Daimajin (1966)

In the 1960s there were two incredibly popular film genres in Japan. The first was the 'daikaiju eiga', the giant monster movie. Spearheaded by Toho's Godzilla in the 1950s it was a massively popular style of disaster film in which enormous fantastical monsters trashed entire cities on screen. The second was the 'chambara eiga', essentially the samurai film, which had been and remains today an overwhelmingly popular form of historical drama.

So what did the Daiei studio do? Combine the two. It's such an obvious yet ridiculous move and it resulted in a unique movie trilogy in 1966: Daimajin, three stories of dishonourable nobles whose castles and towns are broken to pieces by a 25 foot tall stone warrior god. In this first film, directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, a noble is overthrown and murdered by one of his retainers. Ten years later the noble's son returns to reclaim his lands. When he is captured and scheduled for execution, his younger sister begs with the spirit of Daimajin to save him.

Eden Lake (2008)

A middle-class couple decide to spend their weekend camping at an isolated lake. Their holiday is interrupted by a young gang of youths. Arguments between the two parties escalate, until the couple are running for their lives through the woods in a desperate scramble to escape the now-murderous children.

Eden Lake is a critically acclaimed English horror movie written and directed by James Watkins. It stars Michael Fassbender (Hunger, Prometheus) and Kelly Reilly (Sherlock Holmes). It was awarded the 2009 Empire Award for Best Horror Movie. It is also, in my personal opinion, one of the most offensive films I have seen. It's not offensive because it contains relatively graphic scenes of torture and bodily mutilation, although it does contain those things. It's also not offensive because it depicts children being excessively violent and homicidal, although again it does contain that. Earlier this year I watched the Spanish horror film Who Could Kill a Child?, and that film was twice as confrontational in this respect, and it was a powerful viewing experience as a result. It's not even offensive because it contains images of extreme violence against a child, although I wouldn't blame anybody who hated this film because it contains 12 year-olds getting stamped on the face until dead, doused in petrol and burned alive or stabbed in the throat with broken glass.

Instead I find myself offended because this is a film that openly and unashamedly wallows in a privileged middle-class paranoia about the working class. It tells its audience not to trust those filthy, untrustworthy poor people, who clearly don't control their kids, are uniformly violent, drunk and abusive, and who would sooner murder an injured woman than call her an ambulance.

Who50: "Midnight"

Who50 counts down to the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who by reviewing my favourite episodes and serials over the history of the programme, counting down from #50 to #1. Today, #14: "Midnight", a 2008 episode written by Russell T. Davies and directed by Alice Troughton.

When Doctor Who returned to British television in 2005 it was under the energetic leadership of executive producer and head writer Russell T. Davies. I remember being tremendously excited, not simply because my favourite TV series was coming back but also because it was Davies who was writing it. Through edgy dramas like Queer as Folk and The Second Coming he had established himself as one of Britain's strongest television writers - arguably that country's best since the late Dennis Potter.

Then when the series finally started, it was a shock to discover that - generally speaking - the series' finest episodes weren't by Davies at all. The better episodes were the ones by Steven Moffat, like "Blink" and "The Girl in the Fireplace", or by Matt Jones, like "The Impossible Planet", or Robert Shearman with "Dalek". All Davies seemed to be providing were overblown misfires like "Aliens in London" or ridiculous season finales like "The Last of the Time Lords" and "Army of Ghosts".

Then came "Midnight", and it was as if the Russell T. Davies of Doctor Who had grabbed a time machine of his own and hired the Russell T. Davies of The Second Coming to write for the series at last.

Enterprise: "Horizon"

While the Enterprise makes a course diversion to observe a previously unseen phenomenon, Ensign Mayweather takes his leave from the mission to reunite with his family onboard the cargo ship Horizon. He is met with tragedy in the form of his father's death, as well as resentment from his brother Paul - who has been forced to take command of the family business on his own.

