people that may as well be of extraterrestrial origin, such is the utter unfamiliarity of their behaviour. We spend time following around two teenage boys - Tummler and Solomon, one of the strangest looking children you’ve ever seen - who catch and kill cats for money, sniff glue, have sex with whoever may be willing, etc. The story depicts the activities and eccentricities of these two oddballs for the large part. Then there are two sisters on the dawn of sexual awakening, men who wrestle violently with kitchen chairs, skinhead brothers who punch two types of f**k out of each other, an enthusiastic albino girl who searches for her dream boy while blissfully ignorant to the reality of her chances, deaf people rowing with each other in sign language, a man who charges money for lads to have intercourse with his handicapped sister, a messed up transvestite boy - an ethical enigma who also kills cats for money but in his case does so to support his virtually non-functioning grandmother, etc. Oh yes, and a gay black dwarf.

This sometimes sounds on paper like the product of a banned film but Gummo’s relative obscurity has probably kept controversy at bay. Its effect is almost soul-destroying; the meaningless of people’s lives, here or perhaps anywhere, the cruelty of the world that surrounds them and their involuntary ignorance to this. Despite the near utter blackness of the movie’s material and its guerrilla, underground feel this was a serious project with a ‘proper’ film crew, a real studio behind distribution, actual funding (over one million dollars), and some talented actors. That’s right: actors. You’d swear from the convincing performances on display that all here were real people the director had found, being granted the privilege of filmed glimpses into their sporadically horrifying lives. But, while there are no major stars here of course and the majority of participants were inexperienced from a film perspective, there are quite a few established and professional actors contributing portrayals that you wouldn’t have believed them to be capable of, so realistic are their character depictions. My favourite amongst them is Chloë Sevigny. She’d already appeared in the same director’s previous film Kids, plus the rather smart Steve Buscemi project Trees Lounge and, surely as a testament to her talent, has since gone on to skilfully bring fantastic characters to the screen in American Psycho, Broken Flowers, and Dave Fincher’s Zodiac. At the time I first saw Gummo a few years ago I really believed she was somebody who came from one of these nasty small American towns (I’m sure they’re not all like this, honest!). Similar can be said of most of the occupants of this little world however and consequently the film almost gives the impression of a documentary into daily human life. Some of its brutalities are appropriately supported by extreme metal music though the soundtracks is surprisingly varied - how on earth did they obtain permission to use Madonna’s Like a Prayer here? Elsewhere we have everything from Roy Orbison and Johann Sebastian Bach to Bethlehem and Burzum. The soundtrack also claims to have utilised Bathory’s blistering Equimanthorn (from Under The Sign…) at some point but I’ll be damned if I can hear it anywhere. Anyway, the music is well selected and enhances the onscreen action just as it should. I do dislike the film’s irreverent attitude towards animals (though activity was professionally monitored), however aside from that personal gripe I think Harmony Korine can only be described as a director with an acute perceptiveness uncommon in humankind. Or perhaps he simply refuses to ignore that which everybody refuses to face.

New Line’s DVD looks superb, though bearing in mind some of the imagery was deliberately captured with gritty videotape it otherwise feels much more upmarket than it should. Extras are limited to some behind-scenes photographs with commentary, and filmographies. Gummo is nothing less than a vision of Hell on Earth, more frightening because places and people like this are out there somewhere and this is a diary of what a significant portion of humanity has become. You may be mortified but will likely find yourself staring on at the car-crash spectacle and even re-visiting every know and again to remind yourself that you aint so badly off after all.

1969, Canada, Directed by David Cronenberg

Colour, Running Time: 63 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Blue Underground, Video: Anamorphic 1.66:1, Audio: Mono

Prior to Stereo (1967) David Cronenberg had been uncertain where to take his career and had flirted with proceeding along the science route to the point of enrolling and studying for a while, but a certain degree of boredom followed. Having switched academic direction to focus on English Literature he’d met a number of amateur film-makers and become fascinated by the immediacy of the results, therefore he began to dabble teaching himself the technical ins and outs of the art of film-making. Following two experimental shorts he persuaded the Canadian Council to provide some funding under the illusion he would be writing fiction, something he’d previously attempted to achieve success at via submission of short stories, though to no avail. The result was Stereo and pleased with the clinical product he was inspired to continue: he wrote and directed Crimes of the Future, something that resonates on similar levels to his previous work while foreshadowing elements that would materialise again in some of his later films.

