In fact, this season answers even more of mysterious questions posed in the previous one. We get an entire episode focussing on Marceline’s history with the Ice King (ahem…I mean Simon). Though the Mushroom War hasn’t been fully explained, we at least understand why everyone’s favourite vampire bassist gets really sad when she thinks about Simon.

To be honest, I wasn’t enjoying the first few episodes this time around. First off, it deliberately mocked my trypophobia – not cool, Adventure Time, not cool! – and secondly we got a bunch of completely off the wall episodes in a row. And I don’t mean the usual bizarre goings-on, I mean full steam ahead to crazytown, don’t worry about stocking up on the vittles beforehand. And it just got a bit…tiresome? The good news is that the collection rights itself before long, and we get some whacky adventures that at least make some kind of narrative sense interspersed with the weirdness we’ve all come to love.

There are some absolutely incredible episodes here. ‘BMO Lost’ features one of my favourite characters alone in the woods, coming across all sorts of creatures, including a bubble voiced by LeVar Burton. ‘One Last Job’ introduces us to Jake’s old gang of ne’er-do-wells, including the hilarious Tiffany, whilst ‘James Baxter the Horse’ features what will quite possibly be the strangest catchphrase ever coined from the show.

The fact that this is only Part 1 doesn’t have much of an effect on the purchase – you still get 26 episodes. (What’s the bet that this season is double the length of previous ones because the network wanted to eke as much as possible out of the performers before renegotiating contracts?) There’s also a 16 minute documentary called ‘Adventure Time Forever’ featuring interviews from significant crew members, including animators, producers and directors that chart the trials and tribulations behind the scenes of season one. It’s great to see some of the show’s unsung heroes (by which I mean people other than Pendleton Ward and the cast), and it’s also interesting to see how varied a bunch of people they are. There are also animated storyboards for each episode – about a minute long each – which are nice to have on the Blu-ray but not essential.

So whilst I was initially put off by the attempts at pushing the envelope this season, the collection evened out soon enough. For fans of Adventure Time, this is another great collection. For those who haven’t watched before, I’d suggest watching any of the previous seasons first (and particularly ‘The Lich’) otherwise you might overwhelmed when you take this disc for a spin.

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The writers are more confident than ever that fans of the show will follow them just about anywhere, and they really cut loose this time around. For a show that wasn’t afraid to be silly from the very first episode, there’s some stuff here that’s truly insane. Whether Finn is trapped in a dream by the mysterious King Worm, or prisoner of Ricardio (an anthropomorphised heart voiced by George Takei), or Jake is put on trial by the King of Mars, Abraham Lincoln, the show certainly hasn’t lost its ability to shock, surprise and bewilder.

For a show that initially featured primarily male characters going on adventures to rescue/impress a whole host of princesses, it’s made some admirable steps to redress the balance. I’ve only just twigged that, despite the initial setup, this show plays around with gender roles more than most kids shows, to the extent where it frequently blurs all things binary. Whether it be the increasing importance of vampire Marceline and her purely platonic relationship with Finn, the fact that scientist extraordinaire Bubblegum Princess no longer always wears dresses or Finn has no qualms about kissing a guy to break a curse, the show has become more and more progressive.

The writers also dabble in foreshadowing, producing multi-episode storylines and show a willingness to drop narrative bombshells that they won’t address until many episodes down the line. This is good, but also makes watching a complete season in order sometimes baffling, and for the first time I understand why Cartoon Network also releases themed collections in addition to the complete season sets.

There are only one and a half dud episodes out of the 26 to be found here, truth be told, and if you’ve enjoyed Adventure Time up until this point, you’re unlikely to disappointed. The Blu-ray image looks fantastic (I’ve been making do with DVD releases up until this point) and there are a bunch of commentaries and a short featurette included.

I was occasionally overwhelmed by the amount of detail included in these oh so brief episodes, though to be honest I didn’t even know about the snail hidden in every episode until now, so perhaps I’m not paying enough attention. When the next season comes out, there are some significant episodes here I’ll definitely need to revisit.

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Jarmusch’s creatures of the night laze about their homes all day long, Eve (Swinton) in Tangier and Adam (Hiddleston) in Detroit. Suffering from interminable boredom (or was that me?) the two meet up, only to have Eve’s younger sister, Ava (Wasikowska), turn up and spoil everything. There isn’t much else that happens to be honest, and like the majority of Jarmusch’s films, it’s all about mood. And music.

Jarmusch’s band SQÜRL provides the soundtrack. For the most part, there’s a droney kind of instrumental post-rock vibe going on, and it suits the characters to a tee. Cinematographically speaking, the film didn’t impress. I mean, they have some fantastic set dressers – one only need look at the antique electrical equipment around Adam’s house to see that – but the camera never does anything particularly memorable.

