BA_Harrison

In 1993, Director George Sluizer got to give his Dutch horror/thriller Spoorloos (1988) the big budget Hollywood remake treatment, which meant that the script had to be heavily altered to suit, most notably the original film's downbeat ending being replaced by a new, more upbeat finalé. Sluizer's revamped thriller is slickly made with a great cast, and undemanding mainstream audiences will probably have a good time with it, but if you prefer your films to have a bit more of an edge, there's a good chance that The Vanishing's very American approach, with its predictable and far less shocking outcome, will leave you unimpressed.

Kiefer Sutherland plays writer Jeff Harriman, who puts his life on hold in order to try and find his girlfriend Diane (Sandra Bullock), who went missing during a stop at a service station. After three years of looking for Diane with no success, Jeff meets waitress Rita Baker (Nancy Travis) and romance blossoms. Jeff agrees to give up his search, but then he receives a message from a man named Barney (Jeff Bridges), who says that he is the one who abducted Diane, and if Jeff wants to find out what happened to his girlfriend, he must comply with his demands...

Bridges is a strange choice for Barney, the actor better known as a dashing leading man than for playing a psycho (with a bad haircut), and it takes a while to accept him in the role, but he eventually makes good; Sutherland, on the other hand, is perfect as the everyman thrown into a personal hell, his obsession driving him to take great risks, and Travis makes for a likeable heroine. Bullock is fine as the tragic Diane, but she isn't given a lot to do. Sluizer handles the action well enough, but the new 'happy' ending does take a bit of swallowing, and ultimately lacks the impact of the original movie. The Vanishing's finalé sees Rita tracking down Barney, using her guile to outwit the nutjob and save her man. It's formulaic stuff designed to appease the masses - nothing wrong with that, and I enjoyed it for what it was - but watch Spoorloos and see which one stays in the mind the longest.

Legend of the Demon Womb, the second in the Urotsukidoji series of films, opens in 1944, with a Nazi scientist attempting to resurrect the Lord of Chaos, using a large contraption powered by naked women being penetrated by mechanical dildos. That old chestnut.

The plan fails, but the scientist's son, Munhi Hausen, continues his father's work with the help of demon Kohoki. Together, they see to it that teenager Takeaki receives a blood transfusion from his cousin Tatsuo, the Overfiend, which transforms him into a monster. With Takeaki under their control, Munhi Hausen and Kohoki pit him against Tatsuo, killing the Overfiend being the key to successfully summoning the Lord of Chaos.

As with the first film, Legend of the Demon Womb is full of mutating demons, moist gusset rubbing, thrashing tentacles, and cute girls being raped by monsters, with plenty of goopy fluids and squelchy noises. The plot takes some following, especially with the chaotic nature of some of the animation, but overall this is a decent follow up to the first movie... imaginative and visually impressive, with plenty of the extreme, graphic and incredibly perverse content that Hentai anime fans crave.

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

A prequel to David Lynch's cult TV series Twin Peaks, Fire Walk With Me recounts the sexual abuse and eventual murder of cocaine-snorting homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) by her father Leland (Ray Wise), who Laura sees as a lank-haired stranger called BOB, who crawls into her bedroom at night to do the nasty.

Director David Lynch died last month; the tributes came pouring in immediately, fans mourning the loss of a cinematic genius. I don't disagree with the sentiment: Lynch had to be a genius to convince Joe Public to buy into his unique vision. I think of the Lynch phenomenon as something of an 'Emperor's New Clothes' situation. Lynch is the tailor, making something out of nothing. At some point, a renowned critic praised Lynch for the style, creativity and depth of his work, and not wanting to appear stupid, the masses agreed with him. Before long, everyone was admiring the 'shiny new clothes' made by Lynch. I'm the little boy who likes to point out that 'the king is in the altogether'. I believe that much of what Lynch shows us amounts to little more than random nonsense deliberately designed to leave viewers desperately trying to work out what it all means. It's Lynch having a laugh, steadfastly refusing to elaborate, and his performers are in on the joke.

I've had more fun reading fan theories about Fire Walk With Me than I did with the film. Every baffling surreal moment is dissected, analysed and theorised about to the nth degree, sometimes with hilarious results. There's a series of videos on YouTube, viewing Lynch's work through a feminist lens - explaining themes and messages that I don't believe were ever intended - which are well worth a watch if you want to see just how far people will go to try and rationalise what they have seen (whilst using big words like dichotomy, canonical, patriarchy and autonomy in every sentence). Lynch himself said "I don't know why people expect art to make sense.", but clearly his fans love to obsess about every detail, desperate to understand. Keeps them busy, I suppose.