Narrated by the controller of some kind of medical institution we’re exposed to the odd man’s fascination with various forms of sexual deviation and its occasionally consequential diseases. Along the way he comes across a person whose body produces complex miniature organs, described as a ‘creative cancer’ - this is no doubt the seed of Cronenberg’s frequent explorations of so-called body horror; the mutation of an organism into something else, whether it be evolutionary or initiated by the infiltration of an alien (not as in extraterrestrial) entity. There are influences here along with his future work that are derived from his earlier scientific studying, something cultivated by his father who openly encouraged anything Cronenberg would become passionate about no matter how transient it might prove. The richness of the director’s educational childhood would feed his visceral imagination later on with an abundance of unusual concepts, no doubt assisted by the fact that both of his parents were creatively inclined. However, his ideas would take time to filter and develop into something palatable by the general public and neither Stereo nor Crimes… can claim to be this. Like Stereo this later film, now shot in colour, is hard to digest and almost impossible to actually enjoy. Despite that there are occasions when it’s not easy to turn one’s eye away from the screen, such is the unusual nature of occurrences on screen - you never really know what’s going to happen next or where the meagre story will take you. Shot on 35mm film the look is fantastic and Cronenberg’s use of architecture is profound, his characters wandering around complicated structures that create a sense of foreboding. Much of the material is silent (though not to the same extent as Stereo), punctuated by the voice of the strange narrator in a rather Hal-esque fashion along with intermittent industrial sound effects that pre-empt David Lynch’s Eraserhead. The inhabitants of the institutes are so unusual, residents of another dimension almost, that the viewer won’t find it easy to connect emotionally with the material. On an intellectual level there is some food for thought, though it can reach academic levels of textbook iteration and therefore require concentration to comprehend and dissect. The explorations of homosexuality along with suggestions of other forms of sexual deviation border on the disturbing.

Blue Underground’s rescue of this incredibly obscure film is highly commendable - if not for them it could have remained unseen forever. The source material is in incredible condition and as a result the transfer looks like it could have been taken from a new film. The monaural soundtrack is in similarly excellent shape, the powerful silences uninterrupted by damage. Whilst one would have appreciated an accompanying director’s commentary we can’t ask for much more than this, though it may be hard to find on disc now as the hosting Fast Company double-discer is out of print. I am never going to love Crimes of the Future but as someone who admires much of its director’s subsequent offerings it is of historical and archival importance.

1981, Spain, Directed by Jess Franco

Colour, Running Time: 77 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Anchor Bay, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

Jess Franco has polarised audiences more than most over the years, largely due to the variable quality and the extremely subjective nature of responses elicited by his inordinate amount of movies, the actual quantity of which probably the director himself isn’t sure of. Whether he’s specifically a talented director or not is difficult to say: his output seems to swing between admittedly very good (Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey Into Perversion) the bad but still quite enjoyable on some level (Oasis of the Zombies; yeah I know everybody else hates it!) and the plain painful to watch (Down Town). If he’s an incompetent film-maker then why has he occasionally produced a minor gem, and similarly if he’s adept then why does he in other instances manage to create such horrific cinematic car wrecks? Macumba Sexual in my opinion falls somewhere around the middle of the scale: a simplified story appears at first glance to be merely an excuse for near-hardcore pornographic imagery, such is its abundance. Perhaps it is, but it may be worth looking deeper. Lina Romay was to Jess Franco what Dianne Keaton/Mia Farrow (etc.) has been to Woody Allen and Brigitte Lahaie was to Jean Rollin, and here she takes principal role (Alice, the actress billed as “Candy Coster“) as an estate agent enjoying a beach holiday with her husband. He’s attempting to write a novel while Alice sunbathes hoping her boss won’t disturb her. But of course she quickly receives a phone call asking her to visit a nearby island to sell some property to a resident princess who’s interested in buying abroad (shades of Dracula). Reluctantly heading off to the remote island, and leaving the husband to his book, she’s somewhat perturbed to find the princess is the same woman who’s been haunting her dreams for weeks. It’s not quite clear whether Alice is kept prisoner but for a while she’s explicitly seduced by the princess and her servants before being found washed up on the beach by her husband. What she doesn’t realise is that her husband has been having similar visions and, quite intrigued by her possibly false story of being violated, he takes off without her to the island so he can see or experience for himself whether what she’s told him is the truth.