It’s important to realise that this is a vampire film for people who haven’t seen many vampire films. Jarmusch’s script doesn’t inject the genre with anything we haven’t seen before. Disdain for mortals – check. Immortality is depressing – check. Name checking all the famous people throughout history that they’ve rubbed shoulders with – check. The last movie that shook up the vampire genre was Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in), and I’ve yet to see anything since then really leave an impression.

The performances are…decent. All three of the lead characters have made more lasting impressions in other films. The film is often stagey too, mainly because of Jarmusch’s tendency to never yell cut. As a consequence, we follow shots to the very last second. The problem with this is that it starts to feel like watching dailies, rather than a completed film.

The Blu-ray presentation is nice without being mind-blowing. There’s some graininess present in the darker scenes, but it’s otherwise crisp and clean. There are some interviews with the central cast and some trailers also.

If you’re a Jarmusch fan, then this may well be down your alley. It’s clear I’m not the best judge of his work, unless of course it features a samurai who enjoys listening to hip hop.

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After a chilling opening typical of the various Blood properties, The Last Dark doesn’t waste any time getting to the meat of the narrative. Saya (Nana Mizuki) is out for revenge after tracking her tormentors to Tokyo. The government has enacted the Youth Ordinance Bill, which imposes all sorts of restrictions on young people, including an after-dark curfew. Saya stumbles across Surat, an underground resistance group made up of the young people whose freedoms the Ordinance Bill was designed to curtail. It seems they have an enemy in common: the Tower. Together, they set out to bring the organisation to its knees.

To be honest, this doesn’t feel like a straight continuation of Blood-C. Since that series was such a diversion from the original set-up of Blood: The Last Vampire, this tone is more similar to Saya’s original outing. It’s also incredibly simple. Saya is out for blood, there are Elder Bairns and Tower soldiers in her way, she pulls out her katana and that’s that. Even the character designs seem less striking than the work Clamp did for Blood-C.

The new characters are quite entertaining. Shun (Yūki Kaji) and Iori (Yūichi Nakamura) make a great comedic team, the former childish whilst the latter seems useless at anything other than crashing his car. Hiro (Kana Hanazawa) is a 13 year old wunderkind hacker who is so skilled she can touch type with her toes whilst Mana is a softly spoken 17 year old who indulges in a bit of hero worship with regards to Saya.

The animation is beautiful, with some nifty 3D animation thrown in. The vehicles in particular make great use of wireframe graphics and the action scenes are as brilliant as we’ve come to expect from anything featuring the Blood moniker. The Blu-ray presentation is top notch, and the extras include the NoNeNoNe shorts that serve as a study guide/catch up if you’ve forgotten all the details from the TV series.

At the end of the day however, The Last Dark is nothing more than decent. The pacing, action and story gets the job done, but there aren’t any huge surprises, and gone is the unexpectedly mystifying tone of the TV series. If you found Blood-C a little too weird for your tastes, then you will prefer this film, which is tonally much more in line with Blood: The Last Vampire. If, like me, you couldn’t get enough of Blood-C‘s uniqueness, then this might be a bit of a letdown.

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Saya Kisaragi is your normal everyday schoolgirl living in a small town in Japan. Her father is the priest at the local shrine and she helps him maintain the grounds after school. Oh, and once night falls she takes up her sword and goes out into the woods to slay hideous demons known as Elder Bairns. So far, so ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’ right?

Wrong.

Within a couple of episodes, it’s clear that there is something more at play here. But like an image only seen out of the corner of your eye, the truth about Saya and the town in which she lives is left tantalisingly out of reach. Whilst the first episode on its own may seem similar to the likes of Buffy and similar shows, there’s more than a little of ‘The Twilight Zone’ here too. The slow reveal unfolds as a brilliant pace throughout the 13 episodes, and by the end I was thoroughly satisfied – a rare occurrence with anime TV shows. Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 and even the brilliant Gosick dropped the ball right towards the end, whereas Blood-C goes from strength to strength.

This is easily the best anime TV series I’ve ever seen. Everything about it is perfect. The music, courtesy of Naoki Satō, is wonderfully haunting. The animation is beautiful to behold, and looks stunning on Blu-ray. The character designs come courtesy of the design group Clamp, and whilst the Saya and her friends are absurdly long legged, there’s a kind of grace about them. The movement is fluid and not once did I find that the animators had skimped on quality.

