williamkenny-62129 Reviews

Out of the Unknown: Tunnel Under the World (1966) Season 2, Episode 8

Great adaptation of Frederick Pohl's classic short story

[9/10 · 6 August 2021]

A suburban couple are plagued by the same recurring nightmare of being caught in a horrifying explosion. Even worse, upon waking they are subjected to relentless advertising from all corners. Then a strange man enters their lives, insisting he can unlock the secret of their monotonous existence ...

A totally audacious and influential story is given a respectable adaptation here: on one level it's a rather unsubtle dig at the culture of advertising (the horrible future imagined here having already been easily surpassed many times over here in the 'real' world), but the ideas open up in layers like a Russian Doll, the implications one can draw are startling.

Possibly one of the most relevant and persuasive SF stories ever, perhaps a confession of sorts from contrite ex-ad man Pohl, it's been quietly influential for decades, from Philip K Dick's 'Time Out Of Joint' to The Matrix films, and arguably, Westworld, The Stepford Wives, The Truman Show ... a huge amount of film and TV has increasingly mined similar themes, making this episode feel very contemporary. One of the best episodes.

Out of the Unknown: Level Seven (1966) Season 2, Episode 4

Worthy but dull

[6/10 · 6 August 2021]

Very evocative and interesting as a period piece, but makes for tedious viewing as a sermon on the (potential) horrors of the modern world. Pleasingly designed and filmed in black and white, like a very, very bleak Doctor Who episode (which is recommendation enough for me). The fascistic regime in the bunker is well delineated in the first third, if rather heavy handed, the near silent sequences in the hydroponic gardens at the climax are memorable, but on the whole it is too unengaging and detached, with a thuddingly obvious simplistic message that our warlike ways will have us all for the high jump if we don't buck up our ideas. The notion of nuclear war is too remote and couched in SF trappings here. It's admirable that the show touched on the subject at all in such an uncompromising fashion. That's to be applauded, but compared with the nearly contemporary The War Game (which the BBC commisioned but wouldn't show), Level Seven seems trifling indeed. Without the shocking force and versimilitude of that film, and with little in the way of gripping drama in it's place, the end result here is rather stodgy. The War Game placed events in the present or immediate near future. Level Seven takes place in an unspecified but radically different future. The War Game also brought a necessary genuine howl of despairing rage to the party - Level Seven, as with several other nuclear dramas, ends up a rather trite sermon - it brings one of the most pressing issues of our existence down to the level of 'people do bad things - everyone suffers, and the characetrs spend the remainder of the play looking pained & noble until they drop dead'.

Out of the Unknown: Welcome Home (1971) Season 4, Episode 6

Gripping

[8/10 · 6 August 2021]

Excellent, pacey direction characterises this study in paranoia. Nominally SF, this episode works best on the level of pure nightmare, with the later episodes of this great anthology show leaning ever more strongly toward horror. Welcome Home retains a strong potency five decades on. Abandon logic, give in to the nightmare and brace yourself!

Callan (1974)

Not Quite The Classic TV Series, but No Disgrace Either

[9/10 · 3 August 2021]

I saw this film prior to viewing any episodes of the TV series. With hindsight, one can identify ways in which this adaptation falls short of it's source material - however, taken on it's own merit, this is an excellent, slow burn thriller.

It has one undeniable advantage over the TV show. It is shot on film on location and therefore the grimy, low-rent milieu Callan occupies is rendered credibly. One of the strengths of the TV version is it's relentlessly downbeat tone, but this was somewhat mitigated by the stagey, shot on video aesthetic, which gave the material intimacy. On film the effect is far more cold and alienating. In some ways the film reminded me of an English 'Taxi Driver', with long scenes of Edward Woodward in a grubby bedsit practising his quick-draw.

I'd advise all viewers to give this fine film a look, and for Callan purists to give it a chance on it's own terms.

It would be interesting to know more about the circumstances that led to the making of this film. Would there have been sequels? Was it an opportunity to bring Woodward's excellent performance as the character to a wider, potentially international, audience?

