Dark Winds Seasons 1 - 3 (2022 - 2025)

Acorn International Media are releasing seasons 1 - 3 of the acclaimed Navajo Nation crime series on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital. Seasons 1 & 2 consist of six 50 minute episodes and Season 3 of eight episodes. Each season is also available separately, with Season 3 getting released at the same time as the box set. The show is based on the Leaphorn and Chee series of crime novels by Tony Hillerman and was originally shown in the UK on the U & Alibi crime drama channel. It's an excellent piece of work and if you've not encountered it yet, shouldn't be spoilt. Therefore I'm only going to supply the briefest plot outlines below of what you can expect from the boxset.

Season One - Discs 1 & 2

It's 1971 and Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon from AMERICANA, BONE TOMAHAWK and THE FOREVER PURGE) has the job of patrolling 27 000 square miles of Navajo Nation desert near Monument Valley with the help of very few staff including Sergeant Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten). When an elderly Navajo man is found dead with his eyes and liver gouged out beside a 19 year old girl who has apparently been frightened to death they are joined by new recruit Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) to investigate the crime. Meanwhile the FBI are investigating a helicopter raid on an armoured car (which opens the first episode) with the helicopter last seen heading over Navajo territory. Could the crimes be linked?

Season one of Dark Winds is only six episodes but packs a lot into its running time, quickly setting up its cast of regular characters and giving you enough incident and intrigue that by episode four you'll be wondering how they'll manage to resolve it all in two more episodes. Suffice to say they do. The locations and photography are stunning, the Navajo culture is presented in some depth but never at the expense of moving the plot forwards, and there's a welcome undercurrent of the supernatural and black magic at work as well. The only extra is on disc two but it's a decent 34 minute making of that includes an interview with executive producer Robert Redford.

Season Two - Discs 3 & 4

Jim Chee is given the job of finding a stolen lock box by Rosemary Vines (Jeri Ryan). Meanwhile at the local medical centre a man dying of cancer is blown up by a bomb placed in his car. It soon becomes apparent that the bomber has been to the town before and is now bumping off more people as part of a plot that involves the sinister 'People of Darkness' (the title of the Tony Hillerman novel this is taken from).

Season two doesn't have quite as complex a plot as part one but it's more action packed and delivers a number of memorable set pieces, including one at the local hospital as well as a long painful trek through the desert. Acorn's discs have no extras for this season.

Season Three - Discs 5 & 6

A teenaged boy goes missing. The police find some bloodstains and his abandoned bike with what look like machete gouges in the frame. Meanwhile Bernadette discovers what might be evidence of a human trafficking gang near the border, and an FBI agent (Jenna Elfman) could mean bad news for Joe Leaphorn.

Season 3 combines two Tony Hillerman novels - 'Dancehall of the Dead' and 'Sinister Pig', with the screenwriting bringing the plots of the two books together nicely. As well as guest stars like Bruce Greenwood there's an amusing cameo from Robert Redford (his final screen appearance) and George R R Martin. You can fill in your own response to Redford's line to his producer colleague. The sole extra on Acorn's disc is a good one - a 42 minute making of that helps make up for the lack of one on Season 2.

Overall, DARK WINDS is an excellent crime show that deserves to be better known, with fine acting (lead Zahn McClarnon is a standout but everyone brings their 'A' game to this) an intriguing setting and time period (Navajo Nation in 1971) and a sensitive and authentic-feeling portrayal of the indigenous people who live there without any of it ever getting in the way of the plot or the action, both of which are riveting. Top stuff, and apparently Season Four is on the way.

DARK WINDS Seasons 1 - 3 is out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from Acorn Media International on Monday 2nd February 2026

We Bury the Dead (2025)

Signature Entertainment are releasing writer-director Zak Hilditch's latest post-apocalyptic drama (he made the emotional endurance test that was 2013's THESE FINAL HOURS) on Digital, with a DVD and Blu-ray release to follow. The apocalypse in question is rather more low-key this time around and those who have seen THESE FINAL HOURS will probably be relieved to hear WE BURY THE DEAD isn't quite the hammer blow to the senses that Mr Hilditch's previous genre effort was.

America makes a terrible mistake (likely to be a recurring theme in cinema for the next few years) and a pulse bomb is let off by accident, killing everyone on the Australian island state of Tasmania. There's no radiation pollution so once the fires have settled down teams of volunteers are sent in to clear up the dead. Before they do so, however, they are warned by the military that some of the victims are waking up and aren't at all like they were.

