Fantastic voyage (to the thoracic ward)

There could be a lack of activity here for a short while as I'm off for a chest operation that will probably see me in hospital for about a week. That of course means no films.

Well, okay, not necessarily no films - last time I was in for the same operation I did still manage to squeeze in one old spy movie starring David Niven, but frankly it was rubbish and I can't even remember what it was called - and that's because of the quality of the film rather than me being off my face on drugs. Although now I mention it, it would be difficult to type anything when stuck in bed, ripped to the tits on morphine.

So before I depart I thought I'd make one last entry on a suitable theme. After wracking my brains to try and think of a film that revolved around hospital operations, the best film I could eventually come up with was FANTASTIC VOYAGE.

So what to write about? The novel concept of a miniaturised submersible injected into a human body? The weird and atonal score devised by Leonard Rosenman to reflect the strange alien world of organs and blood vessels? The spectacular special effects?

You'd think so, but no.

See, the problem is, once I start thinking about FANTASTIC VOYAGE, I think of the people in it - Stephen Ben-Hur Boyd, Edmund White Heat O'Brien, Donald every other film ever made Pleasance. And then I get to Raquel Welch... and I'm afraid once I start thinking of Raquel Welch it's difficult to think of much else. So that was the end of that.

Still, you've got to applaud me for managing to write a blog entry about Raquel Welch in which the only chest I refer to is my own.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Rockumentaries are like buses...

You ever hear something being declared as "the new rock'n'roll?" Well it appears that the new rock'n'roll is actually rock'n'roll at the moment if the three documentaries I've seen recently are anything to go by. Okay, so maybe not, but three rock-docs in quick succession seems like enough of an excuse to write about them.

The first of the three, METAL: A HEADBANGER'S JOURNEY, is a look at the history and culture of heavy metal music. While it's of more interest to the mosher than the non-mosher it's still worth a look for general music lovers.

It's the work of an anthropology student and takes the appropriate tack for investigating the phenomenon but given that he's also a self-confessed headbanger it's not too difficult to see which side of the fence he's broadcasting from.

That said, it covers a lot of ground from the roots of metal (in classical music, believe it or not) to whether the music or the religious culture of Scandanavia was to blame for a series of apparently headbanger-inspired church burnings in Norway. Along the way most of the major bands are interviewed or at least namechecked, along with a fair few that this viewer had never heard of, and stories abound of the twisted and debauched lifestyle, the appeal of metal and all the other stuff you'd expect.

The other two rock-docs I checked out lately were, for my money, even better though your taste may well vary. I thought that while METAL was an interesting film even for non-headbangers it was still a little specialised, whereas in NEW YORK DOLL and THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON an understanding of music is a secondary requirement behind appreciation of a powerful story.

NEW YORK DOLL is the story of the seminal New York glam/punk band but concentrates on the life of their statue-like bass player Arthur "Killer" Kane. Talk about your rock and roll lifestyle... the band lasts a few years, splits up, he hits the bottle, falls out a window and hospitalises himself, becomes a Mormon, spends the rest of his life volunteering and being skint, dreaming of one day playing with the New York Dolls again. And after that?

Well, I wouldn't want to give anything away for those who don't know the story, but it's simultaneously one of the most uplifting and yet tragic stories I've seen on film in recent years.

Similar in some ways then to THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON. The titular musician (that's Daniel, not the devil) was a troubled child and a bit of an outcast but had a gift for music. Recording tapes in his own basement at home he gradually built up a cult following, gained several celebrity admirers and even managed to get himself on MTV.

Unfortunately Daniel also suffered serious issues and spent time on medication, lived in a mental hospital, suffered from various mental illnesses, ran foul of drugs and so on. The story of his battle to break into the bigtime while battling his inner demons, of his music and his painting, of his unrequited love and the strain on his family, is both touching and a little unsettling and does not offer any happy or convenient resolutions to Daniel's story... but it's a story that needs to be told and needs to be heard.

This latter couple of movies make me wonder what's gone wrong with rock stars today. If you happen to see any of the gutter-raking spew-receptacles that pass themselves off as the British press these days, you'll have discovered that one of the main stories in the world of entertainment seems to be the constant tribulations of a certain troubled musician who finds himself plastered all over the tabloids and gossip rags at regular intervals.

I'm not going to name him here, because he already gets more coverage than he deserves, but my main gripe is that he is a star solely because of his lifestyle. Drink, drugs, acting like a yob in general... all enough to grab plenty of headlines because he's a "famous" musician. Ask Joe Public to name any songs by any of his bands and watch the blank stares though.