In some ways, the later series The Equalizer feels like an americanised variation on Callan, wherein he has quit government work and become a freelance troubleshooter on behalf of private citizens. But Robert McCall is a much more straightfoward, palatable character for the US than the complex David Callan and his shades-of-grey world. Let me tell you, Brit 70s TV was really something!

The City and the City (2018)

Dire

[2/10 · 16 April 2021]

Incoherent, inept sci fi - excrutiating and tedious. David Morrissey is actually the best thing in it, but he is up against an overly verbose script, and an amateurish production. It's as if he is leading a troupe of drama students on an improvised exercise. All his dialogue has the strange effect of being exposition that only adds to the confusion, like some character from Alice In Wonderland. The production has the air of a precocious youngster convinced of it's own genius and the startling originality of it's own ideas - anyone failing to penetrate the incomprehensible plot must be of a lower order of evolution. I gather from other reviews here that there is some kind of Marxist allegory at work - if this is the device of two cities occupying the same space - one plush, one rancid - I don't find it overly original, and the point escapes me. I don't think polemics make for especially good drama, and does not make China Mievelle's work seem very appealing. Overall, the production reminded me of painful misfired attempts at adult science fiction from the 1980s, like the awful Plays For Tomorrow, and especially the badly flawed but more interesting Artemis 81, which at least has some flair by comparison,.

Tales of the Unexpected: Decoy (1982) Season 5, Episode 7

Proper Nerve jangler

[8/10 · 10 March 2021]

Interesting to read how this episode has divided reviewers. I agree with the negative reviewer that in retrospect the ending is badly flawed. It's still a well told and acted, atmospheric, tense and exciting episode, and I have long considered it one of my favourites. Susan Penhaligon's silver trousers are much remarked upon because they are wonderful. I didn't see anything funny about the fashions, but then part of me still lives in the early 1980s.

Tales of the Unexpected: A Man with a Fortune (1982) Season 5, Episode 16

Low-key but effective episode

[8/10 · 10 March 2021]

Any review of this episode has to carry a spoiler warning - the twist comes out of nowhere and is genuinely 'unexpected', though the grue and gore happen offscreen and is left to the imagination - which was largely this series stock-in-trade, for those who haven't realised (we usually end at the moment of a revelation which will have devastating and ironic implications). Furthermore, the twist ending being open leaves us suspended amid myriad possibilities - maybe nothing bad happened, maybe they went away and were happy ever after, and just forget to phone anyone? Yeah, right! Red herrings a-plenty here, with the typical 'tales ...' golddigging and subterfuge as lovely but reticent Liz Richardson meets by chance harmless (and wealthy) newly single 'teddy bear' Shane Rimmer and lets slip info to her equally lovely but conniving and opportunistic flatmate (Cyd Hayman). Cyd makes abeeline to the public library, where Shane is researching his family tree. She quickly inviegles herself into his company ... but enough of this. It's a subtle, slow burning Tale. Second series appearances for Richardson and Rimmer (as you all know, the voice of Scott Tracy and beloved from dozens, maybe hundreds of appearances in sundry Star Wars, Supermans, Bonds, etc. etc. - but you knew that already).

Crimes of the Future (1970)

Separates the Men from the Andromorphs

[8/10 · 14 February 2021]

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch Crimes of the Future ... Kim Newman hit the nail on it's head when he wrote that here Cronenberg demonstrated it was possible to be 'boring and interesting at the same time'. I know what you are thinking: you're thinking you aren't some bozo-stim-monkey, and you in fact crave glacial near-status. This film you will take in your stride. But you reckon wrongly. This film is one hour, not twenty five minutes, and interminable in places. Unless you have attained a level of Zen mastery, you will fidget in your seat, possibly contemplate chewing the carpet such is the oppressive sense of confinement. And yet, and yet ... Maybe that is the point? It conjures a world with total success, the world the later, funny films take place in. (No exploding heads or slapstick classics of such an ilk here). And it has a strange effect. Getting to the end feels like completing an arduous task, but after a while, you want to do it again. The locations are fascinating - we truly live on an alien planet. In fact the whole project has the feel of a documentary from another world - or convincingly from the future. It's beautiful, and very disturbing, in a subtle way. And it's funny! there should be a Ron Mlodzik fan club.

