Troll Bridge (2019)

Cohen the Barbarian was angry. Angry that he never died in battle, angry that the world had forgotten him, and angry that his knees were starting to play up in the cold.

He was also angry that his faithful mount had been gifted the ability of magical speech. The horse was insisting that they had made a wrong turn back at Slice. 

He was also angry that the horse was probably right.

This was not how it was supposed to end for the barbarian. This was not how the Discworld’s greatest hero imagined it at all.

Based upon the short short Troll Bridge, from A Blink of The Screen, the half-hour short film is a love-letter to Terry Pratchett and Discworld.

Eragon (2006)

In a magical world where dragons are the suppressed symbol of a better age, why does no one spot that the name of a simple farm boy (Ed Speleers) is simply "dragon" with the first letter bumped to the next in the alphabet: Eragon?

It also manages to sound as close as possible to Aragorn (the most famous of fantasy heroes?) without risking a lawsuit from the Tolkien Estate.

Although I'd imagine it would be the Lucasfilm lawyers knocking at the door first as the script is pretty much a reskinning of Star Wars with Eragon as Luke, Brom (Jeremy Irons) as Obi-Wan, Uncle Garrow (Alun Armstrong) as Uncle Owen, the evil king Galbatorix (John Malkovich) and his wizard Durza (Robert Carlyse) as The Emperor and Vader, the captured Princess Arya (Sienna Guillory) as Leia, the rebel Varden as... well, The Rebels; I think you get the picture by now!

Even the supernatural power of The Force is personified by Eragon's CGI dragon Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz) - and Eragon's innate dragon-magic (plot-wise, Saphira also doubles as the Millennium Falcon and the plans to the Death Star!)

There are places where some of the less abysmal dialogue and scenes feel like they are lifted directly from George Lucas' Original Trilogy, with just a few minor tweaks - from magic that "flows through" and "unites" a dragon and its rider to Durza killing an unsuccessful 'boss' minion then promoting one its colleagues into its place.

As there is no Han Solo analogue in the movie at this stage (don't worry, Garrett Hedlund's roguish Murtagh - who has a very Star Wars-y secret of his own - reveals himself a short time later), Durza tortures the Princess to send a 'false' telepathic 'distress call' to trick Eragon into facing him - think Vader on Cloud City in The Empire Strikes Back - even though Brom (now in Yoda mode) tells the young farm boy he's not yet ready to face Durza.

And when Eragon busts the Princess out of the Death Star holding cell... er... Durza's castle, naturally Obi-Brom has to give his life so that the others can escape (although his death scene is more drawn out).

Not only is Eragon unoriginal, it is badly written (for instance, about half an hour in, Jeremy Irons makes an expositional speech that repeats the useful infodump delivered in the movie's stilted voice-over introduction) and the acting ranges from scene-chewingly hammy (by the established names in the cast - collecting their pay cheques and getting out as soon as possible) to simply bad (by everyone else, particularly from young Eragon himself).

Rather oddly, very early on, talk is made of there being elves and dwarves in the kingdom - but they never actually appear on screen, so you have to wonder why they were brought up in the first place?

On a positive note, the film looks great - the Eastern European scenery is spectacular, the costumes and weaponry are well crafted and the critters are suitably Dungeons & Dragons-y - but such little effort has been made to conceal the source material being plagiarised that the film's best use is as a "spot the Star Wars analogy" drinking game.

And like so many fantasy modern films that have tried to emulate the success of Star Wars, but failed to learn how to do it properly, Eragon finishes mid-story, expecting a sequel to be guaranteed.

Of course none was forthcoming, leaving many plot threads dangling and certain characters totally superfluous! 

Neagley's Nearly Here

THROWBACK THURSDAY: FrightFest 2010

Last weekend was this year's FrightFest horror film festival in London, which reminded me that Paul and I had attended the event back in 2010.

Of our day out and the two films we saw, I wrote the following at the time:

On Monday (August 30, 2010) Paul and I met up in Leicester Square, London, to attend our first FrightFest - having booked tickets for a couple of world premiers, namely Jake West's documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape and the Ford brothers' The Dead, a zombie film set in contemporary Africa.

The atmosphere at FrightFest was incredible, and so friendly, with celebs, directors, critics and sundry other 'faces' just breezing through the crowds of fans and mingling like they were old drinking buddies (which they quite well could have been).