Aside from Romay’s seemingly perpetually naked body the main thing this film really has going for it seems to be Franco’s forte: its surreal dreamlike atmosphere supplemented with symbolic imagery that may or may not be randomly chosen. Franco didn’t have access to the greatest actors on the planet (though some of them aren’t too bad) so their often offbeat performances actually contribute to his strange visions in this case. Pacing is sombre, again a contributory factor to the mood’s overall effect while a large portion of the running time is filled with surprisingly explicit shots involving almost all of the cast; more surprising is the fact that the BBFC passed it uncut in Britain, presumably this being partly because they probably feel that a film such as this will attract the smallest of audiences over here and is of minimal ‘threat’ to public morality. Then again, I’m not exactly familiar with current attitude towards hardcore so perhaps Macumba Sexual isn’t as edgy as it once might have been. Like Mansion of the Living Dead, which is almost a companion piece to this film, there’s the feeling that the characters are in a lost universe, such is the feeling of seclusion, and this of course works in the story’s favour but whether the viewer can enjoy such a journey is purely dependent on his/her temperament on the day along with their tolerance for unusual slices of cinema. While the film is technically superior to much of Franco’s other work - cinematographer Juan Soler must surely take significant credit for this, plus the tribal soundtrack is acute - some will still look at this a piece of horse manure. I don’t personally think it’s a supreme work of art by any measure but there is something alluring about the film and its expedition through surreal, sexually charged territories.

Taking the new master created by Severin in the US as a source, Anchor Bay have a very good transfer on their hands here. As aforementioned the film is uncut, presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 aspect ratio with original Spanish audio (reportedly there was no English dub available anyway), sound options as Dolby Digital mono or a quite unnecessary 5.1. The twenty minutes or so of interview footage on the Severin disc is omitted but considering the low price of the boxed set that Macumba Sexual inhabits one can’t complain and Anchor Bay should receive some commendation for bringing obscurities to British soil, regardless of how many or how few people actually admire such work.

2004, US, Directed by Brad Bird

Animation, Running Time: 111 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Disney, Video: Anamorphic 2.40:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 EX

Like Tim Burton Brad Bird spent a small initiation period into the film world with Disney reportedly doing some work on The Fox and The Hound, and later on becoming consultant on such intuitive TV series as The Simpsons and King of the Hill. He established himself as a smart creative force in animation and this was compounded when he took up his feature-length directorial debut for Warner Bros., The Iron Giant, the enjoyably old fashioned animated tale of an alien robot that befriends an earthbound boy. Becoming mates with John Lasseter back in the California Arts Institute days it was probably destiny that they should end up working together under the Pixar banner at some point, thus eventually Lasseter asked Bird to come over and shake up the company’s well earned complacency a bit and The Incredibles was born. Executive produced by Lasseter, the film was written from ideas going back several years and directed by Bird (who also voices the fashion designer Edna), ultimately to possibly revive belief that Pixar are world leaders when it comes to 3D computer animation. Following an introduction where we learn that superheroes became victimised by the public years previously (people suing them for rescues that resulted in injuries, etc.; actually quite believable these days!) and pushed into hiding as ‘normal’ citizens, the story focuses on one particular family - the Parrs - who’ve taken up roles in society as any other average family might: getting jobs, rearing offspring, contributing to governmental wealth, etc. Father/husband Bob Parr is clearly unhappy with his mundane existence and yearns for the old days of ‘saving the world’ so much that he and old hero pal Frozone (think Ice Man) actually go out weekly wearing masks to save people from fires, etc. When Bob gets the opportunity to work as a real superhero - his old alter-ego Mr Incredible - for what appears to be a secret organisation he jumps at the chance. After being fired from his office job he’s able to slip out pretending to go to work without his wife catching on… for a while. But when he’s captured by an old nemesis (actually a pseudo boy hero who he snubbed years before) his wife is forced to take up her old role as Elastigirl to rescue him, along with the two children who’ve tagged along, themselves boasting some useful powers.

Watching The Incredibles you’re confronted with a relentless barrage of brilliant ideas, from the script’s dialogue to visual design to technical wizardry. The main concept is something that most working class people (with a brain) can relate to as they plod along maintaining a life of mediocrity with no means of escaping to something better. Bob Parr/Mr Incredible feels like this: he’s an exceptional person who’s been forced to retreat into a secret life of normality where standing out from the crowd is no longer a possibility thanks to the persecutions perpetrated by the narrow-minded public years before. His wife has been forced into the same retreat but she’s managed to accept her fate, probably as a result of producing offspring and having her maternal instincts satisfied, but each day she battles to prevent her children, genetically inclined towards super-heroism, from exhibiting their powers and using them to their (or anybody else’s) advantage. Thus most of the family are really in conflict with themselves, on one hand attempting to lead a life outlined as acceptable by others, on the other fighting to hold back talents that overwhelmingly threaten others in the sense that they might realise there’s someone else actually ‘better’ than they are (even though the heroes want to use their talents for the benefit of those that feel threatened). I suppose in some respects there are elements of The X Men in there as superhumans are forced into hiding, but where the film excels is in creating characters that we can identify with and, perhaps more importantly, sympathise with. I think this is where The Incredibles also helped to shake up Pixar a little - a relationship between the viewer and the characters is cemented much more so than their preceding film, though a commercial hit, Finding Nemo, plus the 2004 movie comes across as something less aimed at children specifically. While Pixar had managed to attain consistent quality they were in danger of falling into the same trap that Disney did - becoming formulaic and playing it safe (this probably not being helped by forming distribution partnerships with the granddaddy of feature film animation). In light of that, The Incredibles is just what Pixar needed. It’s worth pointing out also that the vocal providers on this film don’t seem to swamp the production with their larger than life personalities as they so often do on today’s bigger budget animation features - I remember seeing a poster for Shrek (if I remember correctly) years ago where the names of the primary actors were actually larger than the title of the film itself. On a technical level it goes without saying that the film is close to perfection, exhibiting animation qualities of a world class standard. The models are simple but attractive designs whilst the overall appearance suggests a stylistic yet realistic approach that works superbly on aesthetic as well as practical levels. Despite revolutionary 3D animation The Incredibles most importantly functions as a comedy, an introspective drama, an action movie, and a great story. Brad Bird’s already got an ego the size of Hollywood Hills but there’s no denying his innate brilliance as a film-maker.

