DVD

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 20: Villains

Written by Marti Noxon; Directed by David Solomon

I only ever watched the last three episodes of the season once (I wonder why), so my memory of them was pretty poor. A few random comments because I don't really feel like saying anything constructive:

- Dark Willow is actually pretty damn creepy: the eyes, the black hair, etc. I know Alyson Hannigan actually has black hair in real life now, but it's got nothing on this.

- The misleads, to make people think Spike is trying to get the chip out of his head rather than regain his soul, are ham-fisted. I'm sorry, but this is the sort of "Forget what you heard/saw, it was all designed to mislead you" crap they pulled with the lame "Is Giles the First?" puzzle in Season 7.

- Dawn, who discovers Tara's body and is the only character to actually show any genuine remorse after her death, is the only genuinely sympathetic character in this episode. Jeez, I never thought I'd be saying that.

- Xander actually utters the epithet "Christ!" in this episode. I thought that was verboten on US network TV.

- Even when he's being flayed alive, Warren is still annoying.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Two to Go.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 19: Seeing Red

Written by Steven S. DeKnight; Directed by Michael Gershman

Sorry, guys. This one's going to be an essay.

This is the episode where Buffy died for me. Seriously, I could take Dawn the kleptomaniac, I could take the Doublemeat Palace, I could even just about tolerate crack whore Willow, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back. Watching Seeing Red for the first time was the moment at which it suddenly occurred to me just how much I was being manipulated. It got to a point where I actually started laughing at what I was seeing. The writers had overshot with their message of pain and suffering so much that they'd turned what, with a little restraint, could have been an effective story about the perils of growing up, into an absolute farce of epic proportions.

There are two nails in this particular coffin. One is the dead lesbian lying in a pool of lesbian blood at the foot of the Evil Bed of Lesbian Lust just after having sinful lesbian sex with another lesbian, whose eyes flash red as she turns into an evil lesbian killing machine (see, I'm trying to make a point here). The other is Spike the Redeemed Vampire turning into Spike the Rapist because the writers suddenly remembered "Hey, soulless vampire - got to be evil! Quick! Make him do an evil thing because, you know, all those times we portrayed Spike as a sympathetic, selfless hero - guess what? You weren't meant to like him. Because he's not good - he just wants to get into Buffy's pants."

There are several problems with this, and they all stem from the fact that the writers have proven themselves completely incapable of portraying Spike in anything approaching a consistent manner. The attempted rape, presumbably, is meant to remind us that he is, deep down, still an evil, soulless monster. Okay, but why then is he in "human" face throughout the attack? (Which, before anyone asks, was, in my opinion, an excellent move. It firmly establishes rape as a crime committed by human beings rather than mythical monsters. The only problem is that it contradicts everything that follows.)

The writers then send him on a quest to get his soul back, presumably because they want to show that a soulless creature can never be redeemed. Okay, so then you negate two and a half years' worth of character development. But fair enough: let's assume it's true and that, deep down, Spike really is evil, and that getting his soul back will turn him into a completely different person. Okay, but then why does his personality not change one jot after he regains his soul (see Season 7)?

More crucially, why is Buffy, the stronger of the two, allowed to abuse Spike and not have to pay for her crimes? Please note that the issue here is not to try and excuse Spike's actions, but rather to ask why Buffy should be excused from doing exactly the same thing. The impression given here is that domestic violence can only ever be something that men do to women. What it all comes down to is that Buffy is the victim because she's the girl, and Spike is the villain because he's the guy. Which, for a supposedly feminist show, is jaw-droppingly misogynist. (Domestic Abuse and Gender Role Reversal in Season 6: My Letter to Mutant Enemy by Kristen Smirnov is a great article, by the way, and one from which I cribbed a number of the points made above.)

Having discussed the whimsies of Spike the Rapist, let's move on to Tara the Dead Lesbian. If you don't know what the Dead/Evil Lesbian Cliché is, I strongly suggest you read this FAQ compiled by Stephen Booth. It overstates the case on a few occasions, and there are a couple of points that I strongly disagree with, but it's an invaluable read anyway. The crux of the matter is that, in TV (and indeed the arts in general), lesbians always ended up either dead, or murderers, or indeed dead murderers. I do think that things are improving in this regard - I think Channel 4's Sugar Rush is a great series, and hey, even Holby City of all shows managed to give its sole lesbian character a happy exit recently, that didn't involve her killing anyone or dying (on the contrary, it involved her getting a girlfriend and going off to medical school) - but for a long time fans had thought that Buffy was going to be the light at the end of the tunnel for gay women.