The venue, The Empire Leicester Square, itself - which I hadn't been to since I blagged tickets for Nick and I to attend the premier of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (back when I was a working stiff) - is about as far from "fleapit" as a cinema can get.

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape was a superb documentary; incisive, balanced and very well researched.

It also made a hero of Professor Martin Barker (who was present for a Q&A after the screening with several other luminaries) to everyone in the auditorium, and no doubt anyone who sees this documentary.

He was the one man brave enough to challenge the right-wing Thatcher government of the 1980's on the fraudulent statistics it was using to drive its draconian censorship measures through parliament - on a tidal wave of Daily Mail-fuelled ignorance and bile.

The film is packed full of fascinating gems such as the figures of authority unable to distinguish between reality and fiction and self-appointed moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse's nonsensical assertions that she didn't need to see films to know whether they should be banned or not.

Then there was the incredible double-standards of certain bodies (e.g. senior police officers, politicians etc) that declared while they were able to watch these films without being corrupted others (by which they usually meant "the lower classes") shouldn't be exposed to this as it would lead to the collapse of British society.

Or the case that when children were interviewed about whether they had actually seen any of these so-called 'video nasties' they were claiming to have seen films that didn't even exist!

Much was made of the lurid publicity that the small video companies used to promote their wares - almost always far exceeding the actual content of the movie concerned - and the psychological impact of the graininess of video tape that does actually add an air of 'sleazy reality' to whatever is on display.

Certainly Jake West's finest work to date, and with just enough clips from the films under discussion for most discerning viewers to realise the majority were pretty awful anyway and that - surprise, surprise - the moral majority didn't have a leg to stand on.

The Dead, on the other hand, was a major disappointment. A "dead loss", one might say.

Beautifully shot on location in the wilds of Africa, The Dead tells of the only white survivor of the last post-zompocalypse evacuation from the continent, after his plane crashes off the coast.

Rob Freeman is Lt Brian Murphy, a military engineer, who finds himself stranded in the wilderness, constantly dodging the slow, ambling, Romero-style zombies.

Eventually he teams up with Sgt Daniel Dembele (Prince David Ose), an AWOL local soldier trying to find his missing son.

Beyond the road movie/journey premise of the story, The Dead brings nothing new to the genre and every time it looks as though something interesting might happen it gets thrown away in the next scene.

Two howling - spoilerific - examples spring to mind: at one point Lt Murphy is handed a baby by a dying woman and you think: "oh my God, how's he going to cope in a world overrun with zombies, with a newborn to care for as well?" The next scene he's meeting some refugees in a lorry and handing the baby off to them.

Then a little later, Murphy's asleep in a tree (a course of action maybe he should have considered earlier in the film, given what happens to him and Dembele at one point when they make camp) and his gun slips out of his hand to the ground. And there's a zombie walking past! Obviously zombies can't climb trees, but what exciting thing is going to happen?

Cut to next scene, it's morning, the zombie's wandered off long ago and Murphy climbs down and picks up his gun.

The only moment in the film that got any reaction from the audience was, quite early on, when Murphy drives his rusty old car over the head of a zombie causing it to pop like an overripe zit. That was met with much applauding and howls of laughter.

I'm easily satisfied by straight-forward zombie films, I'm not expecting great innovations every time, but The Dead is just dull, with its few shocks well telegraphed ahead of time.

It also suffered from strange jumps in editing that compacted some sequences you thought should have been longer and at other times drew out moments that could have been dismissed in a single beat.

You couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for directors Howard and Jon Ford, who told the audience beforehand how they'd put 20 years into the film and risked life and limb filming in such a dangerous area.

I just can't see this movie attracting even a cult following.

Are You Ready For A Resident Reboot?

From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) comes a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise.

In an all-new story, Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.

From Columbia Pictures and Constantin Film, in association with TriStar Pictures, Resident Evil hits theatres September 18.

Brides Of Dracula (1960)

Dracula is dead, but his cult lives on in late 19th Century Transylvania.

Young Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur) is heading to the Lady's Academy at Bachstadt, where she is to be a student-teacher, but she gets diverted to the home of Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt), little realising that the kindly old eccentric wants to feed her to her imprisoned vampiric son, the Baron (David Peel).

The naïve Marianne frees the Baron from his bondage, then flees the castle only to be found unconscious in the woods by Dr Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) who has been called to the village by the local priest.

Marianne eventually makes it to the girls school, but then the Baron shows up and proposes marriage - before turning turning one of her co-workers into a vampire.