Armchair Theatre: Red Riding Hood (1973) Season 15, Episode 5

Much better than the 5.9 imdb rating indicates

[8/10 · 6 February 2021]

Extremely creepy and brilliantly acted claustrophobic psychological horror.

Tales of the Unexpected: The Landlady (1979) Season 1, Episode 5

Avoid spoilers if you havent seen it already - they will ruin it for you.

[8/10 · 6 February 2021]

'I think this story is funny', remarks Roald Dahl in the intro. Maybe - if you have a pitch black sense of humour. By far the most macabre, creepy episode of 'Tales ...' - close to an EC comics horror story, in fact, though it lacks the ironic punchline that wouldve been compulsory for EC, and one would expect from Dahl to be honest. It's a minor masterpiece of TV grisliness, reliant on shock, since there is little of a story and not much in the way of the aforementioned irony. It must have sent many to bed troubled upon original broadcast, and I'm glad I was too young to have seen it at the time - definite nightmare fodder for youngsters, especially if they had been lulled into a false sense of security by previous weeks tales of crooked vicars, lovable pickpockets, umbrella thieves etc., Even the grand guignol of losing a finger for a bet, or an implied bludgeoning with a leg of lamb are light releif compared to the 'Psycho'-like oblivion unveiled here.

Jailbreak (1962)

Brit crime potboiler not in the same league as, say, Payroll but a decent supporting feature

[6/10 · 2 February 2021]

Starts very promisingly, with brothers and their dear old mum running a low-rent crime empire from a newsagents. One brother gets himself incarcerated, but mummy and sonny won't let that small detail get in the way of their plans for a heist. Fast moving and funny, this is good undemanding fun, though it does go a bit flat toward the end, with the interesting crooks inevitably comin a-cropper, the dull just-fell-in-with-the-wrong-crowd lad getting the girl, and much 'there we have it, support your local bobby, we're human too, you know, evening all, etc.' in the final reel

The Villain Still Pursued Her (1940)

Underrated

[7/10 · 2 February 2021]

Surprisingly, still very funny affectionate parody of silent cinema cliches. A cult film ahead of it's time.

The Serpent (2021)

Style over substance

[4/10 · 10 January 2021]

Only on epsiode three so my opinions may be subject to change. Looks beautiful, with good looking cast, chic seventies fashions and admirable attention to detail. The tricksy flashback structure wouldn't be a problem but for the fact that it renders the story incoherent. There is no centre - settling neither the investigator piecing together the facts after the fact (we have seen what has happened, so we cannot share in his discoveries) nor the killer (a shallow characterisation, so far we have little insight into his character or motivations (like much else here, he amounts to a set of clothes - augmented with dark glasses and an unpleasant demeanor)). We really need the so-called 'Serpent' of the title to be fascinating, if repulsive, otherwise he is simply a vile, opportunistic murderer. There is little in the way of suspense, even more so than a standard slasher film, characters are introduced simply to be despatched and might as well have signs hanging round their necks saying 'victim'. They are also portrayed as guileless innocents. Jenna Coleman's portrayal is ineffectual in offering any insight into a weird character. It is extremely monotonous and repetitive, with similar looking scenes recurring. I think eight episodes is going to be a slog - too long and slow, like much drama at present - unless there are some extraordinary twists. The makers seem too much on an 'auteur' filmmaker trip - they know their music, no doubt pored of Dulux sample books of the period, tick the trendy boxes (giallos, grungey colour schemes and set design like Wes Anderson if he went to seed) etc., but in their eagerness to make a splash with flashy cinematics, they have neglected concise, suspenseful storytelling, credible acting (good looking but unconvincing for the most part), and, crucially, coherence.