John Carpenter's The Ward (2010, WB, region free - UK disk)Įven with JC's own admission (it was a paid gig, nothing more), this is a dull, lifeless and sadly horribly generic little chiller, so devoid of anything that makes a 'John Carpenter film' it makes me just a little bit sad.Ī period setting (1966) sees Amber Heard's amnesiac Kristen admitted to a psych ward packed full of only incredibly young pretty girls after being caught burning down a house.
Or the standard edition which would likely drop the 2005 film. If I hadn't been sent the disks by Arrow for review (lucky me!), it'd be highly unlikely I would have picked these up which is a shame as there is some real entertainment value in the first films, even if they are one watch only. Solid AV and a hatful of extras round out the final disk in the set but yet again, like Arrow's previous Cold War Creatures set, the films have limited rewatch factor and the high price point of the set (£50 for all 4) means this is a tough recommend as it'll likely be blind buys for most of us. A worthwhile watch for fans of the originals, but its modern updating robs it somewhat of its original cinematic essence. At over two hours, it feels like it outstays its welcome too. Its solidly entertaining, but it doesn't have the charm of the 60s films because its cramming so much in.
And come its massive final act battle, all that CG starts to look really clunky and the film begins to lose its charm, before ending on a really dark note that set up hundreds more sequels. And while the story is every bit as standard and rote as you imagine it would be, there are still dashes of Miike left in here - an amusing aside about adults not being able to see the Yokai unless they drink alcohol and some fairy dark acts committed to the smallest, cutest Yokai ever seen remind us of who's directing this. The goofy creature designs are all still present and they are as insane as they always have been. Cue one small boy from a broken home picked to be the Yokai's champion and save the planet. Now, the big bad are evil industrial corporations destroying the environment and in this specific case, the manifestation of mankind's consumption and waste is now turning cute little Yokai into Tetsuo clones, snatching small children and destroying Tokyo by drowning it in a choking smog. The Great Yokai War (2005, Arrow, region B - UK disk, part of the Yokai Monsters set)Īs close as we'll get to a Takashi Miike kids film I'm sure, this modern, CG-drenched remake/sequel to the original period films is everything you would expect it to be.