Ava (Daisy Ridley), an American, comes over as part of the volunteer corps with the intention of looking for her husband who was at a convention in Hobart. She teams up with Clay (Brendon Thwaites) and together they make their way south into territory that is yet to be cleared by the authorities as safe to enter.

Whereas THESE FINAL HOURS was an unflinching, brutally cynical under-the-microscope examination of humankind faced with certain death after a worldwide disaster, WE BURY THE DEAD comes across more like one of zombie genre progenitor George A Romero's more thoughtful, equally concerned movies like THE CRAZIES (1973). Once our civilians are clearing up bodies it becomes clear that the military can't be trusted and neither, necessarily, is Ava who is harbouring her own secrets.

There are zombies, but only very seldom are they encountered so anyone expecting an undead gorefest will be disappointed. Once Ridley and Thwaites are on the road the film suffers from slowing the action down a bit too much when it should perhaps be developing into more of a road movie, but for a low-key, restrained piece this isn't bad at all. Here's the trailer:

Zak Hilditch's WE BURY THE DEAD is out from Signature Entertainment on Digital  HD on Monday 2nd February 2026 and Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 16th February 2026

Snakes on a Plane 4K (2006)

 

A glorious example of the type of film Roger Corman used to make and that the Italians used to rip off with equal gusto, Arrow Films are releasing David R Ellis' SNAKES ON A PLANE on 4K in both UHD and Blu-ray editions. 

FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L Jackson) has to protect key witness Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips) in a federal prosecution case against crime boss Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). Unfortunately Eddie loads the plane carrying Sean and Sam from Hawaii (it should have been the Philippines to add to the Corman vibe) back to LA with more kinds of venomous snake than could feasibly be smuggled onto an ocean liner let alone a Jumbo Jet. Cunningly disguised in  cardboard boxes and caused to run riot by the massive doses of mad snakey pheromones that the passengers’ flowery Lei neckwear has been doused in, it’s not long before a couple are having sex in the biggest aeroplane toilet ever become the first victims in what becomes utter chaos on board. 

Samuel gets mad and has to defend a cast including Julianna Margulies as the stewardess-who’s-going-to-law-school, Rachel Blanchard who was Robert Webb’s American girlfriend in Peepshow, and co-pilot David Koechner who dies horribly in this and went on to die horribly in FINAL DESTINATION 5 and PIRANHA 3DD. There’s lots of knockabout snakey fun, including a guest appearance from a massive anaconda that will have you marvelling at the crime syndicate’s smuggling skills before Troy (Kenan Thompson) has to land the plane with his PlayStation skills. 

SNAKES ON A PLANE does its job of being a feelgood ridiculous when-animals-attack exploitation picture extremely well. The fact that director David Ellis got the all clear to make a more ‘adult-oriented’ picture and took his film back to the cutting room to add a lot more gore and nudity should hopefully endear you further to the whole cobbled together cheesy grindhouse feel. It's ludicrous, over the top, nonsensical, and laugh out loud and as a consequence is one of the better films of its type.

Arrow have given SNAKES ON A PLANE a new 4K restoration, New extras include a commentary track from Max Evry and Bryan Reesman and a good 17 minute piece on both the tie-in novelisation for the film and tie-ins in general. Archival extras include a cast and crew commentary track (including Jackson and Ellis), making of (18 minutes), featurettes on the snake wrangling 13 minutes), the VFX (5 minutes) and the online publicity the film got before its release (10 minutes), plus 12 minutes of deleted and extended scenes. There's also a music video plus making of, five minutes of gag reel and the usual trailers, TV spots and image galleries. The limited edition also comes with a South Pacific Airlines safety instruction card and a collectors booklet with new writing on the film.

David R Ellis' SNAKES ON A PLANE is out from Arrow in 4K in both UHD and Blu-ray editions on Monday 19th January 2026

Sisu: Road to Revenge (2025)

"Tremendous, Gory, Action-Packed Entertainment"

Following its UK cinema release late last year, Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander's sequel to his own 2023 SISU which I reviewed here is getting a digital release from Sony. You don't need to have seen the first film to enjoy this one though, which also begins by making it clear that SISU isn't the name of our protagonist, but rather it's an untranslatable Finnish word that describes white-knuckle determination despite all hope being lost. And, like the first film, that's pretty much what you get for the next 90 minutes, although arguably better.