Supplied on DVD with reference quality presentation you’ll enjoy a detailed, perfectly coloured image combined with amazingly aggressive sound guaranteed to give your home cinema system a workout while putting your friend’s smiles on the other side of their heads. There’s a fairly comprehensive array of extras including a couple of short films, one of which details the story of the Parr baby after the rest of his family head off to save Mr Incredible. Over an hour of documentary material gives good insight into the animation process without becoming boring whether you’re familiar with it or not, though I think I could only stand putting up working next to some of Pixar’s zany employees for a few hours without resorting to homicide or unemployment. One of the greatest animation films of all time receives fantastic treatment on DVD and should be picked up by just about anybody.

1985, US, Directed by Martin Scorsese

Colour, Running Time: 96 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Warner, Video: Anamorphic 1.78:1, Audio: Mono

Simply put, After Hours focuses on one man’s night of pure bad luck. The fantastic Griffin Dunne (American Werewolf…) plays New Yorker Paul Hackett, someone who leads the most ordinary, mundane life imaginable. One night after work he’s wasting some time in a café reading a book when one sultry Marcy Franklin (Rosanna Arquette in her peak) gets chatting to him and ends up giving him a number where she can effectively be contacted (through a friend who sells paperweights). Later on (after eleven in fact) he decides to give her a ring and ends up catching a taxi downtown to Soho where she and her friend are. What he finds is a disturbed person with layers of complexity beneath an attractive exterior, too much to deal with for a guy who’s essentially interested in a quick fling. So he makes a rapid exit hoping to find his way home despite losing his taxi money on the way over. Thus begins a string of one mishap after another with the totally strange inhabitants of the darker side of Manhattan, a place seemingly populated by lonely characters who have become wrapped up in the idiosyncrasies of there own little microcosms without actually realising what they’ve become. His situation escalates to a point where there’s a vigilante mob out for his blood based on flimsy evidence that the stranger is guilty of a string of robberies in the area. The night brings about a wake-up call to a man whose life appeared, up until that point, to be eventless in the extreme.

