Digging Up The Marrow

Release Date: OUT NOW!

2001 | 15 | Dual- format Blu- ray/ DVD Director: Takashi Miike Cast: Kenji Sawada, Keiko Matsuzaka, Shinji Takeda, Naomi Nishida, Kiyoshirô Imawano, Tetsurô Tanba

To cult film

fans in the west, the revelation that Takashi Miike ( Ichi The Killer) once directed a musical is like learning that Tarantino’s directing the next Smurfs movie.

Nevertheless it happened. And while The Happiness Of The Katakuris certainly has its weird and dark moments at heart it’s a very trad musical. A burst of “The hills are alive…” would not feel out of place.

The dysfunctional Katakuris buy a guest house in the mountains. Unfortunately all their guests keep dying. Seeing as this might not be good publicity for the place, instead of informing the police, they bury the bodies.

In one sense there is no fantasy element here. However, the musical sequences are often surreal, plus the film randomly leaps into bizarre, gothic stopmotion animation sequences that are mini masterpieces in themselves. It also features the best dancing zombies since “Thriller”. It’s all delightfully odd and yet has a truly endearing, heartwarming element to it too.

This is the first time the film’s been available on Blu- ray, and it looks superb. There’s a Miike commentary, another by a film critic, and a Miike “visual essay” by the same guy. You also get an hour- long Making Of, a brief featurette on the claymation sequences, cast and crew interviews, trailers and specially commissioned booklet. Dave Golder Star Kenji Sawada, once lead singer of a band called The Tigers, is a huge Julie Andrews fan.

Release Date: OUT NOW!

2014 | 15 | DVD

Do you like

Adam Green’s face? You do? Good, because about 78% of this mockumentary is the Hatchet director looking confused to camera.

Green plays himself, the director of numerous indie shockers. He meets a supposed former detective ( Ray Wise) who claims he’s found a portal to the Marrow – a realm with real monsters. Intrigued, he decides to shoot a film. The result is a playful cross between Nightbreed and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Despite endless promotion for other Green productions, Marrow is flimsy fun – if not actually creepy. There are ironic jabs at the found- footage genre, a few amusing cameos from the likes of Kane “Jason” Hodder, and Wise is always watchable.

Deleted scene, behindthe- scenes feature. Will Salmon