strings as integral to the narrative.
Kahro. the Emperor of Hebalon (voiced by Julian Glover). has committed suicide by cutting his own head string, having failed to broker peace with the Zeriths. a despised minority group. Deceived by his treacherous uncle into believing Kahro was murdered by the Zerith. his headstrong son Hal (James McAvoy) swears revenge and sets out with his general Erito (David Harewood) to find and kill their leader. But along the way he falls for the mysterious Zita (Catherine McCormack) and learns his father's legacy was never as noble as he'd been led to believe.
Lyrically shot by director Anders Ronnow-Klarlund. Strings makes it easy to forget you're watching marionettes. These wonderfully expressive figures of wood. ivOry and gold are carved according to social rank and age: the old look weathered and beaten. the slaves are assemblages of spare parts for their masters. Some of the more intimate moments look slightly ridiculous. as in the creaky process of childbirth. but the battle sequences and death scenes are surprisingly moving.
(Jay Richardson) I GFT, Glasgow from Fri 27 May. Fi/thL/se. Edinburgh from Fri 77 Jun.
HORROR HOUSE OF WAX (15) 112min GOO
As a rule. US teen slasher movies invariably exploit the phobia and mistrust with which city-dwellers regard small. rural working towns in the middle of nowhere (see Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jeepers Creepers). House of Wax stands over this bubbling vat of genre paranoia and embraces its themes of duality with a perverse. playful smile.
A remake of Andre De Toth‘s 1953 classic in nothing but name. first-time director Jaume Collet-Sera's ‘reimagining‘ finds bickering siblings Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) and Nick (Chad Michael Murray) leading a group of friends (including Paris Hilton) on a road trip. Car trouble is a given and the teens wind up in eerie Ambrose. the only town for miles. It's home to the titular House of Wax. a creepy museum (superbly realised by designer Grace Walker) filled with sculptures just a shade too life-like for comfort.
The slasher genre's wider notions of mistrusting one's partners manifest most obvrously with Carly and Nick's rivalry. and they must learn to work together if they are to survive the town's own sinister twins Bo and Vincent Sinclair (played with relish by Brian Van Holt).
It's this sense of knowing fun that places House of Wax a notch above
.5’
l
TV SPIN OFF. COMEDY
THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN’S
APOCALYPSE (15) 91 min on
To their eternal credit, The League of Gentlemen have never rested on their Iaurels. Their gallery of small town grotesques have been with them through live performance, radio and three television series, but the writers have continually experimented with different narrative structures, often at the risk of laughs and upsetting their fan base. And so it is with Apocalypse. For their debut feature, the League have married endless allusions to horror film with a plot of multiple realities and a Pirandello-like meeting of characters and authors. It’s ambitious, Ieanly scripted and expertly balanced between three different worlds, less obviously calculated than, say, Kaufman’s Adaptation and with far greater pathos than Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo. Unfortunately, it’s just not as consistently funny
as the group’s best work.
A superb opening scene establishes the madness. In the supposed real world, the fourth, non-acting Gentleman, Jeremy Dyson (played by Michael Sheen), is terrified to be visited on a dark, stormy night by three of his most outlandish creations, the demonic Papa
its peers. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. steeped in sibling rivalry. plays on repeat in the town's cinema. while audience Sympathies in the city girl versus rural psycho routine are cheerfully turned on their head by casting the ubiquitous Hilton as someone most of us would be delighted to see brutally slain and encased in wax. (Struan Mackenzie) I General release from Fri 27 May.
FAMILY MILLIONS (12A) 98min 0000
Young brother Damien (Alex Etel) and Anthony (Lewrs McGibbonl
Cunningham have been through a lot.
Their mum has died and they've just moved to a new housing estate somewhere on the Wirral with their depressed father (James Nesbittl. While pious. sweet natured Damian
Lazarou and the inherently local Edward and Tubbs,
with comically regrettable results. This will not be their story, however, and the action switches to the town of Royston Vasey, where a biblical apocalypse is in
progress because the three remaining writers, Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and Steve Pemberton, are killing off their characters to write The King’s Evil, a 17th century demonic drama. Through diabolical accident, a rescue party of murderous butcher Hilary Briss (Gatiss), German pederast Herr Lipp (Pemberton) and businessman Geoff Tipps (Shearsmith) are sent through a portal into the real world to try to reason with their creators, kidnapping Pemberton and writing themselves into the Hammer horror of the historical script along the way.
Given the opportunity for greater character development, the writers excel. Pemberton’s turn as the slimy Lipp, bizarrely pretending to be Pemberton himself, discovering self-awareness and finding
redemption with the actor’s family, is brilliantly
loses himself in the Surrounding COuntryside reading abOut the lives of the Saints. Anthony is angry about everything.
When the boys find a bag of pound notes they realise this is their chance to make everything better but they only have ten days in which to do it because the Euro is about to come into the UK.
Director Danny Shallow Grave Boyle and writer Frank 24 Hour Party Peop/e Cottrell Boyce's first foray into family
developed. Prior knowledge of the series is unnecessary and only a bonus, but sadly, The King’s Evil scenes feel a reality too far and never quite sparkle like the others. (Jay Richardson)
I General release from Fri 3 Jun. See prelieitz page H.
entertainment is an absolute rot. Playful. imaginative. (ECOIIOII‘ICill and a whole heap of fun. it is a film that reaches back to children's moves like Monte Carlo or Bust. No Deposit No Return and the entire Herbie franchise. Stupidly given a 12A certification in this c0untry by the BBFC ibecause of one scene in which Damian and Anthony play on the l'tlll‘.‘.r’(l\ ll‘tltilel Mi//ions is in fact that rare beast -- a simple (mildly lelt \vingi iiioialiu fable dressed up as a live action kiddies“ comedy ad\enture drama. This wouldn't look out of place in a Saturday morning kiddie matinee double bill in one of the man; fleapit cinemas. which were rated to the ground in Thatcher 's Britain. No bad thing, no bad thing) at all. Laxt parents beware. (Raul Dalei
I Selected release iron: Fri (’7 him. See inter'vrew. page J 7.
".3 Mi. f." I." . .‘ i~ THE LIST 49