It seems that where once musicians behaving badly got attacked in the press because they were famous, now it seems that musicians are more likely to become famous for behaving badly. Whatever happened to the rock and roll lifestyle? I know it always included drink, drugs and all the other vices you can think of but every now and then they'd record a half-decent song, too.

When you look at the stories of Arthur Kane and Daniel Johnston it's difficult not to get angry when some talentless cretin gets more coverage for the dark side of their life than those troubled guys got for making some decent music.

The Curse of the Bristol Odeon

I usually travel down to Bristol around this time of the year and it'll come as no surprise to you to learn that when I'm down there I like to take in one or two trips to the cinema. Unfortunately they're usually less than enjoyable.

On my first trip there in 2004, I popped into the Odeon in the centre of Bristol as it was near my hotel. Being in Bristol from Friday until Sunday afternoon, I paid the cinema a visit once on the Friday night and once on the Saturday night - the films I saw?

THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and VAN HELSING.

Yeah, I know. You'd think a person would be pretty unlucky to see two films that awful in the space of a month, but to see two such stinkers on consecutive nights at the same cinema? That just wasn't funny. And the cinema wasn't one of the nicer ones I've been to either.

Fast forward a year, and in 2005 I make just the one trip to the cinema this time. Once again I'm in the same hotel so I pop down to the Odeon again. The choice on offer is eventually whittled down to either KINGDOM OF HEAVEN or THE HITCH-HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.

I opt for the latter. Being a science-fiction fan, it seems like the natural choice and, being completely unfamiliar with any of the previous incarnations (books, radio, TV, comics, etc.) I figure at least the jokes will be new to me.

New they were, funny they weren't. As science fiction the film was too silly, while as a comedy it was as funny as juggling with your own eyeballs. That pretty much cemented my theory that the Odeon in Bristol was cursed.

So this year I decided I'd try and feed my film habit elsewhere - the Odeon wasn't getting any more of my money until they stopped smearing my unsuspecting brain with celluloid excrement.

Friday night I arrived later than usual so the only option open to me for any film viewing was the Showcase cinema (the only cinema offering late-night screenings on the Friday). I prefer walking if possible and looking at a street map, it certainly appeared to be less than an hour's stroll from my hotel.

I guess distance isn't everything. Once I'd made it past the railway station, I had a lengthy walk along a dimly lit road with thick bushes right along the side... The kind of bushes you could quite easily imagine yourself being dragged into at knife-point, particularly if you happen to be someone with an overactive imagination walking to the cinema at almost midnight.

Past the bushes it didn't get any better - the road beyond was even darker, even quiter, even more devoid of any lifesigns - except for a couple of trucks, the stench of rotten fruit from an industrial estate and a large alsation guard dog who seemed to be under the impression that walking past a gate was tantamount to breaking and entering.

I'd have been relieved to finally get to the cinema except that when I got there the carpark was largely deserted, the cinema almost empty and I swear there was a drug deal going on outside the nearby McDonalds. On top of that it appears that apart from antisocial Scottish blokes visiting for the weekend, the only people visiting the cinema at that time were either drunk, obnoxious or both.

And the film? Well, there were a few on but I decided I'd go to whatever (from my choices) was showing first, which meant horror-comedy SLITHER. And guess what? It was rubbish.

Last year's trip suddenly came flooding back - as a horror film, it's too silly; as a comedy it's about as amusing as sliding down a cheesegrater into a bath of vinegar.

Could it be that the Odeon wasn't just solely to blame? Was it the case, as I was now beginning to suspect, that perhaps the curse extended to cover any Bristol cinema?

When Saturday night rolled around, I opted for something a bit nearer home and a bit earlier in the evening. Being a fan of arthouse cinemas, it was only right that I decide to try the Watershed cinema.

Despite being uninspired by either the description or the trailer, which I've seen numerous times over the last month, I went to see the emotionally charged French drama L'ENFER [aka HELL if you don't feel like speaking French], starring Emmanuelle Beart.

The cinema itself was nice - I was only in the minor screen 3 but it was well air-conditioned, had comfortable seats, a nice little screen and a very good sound system. In short it was a nice cinema (I did poke my head round the door of cinema 1 as well, which looked pretty decent too), which always helps.

And the film? I was surprised to find myself really enjoying it - a talented cast act out a wonderful drama about three women, their love lives, and the effect that a childhood incident has had on all of them. Finally, I saw a good film in Bristol!

