'The Tall Man' Trailer

Back in 2008 French director Pascal Laugier proved just how miserable and degrading horror can be. His grimy psych-horror Martyrs gave a lot of us nightmares and made us pretty happy with the upbringing we had. This year he unleashes his next feature The Tall Man starring Jessica Biel. Anticipation is high and early reviews rave about this chilling drama cum horror…

In a slowly dying mining town, children are vanishing without a trace , allegedly abducted by a mysterious figure known as “The Tall Man.” Town nurse Julia Denning (Biel) seems skeptical until her young son David disappears in the middle of night. Frantic to rescue the boy, Julia lives every parent’s darkest nightmare in this twisting, shock-around-each-corner thriller. 

Port Of Shadows (Le quai des brumes) Blu-Ray Review

★★★★★

Port of Shadows (Le Quai Des Brumes) is a film directed by Marcel Carné is 1930 It stars well-known early French actor Jean Gabin, who was best for his collaborations with Jean Renoir and Carné. The film shares it's cinematic town Le Havere with the recent of the same name. It's also one of the many predecessors to film noir like The Petrified Forest, M, Pépé le Moko (who also starred Gabin). It is perhaps the most grey film eer made, I don't mean that just cause it's black and white but the whole colour palette is very high contrast grey with very little black.

The film tells the story of an army deserter Jean (Jean Gabin) who hitchhikes to the port town of Le Have. He meets a drunk on his first night in town and takes him to a dive bar on the edge of the shipyard. He meets a girl Nelly (Michèle Morgan) and a dog. Her ex lover goes missing, Jean and Nelly hook up, they have to deal with her creepy godfather oh and there are some gangsters as well.

It’s one of the key films of the French poetic realism movement of the mid 30s to early 40s along with other legendary filmmakers like Jean Vigo and the previously mentioned Jean Renoir. It was very much the link between German Expressionism and the Film Noir of the 1940s and 1950s but was equally influences on the French New Wave and the earlier Italian Neorealism. I’m a much bigger fan of poetic realism than the more common socio-realism, which is very prevalent in British cinema. It’s all very much studio based and much more it’s aesthetically concerned then a amazing story, they stories all rather simple. They also tend to share a world-weary view of the world, which is clearly influential on the characters in British film noir.

The film is filmed in glorious high contrast grey film stock, which is so foggy but in a beautiful way, it’s spellbinding. Jean Gabin is totally wonderful in the film, as is Michèle Morgan. It also features the best performance by a dog (Sorry The Artist). Carné uses really effective metaphor of a ship in a bottle to symbolize the characters sense of entrapment. It was actually criticized by government officials as helping the Nazis beat France because of it’s negativity towards the state and the morals of the French Character.

Overall, it’s a wonderful influential piece of proto-noir, which should be seen and cherished. It has been recently reissued by StudioCanal on blu-ray and dvd and is certainly worth tracking down. 

Ian Schultz

Rating:PG
Re Release Date: 10th September 2012 (UK)
Directed by:Marcel Carné
Cast:Jean Gabin, Michel Simon, Michèle Morgan, Pierre Brasseur

Gore goes global as Horror Channel serves up A World SINema Season

Gore goes global as Horror Channel serves up three slices of sinful celluloid in its World SINema Season – three premieres that highlight taboo, terror and blasphemy

Fridays at 22:55 from 7 Sept, 2012

 

The season kicks off on Friday Sept 7, 22:55 with THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE (2001) from Spanish Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo Del Torro.  Beautifully shot and immensely creepy the film explores two different types of horror – the very real horror of war and the exploration of horror experienced through a child’s eyes (Carlos), one of ghost’s and the supernatural.

Guillermo has stated this is his favourite work so far, and was a 16 year labour of love. It was influenced by early memories of seeing his uncle come back as a ghost and the creepy spectre that appears to Carlos was based on the pale faced ghosts in Japanese horrors like The Ring.

Next up on Friday Sept 14, 22:55 is THE ANTICHRIST (1974), which delves dangerously deep into the blasphemous aspects of demonic possession.

Ippolita, a young woman wheelchair-bound and sexually frustrated, finds herself under the spell of Satan himself when she becomes victim to an ancestral curse of witchcraft and possession. She starts seducing local men, only to kill them and an exorcism seems to be the only solution to stop the madness

The controversial Satanic orgy scene will certainly have a few tongues wagging with its implication of bestiality

The last in the season on Fri Sept 21, 22:55, is one of the most absurd, gruesome French horrors ever made – BABY BLOOD (1990)

Yanka, a young circus performer, is pregnant but morning sickness and fat ankles are the least of her problems when a new leopard from Africa is delivered to the circus – a beautiful beast hiding a hideous creature within.

And as the months progress, Yanka suffers from an overpowering appetite... for blood. Or rather, her unborn baby is screaming for it. And she is forced to kill and kill again…

TV: Sky 319 / Virgin 149 / Freesat 138

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