Most of the episodes fall into a steady rhythm of ‘regular day at school followed by kick-arse fight’, but each scene is so wonderfully directed that this never becomes boring. The series also features some of the most amazing fight scenes I’ve seen in years. Be warned, however: this is one very bloody show. It’s rated MA here in Australia but I would have considered it deserving of an R. The human deaths are astounding in their brutality, and never less than shocking.

The good news is that this series succumb to the creepy habits of other anime shows. After ‘Strike Witches 2‘, I wondered if there was any anime that didn’t objectify schoolgirls. Thankfully, Blood-C avoids this entirely. There are a couple of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments of “wait, why did that character just grab Saya provocatively?”, but they are almost an afterthought. Most importantly, Saya is – by the end of the series, anyway – a strong character that doesn’t exist solely for the gratification of the viewer.

I really cannot sing Blood-C’s praises enough. This is a brilliant mystery/horror/action series, and one fully deserving of your attention. It would help if you’d seen Blood: The Last Vampire beforehand, but don’t expect to understand how the two are related for quite some time. A true re-imagining, Blood-C pulls no punches and is a stunning piece of work. A must for anime fans.

Blood-C is available now on DVD and Blu-Ray from Madman.

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In my humble opinion, the novel ‘Breaking Dawn’ itself was an exercise in futility, since author Stephanie Meyer failed to deliver on every single instance of conflict she created. Time and again, each major insurmountable obstacle that Bella and co. faced was instantly resolved with very little tension. I was curious to see how on Earth this would make for a thrilling movie experience.

The good news is that most of the offensive stuff (women putting up with violent men, women getting punished for having sex, yada yada yada) was taken care of in Part 1. Now that Bella Swan is a vampire, you’d think she’d finally get to have some fun. And she does, to a certain extent. The opening sequence of Part 2 features her coming to terms with her newfound powers, and it’s easy to see what’s so thrilling about being a member of the sparkly undead. From that point, however, the film slows down considerably. Whilst Bella’s coming to terms with her vampiric nature, she also has to deal with the fact that her daughter, Renesmee, not only has the worst name in the history of bad names, but the Volturi aren’t happy about her existence.

This means we get more of Michael Sheen, which is always a good thing. However, for some reason that’s never really explained, it takes the Volturi a really long time to travel from Italy to Forks, even if the Cullens have been zipping all over the globe in the meantime, trying to rally support. When we finally get to the climax (something completely missing from the book), it turns out that the filmmakers have something special for us indeed. If I could buy a Blu-ray of just the 25 minutes or so of action at the end of the film, I would, because it’s thrilling and exciting and emotional and a whole lot of other words that can’t really be applied to the rest of the franchise.

I’ve already praised Michael Sheen, but I should also mention Billy Burke, who has managed, against the odds, to be brilliant throughout all of the Twilight films. Our central three stars – Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner – still fail to impress, whilst the extraordinarily large supporting cast of multicultural vampires only get a handful of lines each, having to rely mostly on their costuming to get across any depth of character.

It’s always surprised me just how crappy the visual effects have been in the Twilight Saga considering the fact that the films make millions of dollars. Whilst Breaking Dawn Part 2 is probably the best looking of the series, there are still some awful effects on display. The high speed runs through the forest look just as silly as they did in the first film, whilst the CGI baby Renesmee is woefully unrealistic and thoroughly creepy.

I can appreciate that fans of Harry Potter and Twilight may like the recent trend of splitting up the final novel of a series into two films, because it means that the story really has time to breathe. Then again, a brilliant script is a brilliant script, so there’s no reason why you can’t squeeze an entire novel into two hours and produce a film that’s just as emotionally charged as the books supposedly are.

At the end of the day, it’s only really fans that will be watching Breaking Dawn Part 2, and I can’t see how they could have any problems with the adaptation. It’s like the book, only slightly better. For everyone else, it’s yet another case of reasonably pretty people standing around, awkwardly delivering lines that are nowhere near as profound as they’d like to think they are.

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Leading the charge in historical/horror mash-ups (with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in development) is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a film in which the title says it all. In it, we get to see young Abraham from a boy right up to the eve of his death, and somewhere along the way he picks up an axe and starts hacking away at the undead. I’m not sure the plot really needs any more explanation. Those familiar with American history will recognise events and circumstances now have a distinctly vampiric edge, and whilst the film is ridiculously silly, the execution is rather po-faced.

Timur Bekmambetov has probably directed his best film here. Whilst it’s by no means cinematic genius, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is certainly more consistent than previous efforts of his such as Wanted, Day Watch (Dnevnoy dozor) and Night Watch (Nochnoy dozor). Whenever proceedings slow down the film does start to feel like a shoddy made-for-TV historical recreation, but all the action scenes are masterfully executed with some stunning visual effects. Of course, it never looks real, but that’s never been a concern of Bekmambetov’s, has it?