Next year I'll be sure to bear all my previous experiences in mind when taking any trips to the cinema. I certainly won't be setting foot in the Odeon or Showcase again, but the Watershed might well see more of my money.

And with that, I'll depart, leaving you pondering, as I have, the irony that to finally put an end to all my cinema suffering I had to take a trip to HELL.

I now pronounce you...

In recent years there have been sporadic stories in the entertainment press about dwindling box office receipts, the death of cinema as we know it and all that guff. Sometimes it's in relation to the amount of utter bobbins that gets screened at your local multiplex; other occasions have seen super-duper home cinema systems and DVD technology being heralded as the triumph of home viewing over your local movie auditorium.

I've noticed another potential threat to box office takings however - inability to pronounce the name film you're going to see. Take a hint, Hollywood - you want people to see your movies, stop giving them silly names.

If you've been reading this blog for long enough you'll remember me giving a glowing write-up to the Oscar-winning SYRIANA. Good film, crap name. Granted, it's not the hardest to pronounce and I'm sure most people managed just fine but it's still a bit of an odd word to western audiences and you can't help wondering if it put some people off.

Fast forward to just a few months ago. Tommy Lee Jones scoops a whole bunch of prizes for his performance as both leading man and director, but wins no prizes at all for naming his film THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA. Melquiades Estrada? Come on, Tommy - if you wanted something vaguely Mexican-sounding could you not have just called him Pedro Sanchez or something like that? Luckily by the time I went to see it my local cinema were simply referring to it as the abbreviated THREE BURIALS. What a relief - it was either that or I'd be asking for a ticket for THE THREE BURIALS OF WHATEVER HIS NAME IS.

And now the latest effort, which really takes the biscuit. An African update of Bizet's Carmen, U-CARMEN EKHAYELITSHA is just taking the piss. How the bloody hell are you supposed to say that? Who's going to take a chance with buying a ticket for a film with a name like that? Most people will stay at home and watch telly instead. Or even worse, they'll stay at the cinema but we'll hear the dreaded words:

"Hi, can I have two tickets for U-Carm... um... U-Carmen Eky.. Ekhyl... Sod it, two tickets for SHE'S THE MAN please."

NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS (1976)

In the final installment of the BLIND DEAD series, the action returns to dry land, meaning (YES!) more zombies on horses.

NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS is a rehash of everything that's gone before but in doing so it returns the film to its roots and serves up plenty of what made it so enjoyable to begin with.

The plot, such as it is this time, concerns a doctor and his wife who move to a small seaside village where it just so happens that every seven years they sacrifice seven virgins in order to appease those nasty knights. And wouldn't you know it, just as sure as I always manage to arrive at the station in the morning just as my train is departing, so these poor folks have arrived just as the latest round of murders is hitting its stride.

Naturally, being a fine pair of horror cliches, er, sorry, I mean a fine pair of upstanding citizens, the couple do their best to figure out what's going on and save the next poor sacrificial girl. This of course upsets the locals, meaning we now have angry locals and horse-riding zombies after them. Some mornings you just wish you'd never got out of bed.

Although it a mish-mash of previously used plot elements (including another disfigured outcast picked on by the locals) and the ending is a bit contrived, it delivers everything you expect and provides a far more fitting conclusion to the series than GHOST GALLEON would have done. It still can't quite match the first two films, but at least it has slow-motion horse-riding zombies, and there's nothing cooler than that in the history of cinema. Well, except maybe that scene in ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS where a semi-naked woman watches in terror while a zombie wrestles a shark. They don't make them like that anymore. With good reason, the cynics might say.

That concludes my look at these wonderful films. If you've made it all the way through this series of blog entries then you probably either already know these films or else you're just one of my colleagues from work who only reads this crap to humour me.

If however you're a casual horror fan who was thinking about investigating these films then I urge you to do so, as they can be picked up pretty cheaply (the set is currently retailing for £23 at play.com as I type this).

A word of warning for the purists though - aside from the UK set being missing a couple of features that are in the US box set, the BBFC demanded several seconds of cuts to the first film for its UK release, the objection being to one particular scene in which one of the nastier characters forces himself on a woman. You can argue about whether the BBFC are right to make these cuts (they're not) but then again you can also argue about whether such a scene was required in the first place (equally doubtful). But at the end of the day it's only a few seconds and it's still a bargain buy for a bunch of horse-riding zombies.

Oh yeah, did I mention the horse-riding zombies at all?

