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Friendless Willard Stiles (Crispin Glover) lives with his sickly mother Henrietta (Jackie Burroughs) in a crumbling mansion and works someone is concerned autocratic Frank Martin (R. Lee Ermey) who takes desire in humiliating Willard in front of his co-workers. Sent by his nurture to exterminate rats in the basement, Willard forms an emotional attachment with the rodents and trains them to give way to his orders. With his selected, Socrates, by his side and the enormous Ben influential his army, Willard is skilled to enjoin horrific vindictiveness on his tormentors. When Ben becomes jealous of Socrates’ status he decides to take his own give a Roland for an Oliver on Willard.

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The Movie:

*Warning: Mature sexual themes are discussed
in this review.*

I know that you can’t judge a book by its cover, or a movie just by the title. Everybody knows that. But I am unable to resist an intriguing sounding title. Like a moth to the flame, I’m drawn to cool titles. So when I saw Nine Dead Gay Guys listed, I thought “that sounds interesting” and snagged it. I knew there was a very good chance that the movie would end up being horrible, but I’m a sucker. As it turned out, this movie was much funnier than I dared hope.

Byron had been living in London for about a year, when his best friend
from back home in Ireland, Kenny, decided to move down.  Byron had
painted a pretty rosy picture of London, and the truth was much more dreary. 
It turns out the streets aren’t paved with gold and Byron makes his living
in a rather unconventional way: he blows gay guys in bathrooms for money. 
Not that he’s gay, he’s not.  This is just a way to keep him in booze
without having to do any real work.  Kenny is appalled at what his
childhood friend is doing, but not so appauled that he won’t try it himself
when he runs out of cash.  After all, it’s just a job.

London’s gay community is stunned when it’s learned that ‘the Queen,’
a flamboyant fixture in the gay community, has been killed.  Rumored
to be very rich, it’s assumed that theft was the motive.  Byron finds
that he actually blew the killer in a dark room the evening of the murder. 
Not only did he gratfy the killer, he also stole the murder weapon. 
Byron realizes that he has the only clue to who killed the Queen: the size
of the killer’s penis.   If they can find the killer and steal
the money from him, the pair of friends would be on easy street. 
But finding a guy with a small cock is easier said than done.

This is a wickedly funny black comedy populated with colorful characters. 
While it is a comedy, the movie doesn’t make fun of homosexuals or their
lifestyle, though it does manage to be fairly offensive, but in a laugh
out loud funny way.  There is a lot of broad, some would say sophomoric,
humor, such as the sexually frustrated dwarf.   But there are
also a lot of quick jokes that fly past; the Hasidic Jew exclaiming “Jesus
H. Christ” upon finding a dead body for example.

 

The script was filled with a lot of witty dialog that sets the tone
of the movie right from the start.  Take this narration from early
in the film:

Finding your tucker one of a pair impoverished and back on the booze is indubitably
bad enough already.  But judgement out he’s been blowing queers to maintain
his booze was presumably worse.  However finding exposed that the Queen’s
been electrocuted by a gay bloke with a cattle spur and a 3 ½ inch
willy was extraordinarily queer news indeed.  I feel, as such, Kenny could
be forgiven on belief that things could scarcely get any worse. 
I was to uphold him ill-considered of course.

The whole talking picture is narration in that comic breezy trend.  It has a
very risible script with the lines having a certain cadence that adds to
the humor.

 

The direction is similarly creative and immensely humorous.  First
time kingpin Lab Ky Mo, who also wrote the script, does a great job of
making the silent picture visually interesting.  He seems to be heavily influenced
by Guy Richie and includes a infinite of fast cross cuts, speeds up the film,
and makes the veil appear as frantic as possible.  This works to a
great territory and the sequel is a fast paced neither here nor there comedy.

The DVD:

---

Audio:

The stereo English soundtrack sounded very good.  The background
music and the dialog sounded clear and clean.  I had no trouble understanding
what was being said, even with the Irish and British accents.  Since
this movie was mainly dialog based, it won’t give your system a workout,
but it is effective none the less.  There are no subtitles.

Video:

The anamorphically enhanced widescreen picture looked great.  All
of the bright and garish colors were bright and vivid, and the image was
sharp.  There were some details lost in dark areas, but this is a
minor critique.  Digital defects were at a minimum.  A very good
DVD all around.