My point here, though, is not to debate the wrongs of the cliché (the FAQ does a pretty good job of that on its own), but rather to discuss Tara's death and Willow's campaign of murderous revenge as a piece of piss-poor storytelling. Watching Seeing Red again, it's jaw-dropping how blatantly Tara's death is telegraphed, and I can't imagine anyone being particularly surprised when she popped her clogs. This is, after all, a Joss Whedon show, which should have warning signs lighting up in neon whenever anyone suddenly gets happy - especially in a season in which no-one has been allowed to be happy. Willow and Tara spend at least half the episode in bed together, professing their undying love and doing all sorts of naughty things, and putting Amber Benson in the opening title sequence for just this episode should have been a dead giveaway (and a rather nasty trick too). But hey, this is Season 6, so it can only end in tears. (I'll give them credit, though, for pushing the boundaries of American television with this episode. Okay, so it's not the "naked lesbian sex scene" Marti Noxon was busy bragging about before it aired, and a scene of implied fellatio was apparently cut, but it is two women, nude, in bed together, on American network TV. Good god, wonders will never cease!)

And end it does, despite the fact that the trajectory of the bullet that kills Tara being physically impossible. And once again I have to wonder why the writers were so fixated on having Tara dying in the bedroom. Surely it would have been more logical to just put her in the garden. Unless her dying right in front of the bed in which she'd just had sex had some sort of significance... But I digress. If killing Tara so Willow could go on a murderous rampage was the only way to inject some life into this turgid season, then, well, perhaps this just wasn't a story worth telling. I find it more than a little stomach-churning that Whedon thought sacrificing a beloved character (and someone who served as a message of hope to a minority desperate for some positive portrayal in the media) was a suitable exchange for a mediocre three-episode finale to a tedious and monotonous season. But hey, maybe that's why he went from having three shows on the air to none in the space of two years. Either way, he overestimated his audience's willingness to swallow whatever shit he fed them.

On a message board, one fan once said that Willow without Tara is pointless. I think that's true: Willow without Tara is a shell of her former self, as is Xander without Anya, the show without Giles... The show never recovers from this episode, and from hereon in, everything else seems hollow.

Overall rating: 3/10.

Next time: Villains.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 18: Entropy

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg; Directed by James A. Contner

Less heavy than the episodes preceeding it, this episode is unfortunately marred by the fact that it is complete soap opera. Buffy has always placed a lot of emphasis on the relationships of its characters, but this takes the cake. Ooooh, Spike and Anya for some reason decide to have sex in the Magic Box. Ooooh, the nerds are spying on them with hidden cameras and start giggling. Ooooh, Willow coincidentally happens to hack into their feed (using QuickTime, by the looks of it!) at the very time it's happening, and Xander and Buffy both happen to be in the room at the same time and both happen to see their respective exes getting in on. Ooooh, Xander takes a sharp weapon and attacks Spike. Ooooh, Buffy's shameful secret is revealed to all. Ooooh, I think I'm going to be sick.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Seeing Red.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 17: Normal Again

Written by Diego Gutierrez; Directed by Rick Rosenthal

This is another of those super-dark episodes, but it's also handled with considerably more skill than most. The basic premise is that, after being stung by a demon, Buffy begins to hallucinate, going back and forth between the world of the show as we know it and an alternate reality where she is locked in a mental institution, and has imagined the last six years. Many people consider this episode to be a travesty that destroys their suspension of disbelief and renders the entire series a joke. I, as it happens, think it's pretty good. And it's nice to see Kristine Sutherland again. There's another gaping hole in the show that was never properly filled.

Joss Whedon stated that his intention was to make the institution/Sunnydale split 50/50, so neither one seemed more real than the other. However, a lot of people can't get around the fact that the episode's final scene shows Buffy back in the institution. "If it ends like that," they claim, "then it's obvious that the institution must be real and the rest of the show must be a figment of her imagination." I think these people are, frankly, missing the point, and are probably the same people who ask why Naomi Watts and Laura Harring's characters' names change half-way through Mulholland Dr. My interpretation of this scene, which features institution Buffy lapsing back into a coma ("I'm afraid we lost her," says a doctor), is that this is her relinquishing the institution reality and returning to Sunnydale reality. Is that really so difficult to understand?

