Category: DVD & Digital

Reviews of the latest UK DVD & Digital releases.

DVD & Digital

Film review: The Long Walk

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 Known for his work on the Hunger Games young-adult franchise, director Francis Lawrence treads a similar thematic path in his latest feature. Based upon the novel of the same name by iconic horror writer Stephen King, survival thriller The Long Walk takes place in an America dystopia ravaged and in financial ruin after a second Civil War.

Under a totalitarian regime, the plot follows a group of fifty young men, namely Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and Peter McVries (David Jonsson) who each represent their state in an annual event whereby they walk for miles until only one remains. If participants fails to follow a set rules outlined by military leader ‘the Major’ (Mark Hamill), after three warnings they are mercilessly executed by an army of soldiers. The winner will be awarded a significant cash prize and granted one wish.

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DVD & Digital · EIFF25 · Interviews

All the Devils Are Here Interview: Eddie Marsan, Burn Gorman, Barnaby Roper & Tienne Simon

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 Taking its title from an ominous line in William Shakespeare’s tragicomic play The Tempest, crime thriller All the Devils Are Here is written and directed by Barnaby Roper – a stylish feature debut from the filmmaker who uses his breadth of experience in making shorts and music videos to craft a slick experience. The plot centres around thieves Ronnie (Eddie Marsan), Grady (Sam Claflin), Royce (Tienne Simon), and Numbers (Burn Gorman) who hide out in a secluded house in the countryside after a heist spirals out of control. I took the opportunity to chat with the director and his cast ahead of its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival.

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DVD & Digital · EIFF25 · Interviews

Reality Is Not Enough Interview: Irvine Welsh & Paul Sng – ‘It’s quite an achievement to make a writer look interesting’.

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Known for his drug-fuelled novels such as Trainspotting, Filth, and Crime that depict working-class life in Scotland, novelist Irvine Welsh continues to explore fresh artistic mediums some thirty-plus years into his creative career. He has recently released concept album The Sci-fi Soul Orchestra as a musical companion piece to his latest book, Men in Love, and is always working on exciting new ideas across stage, screen, and of course literature. Giving a unique insight into his life and psyche, experimental documentary Reality Is Not Enough is written and directed by Paul Sng and uses a range of filmmaking styles to present a vivid and deeply personal portrait of the iconic writer.

Ahead of its world premiere at the 78th edition of Edinburgh International Film Festival, I was lucky enough to sit down with Sng and Welsh to discuss the film…

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Berlin25 · DVD & Digital · Interviews

Late Shift Interview: Petra Volpe – ‘COVID came, everybody was clapping for nurses, and then we forgot’.

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Earlier this year I attended Berlin Film Festival and the final screening of my trip was the gripping Swiss-German drama Late Shift which follows an eventful day in the life of surgical nurse, Floria who is brilliantly portrayed by Leonie Benesch. It was one of my festival highlights and ahead of its UK release next month, I was fortunate to sit down with its writer and director Petra Volpe to discuss the film…

It feels like very important, especially post-pandemic, to focus a film on the experiences of a nurse. What drew you to tell this story initially?

Well, I had lived with a nurse for many years before COVID even, and I kind of observed how the conditions she worked under got worse and worse, and how it affected her deeply. I just always felt like the work I’m doing, at home writing screenplays, was so banal compared to what she encountered every day. It’s such an emotionally complex but also technically complex job.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Superman

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 Over a decade has passed since writer and director James Gunn was called upon to add his filmmaking flair to the world-building of Marvel’s cinematic extended universe with the beloved Guardians of the Galaxy series. In more recent years, he jumped strip to reimagine DC’s Suicide Squad division and has now been tasked with rebooting their tale of arguably the world’s most iconic caped figure.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: 28 Years Later

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Their collaboration on 28 Days Later was credited with revitalising the zombie-horror subgenre for the 21stcentury, but director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland soon parted ways after falling out over the religious and philosophical themes in their sci-fi venture, Sunshine. It’s taken over two decades for them to reconcile their creative differences, and they have reunited to revive their post-apocalyptic franchise with thriller 28 Years Later.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: The Uninvited

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“I’ve never really been good at metaphors” says a drug-addled talent agent in The Uninvited, a comedy drama that takes a satirically sideways glance at ageing in modern-day Los Angeles. Written and directed by Nadia Conners, the plot centres around once-acclaimed stage actor Rose (Elisabeth Reaser) who has somewhat reluctantly fallen into a homemaker in the hills lifestyle since becoming a mother. While preparing to host a glamourous party with her husband Sammy (Walton Goggins) in order to impress their peers, an elderly woman named Helen (Lois Smith) arrives unannounced and claims that their house is in fact her own.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Freaky Tales

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After a foray into the mega-budget mainstream with comic book movie Captain Marvel in 2019, writer and director duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have made a welcomed return to their indie roots for their latest piece Freaky Tales, an action-horror comedy anthology set in late ‘80s Oakland, California. As the paths of hitman Clint (Pedro Pascal), corrupt cop (Ben Mendelsohn), and basketball star Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) cross with punks, skinheads, and underground rappers, their interconnected stories are tied together by strange supernatural happenings and blood-soaked vengeance.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Warfare

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Off the back of imagining fictional combat through a journalistic lens in dystopian thriller Civil War, filmmaker Alex Garland has turned his hand to a very real and recent conflict in his latest feature. Sharing the writing and directing credits on this picture is Ray Mendoza, the former U.S. Navy SEAL who has based the script on his own experience and the memories of his comrades. Set in 2006 Iraq, the plot recalls a mission carried out by platoon Alpha One which included Sam (Joseph Quinn), Erik (Will Poulter), Elliott (Cosmo Jarvis) and Mendoza himself, portrayed on-screen by  D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai. As their plan is severely curtailed by a devastating explosion, they must pull together to survive.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Death of a Unicorn

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 Since the release of whodunnit Knives Out in 2019, we’ve seen a flurry of glossy one-location productions with various genre twists on the format. Whether it’s in fine-dining terror The Menu, social satire slasher Bodies Bodies Bodies, or sci-fi thriller Companion, we’re quickly learning that whenever a group of individuals get together somewhere fancy for the weekend, things are going to get dark. Horror comedy Death of a Unicorn is the latest to fall into this category, marking the debut of writer and director Alex Scharfman. The plot follows lawyer Elliot (Paul Rudd) as he travels to the family estate of his billionaire boss Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), taking his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) along for the ride. On the way, they accidentally hit an animal on the road, and the fantastical fallout of the incident tests their fractured father-and-daughter relationship.

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