Change Your Image
cropsy72
Reviews
What Goes on Tour (2007)
"This is a hire coach, not some nookie wagon!" Funny romp with a twist in the tale
I saw this short film on ITV after it was advertised in the break between Coronation Street and I'm A Celebrity. What Goes On Tour is a funny valleys-humour comedy, very much in the style of Grand Slam, Satellite City, High Hopes or Sticky Wickets. It features a young Welsh rugby team returning from tour in their battered old bus. Best friends Smiler and Griff have promised their girlfriends that they will behave themselves, but team captain Richard has decreed that any player who doesn't get off with a girl by the time the tour is over will have to pay an embarrassing forfeit. Will Smiler and Griff remain faithful, or will they go all-out to get a last chance kiss at the service station? After all, what goes on tour stays on tour... doesn't it?
The actors are all game amateurs apart from some star turns from some familiar old Welsh faces and everyone does a good job, in particular bus driver Jams Thomas and team coach Wayne Hall who have some hysterical moments together. The comedy is pretty broad, especially a gag involving a black bin liner full of pee, and it pays to stick with this one until after the end credits have rolled. The script is tight and packs a lot in for such a short film.
Director Kieron Self is better known as the Welsh dentist in BBC comedy My Family and also has a starring role on the much-loved sitcom High Hopes.
What Goes On Tour is a fun, satisfying and funny romp and a pretty good indicator of the kind of antics rugby teams get up to. Parents of young players should probably not watch this film!
Class of 1984 (1982)
Hits you like a motorcycle chain to the jaw
"Life is pain. Pain is everything. You will learn."
On its release 25 years ago, Class of 1984 was criticised for being too far fetched. Few critics could buy into director Mark Lester's ultra-violent vision of kids taking weapons into classrooms or schools fitted out with metal detectors.
Lester intended his flick as a wake up call to America about increasing levels of school violence. While Columbine may have proved that Lester's vision didn't go quite far enough, he sure as hell knows how to create the perfect B-movie.
Brutal, fast and fun, such outrageously violent scenes as Andy cutting off a gang member's arm with a circular saw or burning another pupil alive ensured that Class of 1984 was heavily cut and even banned in numerous countries (recent R2 and R1 releases are fully uncut).
Lester has claimed that he introduced America to punk rock with this movie. While that's debatable, the gang all look the part, although Stegman boasts an unfortunate haircut that puts the 'wave' in 'new', and the soundtrack mixes the likes of Fear and Teenage Head with Alice Cooper.
With its stylised brutality, punk rock soundtrack and relentless pace, Class of 1984 still hits you like a motorcycle chain to the jaw.
Xtro (1982)
Disturbing, disgusting and uncomfortable - just like a good horror film should be.
Created back in 1983 as a two-fingered response to the cute 'n' cuddly shenanigans of ET The Extra Terrestrial, the British-made Xtro (see what they did there?) is a mess of a movie that somehow works brilliantly. Delirious, ridiculous and outrageous, at times it really does feel like it's from another planet.
The plot of Xtro wouldn't go amiss on a daytime TV soap opera - errant father returns to family, has awkward reunion, doesn't get on with new boyfriend, wife is torn between the two men, etc. But then it goes and whacks you around the head with some truly inspired acts of disgusting shock-value.
For the most part, the acting is top notch stuff, especially from the now-deceased Philip Sayer as Sam and Bernice 'Macabre' Stegers as Rachel. Special mention must be made of Maryam D'Abo as Analise, the nanny. This was her first film, and it features some brief bedroom gymnastics from the Bond-girl-in-the-making.
Tik and Tok, two dancers who specialised in Robotics, that most dreaded of all early 80s dance crazes, were employed to portray the Action Man doll and the four-legged creature - the latter was achieved by having Tik stand on his hands and feet and 'walk' backwards like a crab. It only partly works in execution, but kudos to the filmmakers for using their imagination to avoid the dreaded man-in-a-suit syndrome.
It occurred to me while watching this disc that Xtro could be read as a child abuse allegory - Sam interferes with Tony at night, then swears him to secrecy - but then I realised that I was talking rubbish, and the story simply sets out to disgust and amaze, which it does in spades.
Yes, it's a cheap and cheerful monster mash concocted from the plots of other movies, but there's something genuinely alien about the whole film that fascinates and revolts in equal measure. Much of this strange atmosphere is down to the eerie score, which was composed by the director himself. A lot like the music heard in Inseminoid, it lends itself entirely to the not-of-this-earth feel of the film, and was once available on LP - anyone know where I can bag a copy?
By his own admission, director Harry Bromley-Davenport has admitted that Xtro is a bit of a mess. But nevertheless, it stands alone as a highly disturbing piece of sci-fi horror, and I honestly can't see why it hasn't been recognised more widely for its achievements.
I remember reading a promotion for this film in the pages of the mighty comic, 2000AD, home to the likes of Judge Dredd. Somehow, I don't think the editors viewed the atrocities of Xtro before urging their young readership to rush out and see it!