Extras:

This movie includes a director’s commentary which is very interesting. 
He talks about the genesis of the film, and how he wrote the script. 
It turns out that the main character, Kenny, was named after the character
in South Park.  He manages to talk through the entire film without
many gaps and keeps the entire commentary interesting.

Final Thoughts:

As funny as The Full Monty, and paced like Snatch, this
is one of those movies where everything comes together perfectly. 
The direction, the acting, the story, even the background music all meshed
together to make an irreverant, if low budget, film.  There were many
times that I laughed out loud, which is my main criteria for judging a
comedy.  Highly Recommended.

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Suggesting an Iranian rotating on “Romeo and Juliet,” but with the notion of tragic, unconditional make the beast with two backs replaced by world-weariness and cynicism, director Rassul Sadr Ameli’s “The Girl in the Sneakers” makes for a decidedly enjoyable addition to the burgeoning canon of invigorating new films from the Midst East. Neither as contemplatively naturalistic as Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy nor as impressionistic as Majid Majidi’s series of children’s adventures, pic has a directness that manifestly suits both its outspoken appellation character and its scenery amid the hustle-bustle of contemporary Tehran. With proper niche handling targeted at Persian filmgoers, pic, which opens July 14 on one screen in Santa Monica, could befit a word-of-maw success in specialized venues.

Pic opens on a teenage couple — Aideen (Majid Hajizadeh) and Tadai (Pegah Ahangarani) — strolling through a Tehran park. Though they have met only recently, they are of a piece in their wistful daydreaming. He admits to having his life changed by reading the literary adventures of Don Juan; she, at only 15, fancifully yearns for an adult world she imagines herself to be more than ready for. Together, they seek a way of literalizing their reveries, until reality catches up with them in the form of a police officer who arrests Aideen on suspicion that he has deflowered Tadai.

It’s a false alarm, of course, but one that serves as a subtly potent reminder of the conservative modes of social discourse that make Middle Eastern cultures enigmatic to most Americans. That Tadai should even be seen in a public place, with a young man her own age to whom she is not related, outrages her parents. They demand disciplinary action be taken against Aideen and forbid Tadai from seeing him again.

Distraught and dejected in the best spirit of rebellious adolescent movie protagonists, Tadai quickly decides that she cannot live without seeing Aideen once more. She runs away from home, setting off on a 24-hour journey through Tehran while she waits to be reunited with her love. Hers is an odyssey through the lives of merchants and servants, passers-by and full-time street dwellers, like the put-upon gypsy woman (Akram Mohammadi) to whose aid Tadai comes, and who later returns the favor.

Tadai’s adventures are constructed as an intricate series of reversals of fortunes. Ameli relates the pic’s action in a series of long, entrancing takes, and co-writers Peyman Qasemkhani and Fereydoun Farhudi’s dialogue is exceptionally sly and perceptive on matters of pubescent arrogance and discontent. But the film’s real strength is that, underneath its familiar rebellious-youth-picture veneer, the filmmakers have crafted a pungent satire on the foolhardiness of youth and the cruelty of a dog-eat-dog world in which no one, not even a kindly gypsy beggar, is to be taken at face value.

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Pic’s true setting is that tentative space between carefree adolescence and responsible adulthood, and its poetic quality largely derives from the way Ameli neither condemns teenage idealism nor embraces the ordinariness of the grownup world. Tadai’s journey ultimately amounts to her trying adulthood on for size, finding it an ill fit and, for the time being, throwing it back on the rack. And in that way, Ameli’s film adopts the fable-like quality of the best-known recent Iranian movies.

Tadai’s impetus for running away in the first place and subjecting herself to harsh street conditions never feels fully formed here, and it would be easy to fault “The Girl in the Sneakers” for that. But as Ameli makes clear, the film is meant to suggest that the idleness of youth frequently leads to high drama and a skewed view of reality. Pic also makes a couple of misguided forays into a less organic, more broadly slapstick style of comedy.

There’s impressive depth of feeling in Ahangarani’s extraordinary lead performance. Her wide-eyed, quick-tongued precociousness is irresistible, and her presence easily carries the film over its rougher spots.

The Movie

Forget “earlier, funnier films” – what happened to consistency? I’m often reminded of that infamous “earlier, funnier” scene in Woody Allen’s close-to-the-bone 1980 satire Stardust Memories when sitting down to a new Allen flick these days. Does anyone need to be reminded of that ignominious early-2000s run: The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Hollywood Ending, Anything Else? Thankfully, the New York auteur regains his balance with the conceptual lark of Melinda and Melinda – it’s a bifurcated exploration of drama and comedy that works well in equal measure.