It's 1946 and World War II is over. Unfortunately Finland has seceded part of its border to Russia, which means the house belonging to living Nazi-killing legend Aatami (a returning Jorma Tommila) is now 120 km away from the Finnish border. Never one to let such a trifling matter get in his way, he dismantles the entire house, loads it onto a lorry and sets off for Finland.

Meanwhile, Stephen Lang's Yeagor Dragunov is being set up by the script (by way of dialogue from an equally excellent, equally villainous turn from Richard Brake) as the baddest of baddies, who killed our hero's children with a shovel "to save on bullets". His mission? To stop and detain our hero at all costs.

And that's it for setup. The rest of the film is one long series of encounters between the good guy and the baddies, heavily influenced by silent cinema in general and Buster Keaton in particular, George Miller's MAD MAX movies (especially THE ROAD WARRIOR) and Warner Bros. cartoons. In fact SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE could be considered a feature length live action Road Runner movie par excellence, and if you like (and especially if you love) any of the above you're going to have a terrific time with this. There's a brilliant bit with a truck and a jaw-dropping laugh out loud sequence with a tank, culminating in an extended climax on a train which is as funny and tension-filled as it is explosively satisfying.

And now the housekeeping. First of all Aatami has a dog and I know some of you will be wondering so: It does not die.

Second, I'd normally post the trailer here but SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE has been given an extra boost to its publicity by having a tie-in burger created for it, so if you fancy eating one while watching the film (they haven't sent me the Sisu Stack for review - yet - but I can certainly vouch for the film) here are the details:

Jalmari Helander's SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE is out on Digital from Sony and is available to Buy or Rent at home now

The Assassination Bureau (1969)

Arrow Films start the year with a winner with their new Blu-ray of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph's THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU, which features a quite glorious transfer as well as all-new extras.

It's just before World War I and the Assassination Bureau of the title is a Europe-wide organisation dedicated to the requested bumping off of individuals who are deemed to pose a threat to the world order. Enterprising journalist Sonia Winter (Diana Rigg) backed by newspaper magnate Lord Bostwick (Telly Savalas) requests a hit on the very chairman of the organisation itself - Ivan Dragomiloff (Oliver Reed). Dragomiloff accepts the challenge with a twinkle in his eye & sets off around Europe with Sonia in tow, avoiding assassination attempts left and right. But there's a greater, more evil plan at work here, too.

A cheerful, colourful film about organised murder, THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU takes the same approach to its subject matter as Robert Hamer's 1949 KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS or Brian Forbes' 1966 THE WRONG BOX while packing it with familiar faces in the style of MONTE CARLO OR BUST and similar colourful epics from the period. It's all very jolly stuff and will no doubt be remembered with affection by many from all its TV screenings in the 1980s. 

Producer Michael Relph was also the production designer and has a whale of a time coming up with some (occasionally James Bond-like) gorgeous sets. If he did the hats too this must have been the job of a lifetime for him. Ron Grainer supplies the bouncy score and some of the harpsichord-driven bits will remind 1960s TV obsessives of some of his work for The Prisoner amongst others. 

THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU has already seen release in Blu-ray by Imprint / ViaVision in Australia. However, if you are a fan and bought that version you are definitely going to want to double dip as not only are the extras all different but Arrow's transfer is infinitely better. Reliable hands (and voices) Kim Newman and Sean Hogan provide a chatty, knowledgeable commentary track while Matthew Sweet gives is a 28 minute piece where he talks more about the book and the times in which the book was published and the film was released in and how the word 'Assassination' wasn't really suited to a jolly romp with exploding zeppelins. There's also a trailer and a stills gallery, plus a booklet with new writing on the film by Katherine McLaughlin.

Basil Dearden and Michael Relph's THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU is out on Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 5th January 2026

The Top Ten Films of 2025

It's that time again! Regular readers will know this isn't actually a top ten list, rather it's more a recommended viewing list of films that either played festivals and have yet to get a UK release, or films that did get a release but which you might have missed, possibly due to unfairly bad reviews. Which means you won't see titles like SINNERS, WEAPONS, THE LONG WALK, COMPANION, THE LIFE OF CHUCK, KEEPER or BRING HER BACK on here because you can already find those on a load of lists so what's the point of repeating? Especially as you likely know those are worth watching anyway. No, here are the lesser known films that are worth your viewing time. As usual the rules stay the same: each film has to have been shown in the UK for the first time during 2025, either at a festival, or as a cinema, disc or streaming release. As explained above, popular successes aren't included but flops might well be if those flops were undeserved. Also as usual, while I didn't get to see everything, hopefully there will be enough amongst these recommendations that even the most seasoned enthusiast will find something they didn't get the chance to catch up with. I'm also not doing a 'worst of' list because we all know it's Luc Besson's DRACULA, don't we? Or possibly WAR OF THE WORLDS with Ice Cube, even if it was the interminable JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH that had me bored enough to end up considering what my favourite flavour of jam sandwich might be. Anyway enough of the bad, here's the good!