What I don't like, though, is the insinuation that, regardless of which world is real, Buffy did in fact spend time in an institution before coming to Sunnydale, because she told her parents about vampires. No, that doesn't wash, I'm afraid. When Joyce learned that Buffy was the Slayer at the end of Season 2, it was clear that the subject of vampires had never before been raised. It's this sort of internal inconsistency - a willingness to sacrifice the very foundations of the show and characters in order to reach a certain plot point - that came to mar Season 7, and I happen to be one of those crazy individuals who believe in staying true to the rules of the universe you've created. And Jesus Christ, Dawn, stop your whining for one second! No-one cares.

On a side note, this episode was directed by a guy called Rick Rosenthal. Back in 1981, he directed the first sequel to Halloween. Now he directs episodes of TV shows like Smallville and Veronica Mars. I guess someone's career took a down turn.

Overall rating: 7/10.

Next time: Entropy.

Red Dragon

My copy of the recently released HD DVD of Red Dragon (R0 USA) arrived this morning. Some general notes and observations follow.

First of all, this release includes all the extras from the standard definition 2-disc "Director's Edition" release, and yes, that includes the isolated score with commentary by composer Danny Elfman, which is not listed on the packaging or in any of the online reviews I've read so far (which makes me wonder if some of these reviewers even bother to look at the bonus features, or just write some general blather using the press release as a guide). The menu system is the same generic style used for Unleashed: just the Universal logo with a menu pane down the left-hand side and some score from the film playing in the background. It would seem that Universal has abandoned its short-lived habit of playing a montage of footage behind the menu (see Serenity and The Bourne Supremacy).

The transfer is, in all but one area, excellent. Red Dragon on DVD was always one of the better-looking standard definition releases I'd seen, but the HD DVD naturally takes it to a whole new level. Sharpness is almost always exemplary, except in areas in which the shot itself seemed to have been defocused. A lot of this film takes place in darkness, and the shadows are magnificently deep, with excellent contrast across the board. Colour reproduction is fabulous too, and little things like the red lettering in the opening credits, which were rather smudged and diffuse on the DVD (due to the low resolution of 720x480 being further reduced for primary colours due to MPEG2's half resolution colour storage - a problem which still exists in the new formats like VC1 and H.264, but which is offset by the much higher source resolution of 1920x1080), are smooth and crisp here. There are also no compression artefacts visible, while the grain is handled very well. Red Dragon was shot in anamorphic Panavision and, as such, has an inherently finer grain density than Super35 films like Serenity and The Bourne Supremacy. On certain occasions, however, the grain does become more pronounced, such as when Graham is investigating the Leeds' bedroom at around the 18 minute mark, and it is handled very well. On a related note, it should be pointed out that this, like Tomb Raider and Sleepy Hollow, comes from a film element rather than a digital intermediate, and as such it looks a little more "film-like" than DI-sourced material like Constantine and Unleashed, exhibiting a very slight telecine "wobble" and a smattering of film artefacts (which I have no problem with at all, as this is how it was meant to look).

The downside is something that I haven't seen in any Universal HD DVD releases until now, and that is edge enhancement - and it is at times rather pronounced. As with the Warner titles I've seen, Million Dollar Baby and Constantine, both of which have been edge enhanced, it's quite high frequency, so the halos are fairly thin and only tend to affect highly contrasted edges. Unfortunately, due to the visual style of the film, these crop up quite often, such as the opening credits sequence, in which the camera crawls over pages of typed lettering and handwriting. The edge enhancement seems to be almost entirely horizontal, so while you won't see any ringing at the top and bottom of objects, it can be quite pronounced at the sides.

Once again, though, I must impress on you that this is, in every other respect, a top-drawer transfer. It's a shame to see Universal sullying their track record with the use of edge enhancement, which makes this the weakest of their HD DVDs that I've seen so far, but it's still very much a mid to high 8/10, and compares very favourably to anything I've seen from either Warner or Paramount.