As befits an Allen film, Melinda and Melinda is powered by an eclectic, engaging cast – Will Ferrell, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Wallace Shawn, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloe Sevigny, Amanda Peet, Josh Brolin and Steve Carell – but the film (per the title) belongs to the luminous, unhinged performance by Aussie Radha Mitchell as the titular Melinda. It’s a winning, dexterous piece of acting that goes a long way towards making Allen’s dual narrative work seamlessly.

The main thesis of Melinda and Melinda is that life is either comic or tragic – it’s all in how you look at it. Two playwrights (Shawn and Larry Pine) spin different takes on the same tale – one light and funny, the other serious and dour. Allen spends roughly five-10 minutes setting up each scenario and then freely cuts between them, advancing the narrative pair and neatly folding them back on each other, with referential actions/lines of dialogue. It’s a neat trick that works more often than not.

The tragedy concerns a young Manhattan couple, Laurel (Sevigny) and Lee (Miller), whose dinner party is interrupted by their long-lost friend Melinda (Mitchell) – it turns out that in a suicidal rage, after her husband absconded with her kids, she landed in a mental institution, addicted to pills. The comedy centers on Hobie (Ferrell) and Susan (Peet), an actor and indie filmmaker, respectively, whose dinner party is likewise interrupted by their downstairs neighbor Melinda (Mitchell again), who bewitches the excitable Hobie.

At a brisk 99 minutes, Melinda and Melinda unfolds quickly and easily; Mitchell’s deft switching between the light and dark Melindas aside, the competent cast is excellent throughout, with nary a false note struck. Just a heads-up to Ferrell fans expecting a patented comedic freak-out: watch Anchorman again or something. Ferrell’s quite subdued (but still hysterical) and actually gets most of his laughs in the last 20 minutes.

With Match Point, Allen’s latest (and of this writing, as-yet-unreleased) film getting positive buzz, perhaps that early-00s streak of subpar films is behind the Woodmeister and he can get back to the business of keenly observed, stealthily acidic funny. Melinda and Melinda is certainly an excellent start.

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THE LEG BONE’S connected to the head bone in “Carnage,” a gorgeously morbid meditation on the interconnectivity of life (and death) that centers around the distribution of body parts from an Andalusian bull that has been sent to the abattoir after being on the losing end of a deadly tango with a toreador. Okay, so the half-ton animal does manage to get in one good goring before being killed. Still, his victim, a lithe young bullfighter named Victor (Julien Lescarret), merely lands on life-support as he awaits a donor liver, while Romero (that’s the bull) gets ignominiously chopped up into steak, eyeballs, horns and bones.

All of which end up in the hands, or in some cases the stomachs of (respectively): a diner in a fancy restaurant whose past holds a dark secret (Angela Molina); a philandering scientific researcher (Jacques Gambin); a lonely taxidermist living with his mother (Bernard Sens); and a slobbering Great Dane named Fred.

It sounds a little bit silly when you put it like that. It’s not.

Winner of the Prix de la Jeunesse (an award for young filmmakers) at the Cannes Film Festival, and directed with a sure hand by 30-year-old Frenchwoman Delphine Gleize from her original, magically realistic script, “Carnage” only seems to meander, the way life, it is suggested, only seems to. Building slowly and inexorably to a satisfyingly circular conclusion, which connects not only the previously mentioned characters but a kindergarten teacher (Lucia Sanchez), her epileptic student, Winnie (Raphaelle Molinier), a struggling actress-cum-dog-treat-saleswoman (Chiara Mastroianni), the researcher’s hugely pregnant wife (Lio) and a suicidal philosopher-turned-ice skater (Clovis Cornillac), the film weaves sex, death and birth into the fabric of a poetically charged universe. It is a universe whose apparent randomness is envisioned by Gleize as part of some kind of cosmic dadaism, one where the life force can be transferred from body to body by various means — including the dinner plate.

Parallels are drawn between forms of ritualistic engagement — bullfighting, figure skating, making love, sharing a meal — each of which get stirred into Gleize’s heady stew without overwhelming the film’s subtler undertones.