10 Silent Night Deadly Night

A grindhouse slasher movie remake par excellence. Mike P. Nelson's new version of the 1984 original keeps the best elements (child traumatised by seeing his parents killed by 'Santa' grows up to become lunatic slasher wearing the same festive outfit) but adds a lot more to the mix, including why the killer is creating his own advent calendar of death, a subplot about children being abducted, and a romance with a girl into true crime documentaries. Where SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT really scores big, though, is that here there's none of the irony, smugness or post-modernism of so many of those tiresome pseudo 1980s slasher tributes, the ones so keen to keep nudging you that ' this is just like the 80s, right?'. Instead here everything is played straight, which also helps make an outrageous sequence in the middle (that appears so gob-smackingly out of left field) a thing of near genius. There are some in-jokes but they are subtle and more to be nodded at by those in the know. If you're a slasher fan this is likely to leave you with a spring in your step and plans to make this an annual Xmas watch. The kind of movie Eli Roth wished he could make but never will.

9 Him

Opening to indifferent reviews from people who really didn't get it, for those of us who live for sitting down in front of alleged claptrap only to discover it harbours many delights, the rewards in HIM are rich indeed. The film starts off with some medical daftness ("He has a terrible head injury" a doctor says while we see X-Rays and MRI scans of a perfectly normal skull). In many films I would already be grinding my teeth but not here, because we then see our patient has had clips applied to his scalp wound so his head resembles an American football. After that we quickly follow our young wannabe GOAT footballer to the isolated Jess Franco-style architectural retreat of current GOAT (they say GOAT a lot, and we all know what tends to happen to them in films like this) Marlon Wayans to be trained up to possibly take on the mantle. From there we plunge headlong into a crazy mix of allegory and symbolism that suggests nothing we have seen so far should be taken literally. The film does hit you over the head with the 'Sport As Religion' stick a few too many times but it can be forgiven for the sheer bravado and enthusiasm with which some of the sequences are executed, particularly the ending. Reminiscent of the cinema of Alain Jessua (satire and blood transfusions), Lindsay Anderson and Boots Riley, and even a couple of the choicier episodes of South Park (especially one reveal close to the all-out bonkers ending where you half expect Kyle to turn up and say "Dude, this is really f*cked up right here). Many will disagree, but HIM is actually the film with Jordan Peele's name attached that gives you the most to think about. Director Justin Tipping is definitely one to keep an eye on.

8 A Mother's Embrace

A seriously decent cosmic horror picture from Brazil. Ana is on her first day back at work as a fire rescue officer after recovering from severe psychological trauma. Rio is in the grip of terrible storms causing flood damage and she and her team are called to a house they have been told is in imminent danger of collapse. The place turns out to be a care home for the elderly, and none of the inhabitants have any intention of leaving. Exactly why they won't leave is due to something quite deliciously horrible it would be shame to spoil, suffice to say A MOTHER'S EMBRACE cultivates an admirable atmosphere of creeping strangeness for over half its runtime, during which one could argue that very little happens, but tiny incremental events and the fantastic setting of the huge old care home with cracks in its walls and water coming in everywhere combine to quickly become unnerving. Marjorie Estiano delivers an excellent central performance as Ana and, like her character, you'll be wondering, and dreading, where it's all leading.

7 Man Finds Tape

 One from Nottingham's excellent Mayhem Film Festival. A man in a small Texas town discovers a video recording that shows a stranger coming into his bedroom when he was a boy. Then CCTV footage turns up of people suddenly falling asleep in the town high street and a van running someone over. MAN FINDS TAPE is found footage shot (on the whole) by characters who are themselves film professionals, collated with CCTV footage and other nicely static sources that eliminate the wobble cam that plagues the worst of the genre. It's one of those films that's hard to review without spoilers and would be a shame to say any more, and indeed to suggest the horror authors whose work this film is most reminiscent of. Awaiting a UK release, try and watch it cold if you can.