THE GHOST GALLEON (1975)

THE GHOST GALLEON is probably the weakest of the three BLIND DEAD films (if you haven't read about the other films, check my previous blog entries first!), a fact which can be largely attributed to the absence of many of the factors that made the first two so good.

The plot involves some kind of incomprehensible nonsense about a fashion shoot, but all you need to know is that it ends up with a couple of swimsuit models and a few other folk on an abandoned galleon in the middle of the ocean... a galleon that only appears in a thick fog that weather stations can't pick up. And did I mention it contains the corpses of a certain nasty group of Templar knights?

It sounds like the perfect recipe for more spooky goings on, leaving aside the fact that the previous films have been largely ignored again, but it's let down by a number of factors.

Firstly, the setting is too claustrophobic (which sounds ironic for a horror film) - the sight of a courtyard full of these (excellent) zombies in RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD or the sight of them strutting across the field on horseback in the original movie were far more impressive sights than having a bunch of them squeezed into a tiny ship.

There's also the fact that the galleon is so obviously a model that the long shots of the ship in the fog are just not as effective as they could be, which is a shame as the set-up, as mentioned above, sounds perfect for a spooky, atmospheric horror.

The characters are all one-dimensional half-wits too, which doesn't help, but I think that the biggest gripe I have is that because they're on a ship that means - yep, you've guessed it - they don't have their horses! Damn it, that's why they're so cool! Zombies! On horses!

There are still plenty of shocks and it's a fun little time-waster but it's a bit of a let down when compared to the previous two films in the series. If you're going to have zombies at sea, then you should at least include a cameo appearance by the decaying, waterlogged corpse of Glenn Miller, coming back from the dead to lead an undead orchestra in a rousing performance of "Moonlight Serenade"... before eating someone, obviously. Or maybe it's just me.

To be concluded...

RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD (1973)

Yes, I am still talking about Spanish zombie films. With that aside, let's continue...

The first of the BLIND DEAD sequels, RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD is probably also the best of the sequels too. It's not quite in the same league as the original but uses many of the same tricks to maintain the creepy atmosphere. Well, when I say the same tricks, it's actually slightly more than that - the film could just as easily have been entitled RETURN OF THE SAME ZOMBIE-ON-HORSES FOOTAGE WE USED IN THE FIRST FILM. Thankfully they chose not to go with this alternate title though - it would have looked rubbish on the posters.

The story is very much a retread of the first film with only minor differences (largely ignoring whatever the aftermath of the first film's ending would have been). On the anniversary of the knights' execution, they obviously decide to return to the land of the living, with a little help from the disfigured village idiot, and (in slow motion, of course) exact their revenge on the village.

The usual violence and sleaze are in abundance, as is the aforementioned reused footage, and the story settles into a simple siege tale of the few remaining villagers left trapped in the church while our old Templar chums gang up outside. What's fun to watch is the way the characters screw each other over in an attempt to save their own skin, culminating in a superb piece of bad taste pantomime villainy from Fernando Sancho, a nasty piece of work who decides to try and sacrifice a little girl in order to make his own escape!

Anyone who liked the first is liable to like the second film, containing as it does much of the same ingredients. The chief difference in tone this time is the ending, which comes off as a slightly more upbeat take on the ending of THE BIRDS rather than the cynical twist of the first movie.

Ultimately though it's all about nasty zombies in cloaks riding horses in slow motion. Have I mentioned how cool they are?

To be continued...

TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1971)

If you read the start of yesterday's blog entry and didn't like the sound of it, I wouldn't bother with today's either. If you read yesterday's and were interested, welcome back. If you didn't read yesterday's but are reading today's, you'll be delighted/bored [delete as applicable] to know that I'm talking about zombie films again. Read yesterday's and it'll all make sense.

TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD kicks off De Ossorio's series in style. There is much depravity, gruesome death and other such unwholesome activity but what makes the film (and, indeed, the sequels) is the tone of the film. It's an exercise in mood and atmosphere that belies the meagre budget to create something that is just plain creepy.

The story begins when two lesbians fall out over a man. Okay, so that's not a major plot point, but it's a sentence I've always wanted to write. Anyway, woman number one runs off in the huff, where she discovers the ruins of an old village and decides to stay there. Naturally she absolutely refuses to spend the night sleeping alone, semi-naked, near a graveyard.

Nah, just kidding, this is classic exploitation horror so she does exactly that. Wouldn't you just know it though, she's only gone and picked the exact night the living dead are about to rise up from their tombs. Honestly, if I had a pound for every time that's happened to me on holiday...