Needless to say, not everything here makes sense, at least not on an intellectual level. Although the number 5 figures prominently for some reason — the taxidermist stuffs five small animals, the pregnant woman gives birth to quintuplets — the symbolism is obscure.

Violence looms silently over “Carnage’s” opening scenes, from Victor’s methodical prefight preparations, to Winnie’s spastic seizure after drawing the picture of a dead duck, to an explosive acting exercise, to a couple copulating ferociously by the ghoulish light of a copier machine. And, in the end, the shadow of the grave has never really left us, as the film finally goes to black on the image of 5-year-old Winnie, wearing a set of plastic bull horns and sitting in a darkened arena. Meanwhile, a pair of skaters twist and turn in a macabre dance that echoes the foregone choreography of the matador and his bleeding mate, both of whom are sooner or later to become, like all the rest of us, meat.

CARNAGE (Unrated, 130 minutes) — Contains obscenity, sex, nudity, bullfighting violence, a slaughterhouse scene and extensive use of animal carcasses. In French, Spanish and Italian with subtitles. At Visions Bar Noir.

The Talkie:

The packaging of this DVD from Anchor Bay touts Josh Becker's

Alien Apocalypse

as the 'highest rated Sci-Fi Pictures original of all time!' Unfortunately, that lumps this movie in with a lot of really, really bad made for TV movies, which is more or less where it belongs anyway.

Bruce Campbell stars in this one, playing Dr. Ivan Hood who has spent the last four decades frozen in a deep sleep out in space where he was doing some research. When he arrives back on Earth after his extended hybernation, he's shocked to find that the planet has been taken over by a nasty race of giant insectoid aliens. To make matters worse, they've enslaved humanity and are bent on using Earth for whatever whim strikes them.

Soon after his arrival, Dr. Hood is captured by the giant bugs and locked up in a prison. It doesn't take him long to get his brain working overtime, however, and soon he's come up with an elaborate escape plan. He makes his way out of there with one thing on his mind ? to find the President and cause an insurrection with his help. In turn, they'll overthrow the evil bug tyrants and set things right for all humanity. His fellow space traveler, Kelly, is along for the ride to help him out as best she can.

This is pretty much a formula movie. It doesn't do anything particularly interesting with the premise and it doesn't break any new ground. It's all fairly predictable and you're not seeing anything here you haven't seen done before and done better at that. What makes this one worth a look is the Bruce factor ? he plays his role like he plays most of his other roles, with tongue planted firmly in cheek. He's got a great sense of comedic timing and the plot allows the movie to focus more on his skills as a goofball than most other roles where he's relegated to a bit part or supporting player. The result is very much a bad movie with a good Campbell performance. For fans of his work, that'll be enough but for those looking for an interesting or intelligent science fiction film, this one comes up severely lacking. Fans of piss poor CGI work should enjoy this one though, as there's tons of that in here.

Aside from Campbell, a few other familiar faces show up in the film. Renee O'Connor from

Xena

has a decent part and Peter Jason of

Deadwood

is fun as the long lost President of these here United States of America. Production values are pretty low on this one and the low budget doesn't help the script or do the movie any favors, but if you want to see Bruce goofing off for an hour and a half, check this out.

The DVD

Video:

Anchor Bay gives

Alien Apocalypse

a solid 1.77.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Black levels are strong and deep and color reproduction is good. There are a few scenes with some heavy line shimmering apparent along the sides of buildings and cars but that's about as bad as it gets. There are no mpeg compression artifacts evident during playback nor are there any issues with print damage or excessive grain. Skin tones look pretty normal and realistic and while a few scenes are a bit on the soft side, the detail level on this transfer is average or slightly better.

Unimpaired:

The soundtrack is available in your choice of an English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix or a toned down English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix. English closed captioning is also provided, though there are no subtitles on this release. Both mixes sound find with the 5.1 winning out for opening up the proceedings a bit and throwing in some fun directional effects during the more action intensive scenes that take place in the film. Levels are properly balanced, dialogue is clean and clear and while there could have been some more punch in the lower end, there's not much to complain about here ? the movie sounds good.

Extras:

The only really substantial extra feature on this release comes in the form of a feature length commentary track from director Josh Becker and star Bruce Campbell. These two have known one another a long time and their obvious enthusiasm for working with one another again comes through in this track where they discuss the origins of the film, what could have been done better with the material, and how it ended up being finished. There are a lot of good stories and plenty of the humor that Campbell is known for on this talk and to be totally honest, the commentary is a lot more fun than the movie itself is.