Brides Of Dracula is fun but forgettable. Cushing is, naturally, the star but Freda Jackson as the Baron's insane nanny - in a Renfield role - is the most striking character, while Peel's Baron has an effete streak about him that makes Edward Cullen look positively macho.

A jolly romp from the Hammer production line, this 85-minute piece of frippery adds nothing to the vampire mythos, ends with the inevitable giant conflagration (as seems de rigeur in Hammer horrors) and includes possibly the most ridiculous use of an object to form a vampire-destroying crucifix: the shadow of the sails of a windmill... the very windmill the vampire was using at its nest!

Check Out These Killer Moves!

Set in 1993, estranged Street Fighters Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) are thrown back into combat when the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament: a brutal clash of fists, fate, and fury.

But behind this battle royale lies a deadly conspiracy that forces them to face off against each other and the demons of their past. And if they don’t, it’s GAME OVER!

OUTGUNNED? No! Out Diced!!!

My newly arrived dice pool for Pete's OUTGUNNED Adventures campaign

Any excuse to buy more dice, right?

A contributing factor to my analysis paralysis the other day, when faced with a wall of beautiful new dice, was that I knew I'd already ordered nine "red blood splatter" d6s from the Dice Shop and they were on the way.

These have a specific gaming purpose. 

As I've made clear several times on this blog, one of the major issues I have with "dice pool mechanics" in roleplaying games is that they slow everything down when you're counting or collating or whatever you have to do with them.

Therefore I'm generally a fan of a single or double dice roll where you just look at the resulting number and "wallop" you've got your result.

The Tuesday Knights' current campaign is OUTGUNNED Adventures from Italy's Two Little Mice, which runs purely on dice pools. 

In recent sessions I realised - just after everyone else - that I was having issues with the "pips" on my six-siders and wasn't exactly as quick as I would have liked at picking out dice with identical numbers of spots on their top face.

Thus, it struck me that I needed dice with actual numbers written on them rather than spots. I had odd six-siders with numbers in my collection, but I really wanted a unified set of nine dice (the maximum size for a pool in OUTGUNNED).

Hence, my Dice Shop order.

I felt the blood splatter was appropriate as there does seem to be a lot of violence in our campaign.

Day The Earth Froze aka Sampo (1959)

Day The Earth Froze is an American redubbing (quite well done) and re-editing (not so subtle) of Finnish/Russian fairytale movie called Sampo.

Not only is the American version, at 65 minute duration, almost half an hour shorter than the original, but it also features phoney credits, suggesting that it is actually an American film with American actors.

Nevertheless, there is something quite charming about this dream-like, enchanted folktale of a village's running battle with the witch Louhi (Anna Orochko) for possession of the fabled Sampo, a magical mill that produces unending supplies of grain, salt and gold.

However, only the village's wizardy-blacksmith Ilmarinen (Ivan Voronov) can forge the Sampo and he cannot do this until his sweet and shy sister Annikki (Eve Kivi) has fallen in love.

Luckily she meets Lemminkäinen (Andris Oshin) and falls for him - just before Louhi kidnaps her to force her brother to make the Sampo for her.

There is much to-ing and fro-ing as Lemminkäinen and Ilmarinen strive to free Annikki (aided by a steel horse and boat that Ilmarinen forges), although this does mean Louhi ends up with Sampo.

But Lemminkäinen is not having any of this and decides to go back and steal it from the witch - under cover of mist.

However, Louhi isn't impressed and to get her revenge steals the sun. Yes, you read that right, she steals the sun - there's an incredible shot of her flying off with the sun tucked under her cape!

Thus the villagers have to rally together and go to the witch's land, but headman Väinämöinen (Urho Somersalmi) advises them that weapons will be no use against the magics of Louhi and her minions and tells them to take only a kantele (no giggling please, it's a Finnish zither).

Of course, there's a happy ending, and it makes an interesting twist on the 'love conquers all' cliché.

Lovely costuming and garish technicolour, combined with the bizarre fairytale logic of the plot, give Day The Earth Froze a hypnotic - almost soporific - quality. 

The key thing to remember is that this a folktale, not a stereotypical action-adventure, so aspects are going to seem weird (like a village having an immortal blacksmith with the power to manufacture pretty much anything - at one point he even tries to make a new sun!), but there's still an innocent verisimilitude about the world depicted.