APARTMENT 1303ON DVD, 3D/2D BLU-RAY & VOD 3rd JUNE 2013 STARRING MISCHA BARTON AND REBECCA DE MORNAY
MOVING HOUSE CAN BE A NIGHTMARE...
Starring Mischa Barton (The OC, The Sixth Sense) and Rebecca De Mornay (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Mother’s Day), APARTMENT 1303 is a new spine-tingling horror from Koch Media, based on the much acclaimed J-horror film of the same name written by Kei Oishi.
SYNOPSIS:
Having grown up under the controlling grip of her fame-hungry mother, played by the excellent Rebecca De Mornay, Janet Slate (Julianne Michelle) takes the opportunity to move into what looks to be a great high-rise apartment in downtown Detroit. Despite the strange neighbours and the depraved building superintendent, Janet unpacks her things and celebrates her new freedom, only to wake in the morning with strange bruises on her neck. Determined not to return to her mother’s home, Janet stays in the apartment in spite of a series of inexplicable chilling encounters, until one night her boyfriend Mark finds her in the middle of the street, fallen from the balcony thirteen stories above. Refusing to accept the investigators conclusion of suicide, Janet’s sister Lara (Mischa Barton) becomes determined to reveal the truth behind her death. On learning the tragic story of the first tenants, Janet soon discovers the terrible reality of what happens in Apartment 1303...
APARTMENT 1303 is being released through Koch Media and will be available from 3rd June 2013 on 3D/2D Blu-ray, DVD and VOD.
“A terrifying, suspense filled action horror that brings the modern world face to face with unknown terrors of World War II.”
Dead Mine
On DVD Monday 13th May 2013
From “Mum & Dad” writer/director Steven Sheil comes this dark claustrophobic action-horror arriving on DVD. Fans of “Outpost” and “The Descent” won’t be disappointed.
Stars; Sam Hazeldine (The Raven; Don’t Let Him In), Joe Taslim (The Raid; Fast & Furious 6), Miki Mizuno (Guilty of Romance; Kill), Ario Bayu (Macabre; Java Heat) and director Steven Sheil (Mum & Dad).
Synopsis:
A group of treasure hunters set off to a remote Indonesian island searching for wartime gold. Beset by in-fighting, things go from bad to worse when they are suddenly attacked by a mysterious enemy.
Taking refuge in an old Japanese WWII mine it quickly comes apparent that the groups treasure hunt has turned into something far more sinister, when they discover the area was used for secret medical research on P.O.W’s
When bizarre occurrences start to happen in the bunker it is revealed that the explorers are not alone and something far more deadly awaits them…
It is great to see the return of Joe Taslim (The Raid) and Sam Hazeldine (The Raven) leading a film stuffed with action, great scares, visual effects and impressive make-up.
With an intriguing combination of human experiments gone awry, enclosed spaces and the real effects of war on soldiers and civilians, this suspense filled action-horror will keep you guessing to the very end.
Special Features:
Interviews with the cast and crew
Behind-the-scenes
Deleted scenes
Is DVD Dead? Well I for one hope not as I have just brought a load from closing down stores of Blockbuster! The Reason I am writing this is because I was recently listening to a podcast that are sponsored by online streaming site Netflix, The conversation went along the lines of “why buy DVD when you can stream all the movies you want from NETFLIX?” I immediately though hang on a minute there are a couple of points here, Not only the money that has been spent by myself and probably you on DVD’S but what if the internet goes down or their server? You won’t be able to watch any movies, imagine that! Not only that they don’t have every movie, now I Know that not every movie of course has been released on DVD and even some of the deleted titles command a very high price and what about the fantastic extras you get on many a DVD for example all the stuff on the Arrow Video releases and great documentaries such as the one on the USA release of The Shining, Directors commentaries? Deleted Scenes?? Alternative endings??? I Could go on, now I realise that as with cinema in general how lame it has become and probably only geeks like me and you give a shit about a great DVD release packed with extras but I hope that it certainly won’t have a major effect on the future releases of great DVD’s.