Travis Mayweather (Anthony Montgomery) has always been Enterprise's most under-utilised character, so it's great to see him finally get an episode to himself. I mean by himself quite seriously - asides from a few early scenes the entire episode takes place on the Horizon with none of the regular cast in sight. The result is a nice change of pace and tone for the series, as we get to see not only more of Montgomery and his origins, but a key piece of series history as well.

AKB0048: "Stardust Selection"

It's been a while since I reviewed the first two episodes of this anime, so to quickly recap: AKB0048 is a science fiction animated series from Japan, and is a spin-off for the immensely popular girl band AKB48. It follows a trio of teenage girls who aspire to join the interplanetary pop troupe AKB0048 and perform to colonies across the galaxy - many of whom have banned entertainment.

This third episode, "Stardust Selection", picks up where the second left off: the girls are onboard one of the AKB0048 spaceships and must undergo a rigorous audition process to determine if they're suitable to be the new understudies. In order to prove themselves, the contestants are tasked with defending the band during an upcoming guerilla contest - to the death, if necessary.

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys: "Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur"

It seemed easy. Watch some old SF television, and write a review of each episode. A paragraph of introduction, throw in a synopsis, maybe another two or three paragraphs of observations, and voila! Instant blog fodder. I started with a long-intended rewatch of Babylon 5, then incorporated Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, then Enterprise, and then I opened the floodgates and started reviewing all manner of shows - including Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, starting with the five TV movies produced in 1994. In this post I am supposed to write about the fifth and final TV movie, "Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur".

It's a clip show.

A clip show is a cost-saving measure developed by US television networks tasked with producing large numbers of episodes each year. Perhaps you're running out of money, or more likely you're simply running out of time - a clip show can be quickly put together with a character reminiscing over past adventures, and the episode jumping back to re-play key and popular scenes. Many shows have done it. Friends did it regularly, Stargate SG-1 did it, so did Avatar: The Last Airbender, Seinfeld, Cheers and even Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 2's "Shades of Gray"). Until "Hercules and the Maze of the Minotaur", however, I had never ever ever seen a television series throw in a clip show at the fifth episode.

The Pull List: 24 July 2013

I like to periodically take a step back from week-to-week reviews and have a look at what are the best comic books getting put out there at the moment. I've collated them into a handy little set: basically the five best comic books coming out from DC, Marvel and Image. There are the books that I'm digging the most, and have been doing so consistently. If you're looking for a new book to try, these are the ones I recommend.

• DC: The Wake, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batgirl and Batwoman.
• Marvel: Thor: God of Thunder, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, Young Avengers, Daredevil and Hawkeye.
• Image: Manhattan Projects, Revival, Prophet, Bedlam and Saga.

They're all ongoings with the exception of The Wake, which is currently two months into a ten-issue run.

Some books got delayed at my local comic shop this week, so I figured I'd review what I did buy. Under the cut, reviews of Aquaman, Batman/Superman, Constantine, The Flash, The Green Team: Teen Trillionaires, Justice League Dark, Lazarus, Star Wars Legacy, Wild Blue Yonder and Young Avengers.

The House of the Devil (2009)

College student Samantha takes a last-minute babysitting job in an isolated manor house. Once she arrives, however, it becomes clear that things are not as they seem, and that her life may be in terrible danger. It sounds like an awfully generic storyline, and to be honest it kind of is, but the key to The House of the Devil is not its premise but rather its execution: this is a great horror movie.

It is written and directed by Ti West, whose follow-up The Innkeepers I reviewed last week. I enjoyed that film a lot, and it inspired me to track down this earlier work to see how it compared. I think I prefer The House of the Devil. Like The Innkeepers it is quite a slow-burn of a movie, but it burns just that little bit faster and overall feels just that little bit tighter. It's a nicely old-fashioned horror movie - while there are certainly moments of blood and gore, for the most part it's a deliberately restrained work. In an ocean of survival horror - Saw, Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes, et al - Ti West's work is a bit of an island of creeping menace and well-crafted suspense.