THE REVEREND’S REVIEW
FT’s resident man of the cloth REVEREND PETER LAWS dons his dog collar and faces the flicks that Church forgot!
From the duelling skeletons of Ray Harryhausen to the cheese perversions of Wallace and Gromit, stop motion effects always creep me out. Now, effects legend Phil Tippet has made the most nightmarish stop motion film known to science. Mad God (streaming on Shudder) sees a lone figure descend into a disturbing abyss of cruel machines, sickening creatures, and graphic violence. It’s a savage work of dystopian art and shows that, even at 70, Tippet has lost none of his art school rage.
You might say the same for heavy metal art collective Gwar, still on the road after 30 years of excess, famous for their massive demon outfits, which spurt bodily fluids onto their rabid fans at gigs. You’ll catch every drop in a new documentary, This is Gwar!
(streaming on Shudder) It’s a disgusting and hilarious riot. Surprisingly moving, too. Gwar were close to fame and fortune, but never quite made it; but the stories they tell are legendary.
Moloch (streaming on Shudder) sounds like a member of Gwar. It’s actually a Dutch folk horror about a peat bog “unleashing ancient evil”. Don’t they all? The story plods a bit and it’s hardly ground-breaking, but there’s a spooky ending and a pleasingly gloomy vibe that might just get under your skin.
If you’d rather get your skin completely sliced off, then try the UHD release of Tenebrae
(Arow Video, £34.99), one of Dario Argento’s best. An American crime author tours
Rome – but have his tales inspired a real, whispering serial killer? It’s a wonderfully deranged film, with a first-rate score and fabulous set pieces; not least the one in which Veronica Lario (future wife of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi) has her arm chopped off in one of the most audacious gore scenes ever. So much 4K blood.
Looking even more pristine is the UHD release of The VVitch (Second Sight, £49.99), about a banished Puritan family living by a witchinfested wood. Robert Eggers offers a scary and elegant reminder that spirituality is supposed to enhance, not suppress, your life.
Hell High (Arrow Video, £17.99) is a slasher movie about how teachers should deal with stress. If your class bullies you: kill ‘em. The genre was out of steam by 1989, so the film sank on release, and reviews called it a “routine slasherthriller”. It’s not. It lacks the slasher focus on kill count and violence, but the positives are considerable: an effective story, believable characters, and decent performances.
Room for one more? How about Moonfall (Lionsgate, £24.99), where an unstable Moon triggers catastrophe. The US want to nuke the thing but a “nerdy science guy who loves his mum” says the Moon is a giant alien machine. Director Roland Emmerich has made plenty of mindlessly fun disaster films in the past, but this one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. The pacing is bizarre, the most mundane locations green screened and the characters unlikeable. Put it this way, I wanted the Moon to kill everybody... even me.
Massive demon outfits spurt bodily fluids onto their rabid fans at gigs