Update, September 23, 2006 08:07 PM: Oops, not quite all the extras have been ported over. The theatrical and teaser trailers are nowhere to be found.

DVD debacle

I bought a bunch of DVDs last night - something which, believe it or not, I haven't done for a while. From DVD Pacific I ordered the Extended Edition of Enemy of the State. I currently own this film in its vanilla "remastered" UK edition, which has some of the most unsightly edge enhancement known to man. Hopefully this more recent version, released earlier this year, will feature a somewhat better transfer.

I also pre-ordered the "Family Fun Edition" of Home Alone (due out on November 20th), and the never before released on DVD Operation Crossbow (due out on December 19th).

Spooks: Season 4

The overal quality of Spooks' fourth season more than makes up for the inconsistency of the previous year, firmly establishing that its problems stemmed from being a necessary transitional period rather than the new characters and actors themselves being at fault. These ten episodes once again confirm that this series is one of the best home-grown dramas in recent years.

As Spooks' fifth season gets underway on BBC1, I've reviewed Contender Home Entertainment's recently released Region 2 UK DVD set for Season 4, containing all 10 episodes across 5 discs, with a variety of extras.

Cleaning house

I will shortly be starting the task of converting the rest of my site over to the new (version 9) format. The heavy work - i.e. the Movies and DVDs sections - is now done, so the rest should be a much more peaceful affair. Still, I'm looking to streamline things a bit, and will be getting rid of the following sections:

• Gialli and Schitty Movies. I added placeholders for these to the Writings section in 2004 and 2005 respectively, with the assumption that I would have something to show for them before too long. To be honest, it's simply not going to be possible. I already write reviews for DVD Times on a regular basis, in addition to other external commitments, which means that I simply can't start to think about maintaining another two review databases.
• Opinion. This section contains two articles - one on the quality of that fine British television channel ITV2, and another listing things I hate. It hasn't been updated in over a year, so I see no reason to keep it around.
• CD Collection. I don't write music reviews, and I don't buy CDs on a regular enough basis for this to be worthwhile.
• Jokes and Funny Quotes. It hasn't been updated in ages, and most of them aren't that funny anyway (although I do like the Emma Caulfield one referring to Sarah Michelle Gellar).

Sorry, folks. I know you'll struggle to cope without them, but we'll get through it.

DVDs section completed

Huzzah! The brand new Movable Type-powered DVDs section is now completed, and I can finally give my aching fingers a rest. Actually I can't, because I really need to get to work on some DVD and HD DVD reviews that I've been putting off for too long. Still, writing about films is considerably more fun than copying and pasting data for hours on end.

You may also notice that I've gone back to my previous posts regarding the new DVDs section and removed the links to the placeholder preview, replacing the clickable URLs with text that looks like this. I'll be doing this from now on with any material that has "expired", in an attempt to eradicate or at least cut down on dead links on the site.

Update, December 19, 2006 06:37 PM: Fixed dead links.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 16: Hell's Bells

Written by Rebecca Rand Kirshner; Directed by David Solomon

As I've been making my way through this season, this episode has constantly been looming in the distance like a hurdle I'd have to face sooner or later. I kept willing myself to believe that it couldn't possibly be as bad as I remembered... and yet, here I am, and it's just as awful, if not more so. Hell's Bells is worse than Teacher's Pet, worse than Inca Mummy Girl... yes, even worse than Wrecked. It's the one episode of Buffy that I can honestly say has nothing - not one single second - that can possibly redeem it. It's just 45 minutes of worthless, poorly written, indifferently acted, incompetently staged hokum, and I struggle to imagine how anyone could have given it the thumbs-up. It really is, utterly and truly, a train-wreck.

What's amazing is that it doesn't even feel like an episode of Buffy. Previously, even the worst episodes of the season, no matter how incompetent they were and no matter how far they went from the original premise, at least had some semblance of still being the same show. This has none of it: I see Sarah Michelle Gellar, I see Alyson Hannigan, I see Nicholas Brendon, I see Amber Benson, I see all the regulars, but they're like automatons. They bear no resemblance to the characters they usually play. This is soap opera, and it's awful soap opera at that (which is saying something). It exists for no reason other than to destroy the two characters who actually looked like they might be headed for some happiness. Xander and Anya are broken up, smashed and reduced to shells of their former selves, and absolutely no purpose is served other than to conform to the season's themes of depression and misery.

