MOVIE DUNGEON

Kim on the latest DTV must-sees

Caroline Labrèche and Steeve Léonard’s RADIUS is an ingenious science-fiction suspense film. Amnesiac (Liam) Diego Klattenhoff discovers any living thing which comes within 50 yards of him drops dead (with eerie whitened eyes) — though the equally amnesiac Jane (Charlotte Sullivan) is immune to him. The Twilight Zone-ish idea is embraced with rigour — with the eerie opening of Klattenhoff walking through a silent small town whose whole population has dropped dead, leading to a satisfyingly complicated set of mysteries.

This month’s zombie apocalypse comes in Colin Minihan’s IT STAINS THE SANDS RED, which offers an unlikely odd couple in fleeing-fromvegas exotic dancer-cum-gangster’s trophy girlfriend Brittany Allen and besuited, slow-walking, flesh-lusting ghoul Juan Riedinger. It’s an episodic tale, mixing absurdist comedy and fall-of-civilisation horror, with a terrific widescreen look and excellent work from the two stars, who go through the desert action in woefully inappropriate costume and eventually sell the notion that the instinct-driven but reliable dead guy makes a better partner than any of the living clods in the heroine’s life.

While you were making tea, Nicolas Cage starred in two more films. In 211 he’s a cop on the verge of retirement/ grandfatherhood who has a bad day when mercs stage an assault on the local bank. In LOOKING GLASS he’s the new owner of a seedy motel which has a surveillance system he can’t resist using to peep on creepy guests, getting drawn into a dangerous mystery. Neither offers the full-on Caginess of Mom And Dad or Mandy, but we salute the star for never failing to commit to even the most middling effort. If forced to choose, go with Tim Hunter’s noirish Looking Glass over the shot-in-bulgaria-pretending-to-be-america 211.