The producer team, which included Griffin Dunne himself alongside Amy Robinson, were actually in talks with Tim Burton to shoot After Hours (then a script called Lies by newcomer Joseph Minion) when it was announced that the filming of Last Temptation of Christ had fallen apart. A distraught Scorsese, who had already seen the script prior to Burton’s involvement but was already wrapped up with Last Temptation… at the time, showed great interest in taking on a much smaller project and Burton obligingly stepped aside. Whilst I admire some of Burton’s very visual work I believe this was the best thing for the film because, having a great understanding of film mechanics, Scorsese was able to bring a clinical accuracy to the shooting of the movie, capturing brief but meaningful reactions in addition to facilitating perfect execution of lines that help to characterise in beautifully subtle manner the inhabitants of the weird dimension that Hackett finds himself trapped within. Both the editing and acting on the part of most of the participants exhibit an intuitive sense of timing, ensuring that the comic elements are funny even over repeat viewings. Dunne’s performance in particular is so acutely excellent it surely must be his career best. Paul Hackett is a man that most people should be able to identify with and Dunne warms you to the character with skill, his increasingly frantic reactions being realistic whilst retaining an awareness of comedy that keeps the material purely in the entertainment category without becoming too dramatic or dark. Returning along with much of the crew from Baby It’s You, Rosanna Arquette captures the unpredictable nuances of her screwed up character; why she’s screwed up we’re not entirely sure: she at one point suggests that she was raped but then tells Hackett that it was actually her boyfriend and she slept through much of it anyway, then there’s the ambiguous burns issue, plus her marriage that apparently only lasted three days (to a man who was obsessed with Wizard of Oz). All of these points help to build up a mystery feeding the paranoia that Hackett is swept up in. There are threads of plot that initially seem to have little relevance but ultimately wind up influencing the outcome of events significantly, the most important being the spate of burglaries that Hackett is unconcerned with but later blamed for thanks to him being in the wrong place at the wrong time and meeting the wrong people. These plot strands are entangled together with great imagination and much of the credit for that must go to Joseph Minion, who has since hardly been prolific unfortunately. Though it may partly have been the result of the recognition that might arise from having worked with Martin Scorsese, German Cinematographer Michael Ballhaus had his American career kick-started by his work on this film, later going on work on many of his director’s subsequent films as well as more commercial fare such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Air Force One, Outbreak, etc. The lighting on After Hours is notable for the fact that the team shot at night to authenticate the atmosphere, these conditions bringing about the freedom that would enable Ballhaus to much more so control what was actually being captured to film. These nocturnal working hours also of course aided the actors in realising their characters’ behavioural patterns. Finally, Howard Shore proved even at this early stage that he’s one of the best composers working in Hollywood with a score that perfectly complements the lonely Hopper-esque world that Hackett saunters (and sometimes runs) through, speaking of which, some of the settings on offer here really did remind me of the barren worlds that Edward Hopper painted - obviously the most notable being the empty café that Hackett finds himself in on several occasions, ala Nighthawks. The team’s chosen locations - the darker, quieter side streets of New York - really embellish the increasingly frightening atmosphere. For me After Hours is the ultimate black comedy and remains one of the few viewing experiences to induce similar delight to what I might have experienced ten or fifteen years ago watching a favourite movie.

Once available as part of a boxed set in the UK or by itself in the US, I’m real glad Warner put this out - the image looks amazing (though at 1.78:1 not quite correctly framed) while the audio reflects the fact that it was recorded and mixed in the mid-eighties (and on a small budget). We get an 18 minute retrospective featurette mostly featuring Griffin Dunne and Amy Robinson plus a few snippets from Scorsese himself, it’s nevertheless quite informative. There are 8 minutes of deleted scenes: generally it’s understandable why these would have been removed but there are one or two smiles to be had even here. The first rough cut ran excessively long at 2 hours 40 minutes so there’s probably a lot more footage lying around somewhere; not referring to a desire to see an ‘extended cut’ in any way - the film’s just about perfect as it is - but they’d make nice extras some day. Featuring a lot more input from the director there is also a commentary that only covers around 78 minutes of the film and is oddly included as a separate entity rather than with the main feature itself. Still, it’s a welcome addition and again very informative. Treasure something like After Hours for it’s not often we see something this simultaneously smart and funny.

1999, US/France/Spain, Directed by Roman Polanski

Colour, Running Time: 128 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Universal, Video: Anamorphic 2.35:1, Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

Whilst not considered a genre director, Polanski has visited horror and the supernatural on a number of occasions, bringing several brilliant excursions to the screen in the process. The first of these was the vivid exercise in mental deterioration and paranoia resulting in murder, Repulsion, still a powerful piece with an amazing central performance by Catherine Deneuve. This was followed by the Hammer homage/parody, Dance of the Vampires (on DVD as The Fearless Vampire Killers, its American title), something which is often misunderstood, possibly because it both was ahead of its time and possessed an unusual sense of humour that wriggles over most heads. Incorporating lovably offbeat performances (no stranger to acting, Polanski himself played one of the main roles) while creating a tangible atmosphere in its gothic trappings and hinting at apocalypse for the conclusion, Dance… works well for me. Then came the iconic Rosemary’s Baby, a perfectly ambiguous tale of possible satanic impregnation (the build-up to the birth of the Devil’s child), mistrust and delirium. After the horrendous violence of his version of Macbeth, there came the lesser known but quite superb Le Locataire (or The Tenant) in the mid seventies, where Polanski successfully took centre stage as the main character who undergoes psychological disintegration as he suspects his neighbours drove the previous occupant of his apartment to attempt suicide and are now doing the same to him. The spiralling madness of this film is superbly orchestrated and it’s a pity that it is not more widely acclaimed. 