What's worse is that no attempt is made to follow through on the events of this episode. I once read a post on a Buffy forum which argued that the worst thing about Season 6 was that none of the issues it raised were ever dealt with in Season 7. I think this is true. If you're going to take the entire cast to the depths of despair, you have to show them overcoming it, not pretend it never happened. This is the problem with Xander and Anya. Their relationship has been building for three years now, and all that happens is that they are split up, go through a few episodes of bitterness, and then that's it. Nothing. They just melt away into the background.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. These are not problems with Hell's Bells per se. If they were, the final rating would almost certainly be into negative figures. Regardless of what comes later, this episode, whether taken on its own or as one of 144 interconnected episodes, is a piece of god-awful crap that I will never watch again. And the bad news is that the misery isn't over, not by a long shot.

Overall rating: 1/10.

Next time: Normal Again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 15: As You Were

Written and Directed by Douglas Petrie

And Buffy sinks to yet another low. I'm serious, but is anyone actually enjoying this any more? The performances are comprised of nothing but the barest essentials, the direction is so perfunctory that I can only imagine Douglas Petrie - whose episodes used to be so fun - was in autopilot, and the audience... well, I'm sure someone out there likes this episode, but it's not a position I can even begin to fathom.

This week, Riley shows up in town with his new wife on tow, on the trail of a demon. Why, you may ask? Presumably to contrast his got-together new lifestyle with Buffy's, to show how totally screwed up she is. All well and good, but, as was recently pointed out to me, could they have picked a worse character to do this with? When Riley left Sunnydale in Season 5, he was the king of all fuck-ups, allowing vampires to feed on him and offering Buffy the sort of "convince me not to leave you" ultimatum that is hardly a solid foundation for any relationship. And yet, despite leaving Sunnydale an absolute wreck, and despite apparently having taken a year to get over Buffy (roughly the same amount of time he's been gone), he seems to have got himself back into gear, picked up a new wife, and been happily married for four months. Huh?

Tack on an utterly stupid plot involving Spike being some sort of demon egg trafficker, which makes absolutely no sense and is never referenced again, not to mention the sheer unbelievability of Riley taking Buffy on a demon hunt and not bothering to tell her that he wants it alive (this is Buffy, whose profession is to kill demons, we're talking about), and I find myself wondering if anyone bothered doing any quality control on this episode. It feels like the first draft of a hastily-penned filler episode, and yet I know for a fact that Marc Blucas's guest return was being heralded as a big deal long before it happened, so I find it hard to believe they just pulled this one out of their asses.

Overall rating: 2/10.

Next time: Hell's Bells.

DVD status update

I'm now precisely half-way through entering the data for my new and improved version of the DVDs section (265 out of 530 titles). It's taking me considerably longer than I would like (I've been at it since 10 am this morning, believe it or not), and it's one of the few things that I can safely say is more boring than a religious service, but it will hopefully pay off in the end. I'll probably work my way up to the 300th title today, then give it a rest. Hopefully it'll be done by the end of Saturday, or Sunday at the latest.

Update, September 22, 2006 01:57 AM: I stuck at it for longer than I was expecting to and have completed up to and including DVD number 460 (Land of the Dead), leaving me only 70 titles to go. Now I'm definitely calling it a night!

Update #2, December 19, 2006 10:42 PM: Fixed dead link.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 14: Older and Far Away

Written by Drew Z. Greenberg; Directed by Michael Gershman

Yet another of those "the gang get trapped in an enclosed space and are forced to openly confront their issues" episode, and, due to the fact that it revolves around the insufferably whiny Dawn, not a good one. Oh, and the writers suddenly remember that they decided to make Dawn a kleptomaniac several episodes ago, because, you know, she's a Tearaway Trouble Teen! Jeez, I just don't care, okay? And this is yet another episode in which we are given the impression, at the end, that the situation has improved, that Buffy and Dawn's relationship has overcome a major hurdle... and yet, the very next week, they're back to square one again.

Random good moments: yes, this episode is mildly funny at times. Tara's comments to Spike ("You've got a cramp... in your pants?") make me smile, especially given that they show a hitherto unseen side to the character, and I like Clem, the demon with skin like a Shar-Pei. Still, all of that kind of pales into insignificance when you have to put up with another round of "Get out, get out, get ouuuuuut!"