The film features some brilliant aging makeup (something Prometheus could learn from) though also some terrible fake beards, so it seems every silver lining has a cloud. There also some ridiculous styling in the form of Dominic Cooper, who plays Abraham’s mentor, Henry Sturges, and looks like a complete tool the entire time. Benjamin Walker puts in a decent performance as Lincoln (looking a lot like a young Liam Neeson), though unfortunately Mary Elizabeth Winstead doesn’t have much to do as Mary Todd Lincoln apart from hurl doe eyes in his direction. Rufus Sewell (Adam) looks evil, as per usual, whilst Marton Csokas (Jack Barts) continues to have the most incredible acting career in the world, despite not being a household name.

By no means a brilliant (or even particularly clever) film, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is devilishly entertaining and featured one particular action scene that was an entire periodic table of awesomeness. The 3D actually worked quite well because the film was deliberately over lit, whilst the sets, costumes and art design were sumptuously theatrical in their presentation. The slow motion action is balletic in execution and beautifully shot. If you leave common sense at the door, you’re in for a good time.

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For those who don’t know but still care (if they exist), Breaking Dawn begins with the long awaited wedding of Bella and Edward. “Long” is a word that applies to the wedding also, which seemed to take up a good 30 minutes of the running time. I appreciate that the filmmakers wanted to get such an important moment “right”, but I haven’t seen such a slow, matrimonial start to a film since The Deer Hunter. There are some clever filmmaking skillz present here. For Bella’s walk down the aisle, the camera’s kept alternately on her and from her perspective, which really did hammer home the notion that it’s clearly the most nerve-wracking walk one can partake in this side of The Green Mile. Funnily enough, some of the best material during these scenes comes from dialogue that wasn’t written in the books. Telling, that.

Once we get to the honeymoon, everything starts to go wrong because, wouldn’t you know it, women can’t have sex without being punished. Once Bella’s bitten into that apple, everything goes pear-shaped (if you excuse my fruit salad metaphoring), and before you can say “sanguis bibimus, corpus edimus, toll corpus satani, ave”, she’s got a bellyful of demon baby.

Splitting the book up into two films makes a certain amount of sense, though we all know that the studios were thinking about cents instead. As it stands, Breaking Dawn manages to feel like its own film, even if it has to beef up the climax because Meyer couldn’t seem to manage such moments in any of the books. Unfortunately, said climax features a lot of CGI and a lot of darkness, so you can’t really tell what’s going on.

The visual effects aren’t bad, and are certainly much better than in the first film. The wolves look great in isolation, though they never appear to be sharing the same physical space as the actual actors. The score, however, is all over the place. During one of the supposedly heartfelt, quiet scenes near the start of the film, the orchestra seemed to think we were at the circus, and Carter Burwell’s work consistently disappoints.

When it comes to the performances, it’s a case of same old, same old. Kristen Stewart does a decent job as Bella, but Robert Pattinson looks as constipated as ever. Even Taylor Lautner out-performs this guy, which is pretty incredible when you think about it. The rest of the vamps/wolves get the job done to varying degrees, but everyone seems too distracted by their contact lenses/toplessness to really emote effectively.

Breaking Dawn is a film that’s alternately limp and offensive. The narrative saw all the main characters acting in ways that simply pissed me off, and the “big” moments, whether they were drama or action-related, fell flat. It’ll be interesting to see if the lacklustre audience response I’ve been reading about, coupled with the 12 month wait, will still result in Part 2 being a box office success.

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Akira Kaburagi Regendorf (Yuuichi Nakamura) is a student at the local high school whose fate is inextricably linked with that of the vampire queen, even if he has lost all memory of his destiny. Akira’s friend, Yuki Saegusa (Chiwa Saito) is deeply in love with him but, alas, that love has been unrequited. Thus we have a nice little love triangle, with Yuki feeling unable to compete with a centuries old vampire.

Thing is, Mina first changed into a vampire before she reached puberty, so Dance in the Vampire Bund features a whole lot of those uncomfortable moments ostensibly referred to as “fan service”, though I would suggest that such a term is more than a little presumptuous. If the likes of Strike Witches makes you uncomfortable, then this series will be even worse. Whilst Mina is the oldest character in the show, her youthful appearance means that any reference to her sexuality feels horribly pervy. Anne Rice may have dealt with similar issues with the likes of the vampire Armand, but somehow it didn’t feel quite so wrong in her fiction.