6 Content

Like MAN FINDS TAPE, CONTENT was another festival picture, in this case from Grimmfest. It's a film that tells its tale of a mad amateur film director creating footage for his proposed movie via deceit, kidnapping, blackmail and general threats by using screenshots, zoom meetings, text messages, and mobile phone footage. Writer-director Adam Meilich's film is a delightful surprise - assured, clever and blackly funny and one that almost demands an immediate rewatch. When a film is able to quote a host of classic found footage movies and you don't find yourself wishing you were watching any of them instead you know you're onto a winner. CONTENT is also awaiting a UK release.

5 It Needs Eyes

A teenager goes to live with her aunt after a family trauma and becomes immersed in the world of extreme online videos. She becomes obsessed with a missing woman known only as Fish Tooth and a nearby island where a boy drowned. Directors Zack Ogle and Aaron Pagniano really know what they're doing here, priming the audience with some online horrors and then performing a perfect balancing act of hinting at what might be going on but never fully explaining it. Influences include VIDEODROME and the fiction of M R James and by the time the film is over you'll be creeped out and asking plenty of questions in the best way.

4 Together

If you'd asked me the style of cinema I never thought we'd see in a mainstream multiplex (and this one disappeared from multiplexes very quickly) one name would have leapt to mind: Frank Henenlotter. And yet here we are with TOGETHER, a film that is by turns gloopy, bloody, painful, sexy, very funny and ultimately and above all romantic. Real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie star in a story where the couple they play end up getting fused together by some gloopy stuff they find in the woods. Hopefully needless to say the mechanics of this are far less important than the subtext. TOGETHER is an allegory for a long term relationship filtered through a BAD BIOLOGY lens with added Screaming Mad George-style lunacy to boot. The film is quite marvellous, by the way. They should have a study where they show it to couples and then ask them individually what they thought of it afterwards.

3 Bugonia

Good old Yorgos Lanthimos (and Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons). What a wonderful piece of work you've given us yet again, and a remake (of the Korean film SAVE THE GREEN PLANET) no less. Two conspiracy theorists kidnap CEO Emma Stone because they believe her to be an alien who wants to destroy earth. They are convinced her mother ship is close and want to go there with her to talk to her people. Are they insane or is there something to what they believe? Even once Lanthimos starts placing his cards on the table this one's clever enough that you'll still find yourself wondering. The story line works on multiple levels and that, combined with the oh so sly wit we've come to expect from this director (right the way back to DOGTOOTH) makes this one a winner. And Arrow are releasing SAVE THE GREEN PLANET early next year on disc so you can compare the two. Expect a review on here.

2 The Arbiter

And another from Mayhem gets the number two spot. Swansea-born director Marc Price's latest movie asks the question: What if Walter Hill's THE WARRIORS was low budget, British, and funny? Rival gangs of pyromaniacs, roller skaters, graphic designers, ice cream salesmen and others rule the city at night, turning parts of it into no-go zones that the police have agreed to stay away from as long as no guns are used and no property is damaged. But one gang is threatening to wipe all the others out and it's the job of Verril (Craig Russell) to act as arbiter between the gang leaders and the police to reach some sort of solution. THE ARBITER starts off hard and fast, flinging as much comedy as action at the audience in its opening act such that by the time things slow down a bit it has you firmly on its side, all the way to the highly satisfying conclusion. A genuine low budget treat and destined to become a cult favourite when it gets a UK release.

1 Hallow Road

A couple (Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys) receive a 2am phone call from their daughter who has crashed the family car in a forest and believes she has run someone down. Almost all of the rest of the film is the couple's drive to find out exactly what has happened. I'm not going to say any more because that would spoil it, but I lost count of the times I applauded director Babak Anvari's (often subtle) directorial touches that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. What I will say is that HALLOW ROAD is like one of those great 1960s black and white British B movie programmers that were nothing but 80 minutes of tension. Superb use of sound and voices to make things even more excruciating is reminiscent of Nigel Kneale's During Barty's Party. Held over in the few cinemas it saw distribution to because of excellent reviews, out of all the films on this list this is the one that deserved a bigger release. 

And that's it! As usual my thanks to the organisers of the festivals we attended this year (Mayhem, Grimmfest and Abertoir), all the companies who send me films to review, everyone involved with running the three cinemas we are lucky enough to have in this area, and most of all everyone who reads, and is hopefully entertained by, these reviews. Did it point you to some films you enjoyed? I hope so. I'll be back next year with more but until then be nice to each other & I'll see you in 2026