Aside from that, Anchor Bay has supplied a brief collection of random behind the scenes footage that totals about two minutes in length, a still gallery, and the standard Bruce Campbell text biography.

Terminating Thoughts:

Campbell's hammy acting makes this one worth a watch if you dig his style, but for those who aren't into Bruce's performances, what you're left with is a very much by the numbers made for TV sci-fi movie of the week. Anchor Bay's disc looks and sounds okay, and the commentary is fun. The lack of replay value makes this release a good candidate for a rental.

Ian lives in NYC with his fiance where he writes for DVD Talk and suited for AV Maniacs. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and gaudy.

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In what is in a trice fetching Possibly man of my favorite British TV inscrutability series, the latest batch of Caroline Graham-inspired Midsomer Murders episodes, Midsomer Murders: Unchanging Nine, has arrived on DVD. Sporting four terrific entries from the show’s eighth series (season), originally airing in 2004, Midsomer Murders: Stipulate Nine is a make out-on continuation of the shrivel, droll, macabre murder mysteries that plague the apparent murder capitol of England: the made-up Midsomer County. With the quintessential “everyman” sleuth Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby wryly observing the squabblings, backstabbings, and frustrated aspirations of the wealthy, snobby residents of the County, Midsomer Murders: Set Nine continues to delight with its perverse, morbid inconsiderable tales.

Now I’ve written before about Midsomer Murders (please click here to read that review), and since watching that particular set, I’ve gone back and viewed some earlier shows, as well. And I have to say that I don’t think the series has flagged in the slightest during this eighth series. The episodes included in Midsomer Murders: Set Nine - Things That Go Bump In the Night, Dead in the Water, Orchis Fatalis, and Bantling Boy - all possess the series’ strange, funny mix of eccentric, deceptively “quaint” English characters, a delicious sense of reveling in the macabre, and a distinctly English standoffishness in the face of utter mayhem. So much of Midsomer Murders is a smart put-on of the classic “English village” mystery genre, and so competently done, that it can be enjoyed as either straight representation of that form, or as a low-key farcical commentary on it.

It’s been noted before of the ridiculously high murder count in the fictional Midsomer County (much like the fictional Cabot Cove - or any other place that Murder, She Wrote’s Jessica Fletcher happens to find herself), and if you watch the series end to end, I suppose that sense of the absurd would be driven home more forcefully. After all, a series of seemingly unending gruesome murders in small, affluent rural villages, all in the same county, week after week? But since each episode is largely self-contained (a bonus for newcomers to the series, like myself earlier this year), and the murders occur in various small villages throughout the County, you can approach each entry as a “straight” mystery. Taking all the episodes together, however, the silliness of the crime rate becomes quite funny.

And John Nettles’ square, stolid interpretation of Detective Barnaby further reinforces that initial feeling that we’re watching a deceptively uncomplicated piece of genre work. Designed specifically to have no distinguishing quirks or “handles” to attract the audience (no Columbo raincoat and junker car; no Rockford Files trailer parked in an empty lot), the Barnaby character at first glance appears colorless, but Nettles’ assured, minimal performance is perfectly pitched for the understated British diffidence and sly wit that marks each Midsomer Murders. And after watching him closely, you can see Nettles putting his own restricted little spins on his line readings and his closed-off facial expressions, bringing just the right amount of commentary on the patently outlandish goings-on in Midsomer County.

Much of the humor of Midsomer Murders comes not from the lead characters (Detective Barnaby’s sidekick, Detective Sergeant Dan Scott - well played by John Hopkins - gets quite a few laughs with his frequent incredulity at the goings-on in the various villages), but from the bizarre, peculiar inhabitants and suspects that lurk in the corners of the deadly County. In Midsomer Murders: Set Nine, we have everything from phony mediums, to randy rowers, to libidinous orchid enthusiasts, to a monk who gladly translates a sex-filled diary written in Latin. The series presents these potentially broad characters in the most low-key manner, letting the audience get the jokes if they care to.