Some of our recent second hand finds modelled by the lovely Emma!
Now, I am certainly not against streaming movie sites I think it’s a fantastic idea (Although obviously Blockbusters do not) I myself have LOVEFILM which Is great for random picks and TV series but for me there is nothing quite liking getting hold of a great DVD on EBay or wherever that I have been after, lately I have been doing that thing we do of completing collections, all the Chucky movies, Halloween Movies ETC as well as picking up some fantastic box set’s and special editions that include Evil Dead 1 and 2 rubber book of the dead editions, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie steel tin, The Amicus, Pete Walker and Norman J Warren Coffin shaped sets, to name but a few, also some of my favourites are the Arrow Video releases of Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, all the Argento releases and Fulci Releases, Also you get some truly brilliant Asian Cinema releases these days as well, not seen many of those on streaming either apart from the most popular titles.
I Have as many of you have now on quite a few Blu-Rays as well, which is also a great format which in my opinion sits well next to my DVD collection but does not quite replace it, so imagine if someone like me said to you “Hey, I now have streaming movies, do you want all my DVD’s and Blu-Rays because I no longer need them?” I really can’t ever imagine doing that, but then again saying that I probably would have said the same of my good old VHS tapes, is DVD dead? No, long live DVD!
Thanks for reading, I’m off to EBay!!
Jonny T.
Some of my favourite DVD'S Boxsets
Norman J Warren, Pete Walker, The Amicus Collection and The Tigon Collection.
Old Boy box set including Hammer Bottle opener.
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie Tin Box including Toe Tag!
Jonny T here bringing you another great review from the awesome young lady that is Molly Jennings, Daughter of the legendary Big Man Gav it seems that she is writing more for this blog these days than we are so we really do need to get our fingers out!(Are you reading Gav, ha!) I personally love reading her thoughts on such films as it's great to see a young persons view and thoughts and by the looks of things she is really getting into good horror!So without further ado i shall let Molly proceed, Thank you for taking the time to read and a ton of thanks go to Molly, keep them coming young lady!
Jonny T
Shaun of the Dead review
By Molly Jennings
Hello again its Molly, I am going to be writing my thoughts on ‘Shaun of the Dead’. I thought the film was brilliant though some of the scenes were a little scary.
The story starts with Shaun, a man whose life is going to the Winchester pub with his best friend Ed. His girlfriend Liz is quite miffed (but you can understand why!) as she thinks their relationship is going no where.
In the opening credits there is a theme of zombie behaviour. In shot one a man is pushing a trolley, he is acting tired and is in a trance like state. This has relevance to the end of the film when all the zombies are put to work in shops and put on game shows etc. The credits continue to roll through to shot 2 where a cashier called Mary is scanning some shopping through a till. She is later the first zombie Shaun and Ed encounter. On the DVD there is a short story on how Mary became a Zombie which was printed in prog 1384 of classic British sci-fi comic 2000AD. The issue went on sale on 7 April 2004 it was called There’s something about Mary.
On scene 3 there are 6 people at the bus stop, there is a man at the front of the queue. He bites one of the important characters later on in the film. As the credits carry on there is a gang of ‘chavs’ nodding in sync and quoting Dianne from later on ‘Look at the face its vacant with a hint of sadness like a drunk whose lost a bet’. As the film officially starts Shaun and Ed continue their lives oblivious to the upcoming zombie apocalypse. At one point Shaun goes to the shop and there are bloody hand prints on the drinks cabinet window plus there is a zombified shop owner stumbling around in the back of shot.
They only realise when Ed see’s Mary in the garden. After attempting to kill Mary with funny results they immediately make a plan to go to Barbara’s pick her up, kill Phillip (Shaun’s step dad) get Liz and wait for it all to blow over. After many try’s to rethink a plan they decide to go to the Winchester. The plan goes terribly wrong when Barbara insists Phillip go with them. He had already been bitten but as soon as they get outside he is bitten again! By none other than one of the ‘Chavs’ at the start of the film.
