The Pull List: 10 January 2018, Part 2

Statix Press and Titan Comics continue making European comic works available to English-speaking readers with Atlas & Axis #1, the first issue of writer/artist Pau's action fantasy starring a pair of anthropomorphic dogs. In a sort of cod early medieval Europe, Atlas and Axis find their village decimated and its women and children kidnapped. They set off to rescue their family and friends, encountering other anthropomorphic animals along the way.

Pau, a Spanish writer and artist, is clearly inspired by the French comedic books of the 1970s and 1980s - Asterix and the like - and certainly works the book in that vein. There's a nice balance of humour, although a fair amount is derived on having the humanoid animals act like their four-legged counterparts.

It's breezy and pleasant, but not a must-read. It is good, however, to see these European works get more exposure to English-speaking audience. There's a whole industry of this stuff that we rarely get to see. (3/5)

Atlas & Axis #1. Titan Comics/Statix Press. Story, art and colours by Pau.

Under the cut: reviews of Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Deadman and The Power of the Dark Crystal.

The End (2012)

It seems that in recent years we've been awash with films about the end of the world. Lars von Trier's Melancholia, Zak Hilditch's These Final Hours and Lorene Scafaria's Seeking a Friend for the End of the World all represented the lives of random, ordinary people in the final days and hours of human life on Earth. You can add to that list The End (aka Fin), a 2012 Spanish thriller by first-time director Jorge Terregrossa.

The film focuses on a group of friends. Two decades ago they were a close-knit group of university students. Now they all have their separate lives and families, and by coming together in an isolated rural cottage old wounds and conflicts rapidly rise to the surface. One night there's a spectacular flash in the sky, and all power is cut. The telephone line is dead, their cars won't start, and their only option is to walk to the nearest town for help. On the way they begin to see ominous signs that something has gone terribly wrong: abandoned houses, crashed cars, and packs of hungry dogs running through empty camp sites. It is as if the entire human race has vanished, leaving only these friends alone in the world.

The 14 best films of 2014

Unless you're a professional film critic, and can dedicate much of your working year to seeing every major and independent film release, compiling a 'year's best' list is a problematic task. Inevitably there are going to be critically acclaimed films that you miss, turning any amateur list into essentially a 'year's best... except for all of those other movies'. I missed quite a lot of films in 2014 that I expect could have made my list, including Whiplash, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Wind Rises and The Raid 2. I'll catch up with them all in due course, but for now they're out of contention for the list.

Take the list below not as some attempt at an authoritative 'best', but simply 14 films released in Australia for the first time in 2014 that I think are well worth your time in tracking down and watching.

The Distance (2014)

Okay, let's see if you can wrap your head around this: from a warehouse next to an old power station in Siberia an Austrian performance artist hires three psychic Russian dwarves to undertake a heist: steal the mysterious device known as "the Distance" from under the nose of the Russian security guard, who is being distracted by a Japanese-speaking haiku-obsessed bucket of smoke that has amorous intentions towards the chimney of his nearby hut.

The Distance is a new film by Spanish director Sergio Caballero, whose 2010 film Finesterrae won a few awards and made quite an impact on the festival circuit. This Russian-German-Japanese language follow-up is going to delight some viewers and frustrate quite a few more with its deliberately odd blend of science fiction, observational drama, surrealist pretension and Russian art film pastiche. At the end of last night's screening the audience split two ways: one half laughing uproariously at the unexpected climax, and the other audibly groaning and muttering bitter resentment all the way out of the theatre.

Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)

Who Can Kill a Child?, aka Would You Kill a Child?, aka Lucifer's Curse, aka The Children's Playground, aka Island of the Damned, aka ¿Quién puede matar a un niño?, is a 1976 Spanish horror film written and directed by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador and based on a novel by Juan José Plans. The DVD caught my eye in the library of RMIT University because according to the cover it was only released uncut in the United Kingdom in 2011, 35 years after it was released. It's a film with more release titles that any I can remember, but Who Can Kill a Child? seems the most common - and certainly it's the one the British DVD used.

The film follows a young British couple, Tom and Evelyn, holidaying in Spain. They decide to spend a few days on an isolated island. When they arrive, the main village appears to be deserted save for its children. Soon Tom and Evelyn discover the island's grisly truth: all of the adults are dead, murdered by their own children - and Tom and Evelyn are likely to be next.

Think of a zombie movie. A really edgy, nasty, gore-filled, provocative zombie movie. Now replace the zombies with laughing ten year-olds. That's pretty much Who Can Kill a Child? in a nutshell. I am not surprised it was banned in the 1970s by the BBFC (Britain's film classifiers). It is a profoundly dark and horrible viewing experience.