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: As You Were.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 13: Dead Things

Written by Steven S. DeKnight; Directed by James A. Contner

This episode isn't perfect, but it's a big step up from the ones directly preceeding it. It's perhaps the darkest episode of the entire season, but it's handled considerably more competently than many of its brethren. Chiefly, it tips the Trio over the edge from comic book dork villains into actual murderers (actually, manslaughter is a more appropriate label for the crime they commit) who try to pin the blame on Buffy. This may indeed be Buffy at her lowest ebb, not only being bum-raped by Spike (and I can't think of any other way to describe what happens, given that she quite clearly says "Don't" and yet he persists in buggering her), but also believing herself to be guilty of murder and being willing to hand herself into the police.

The inconsistent characterisation of Spike is the biggest problem here. One moment he's a cold-blooded killer who wants to do everything he can to make Buffy feel worthless, pulling her down to his level as it were, and the next moment he's taking care of her, doing everything he can to persuade her not to turn herself into the police, and even concealing the body. Obviously, this is to some extent appropriate to a character who, despite being devoid of a soul, is clearly capable of doing good deeds, but it's frustrating nonetheless, and it shows the extent to which the writers are no longer able to stick to the basics of their own mythology. In the past, they've clearly stated that a creature without a soul can never be good, because they're incapable of feeling compassion for others, but Spike's behaviour continually contradicts this. (He did, after all, stick around and fight alongside the gang all summer when Buffy was, as far as he was aware, dead for good, so such behaviour could hardly be considered an attempt to get into her pants.) It's amazing to say, but, bum-rape and all, Spike is actually the more appealing character at the moment, and the scene in which Buffy all but beats him to a pulp in an alleyway shows just what a repugnant person she has become.

The best scenes in the episode are those with Tara, who, unlike the rest of the main characters, is still her old self and not a whiny, self-obsessed automaton (of course, this is only so Joss Whedon can manipulate the audience's emotions further in a few episodes' time when he needlessly kills her off). Her chance encounter with Willow outside the Magic Box is well-written, and her non-judgemental response when Buffy confesses to her what she and Spike are getting up to reminds me why I like her so much. By the way, the final scene, in which Buffy, unable to believe that there's nothing wrong with herself, begs Tara not to forgive her, is horrible to watch, but extremely powerful. (She gets Tara to do some tests, because she's convinced that the reason Spike can hurt her without his chip kicking in is because she's come back as some sort of demon or creature of darkness. Discovering that she is, in fact, just the same old Buffy only makes things worse for her, because in her eyes it means there's no "excuse" for what she's been getting up to with Spike.)

Overall rating: 7/10.

Next time: Older and Far Away.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 12: Doublemeat Palace

Written by Jane Espenson; Directed by Nick Marck

Wow, this episode is even worse than I remembered it. It's hard to believe that Jane Espenson, who wrote great episodes like Band Candy and Earshot, churned out this tedious stinker about the thrills of working in fast food. And once again I'm wanting to know why Buffy has to work while Willow, who's still living in her house, can lounge about all day trying not to take drugs... I mean trying not to do spells. And why does Buffy have to work in the lowest-paid, most unpleasant job possible? Oh, that's right, because this season demands that everyone be as miserable as possible. Hey - why doesn't she get Amy or Tara to magic some dollar bills into existence? If you can turn a man into a dancing strawberry, I'm sure creating money is a doddle.

Other complaints: the interaction between Anya and her vengeance demon buddy Halfrek feels like something out of those tenth-rate sitcoms like Will and Grace or Friends. And what's with the running gag that Xander is greedy? I presume it has something to do with Nicholas Brendon's noticeable weight gain, but really, it feels tired and desperate. It's pretty clear that they've run out of interesting things to do with this character. And I'm really starting to notice how bored Sarah Michelle Gellar is getting. Not that I blame her - I'm sure anyone would eventually get sick of playing a character who barely so much as cracks a smile.

Overall rating: 2/10.

Next time: Dead Things.