Phillip turns into a zombie and the group must go on foot. While walking they bump into Shaun’s friend Yvonne and group a parallel to Shaun’s band of survivors. When they leave Shaun starts to fence hop you can clearly see Liz giggling, which I think might have been a mistake during filming. They realise there are quite a few zombies surrounding the pub so with the acting counselling of Diane the group ‘act’ their way through the hordes of Zombies to have their cover blown by Ed. I thought this bit was amusing as Ed answers the phone loudly then has a go at Shaun because he threw his phone on the floor. They are unaware that all the zombies are watching and know the group aren’t dead. Shaun leads the zombies away and the group goes inside the pub through a window David broke.
A little while later Shaun returns not realising he has drawn the horde back. Ed moronically turns on a games machine attracting lots of Zombies! The zombie pub owner appears and the jukebox turns on playing Queens ‘Don’t stop me now’. David attempts to turn it off but ends up making the outside lights flicker attracting even more zombies. The pub owner gets killed and the group use a Winchester rifle to stop zombies trying to get in but Barbara begins to change but Shaun shoots her before she can actually hurt anyone.
He punches David in the face he soon has enough and decides to un-baracade the window. He stands near it and apologises he’s about to move when he’s pulled through the window and rather graphically eaten alive. Next a very distraught Dianne uses one of David’s severed legs to get through the zombies. It explains what happens to her on the DVD features. She manages to scale the tree outside and passes out because she was so upset. A couple of days later she wakes up and finds out that the area has been quarantined and most of the zombies are gone. She eats David’s leg to keep her alive which I thought would have turned her into a zombie! It also explains what happened to Shaun when he tried to distract the Zombies and How Ed turned into a Zombie.
After most of the characters were eaten, killed or in Dianne’s case ran off Shaun, Liz and an infected Ed are left in the basement. They find an escape hatch. Shaun and Liz go but Ed stays behind with the rifle. On the street the army is clearing the streets and Yvonne returns, presumably the only survivor of her group. They are all rescued. It cuts to 6 months later in Shaun’s apartment. There are loads of TV reports about Z-day. Shaun goes in the garden to the shed to play on the PlayStation with a zombie Ed. Even though he is dead he and Shaun have a similar friendship! Apparently Shaun was able to coax Ed out of the pub to live in the shed using him self as live bait, this is also explained on the extra features…
My favourite characters in the film are Diane, David and Shaun. I think it is funny how David doesn’t care about anything and thinks he is trying to be clever when he is not. His impression of a zombie is awful. I like Diane because she has some good lines and she can be quite funny, especially when she is doing the acting class and she asks them each to do an impression of a zombie. I like Shaun because he is really funny. He says some very funny jokes and he is quite stupid. Who would actually take refuge in a pub during a zombie apocalypse? – Most would find the nearest Shopping Mall (dad’s edit).
He has some very funny lines like when Ed’s on about Phillip’s jag and Shaun says “Yeah, well, it's Philip's, okay? He won't let anybody near it. Honestly, I put half a Mars bar in the glove box once and he chased me around the garden with a bit of wood” I thought It was extremely funny!
My favourite parts of the film are when Diane is doing the acting class and the group act as Zombies to get to the Pub. I thought it was really cool because Liz, Barbara and Shaun are really good but David and Ed are awful. I like how when they are walking they are clumped together and they’re rubbish at acting. I don’t know how they got through without being eaten!? I also love the bit in the Winchester when Liz, Shaun and Ed are beating the pub owner in time to ‘Don’t stop me now’. It’s clever how Diane and Barbara move in time to the music as well.
My least favourite bit was when David got eaten. I didn’t like it because it was too graphic and nasty in contrast to the rest of the film’s fun nature. It was gross and to be honest unnecessary! It was a bit sickening to see someone get their guts eaten and their head and legs get ripped off. My dad says he is only eaten so graphically to please zombie fans and maybe it’s a nod to the Captain’s death in George A. Romero’s ‘Day of the Dead’. Initially I think he didn’t want me to watch that bit because it was over gory for a 12 year old but it was on telly so I couldn’t fast forward it. Oh well.