Two decades later there was The Ninth Gate, a slow paced, deliberate supernatural detective movie condemned by many on its release and, much like the director himself has sometimes been, generally misunderstood. Taking the book El Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte as the source of inspiration, John Brownjohn, Enrique Urbizu, and Polanski removed entirely a secondary plot about a lost chapter to The Three Musketeers to focus their screenplay on the pursuit of a book containing an incantation to summon Satan - they wisely re-titled the film to reflect this shift in focus thereby openly acknowledging that the film was never going to be a 100% literal adaptation. Polanski’s first choice for the book detective Dean Corso was Johnny Depp, and Depp obliged by jumping on board and making the role his own in an understated performance that lends Corso a bit of mystery, his life outside of book obsession given little attention. Different to how the director originally envisaged Corso, Depp’s work here nevertheless pleased Polanski and functions nicely. Corso is hired by Boris Balkan, an authoritative Frank Langella, to track down several other copies of a rare occult book that Balkan has in his collection, an attempt to authenticate one of them and thus provide him with the means of granting manifestation to the Devil. Accepting a large paycheque Corso heads off to Europe to take a closer look at the few remaining copies, but he quickly realises that he’s not the only one interested in the book as several strange people seem to be on his tail. The plot also deepens as Corso’s analyses reveal that it may not be one book that is completely authentic, but a combination of all three, and Balkan will seemingly pay any price to carry out his ritual. Quite why The Ninth Gate seemed to attract a few bad reviews I’m not really sure, but I find the story, dialogue, and character interactions to be particularly gripping, the film appropriately constructing a world that evokes supernatural ambience without overtly indicating that such manifestations are definitely possible, the ambiguity of which being something that arises out of Polanski‘s personal disinterest in the Devil‘s existence, this paradoxically enhancing the supernatural material that he has worked on. Polanksi’s wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, looks at home in the role of a woman who herself may be a physical embodiment of Satan, with her strikingly European face and strong presence, and in supporting capacity there is Swedish-born Lena Olin as Liana Telfer, an incredibly sexy older woman who also seems to have a fanatical interest in the book that Balkan purchased off her husband the day before he killed himself. The score written by Wojciech Kilar really adds meat to the strange world we inhabit with the characters, sometimes quirky, occasionally creepy but always hinting at something unexplainable co-existing with humanity. This was the same man who provided the sweepingly powerful score to Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the early 90s, though he generally tends to work in Polish cinema. Conveying a prominent love of books as both a physical entity and carrier of knowledge, Polanski’s film takes us on an adventure with its protagonist into the delights (or tortures) of the beckoning unknown.

Universal’s now quite old DVD presents the film correctly in (anamorphic) 2.35:1 and looks quite good, more so in exterior shots, however there is quite a lot of grain and dot crawl during darker sequences. An erring towards almost sepia-tinged interior photography does not lend itself well to chromatic vibrancy and a HD upgrade would be welcome, but overall the transfer here is not too bad. The Dolby track doesn’t possess much ‘oomph’ but is suitable enough for the wonderful music and otherwise mostly vocally driven soundtrack. Aside from stills, drawings and a hopeless promotional featurette (running a whopping two minutes in length), there are the worthwhile inclusions of a slow-talking Polanski commentary, and an isolated music track giving us the chance to enjoy Kilar’s score without sound effects and character dialogue. Settle back for a slightly old fashioned but carefully constructed voyage through a world of the subtle uncanny towards an indiscernible destination.

1986, US, Directed by Buddy Giovinazzo

Colour, Running Time: 91 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Troma, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Mono

Troma have been known for many ridiculous films along their career in film production and pick-ups (Tromeo & Juliet, Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell, Surf Nazis Must Die, etc., etc. - do you need to see those films to understand my point?) but Giovinazzo’s debut (originally titled American Nightmare) stands out for a couple of reasons, firstly because it’s quite a serious entry but most notably because it’s impact is like a rather nasty bullet to the head. Following an overly long introduction where we learn that Frankie Dunlan did his time in the Vietnam conflict, coming out of it much worse for wear, the story essentially tracks his subsequent days trying to gather the pieces of his shattered life back together. He spends most of his time roaming around the drug-laced streets jobless and hopeless, going back to a home where his recently born son is deformed and perpetually ill while his wife complains about the deteriorating situation. Considering how low his life has become, Frankie is a reasonable person and is determined to stay on the good path despite all odds being against him, but his addict friend points out there’s only one way to survive and that’s through crime, plus his dying father won‘t or can‘t financially assist him. Meanwhile, also roaming the streets are some small time moneylenders from whom Frankie has borrowed in the past - a couple of scrapes with them and Frankie is left badly beaten. When he realises that there’s a gun in the bag of a woman who he mugged earlier (who in turn stole it from Frankie’s friend, who had himself thieved it) he decides to use it and from there on his fate is set to substantially change.