Naturally, her lady friend and the man who came between them come searching for her and gradually twig as to what is going on. Cue lots of running away, screaming, fighting and a bit of flesh-munching. Oh, those wacky undead Templars.

But back to that stuff about the spooky atmosphere. Of all the zombies ever committed to film, these guys should be the least terrifying - not only are they even slower than normal zombies, but they're blind too, and have to track down their prey using their sense of hearing instead. However, their lack of pace is more than made up for by the fact that they happen to ride undead horses! Yes!

If I was a zombie, this would definitely be my chosen form of transport. Then again, in retrospect, since these zombies are all hundreds of years old you'd think they must all qualify for a bus pass. Still, having tried using late night bus services, I don't blame them for opting for the zombie-horse option - at least there's no risk of having some drunken bint spew on you while you're trying to eat your McTemplar Burger or whatever.

On paper, there's nothing unusual about the plot of this film whatsoever - but those zombies are just unspeakably cool in both look and execution (they ride horseback, in slow motion, the soundtrack is augmented with some spooky echo effects, and they're usually accompanied by some creepy religious chanting). They're what really make the film. (Note: there are some scenes that sensitive viewers may not want to watch, but the chances are if you've made it this far you're probably not bothered)

The ending of the film is not entirely unpredictable but no less effective for it, and while I've no idea if De Ossorio deliberately ends the movie with a few still photos accompanied by the soundtrack for artistic reasons, if he just made an arse of it or if he ran out of money, but whatever his reasons it works perfectly.

Join me tomorrow for a look at the first of the sequels...

A shameless and very tenuous "Da Vinci Code" tie-in

I don't go in for trends - I've never read a Harry Potter book, nearly every band I like stopped recording before I was born, my favourite films often elicit nothing but looks of bewilderment, I don't own an iPod.. I could go on, but I won't. I was just making it clear what kind of person I am so that it comes as no surprise to you when I say I've never read "The Da Vinci Code", even though there are undiscovered tribes living by the banks of the Amazon who've probably heard all about it by now.

The popularity of this book has now reached fever pitch - religious folks going mental about it, people suing the author, and a major Hollywood film is to be released shortly. So it's at this point that I saw the perfect opportunity to jump on the band wagon and write a blog that shamelessly cashes in on the hype.

You see, I'm acually talking about zombies again. If that's not your bag, you may wish to ignore today's entry. If it is your bag, then you could probably still ignore it as I'm likely to be preaching to the converted.

And the connection to "The Da Vinci Code"? Well, someone told me that the Templar Knights were involved in the storyline somewhere. And that's all the excuse I needed to write about my recent viewing.

The other night I sat and watched a marathon session of zombie magic. Well, four films to be precise. Yes, I know you find it hard to believe that I found time in my hectic social schedule for such an activity but for a change I thought "sod it". I promptly texted Keira and Britney explaining that our regular date was off because just this once I'd like to sit and watch some films instead. (Yes, this is of course a lot of facetious nonsense - I can assure you I have never sent a text message.)

The Americans have the DEAD movies of George Romero; the Italians have the classics of Lucio Fulci (ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS, THE BEYOND, etc.); but this week it was the turn of Spain's premier contribution to the zombie genre to get thrown into the Freakpit's DVD player. The series in question, for those of you who have no idea and yet somehow were interested enough to make it this far, is Amando De Ossorio's BLIND DEAD series, a four-film opus churned out in Spain in the 1970s. If you want to put that in some kind of zombie-related perspective, they were made after NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but before DAWN OF THE DEAD. Just so you know.

A brief outline of the story (it's a zombie film, it's not like anything other than brief is required) follows...

Hundreds of years ago, a group of Templars (you see, it's related!) discovered the secret of eternal life. Unfortunately that secret involved some rather unnerving sacrificial activity - you know the sort, sacrificing women, eating flesh, drinking blood, etc. A bit like a night out in Glasgow but with marginally less killing. This, on top of the fact that they already behave like a bunch of drunken numpties, proves to be too much for the locals in the Spanish countryside village where the knights are lording it.

And so the knights are rounded up and killed, in a good old fashioned torture kind of way, like only a good zombie movie can do. Of course, just to make sure that they can't find their way back from hell to menace folks once more, the villagers decide to burn the knights' eyes out too. Ouch. I felt much the same after watching SPICEWORLD to be honest.

So anyway, on to the first movie.

Actually, no, I've written enough already. I think I'll turn it into a week-long marathon blog entry just to keep you in suspense. Tune in tomorrow when I'll tell you all about the first entry in the series...