A new and improved DVD collection

Right now, I'm in the process of doing something that I've wanted to do for ages: convert my DVD Collection page into weblog format. This is something I've been hankering to do for a good year and a half for two reasons. First of all, it means no more continual manual editing and uploading of static HTML pages. Secondly, it gives me an automated archival system. Using categories to stand in for years of purchase, I can have a full database of all the DVDs I've bought in a specific year, while the main page will list only the most recently purchased DVDs. Basically, it all makes things a whole lot easier for me. I tried to do this back in June 2005 when I switched to Blogger as my publishing platform, but had to abandon the experiment because it simply didn't give me the flexibility I needed to pull it off. Luckily, Movable Type, while considerably more complicated, is also considerably more flexible, thus allowing me to manipulate it to do something that it was probably never intended for.

I'm a long way from being finished yet, but you're welcome to head over and have a look at the placeholder index I've created. When I'm done adding all my DVDs (and HD DVDs) to the database, I'll overwrite the old-style collection with it.

Edited to remove dead link.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 6, Episode 11: Gone

Written and Directed by David Fury

At the start of this episode, Buffy and Dawn are clearing magical paraphernalia out of the Summers residence. This includes candles, and when Dawn objects, Buffy explains that "To you and me they're just candles, but to witches they're like bongs." Um, since when? Oh, that's right, since Wrecked.

This week, Buffy is turned invisible as a result of the Trio's Invisible Ray (yeesh). It's just like that Season 1 episode Out of Mind, Out of Sight, only Willow is slouching around like a depressed junkie, trying not to take any drugs... I mean do any spells; Buffy is hacking off her hair and having invisible sex with Spike; Dawn is whining and attacking Buffy for no apparent reason; and Giles is nowhere to be seen. Seriously, this is all different kinds of lame, the only funny part being the way everyone wants to hear about Buffy's new haircut rather than her invisibility status. At least it's not as bludgeoningly depressive as the previous episode, though - although that's not exactly saying much.

What really annoys me about this episode, and so many of the ones that follow it, is that it ends with Buffy making an important step, claiming that she's getting over her problems and no longer wanting to die. All well and good, but the problem is that, as soon as the next episode comes round, she's right back where she started. Just gets a little repetitive after a while, is all.

Overall rating: 4/10.

Next time: Doublemeat Palace.

Satan's Slave

UK: Norman J. Warren, 1976

As you may remember, back in August I purchased a trio of British horror collections from Anchor Bay, among them The Norman Warren Collection. I put them to one side, because at the time I was knee-deep in the final draft of my dissertation, but now that that's done and dusted, I decided to take a look, starting with the first film in the Warren box set, Satan's Slave.

After a less than auspicious start, consisting of the generic murder of a generic victim, Satan's Slave pleasantly surprised me. It's not masterpiece, to be sure, but it's a competently-made supernatural horror film with an impressively spooky atmosphere. The plot deals with a young woman, Catherine (Candace Glendenning), who, on the cusp of turning 20, witnesses the fiery death by exploding car (!) of her parents, on the very doorstep of the house of her uncle Alexander (Michael Gough). Kindly Uncle Al takes the bizarelly untraumatised Catherine into the fold, but it soon turns out that he, his wacky son Stephen (Martin Potter) and his secretary Frances (Barbara Kellerman) have a sinister ulterior motive in adopting her as their own.

It's all a bit uneven: the script makes a major bungle by revealing the malicious nature of Alexander and Stephen within the opening ten minutes, and a lot of the dialogue is of a risible standard. The performances are also rather hit and miss, although Candace Glendenning, who seems to have all but disappeared after making this film, makes an appealing and at times resourceful heroine, with her wide eyes and raven hair, while the inimitable Michael Gough makes the most of his distinctive and powerful voice in the role of her malevolent uncle.

The film also benefits from some truly impressive cinematography (a grand total of five cameramen are credited, of whom Les Young seems to have been the chief), which makes the English countryside seem like a genuinely haunted place, while John Scott's score is pleasantly ominous, if a tad hokey. Unfortunately, some of the gore effects are more than a little cringe-worthy: it's clear that Warren doesn't know when to hold back, leering over the effects in extreme close-up and revealing just how fake-looking they truly are. This is especially true of the rubbery-looking flesh used for brandings and slicings, while an otherwise well-directed suicide features a lumps of pink-looking putty, presumably signifying the victim's innards, bulging out of various orifices.