There is no light in this film; it starts off in jungles of Vietnam and moves to the urban jungle which Frankie finds to be his new prison. His life is a turmoil of negativity and social disintegration, a pit from which he can see no hope. Surrounding him are the many dysfunctional characters that are themselves embroiled in the nightmare that humanity is unfortunately capable of creating for itself - it seems unbelievable that a species that supposedly has voluntary control over its destiny will sometimes construct an undesirable world around itself but it happens. These characters are sometimes barely aware, almost oblivious to their enveloping cesspit, while sometimes they can recognise the problem but are impotent in response to it - his incessantly nagging wife being one person who fits into the latter category. The unseen birth of Frankie’s child has not aided him in his soul-destroying existence: it persistently wails in an inhuman fashion, can barely ingest food (not that there’s much of it to try - the cupboards are empty), is physically abhorrent and clearly in constant distress. The thing reminds you of the baby in Lynch’s Eraserhead and, apart from the odd special effect that permits it life, is quite a distressing entity. People in Frankie’s town queue up at the job centre and arrive to very little choice, while just down the road a pimp is presenting children for prostitution. Characters are appropriately represented onscreen by non-professionals, though I do often warm to this style of natural acting as it makes a change from Hollywood‘s egotistical and overblown attempts at verisimilitude. Giovinazzo’s world is horrific and the movie’s conclusion will never be forgotten. If you want to put any pitiful problems into perspective, watch Combat Shock.

On the disc are a couple of extras that are quite cool to own - a commentary track from the director (German gore master Jorg Buttgereit also making an aural appearance), plus some interview footage with Giovinazzo and Troma mainman Lloyd Kaufman. There are a few bonuses unrelated to the feature, such as trailers for other Troma movies that’ll give you an idea of whether the studio’s output is for you or not. Some of this stuff can be quite fun to rummage through if you go off wandering with your remote handy and a spare hour: the quiz is great fun - answer wrong and you get a scene of gore or violence from one of the company’s films, guess right and you’re shown a scene of female nudity; either way it‘s a laugh. I also found a ten minute interview with Dario Argento about Stendhal Syndrome - talk about random! Anyway, after years of being vaguely available in a version heavily cut by the MPAA, Troma finally released this Combat Shock DVD with all of its previously excised footage as a ‘director’s cut’ and given the fact that the transfer (taken from its 16mm origins) is the best one can imagine it to be, this must be considered the definitive release. As an anti-war comment or an insight into the depths to which humans are able to stoop as well as poverty in the modern era, Combat Shock makes its points in abundance - just don’t expect to come out smiling.

1948, US, Directed by Charles T Barton

Black & White, Running Time: 79 minutes

DVD, Region 2, Universal, Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Mono

Several years after the conclusion to Universal’s domination of the horror genre, and their effective delineation of the very definition it could be argued, they were clearly out of ideas so the merging of two successful franchises seemed like sure success. It had already worked to some extent for one of the very franchises they were now attempting to grant new life to - the amalgamation of several of their famous monsters had prolonged the lifespan of said monsters with such films as Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman and House of Dracula. Despite some general critical dislike of such films I personally really enjoy them, almost as much as their real classics from the previous decade in fact. So, completely unable to inject any imagination into fright films Universal bring in Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to add their renowned comedic touch to drag out the classic monster series just a little bit further. So how did it go? Abbott and Costello play Chick (that’s a man’s name in America apparently) and Wilbur respectively, two bungling baggage clerks who are assigned to personally overseeing the delivery of two crates ostensibly containing the remains of both Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula to a wax museum. Once inside the museum basement Chick assigns Wilbur to various menial tasks while he attends to things nearby, at which point Stoker’s infamous vampire awakens - much to Chick’s discontent. Dracula manages to revive the monster (in a rather silly way, reminding me of the most uninspired scene from Living Dead at Manchester Morgue) before heading off into the dark. Implicated for the loss of the crates’ contents Wilbur and Chick find themselves in jail and under scrutiny in an insurance investigation while Dracula seeks help from a couple of scientists to insert a new brain into the monster for its obedient slavery: ultimate purpose undisclosed.

Wrapped up in the story are a number of characters, all with distinct motivations - a female insurance investigator who woos Wilbur to get to the bottom of the case, a female doctor who woos Wilbur so she can get his docile brain inside the monster, the guy who owns the crates and wants his creatures back, etc.; this labyrinth of activity nicely provides some weight to the overall scenario. A&B’s antics kick off almost immediately with some Laurel and Hardy-like shenanigans and this early scene barely raises a smile. But during the following act where they drop off the crates to the museum’s storage area, the edges of your mouth being to force their way upwards - the repeatedly opening coffin resulting in Wilbur’s hysterical panic can’t help but come across as downright funny. They get so much mileage out of this it’s crazy that it actually works, but it does. The laboratory is on an island by itself and is a truly glorious Universal horror setting, surprisingly invoking some atmosphere and the sort of place it would be cool to have a wander around. What effectively happens is a workable collision between the two aforementioned franchises because it really seems like Abbott and Costello have accidentally sauntered into Universal’s realm of the supernatural, completely at odds with each other but having the intended impact nonetheless. I still don’t like the wolfman’s impotent scenes and Chaney, with his relentlessly doom-laden approach, doesn’t seem to realise his hairy character is being taken the piss out of, but aside from that I found myself having a great time watching this film far more than expected. The big question for fans of the Universal classics - and one I feel qualified to answer - is, does this movie ruin the studios more serious outings in what may appear to be a lack of respect for them? Personally I still feel able to go back and indulge those chillers any time so I don’t think there’s any damage done; possibly the contrary may be true.