Never trust a documentary!

I make no secret of my love of documentaries, and I assure you I'll be back here enthusing about them again shortly, but for now I thought I'd take a pop at them. In the interests of fairness and all that.

The trigger for today's chat was the Oscar-nominated documentary ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, which tells a scary story of how a few shady individuals managed to rip off a whole lot of people, pocket huge sums for themselves and drive a couple of America's largest companies into the ground. But then you watch the news, so I guess you know how it went.

The opening of the film features a reconstruction of sorts based on the suicide of one of the parties involved in the Enron affair. I don't question the inclusion of this scene because I think it's a bad decision artistically, nor because it's in bad taste (it's not, and it's not shown in close-up or anything like that). What struck me was that, while clearly a reconstruction, it was not explicitly described as such. That in turn made me question whether or not anything else I was watching had been fabricated in any way.

It's a similar reaction to the one I experienced when watching Werner Herzog's GRIZZLY MAN, a superb film about Timothy Treadwell, a guy who went into the mountains for several summers to live with bears (under the impression that he was helping them - the viewer can decide if that's the case or not) only to end up being killed and eaten (along with his girlfriend) by one of those same animals.

What I took issue with in that particular film was some of the interview footage featuring a couple of Treadwell's friends. Without there being anything particular that I could put my finger on, it just didn't feel right. The interviews felt scripted, or staged, or something. It was like the people being interviewed were either acting or at least playing up for the camera and as a result the interviews felt false somehow - a little too theatrical.

The upshot of these two incidents was that I once again found myself questionning the validity of some of the events shown or described in documentaries and how, with the rise in popularity at the box office of such films, more and more people could be duped by unscrupulous filmmakers using the documentary format to present their own views, safe in the knowledge that many members of the audience will accept what they see without question.

Two of the recent documentary successes at the box office illustrate this point. Morgan Spurlock's SUPER SIZE ME was a deserved success but its central conceit of having a person eat nothing but McDonalds' meals every day for a month was a somewhat extreme representation of the truth; and Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 was an enjoyable and welcome shot at the Bush administration but was clearly more about Moore's views than an objective look at anything.

These are films that just massage the truth slightly - but there are other examples that, while nobody is likely to believe them, illustrate perfectly how well the documentary format can be mimicked.

I'm thinking for example of the Guest/Shearer/McKean vehicles - the most famous being THIS IS SPINAL TAP, but a personal favourite of mine being A MIGHTY WIND (think SPINAL TAP but with folk music replacing heavy metal). Both are too funny to be accepted as a real documentary (or at least you'd think so - but some people did accept SPINAL TAP as being real on its first release) but they both do an incredible job of duplicating the documentary format.

At the other end of the "mockumentary" scale lies the work of Peter Watkins. Taking the idea of a documentary crew covering situations that they really couldn't cover, Watkins crafted some unforgettable films that, if not for the events they covered, could easily have been accepted as truth. Whether it be the documentary look at CULLODEN, his depiction of a nuclear strike on Britain in the Oscar-winning and controversial THE WAR GAME or his acclaimed look at reality TV gone wrong (long before the term was even known) in a futuristic American police state in PUNISHMENT PARK, Watkins used the full potential of the documentary format to make some truly special films. But he also demonstrated how plausible it was that the format could be used to show something other than the truth.

There are no shortages of other examples of this fiction masquerading as truth: there was the 80s Halloween made-for-TV spookfest GHOSTWATCH, which caught out a number of unsuspecting viewers, thanks to the inclusion of such honest folks as Sarah Greene and Michael Parkinson; the BBC's April Fool gag about the "spaghetti tree"; the Coen brothers lent some extra credibility to their Oscar-winning film FARGO with an on-screen credit proclaiming that the film was based on a true story (it wasn't); and in the shockumentary MONDO CANE 2, Prosperi and Jacopetti portrayed several stunning images of cultures from across the globe including the legendary incident of the protesting Asian monk who deliberately set himself on fire - without informing the audience that this particular scene was actually an elaborately staged reconstruction.

I was going to cunningly illustrate my point about people accepting lies if presented in a suitably truthful-looking way by adding in a reference halfway through this blog entry to a completely fictional film - but I'm too nice, and I'm sure I've made my point without needing to stoop to such lengths to dupe you (although I hope I've now got you questionning whether or not I did).

So next time you're watching a fascinating documentary I hope you enjoy it, but just ask yourself who made it and why. And if it mentions anything about a spaghetti tree, be extra vigilant...

This blog entry was based on a true story.