Thankfully, Dance in the Vampire Bund doesn’t spend too long on the subject. In fact the story jumps around a lot throughout the 12 episodes, which is a problem in itself. I never really got a sense of the narrative arc that was playing through the entire series. New and important characters pop up out of nowhere and are gone just as suddenly. At times it feels like the writers were retconning on the fly.

It’s also reasonably hard to follow. There are many splendid moments in this series, but now that I’ve seen it all, I’m still not entirely sure of some characters’ motivations, or their relationship to other characters. Some of the show moves at such a quick pace that it’s disorienting. This is compounded by the fact that the visuals can often be quite abstract, with the screen suddenly cutting to red or black for a second in the middle of a conversation, as if to drive home the tone of the dialogue. The madcap nature of the show manifests itself in not only the ‘Dance of the Vampire Maids’ mini-cartoons at the end of each episode, but by appearances by series creator Nozomu Tamaki himself as, appropriately enough, a writer of vampire-themed manga.

The artistic tendencies of the series do work in its favour. This is one of the most beautiful anime series I’ve ever watched, and at times the quality of visuals matches that of big budget feature animations. The CGI-enhanced 3D elements are few, but the level of detail is astounding, and aided by jump cuts, varying aspect ratios and still photography that has been rotoscoped, giving real locations an animated appearance. All this looks stunning on the Blu-ray, except for some of the second episode, which mysteriously features a kind of colour bleeding, something I’ve never seen on HD before.

The characters mightn’t be as memorable as those from The Sacred Blacksmith or Strike Witches, but there are so many fantastic sequences/original ideas that it makes this series a must see for fans of the vampire genre. We have the invention of shade gel, which gives vampires temporary shelter from the harm of the sun, as well as de-fanged vamps who have taken a vow of peace. To top it all off, this is certainly the first time I’ve ever seen a vampire used as a bomb mule.

Dance of the Vampire Bund has a plethora of good ideas wrapped up in a high quality presentation. Alas, the series can be hard to follow a lot of the time. If you’re up for a narrative challenge and think you can survive the sexualisation of a pre-pubescent vampire, then it’s worth a look.

Dance in the Vampire Bund Series Collection Blu-ray is out now through Madman.

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For those who don’t know, Fright Night concerns Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin), a teenager in the suburbs who learns that a vampire has moved in next door. Without having anyone to turn to, for fear of sounding crazy, he sets out to ensure that the bloodsucking Jerry (Colin Farrell) stays as far away from Charley’s mum (Toni Collette) and girlfriend, Amy (Imogen Poots.)

The first thing that one notices is that (‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ alumnus) Marti Noxon’s script has given the characters more depth. We get a better understanding of why Charley hangs out (or doesn’t, as the case may be) with the likes of ‘Evil’ Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and why he wouldn’t immediately bring Amy in on his suspicions. I certainly felt a lot more for the characters than I did in the original. It’s also interesting that the setting has moved to a housing estate just outside of Las Vegas, where most of the population works nights on the ‘strip’ and thus have an excuse to have the blinds drawn all day. It’s a unique location that makes the film a little bit different from the average suburban horror movie.

Jerry the vampire is a lot more aggressive than Chris Sarandon’s original portrayal. In the 1985 version, Jerry spent a lot of time waiting for people to come to him. Farrell first of all plays Jerry as an alpha male – someone whom Charley wishes he could be – instead of simply a dreamy object of affection for middle-aged women who read romance novels. He also takes drastic (and thankfully obvious) measures once he realises his cover is blown. This is something that clearly links back to Noxon’s work on ‘Buffy’, whereby characters’ common sense outweighs the urge to follow a traditional narrative.

Yelchin is good in the lead role, though I’m finding it more and more difficult to imagine him as a teenager. Poots is wonderful as Amy, and despite the fact she’s the same age as Yelchin, I haven’t seen her in the likes of Star Trek, so I have no trouble suspending my disbelief. David Tennant plays Peter Vincent, here a stage illusionist rather than an over the hill actor as in the original, and does a respectable job in a role that was seemingly written for Russell Brand.

Fright Night has some great surprises and some inventive scenes. There are, however, many times when it simply felt that the humour should have been hilarious rather than chuckle-worthy, and perhaps this is down to director Craig Gillespie. A number of jokes fall flat, despite the efforts of Tennant et al.

When it comes down to it, if you hold the 1985 film on a pedestal, you’ll probably be offended that they even considered remaking Fright Night. If, like me, you have no fondness for the original, then you’ll likely enjoy this vampiric comedy horror that boasts some decent visual effects and ambitious action sequences.

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