…Meet Frankenstein is packaged on DVD with the way inferior …Meet The Mummy, which followed six years later and unsuccessfully attempted to approximate the preceding film’s formula - a largely different team were behind the production (though John Grant returned to take sole credit for writing the screenplay) so it’s no surprise the overall impact differs, specifically being diminished. The later film consists mostly of people running around the sets like fools and rarely looking at things they should be looking at in order to get a rise out of the audience, but it tends not to work. Because it’s bundled with a much better film the buy is not so bad, and both looking pretty good considering age it’s a nice little set to have in one’s collection.

1967, Canada, Directed by David Cronenberg

Black & White, Running Time: 63 minutes

DVD, Region 1, Blue Underground, Video: Anamorphic 1.66:1, Audio: Mono

It’s generally considered that Cronenberg tends to wander between moderately commercial products (e.g. History of Violence, Dead Zone) and less commercial, more personal outings (e.g. Crash, Dead Ringers), sometimes blurring the boundaries as bigger names such as Ralph Fiennes become attached to ideas that would otherwise leave the general public completely cold, such as Spider. To really put his less commercial outings into perspective, however, one only need take a look at his very early work and the likes of Rabid and Naked Lunch suddenly become comparatively more approachable. Going way back to the late sixties we find that Stereo is undoubtedly a unique experience but not necessarily an enjoyable one: opening with a shot over two large hostile-looking stone buildings a helicopter drifts into view before letting off someone who oddly dresses himself almost as if he is a wizard. As the strange man attempts to find a way into the inaccessible structures a narrator articulately tells us about an experiment taking place within, something designed to investigate telepathic powers in a selected group of willing participants. Inside, the volunteers (all dressed in tights) wander the corridors occasionally interacting with each other, physically as well as on a telepathic level presumably, if the words of the narrator are anything to go by. Gradually they lose touch with the reality outside the premises that we never truly see.

The camerawork is quite engaging, adopting a personal perspective on many occasions as we wander through the barren corridors with the completely odd inhabitants of the institute. Use of slow motion, while quite clichéd in the likes of action movies, etc., is highly perceptive on Cronenberg’s part here and indicative of the talent that was later to embed itself into cinema history forever. The film plays almost silent - there are no sound effects and there is no music. The only things we ever hear are the voices of varying narrators explaining the intricate details of the scientific studies taking place in telepathic communication. The dialogue here is excessively intellectual but, while initially it may occur to the viewer that this is pretentiousness for the sake of ego, the relentless nature of the suffocating and informed depth of the words ultimately results in the appearance of authenticity, facilitating belief in the subject matter - this latter aspect comes about for the simple reason that it’s hard to imagine a subject being treated with such academic intelligence if there is absolutely no foundation in truth. There are some interesting points made amongst the concentration-stretching passages, for example the gradual introduction of the sexual relations between volunteers combined with the suggestion that such relations facilitate the telepathic connection brings to my mind the possibility that cerebral evolutionary development (which the narrators indicate is the consequential factor of man’s continued existence) is something designed purely to improve the reproductive chances of affected organisms, and therefore the genes within. Listening to this film is really as close as I can imagine to reading a textbook in parapsychology, the problem being that there are few such books that can be any fun to scour through and the film therefore becomes an extremely arduous task to sit through. That’s not to say there’s anything bad about Cronenberg’s debut, but the balance between scientific, philosophical detail and cinematic approachability that the director would later achieve is clearly a long way off being established here.

Blue Underground present Stereo looking superb considering its mega-low budget origins and age - there are celluloid flaws that are unlikely ever to be eliminated from the source. A pillarboxed 1.66:1 ratio takes advantage of anamorphic enhancement for a small but appreciated boost in resolution while audio is well represented, though it only has voices and silence to contend with - this is one instance where any kind of surround track would truly be a waste of bit space. What would have been very welcome is a commentary from the director, if only to decipher some of the film’s occurrences while explaining some of the thought processes involving in realising such a cinematic oddity, but perhaps having things left to our own personal delineation can prove to be a challenging experience (and therefore a deterrent for the majority no doubt). Considering the fact that this is included in a package with Fast Company and Crimes of the Future, this is a superb buy.