DVD OF THE WEEK

EXORCISMUS ****
Dir: Manuel Carballo. Starring: Doug Bradley, Sophie Vavasseur, Tommy Bastow

I've become completely bored with exorcism films and, being the godless wretch that I am, generally find them both preposterous and vaguely dangerous in that – unlike watching zombie or vampire flicks – I'm aware that some people actually believe this stuff. At least with vampires, nobody, with the exception of the odd deluded Goth or teenage girl, thinks they're real.
So they leave me cold. After The Exorcist and a couple of others, the rest are a blur of repetitive predictability.
Exorcismus is more of the same, though the unusual London setting (movie exorcisms are almost exclusively American, with the odd excursion to Italy – something to do with all that Catholicism I suspect) and assured filmmaking, lift it well above the average. Perhaps it is the Spanish sensibilities from a new Spanish director and the producers of [REC*] that give the film its immediacy.
Here, rebellious teen Emma becomes possessed after an ill-advised bout of self-harm apparently invites in demonic nasties. Coincidentally her uncle is a priest, defrocked after a previous dodgy exorcism death. Yet despite these seemingly crippling piles of clichéd absurdities, the film is both effective and very creepy, revelling in its naturalistic middle-class London setting and managing to make tired genre tropes seem fresh. There is even a neat little turn towards the end that deepens and enriches the narrative.
Surprisingly impressive.

Skyline (**) is a very silly film, clearly created by people very much into special effects. It's the first of the various ‘alien invasion' films to hit DVD (Monsters, Battle Los Angeles) and for a while is a bunch of fun as we're thrown into an apartment complex just as strange lights start shining from then sky. Said lights turn into a force of intergalactic attackers, with our totally undeveloped characters trying to avoid being sucked into the light or otherwise killed. The fun wanes, however, despite competent F/X, since you care less and less about these dullards spouting bland dialogue. Then things completely plunge off a cliff with the year's stupidest ending.

Cyrus (***) is a strange amalgam of a film. In all outward appearances it would seem to be something of a Farrelly brothers comedy, with John C Reilly, despite his outward gaucheness, striking up a relationship with the lovely Marisa Tomei only to find himself at war with her recalcitrant live-at-home slob of a son, Jonah Hill. So far so hilarious. The twist is that the film comes from the Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark, icons of America's ‘mumblecore' movement where people tediously and inarticulately express their feelings at excruciating length. So the end product is odd, with a unique tone, a comedy of discomfort. It has many merits but may confound some viewers.

No doubt Japan has its fair share of routine rom-coms, but New Zealand's diet of Japanese DVDs leans almost exclusively towards anime and the wild and wacky. Yatterman (***) is the latest from the prolific enfant terrible, director Takashi Miike, a slice of live action insanity based around an anime. The titular teenage superhero crimefighter is in fact a duo, the son of a toy shop owner and his girlfriend, who battle the Doronbow gang for possession the powerful ‘skull stone'. It's kinda like Spy Kids on strong Japanese hallucinogens. And there are songs. I don't know Japanese pop culture well, but it's hard to imagine any country where this would not be regarded as weird.

I have a fondness for the films that horror director Wes Cravens writes himself since they usually turn out to be quirky, smart and playful, if not – realistically – awfully good in the great scheme of things. My Soul To Take (***) is pretty much all those things. The preposterous plot has a supposedly dead serial killer returning to his small town home to kill the seven now teenage kids born on the night he died. And our hero – the oddly named Bug Heller – is having dreams (or premonitions) and there's lots more silliness too. Tripe, but I enjoyed it.