Review: The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth

Two new releases from AllTheAnime.com, and two classics from the Henson studios.

First up is The Dark Crystal. Following the success of Jim Henson's Muppets on television in Sesame Street and then their own The Muppet Show, the idea was mooted for a film which could feature them. Furthermore, there would be no human performers at all ...

The Dark Crystal takes this idea and runs with it big time. Everything on screen is puppetry and animatronics in real time: no CGI no AI no animation ... and yet this major selling point for the film becomes its biggest downfall. You just don't care much about the lead characters Gelflings Jen and Kira. They can't emote and act as a human performer would, and so while you can follow the plot and Jen's journey to complete the titular Dark Crystal, you don't really care. 

It's also all taken dead seriously, with the Skeksis being evil and cackly and the peaceful Mystics being, well, slow and peaceful. And this impedes the film. It's all a little ponderous and heavy.

There are some gorgeous sets and shots. A favouite is a long slow pan across a forest where everything is alive from the plants and fungi to the trees and animals and insects ... all created through puppetry. It's beautifully done and testament to the skill of the makers.

I know the film holds a special place in many fans' hearts, but sadly it just doesn't do it for me. I admire the talent and inventiveness that went into it, but I wish they had used real actors for the two Gelflings to give more humanity and emotion to the performances.

And speaking of using human actors brings us to the second film realeased by All The Anime.com, Labyrinth.

For this film, while it's the same production team, and it features puppetry and animatronics, they very wisely decided to use humans for the main protagonists, and in a genius move of casting, paired a young 14 year old Jennifer Connolly, with the pop icon David Bowie. And the magic happened.

Take an inventive and clever script from Monty Python's Terry Jones and combine with the visual flair of artist Brian Froud (who also worked on The Dark Crystal) and they managed to capture lightning in a bottle with the story of a young girl who asks the Goblin King to take her baby brother away, and then has to traverse the eponymous labyrinth to rescue him, making friends and meeting all manner of strange creatures along the way.

The film is a tour de force and Connolly and Bowie are perfectly matched in their battle of words and deeds to rescue baby Toby. But it's some of the subsidiary characters who stick in the memory, in particular Hoggle (who is deliberately mis-named as Hogwort by Bowie a couple of times - was this film perhaps a favourite of a certain J K Rowling?), a masterpiece of animatronic face (controlled by four operators) and actor-in-a-suit to bring it all to life. Likewise is the amazing lumbering Ludo, an orange-haired ape creature with a single operator within to bring it to life, as well as having an animatronic face. Add the voice talents to the visuals and the effect is seamless, the creatures leaping off the screen and into your heart.

It's all just so well done. The merging of elements like M C Escher's paintings, the toys in Sarah's bedroom coming to life, the goblin myth and legend, and above it all, striding as some beautiful, powerful Goblin King, the master himself, David Bowie.

Bowie's performance is towering. He's such a talent, and composed the songs for the movie himself, as well as performing them. When you compare this performance with his equally powerful role in the film The Hunger, you can see what a talent he was. Charisma on a stick!

As you can probably tell I love Labyrinth. It takes the seeds that were sown in The Dark Crystal and matures and improves on them at every turn. I don't think the film puts a foot wrong. Even down to the tone, which this time is distinctly humourous. Yes, the leads take it all very seriously, but there is humour in nearly all the subsidiary characters from Didymus and Ludo through to the incompetant guards and other elements which appear throughout the movie.

The prints on these two releases are great quality and show off the films to their best advantage, and they come with a wealth of extras, from documentaries to outtakes, and even to casting reels, which for Labyrinth show that they really did make the right decision casting Connolly. A shame that her audition reel is not included though.

Available from www.alltheanime.com

Review: The Ginger Snaps Trilogy

Second Sight films bring us a new box-set Blu-Ray release of the three films in the Ginger Snaps trilogy. I've long been a fan of the first film, called simply Ginger Snaps (2000) as it came along at a time when horror seemed to be retreading a lot of old ground (is that ever not the case) and presented something new and refreshing.