All in all I thought the film was great. It’s the first zombie film I have ever seen and it is now one of my absolute favourite films.
Jonny T here with news of The Cult classic The Day of the Animals screening!It's taking place this Sunday at Roxy Bar and Screen in London, it's a pretty much all afternoon/evening affair with also a showing of the Classic Murders in the Zoo as well as contests and tons more stuff happening, I honestly can't remember a time when this has been shown on the big screen so get your tickets now and of course what other time would you get to see the legendary Leslie Nielsen topless! I have stuck the links below that you will need and be sure to keep an eye on the guys screenings and events over on the site they do show some classic stuff and it has to be said some of the most hard working people out there,
Jonny T here with my review of Sightseers, The new film from Director Ben Wheatley Sightseers has to bee seen, that's 1st off, Anyone that saw his last movie Kill List will know what to expect in the fact that it's British cinema at it's finest in my opinion, Now i do have to say that i Kill List was a bit hit and miss for me to be honest but Sightseers hit every spot, It tells the story of couple Tina and Chris, from the start you kind of tell that something is not quite right with them both to say the least! Tina lives at home with her invalid mother and Chris is a keen Caravan enthusiast, we see him plotting out the route for their caravaning holiday with such places to visit as The Blue John Mines, The Tram Museum and even the crazy world of the pencil museum, now this may not sound like the most exciting road trip but what we see along the way it never fails to keep your attention and delivers some truly violent shocks as was the case with Kill List.
The 1st glimpse you see that Chris is a little deranged is where they are taking a tour on the Tram whilst a rather large gentleman is stuffing his face and proceeds to throw his food wrapper on the floor, Chris points out that he is littering and the fat guy just gives him the Finger, Cut to the car park with Chris enraged at the ignorance of the large chap when he See's him in his mirror walking across the park again stuffing his face and yet again throwing the wrapper on the floor so Chris does no more than slams the car in reverse and splatters him with his caravan! He makes out to Tina and the police that this was clearly an accident and of course they believe him and on their merry way they go!
They arrive at the Caravan Park and race another car to get one of the last remaining places on the site where they happily park up and head off for a country ramble, on the way they meet the people who they beat to the best spot, Chris instantly knows the make of the Caravan and asks to look around, uneasy scene follows with them both in the Caravan with the couple looking around when Tina spots the little dog on the bed who reminds her of one she lost (The flashback scene where we see how this happened is hilarious!) she offers the dog a crisp much to the shock of the posh lady caravan owner who only feed the dog organically apparently, so she shouts at Tina to the obvious disdain of Chris who slyly knock one of their posh plates off the side and it smashes on the floor, whilst doing this he slips a sly wink to Tina who smiles, She seems to be getting the gist of his personality and loves it!
So Chris wakes up next morning very early to have a walk, but not just to walk but to find the man in the other van, He finds him, batters him with a rock and throws him off a cliff, thus making it look like yet another accident, He then steals his camera which comes in to play later on in the film.
I shan't go on to tell you more as it may spoil it but you get the basic gist and Tina becomes more involved, The story is by all means not an original one when you see it as the same as Bonnie and Clyde and even Natural born killers, The main man the killer and his besotted girlfriend loving him so much she becomes involved and doesn't seem to care what he does, Now i say the story isn't that original but the way it is portrait in Sightseers certainly is, The humour is very dark and the violence extreme, it builds the pace nicely so when the violence does occur it's truly shocking, wait until you see the fate of the man the tries to get Tina to clear up the dogs mess!It Certainly is a film that you could watch again with so many undertones of what actually is going off within the heads of Chris and Tina and the great thing is it is one of those rare films where it's not all laid out plain and simple, that's right folks one of those rare films that actually gets you thinking!
With more than a wink to such great films by the likes of Pete Walker as in Frightmare and even in a dream sequence where he See's vampires and the claustrophobia of a caravan reminded me so much of the classic Jose Ramon Larraz movie Vampyres This is up there with one of the best British movies i have seen in a long long time and personally cannot wait to see what lies next for director Ben Wheatley, Definitely a director to keep your eye on.
