The latest releases reviewed
I dream, you scream
PAPRIKA *****
Directed by Satoshi Kon 15 cert
A contender for the best film released straight to DVD this year, Paprika finds Satoshi Kon, director of Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers, exceeding his own high standards with a characteristically unsettling drama following an experimental psychologist who uses new technologies to enter the dreams of psychiatric patients.
Other animated features have travelled this route before - Hayao Miyazaki's entire career seems to take place in REM sleep - but Paprika breaks new ground in its relentless pursuit of new ways to unnerve the viewer. Sequences such as one detailing pursuit by a terrifyingly cherubic doll manage to combine the familiarity of dreams with the crucial shifts in perspective that render them uncanny.
The plot is, admittedly, almost impossible to follow and the DVD is notably short on extras, but this remains an essential purchase for anybody with even a passing interest in anime. "The delicious left brain is getting older," someone says. Well, quite. DC
TELL NO ONE/NE LE DIS À PERSONNE ****
Directed by Guillaume Canet. Starring François Cluzet, Marie-Josée Croze, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Jean Rochefort 15 cert
Artfully transposing Harlan Coben's novel from New York to Paris, Canet's intriguing, thoroughly satisfying thriller features Cluzet as a paediatrician caught up in a murder mystery after the disappearance of his wife. The teasingly intricate plotting demands - and rewards - the viewer's alert attention. MD
BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA ****
Directed by Gábor Csupó, Starring Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick PG cert
Following the friendship between a young boy and the girl who moves in up the lane, this excellent family film (which, despite the misleading advertising, is not really a fantasy flick) offers a profoundly moving treatise on the different ways children deal with the wretchedness of life. Features a tragic turn that could draw tears from a boulder. DC
VACANCY ***
Directed by Nimród Antal. Starring Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley 16 cert
A couple is forced to stay in a remote motel run by a nervous young man (ring any bells?). It transpires the establishment is used to shoot snuff movies and the lovers have been earmarked for slaughter. Vacancy is a taut exercise in lowbrow exploitation that does an admirable job of holding off absurdity. Good Halloween choice. DC
FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER **
Directed by Tim Story. Starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon PG cert
The superheroes return, this time dealing with intergalactic herald Silver Surfer and their old nemesis, Dr Victor Von Doom (McMahon). Despite all the hi-tech visual effects on show, the movie is essentially an old-fashioned adventure peppered with mildly amusing incidental details. MD
THE HITCHER **
Directed by Dave Meyers. Starring Sean Bean, Sophia Bush 16 cert
Poor remake of the 1986 thriller concerning the misdeeds of a hitch-hiking psychopath. It starts off OK, but the more time passes the more Bean, initially just a bloke with a knife, begins to resemble some absurdly powerful demon from The Book of Revelations. The DVD extras are rudimentary. DC
PARADISE LOST *
Directed by John Stockwell. Starring Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde18 cert
The director of such bouncy bikini commercials as Blue Crush attempts to blend his trademark brand of sleaze with the intestinal horror of Hostel. Following a gaggle of tourists as they fall foul of organ thieves in Brazil, Paradise Lost is muddled, politically idiotic and disgusting for all the wrong reasons. DC