Karen Walton penned the screenplay, and John Fawcett directed this tale of two sisters. The basic idea, as are all the best ideas, is simple: take a girl coming into puberty and starting her periods and so on, and align it with the idea of being bitten and turning into a werewolf for the first time. The loss of person, the unexpected mood swings, the personality changes, and of course the blood. It's a beguilingly simple premise, and the film works extremely well to present the transformation that Ginger (Emily Perkins) goes through. Her sister Brigitte (Katharine Isabelle) does her best to try and help her sister, but both end up trapped in the cycle that can only really end with the death of Ginger in her wolfen form.

There's so much to love about this film. The performances from the two leads are pitch perfect, from Emily Perkins' slow transformation from teen rebel to vamp to full blown werewolf, to Katharine Isabelle's sulky younger sister, missing out on all the 'fun' and ultimately needing to align with a local drug dealer to find a potential 'cure' for her sister.

The werewolf lore here is new, not following the established 'transform at the full moon', 'silver bullets and wolfsbane' type approach that many other films follow. We have a slow transformation which takes place over several days/weeks, and the idea that monk's hood (a toxic plant) could provide the 'cure' for Ginger. 

The effects are all well done, and the film is the goriest of the three, with many scenes of stomach churning graphic gore. Wisely the director seems to have realised that the weakest element was the actual full size werewolf itself, and so it is edited around and never shown for too long. Although what you do see is quite effective.

It's something of a tour de force for the team behind it, and so there was no real surprise that a sequel came along in 2004. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed is curious in that it doesn't really rely on the original film for its plot. The film reinterprets the ideas and Brigitte, after the events of the first film, ends up confined in a drug rehabilitation centre for women, where she tries to understand her life. Key to the film is a new character, Ghost (Tatiana Maslany), a 12 year old child, who helps Brigitte. 

Brigitte is now turning into a werewolf herself (apparently because she drunk some of Ginger's blood in the first film) and is trying to work out how the Monks Hood can save her. But there's more afoot, and Ghost too is not quite as she seems. There's also the spirit of Ginger hanging around and talking with Brigitte.

It's a more confused film than Ginger Snaps and as it doesn't really rely on the source for it's plot and development, can be seen as stand alone. This time Megan Martin wrote the screenplay and it's directed by Brett Sullivan. The standout performance here is from Tatiana Maslany, playing Ghost. As with her future barnstorming performance(s) in Orphan Black, Maslany immerses herself in the character and she's intensely watchable and nuanced. It was a surprise to realise that Maslany was around 18 or 19 years old when she played the part, and yet she is utterly convincing as a 12 year old child.

Again the effects are well done, but the film is a little muddled and it doesn't really work as a sequel, mainly because Ginger Snaps set the bar so high that nothing could really reach it. It is a very enjoyable watch though.

The third part of the trilogy, Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004) is another film with only a tenuuous connection to the original story. This time it's a prequel, showing how the werewolf curse all started, and the film was made back to back with Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed.

Ginger and Brigitte are sisters in 1815, travelling the Canadian wilderness. They arrive at a fort which is beseiged by werewolves, and of course Ginger is bitten and begins her transformation. There are various comings and goings and werewolf attacks and we end with the two sisters escaping from the destroyed camp, and sharing blood together: the implication being that this creates the werewolf line which ultimately infects Ginger in Ginger Snaps.

It's another enjoyable film, and another for which you don't really need to have seen the previous two. The two leads are played by the same actresses, and some of the cast here are the same as Unleashed as the films were made at the same time. The effects are excellent, and the plot, while again a little confused, with seers and predictions and native visions coming into play to try and give the piece more of a mythalogical footing.

Written by Stephen Massicote and Christina Ray, and directed by Grant Harvey, the film is another worthy look at the werewolf myth. It's enjoyable and well made, and makes the most of the two leads.

Alongside the three films, the Second Sight release also contains a host of extras including many commentaries, interviews with the creative teams, deleted scenes and much more. It's a great way to appreciate and enjoy these three cracking films.

Available from: https://secondsightfilms.co.uk/products/the-ginger-snaps-trilogy-blu-ray-pre-order-available-may-25th