One of the series’ strong points is its ability to take a seemingly innocuous, mundane affair - such as a flower show in Orchis Fatalis — and gradually peel away the lackluster layers of the social façade to reveal the perverse, seamy underbelly of greed, lust, and ambition that drive the truly terrible crimes that are visited upon the countyfolk - while providing plenty of smart comedy along the way. These facades - the breakdown of traditional churchgoing in favor of trendy spiritualism in Things That Go Bump in the Night; the posh gilt of the aristocratic regatta in Dead in the Water; the seemingly genteel hobby of orchid growing in Orchis Fatalis; and horse - and family - breeding in Bantling Boy - are frequently tied in with plot elements that emphasize nostalgia and a sense of a disappearing way of English life. This isolation, both in actual locale and in thematic elements stuck in events obsessed with passing traditions, further removes Midsomer Murders from reality, creating a series of cozy mysteries starring broad, unusual characters - with surprisingly tart resonance.

Of the four episodes of Midsomer Murders: Set Nine included in this set, the first episode, Things That Go Bump in the Night is particularly strong, creating an almost The Wicker Man feel to its story of spiritualism engulfing a small village in fear. Certainly the recreation of the murder at the episode’s finale, with the murderer naked and chortling after killing the victim, is one of the more disturbing, perverse moments in the series (and again, funny at the same, awful time). Dead in the Water is a more straightforward episode (brightly photographed, with plenty of subtle comedy between Barnaby and Scott), while Orchis Fatalis is quite brilliant at peeling away its layer upon layer of licentiousness as we try to understand what would make orchid growers kill each other (here’s a hint: money). And Bantling Boy is clever in jumping back and forth between red-herring suspects, while we ponder the nature of breeding in the aristocracy. Certainly one of the funniest lines in the series comes at the end of this episode; Barnaby, discussing violent video games, states with a straight face, “When killing becomes entertainment, we all lose touch with reality.” Of course, this is deliberately hilarious (and ironic), considering the weekly massacres that occur in Midsomer County. And delightfully entertaining massacres they are, as well.

Here are the four, 100-document episodes in the four-disc spar enter upon, Midsomer Murders: Set Nine, as described on their slim cases:

DISC ONE:

Things That Go Bump in the Night
The murder of undertaker Patrick Pennyman brings Barnaby and Scott to Fletcher’s Cross, where villagers are divided in their feelings about a local spiritualist church. As the body count rises, the detectives begin to suspect a link between the funeral parlor, the Spirit of Friendship Group, and a new friend of Joyce Barnaby’s.

DISC TWO:

Dead in the Water

A peaceful Barnaby family outing to watch the Midsomer Regatta ends with the discovery of the body of Rowing Club chairman Guy Sweetman. A notorious philanderer, Guy upset many people in his life, including fellow rowers, jealous husbands, and jilted conquests. But who was angry enough to kill him?

DISC THREE:

Orchis Fatalis

When one of the world’s rarest orchids turns up in Midsomer Malham, passion, compulsion, and jealousy lead to murder. Barnaby and Scott must find the Yellow Roth and determine who would stop at nothing to own the priceless specimen.

DISC FOUR:

Bantling Boy

The owner of Bantling Hall dies and leaves his prize racehorse to a syndicate of four people, one of whom is his son, a horse trainer. But the windfall turns out to be extremely unlucky for all of them. Barnaby and Scott enter the world of horseracing and discover a shocking secret worth killing for.

The DVD:

The Video:
The 16:9 anamorphic widescreen video image for Midsomer Murders: Set Nine is immaculately sharp and clear, with full colors and blacks that hold in the numerous night scenes. Again, as with the previous set, I was impressed with the show’s glossy lensing, and it looks particularly good here in this DVD transfer.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English 2.0 stereo soundtrack is effective and strong. There are no subtitles or close-captioning options, but the English accents are very mild here, so no worries.

The Extras:
There’s a text bio on author Caroline Graham, as well as text filmographies for the cast.

Final Thoughts:
From the first strains of that deliciously creepy little theme (which would have been worthy of Hitchcock), the Midsomer Murders: Set Nine mysteries take you to a fictional county of reserved English villages, quaint traditions, and uncontrolled mass murder. Observing it all is the wry, flint-eyed Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby, who stoically plows through the various crime scenes, fully aware that more murders will inevitably occur. If you’re new to Midsomer Murders, don’t feel you can’t jump right into the mayhem. These are delightfully droll little mysteries that will keep you guessing - and laughing - right up to their surprising revelations. I highly recommend Midsomer Murders: Set Nine.

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Paul Mavis is an internationally published obscure and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.