prince_lazy_i

OK, we'll never know *quite* what Vincent Ward might have come up with: "Rumour Control! Wooden Spaceship! THE NAME OF THE ROSE in space!" as Brian Glover might have put it... But the recently released Special Edition of ALIEN3 is quite good enough to warrant a full-scale reappraisal of this dark, haunted, regret-filled little movie. If you thought it was the runt of the litter, think again - the thirty extra minutes of restored footage put it second only to ALIEN in the quadrilogy. Watch it, and you'll surely agree it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Fincher's later, stronger work. Highly recommended - now I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with Jeunet's ALIEN:RESURRECTION... more Joss Whedon, less cyberpunk maybe?

What? A British movie without any diamond Mockney geezers or slumming luvvie thesps? A British movie that dares to tell an interesting and for the most part unpredictable story about - gasp - recognisable, likeable characters? Is it a ghost movie? Is it a thriller? Is it STRAW DOGS? Is it THE WICKER MAN? No - it's something else, is what it is - most of all, a throwback to the days when the British film industry (quiet at the back there, stop sniggering) could make quirky, intelligent, movies that exemplified style and originality, not just an excuse to pollute the screen with stereotyped by-the-yard Britflick blah. Danny Boyle did it with 28 DAYS LATER, and this film does it too - check it out. As Joe Bob would say.

It's not big budget. It's not post-modern. It's not a bunch of buff teens out in the woods. It's a careful, low-key period piece, which by no coincidence whatsoever is one of the best British scary movies of the last ten years. This is what happens when you set a good cast loose on a good story, with capable direction and a determination to avoid cheap and cheesy thrills. Go seek it out!