Still, I enjoyed Satan's Slave. I've always had a thing for supernatural horror, especially of the demonic possession variety, and this one is well-executed. It's rather predictable, and the budgetary constraints are at times all too visible, but it's a good, solid effort with a palpable sense of dread - which, in a horror film, is almost always the most important feature.

7/10

On a side note, the transfer for this film is pretty shockingly bad. I know it's old, and low budget, and obscure, and all those things, but really, there's no excuse for it looking the way it does. Half the time is resembles one of those dodgy camcorded movies.

Eugenie

Spain/West Germany: Jess Franco, 1970

Back in 2003, I happened to see a film by a Spanish director by the name of Jesus "Jess" Franco. The film in question was Justine, and I'm sorry to say I thought it was so bad that I didn't make it beyond the opening half-hour. This was when my Euro-cult craze was still in its infancy (the only such films I'd seen were around a third of Dario Argento's catalogue), and I realise that Franco has a rather formidable following among such circles. Therefore, recently, when I was doing a little borrowing and trading with other Euro-cult fanatics, I decided to give Franco another go, with his 1970 film Eugenie.

It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that Eugenie and Justine are pretty similar films. In addition to sharing a director, a writer/producer (Harry Alan Towers) and a composer (Bruno Nicolai, he of so many gialli), they are both based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade and have a similar narrative theme of an innocent young woman embarking on a series of sexual adventures, many of them sadomasochistic. As such, Eugenie is somewhere between a character drama and an exploitation/porn hybrid, although the fact that it takes itself seriously and places no small amount of emphasis on the narrative means that, as one reviewer put it, it's as far from a Skinemax flick as you can possibly get.

Be of no doubt, though, that this is far from a classic. Not much of note really happens, and the whole thing seems to come to an abrupt end long before it should. Franco's attempts to blend fantasy with reality are also not particularly successful, and, to be honest, there's only so much canoodling and breast-fondling I can take before I start looking for something more substantial. And yet, Eugenie's technical qualities set it apart from most films of this sort. Franco had a decent (at least by his standards) budget with this film, and you can tell that every penny ended up on the screen. Shot in anamorphic Technovision, it consistently looks sumptuous, making excellent use of the picturesque island location and, in the more hallucinatory sequences, various dye filters. And the final moments, which show the naked, degraded Eugenie stumbling through sand dunes and along deserted country roads, are haunting in their sheer beauty. Unfortunately, a number of scenes are sullied by being so out of focus that I'm amazed Franco never re-shot them.

The film also has an interesting cast, headed by Marie Liljedahl as the young Eugenie who, while not exactly a first-class thespian, is game for anything and handles the character's innocence well. Her transition from innocent wallflower to sullied damsel never really convinced me, though, as she does little to show any sort of change in her character. The sultry Maria Rohm is also on fine form, and the sheer shock of seeing Christopher Lee in such a dirty picture is well worth the price of admission. (Apparently, he had no idea what sort of film he was appearing in until he saw the final cut, but, looking at the scenes in which he appears, I'm not entirely convinced by this claim.)

In the final analysis, therefore, Franco is a better filmmaker than I previously assumed him to be. The subject matter isn't really to my liking, but here he clearly demonstrates a decent ability behind the camera if given an appropriate budget. For all its faults, I'm not sorry to have watched it, and I'll be less hasty to avoid this director's output in the future.

6/10

PS3 games to come with free Blu-ray movies?

Source: High-Def Digest

Industry insiders are suggesting that Sony will be bundling free Blu-ray movies along with game releases. No, you didn't read that wrong: they're not bundling them with the console itself, but along with games. I'm starting to smell the strench of desperation. "Buy Sonic the Hedgehog and get a free copy of the classic Little Man!" as Lyris put it.

On a related note, Engadget is reporting that Warner Home Video have apparently come up with a means of creating a triple format HD DVD/Blu-ray/DVD disc. This doesn't mean that the same data can be read by both players, but rather, much like the HD DVD/DVD combo discs being offered by Warner and Universal for some titles, that multiple differently formatted layers are included. This is certainly an extremely interesting development, but I have to wonder how many studios are likely to pay the licensing costs for three formats, as well as the unavoidable increase in manufacturing costs.