Inferno Bluray review

Dario Argento's Inferno(1980) is the follow up to his masterpiece of terror, Suspiria(1977) and the second of the Three mother's trilogy which was completed by 2007's Mother of Tears.

It stands up as one of the most beautifully shot horror's ever with each scene set up to showcase Argento's love of colour and all things fantastic.

A young woman, Rose buys a book called the Three Mothers and believes that the building she resides in is home to one of the witches in the book and she starts to get a bit freaked out. So she sends a letter to her brother, Mark who is studying music in Rome. Mark's friend reads the letter and get's murdered. By the time he gets to New York Rose is already dead. He meets plenty of people who die along the way as he tries to find out what happened to his sister.

The whole movie is an absolute joy to watch. Argento's use of colour is as evident in this as it was in the spectacular Suspiria and watching this in full HD will probably blind some retinas out there, but damn it it's worth it.

There are some amazing scene's throughout, most of all is the infamous underwater scene in which Rose has to rescue her keys from a submerged room which, being an Argento movie, is home to some nasty surprises.

My favourite scene though is when our hero Mark meets one of the Mother's in a mirror. Argento was given a helping hand on this scene and a few others by legendary Italian horror director Mario Bava , a man who knows how to give a movie the wow factor and is responsible for influencing Ridley Scott's vision of Alien and also providing the blueprint of the modern slasher movie, Friday the 13th was basically a remake of Bava's Bay of blood.

The music is also amazing with Keith Emerson providing some rock opera style keyboards to compliment the violence and give the music a different feel to Argento's other movies which usually contained Euro rock pop group Goblin.

There is no letting up on the violence either with some graphic and painful deaths leaving the screen full of the red stuff in glorious HD!!

The HD transfer on this Bluray is very impressive. There are some scenes where the grain is still evident but for the most of the film the picture quality is crystal clear.

Another plus for this movie is that it is presented fully uncut for the first time over these neck of the woods so finally there is no need to order imported copies.

The final word has to go to Arrow Films who are responsible for this release. Without doubt there is no other company putting as much care and attention into their releases as they are. And it's not just Inferno. Their editions of Dawn and Day of the dead are second to none and they are about to unleash the likes of Battle Royale, Deep Red and Demons 1 and 2.

So what is making Arrow's releases so special? Well brand new artwork with the option of 4 reversible covers, posters, cards, inserts by various journalists/authors and with Day of the Dead and Demons exclusive comics created for the releases.

Inferno is no exception although the new artwork is not really representative of Argento's work being a bit sleazy. It does include 4 covers, 6 postcards, double sided poster, brand new insert by Alan Jones.

There is one bluray disc including an intro by Daria Nicolodi, Dario's Inferno, Acting in hot water, An interview with Nicolodi, Feature on the unofficial sequel 'The black cat' with Luigi Cozzi and a Q and A with star Irene Miracle and Keith Emerson.

The dvd features Argento and Lamberta Bava(son of Mario) on Inferno, Dario Argento 'An eye for horror', Mark Kermode's doc on Argento, A complete Argento trailer gallery

See what I mean!

This is the best Inferno has ever looked. The whole packaging of this movie is outstanding and I cannot praise this enough.

My only complaint is that I have yet to see this grace any shelf in any store in Ireland and had to order this from www.Play.com no doubt Mr New Censor hasn't bothered his bollox to watch this yet and grant it an Irish cert or maybe a cat eating a mouse has horrified him and has banned it in case some cats start eating mice over here. Imagine that, oh the horror of it all.

Gore 8/10

Scares 8/10

Overall 9/10

Extras 10/10

Halloween 2(2009) Review

After my disappointment with Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween I vowed never to spend hard earned cash on any follow up unless it amounted to maybe 2 euro. I stuck with this and eventually got to watch this on Sky.

Before I start the rant I have to say I am a huge fan of Zombies first two movies, House of a 1000 corpses and the sequel, The Devil's rejects. For me they embodied everything Rob Zombie is about. What came across in them most is that this guy is a true horror film fan. He know's what's gonna get gorehounds excited. With Captain Spaulding and the rest of the family he created characters that will grace t-shirts for many years to come.

So why was his Halloween so bad(In my opinion, of course). He took a classic and diluted it into an MTV style slasher.

My main problem with it was the whole back story of how Michael turned into the killer.

That, my friends, is what made the original scary.

In Carpenter's movie Michael is just a kid who snaps and kills his sister, doesn't speak a word for years and then goes on a murderous rampage. No motivation, nothing, just that he is the embodiment of pure evil.

Showing this 'poor white trash' background, drunk abusive stepdad and various bullying being the springboard for Michael's bloodlust is taking all mystery out of the equation.

My other gripe was the mask. The original features a ghostly white, expressionless face. We have one quick glimpse of adult Michael's face in one scene so to the audience Michael is the little kid at the start. It's a scary thought.

Zombie, to be fair tried to be accurate with Michael hiding his mask under the floor hence the 'beat up' look. But it doesn't give the creeps like the originals.

Enough about that, onto the sequel..

So the day before Halloween I sat down and watched it, forgetting the bad reviews I read about this follow up.

This movie is basically a direct follow on to the first movie, set a year after the event it follows Laurie Strode(Scout Taylor Compton) who is Michael's sister. She is living with Sheriff Lee Bracket(Brad Dourif) and his daughter Annie(Dannielle Harris) who was brutally attacked in the first movie. Michael is skulking around like a hobo waiting for the word from his dead mom and her horse.

Yes, his dead mom(Sheri Moon Zombie) and a white horse are guiding Michael in his latest quest for blood. Ridiculous as it may sound it is a mystery why we need to be subjected to this. Zombie is basically spelling it out to us why Michael wants his sister dead(so they can be a family again!). Come on for fuck sake lads! Also if that wasn't bad enough, his mom and horse are joined by young Michael. Adult Michael is being guided by(and in one scene helped by) the ghost of himself when he was younger.

There is also a hilarious scene when Laurie(who is constantly having visions of killings and other horrible things) sees her shrink(Superman's Margot Kidder) who attempts to give her patient more sleepless nights. Laurie explains the visions and states that she knows Michael Myers is dead but Kidder puts a seed of doubt in her head by saying he might still be out there coz they didn't find the body!!! Who needs enemies!

Also, Michael spend half of the movie without his mask and then gets half of the mask ripped off so the image of Myers is not really gonna give you sleepless nights.

Gripes aside Halloween 2 could have been a pretty decent horror movie as there are plenty of good things.

Firstly the gore is fantastic and very graphic. There are multiple stabbings that seem to go on a little too far, which adds to the brutality of the act. There are some really graphic murders and scenes that will get the gorehounds salivating.

Secondly Zombie has a gift when it comes to filmmaking. This movie is no exception in that it is looks fantastic.

There are some great performances in it. Brad Dourif is excellent as the sheriff and both Taylor-Compton and Harris(who is a surviver from the original series) are pretty good as hysterical teenagers! Even Malcom McDowell is very believable as the horrible character of Sam Loomis.

So after seeing it would I be tempted to spend money on it? Maybe! If the director's cut omitted all the 'dead mom' footage this would be a pretty decent and violent movie worthy to sit along side Zombie's first two films but somehow I doubt the director's cut is like this.

In conclusion I enjoyed this movie much more than it's predecessor but it has quite a few flaws that bugged the hell out of me.

Score:

Gore 8/10

Scares 2/10

Nastiness 7/10

Overall 5/10 Without the 'mom & horse' 8/10