THE WITCHES HAMMER

Well-conceived credits show the sultry Rebecca (Claudia Coulter, COMA GIRL) laid up on a hospital bed, while a doctor leans over her and starts to carve a scalpel into her forehead. Alas, this is no LES YEUX SANS VISAGE-style face removal, but the beginning of an elaborate operation that involves sending electrodes to the unconscious beauty's brain.

When she awakes, Rebecca finds herself in a barren office room, face to face with two sinister FBI-style agents. They ask her how she feels after her "accident". Unable to recall how she got there - or indeed where she is - Rebecca asks after her husband and young son. Told she can never see them again, she is then offered a drink. She has a choice of either a glass of water or a pint of blood. The agents watch intently as Rebecca mulls over her decision, then offer a wry smile to each other as she opts for the blood.

Rebecca learns that she is a prototype - a genetically enhanced vampire that will undergo rigorous training and eventually become a top killing machine, responsible for helping this mysterious agency rid the world of rogue bloodsuckers.

The training commences in no time, and we get to enjoy the sights of Rebecca indulging in one-on-one hand combat and fooling around with huge firearms.

One year later, Rebecca's training ends and she is given her first assignment - Mission 38. Her task is to rescue Sean, a man who has been kidnapped by an evil vampire. Arriving on motorcycle in full leather get-up (nice), Rebecca immediately gets into a scrap with her bald adversary. As the armed response unit arrives though, it's bad news for Rebecca when they put a bullet through her skull.

Fortunately, our heroine can only be killed by decapitation or a stake to the heart - and is rescued from the local morgue by a fellow buxom beauty.

Now officially declared as dead, Rebecca has a tender moment when she sneaks in on her own funeral and watches from afar as her husband and son mourn her. Then it's off to fight more vampires.

Rebecca ends up getting caught and led to the rival agency's leader, Madeline (Stephanie Beacham, HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN; SCHIZO). Madeline enlists Rebecca's help in killing a "master" vampire who, she explains, is extremely powerful and seeks an ancient witch's book in the hope of resurrecting the souls of the damned.

Rebecca's new mission? To find the book and break the spell contained within it.

THE WITCHES HAMMER, as you've probably deduced, makes no sense. But it hardly matters. In the space of 91 minutes, writer/director James Eaves (HELLBREEDER) crams in lasers, CGI, cool babes in tight leather, British screen icons, vampires, witches, midgets, X-Files-esque conspiracies, NIKITTA-style plotting and copious amounts of gunfire and gore - all set to a rousing score.

Sure, the acting is ropey and the sets are cheap. But there's an agreeable comic-book style charm to the trashiness, and the pace is undeniably unrelenting. Akin to RAZORBLADE SMILE but better shot, with a more attractive lead, more ambitious and much more successful in it's balancing of humour, action and horror, THE WITCHES HAMMER (sic) is a great addition to the current slew of low-budget British horror.

This screener came split across 2 discs. On disc 1 was the film and it's trailer, while disc 2 housed a making-of documentary and a trailer for another film.

The film is presented uncut in non-anamorphic 1.85:1 and looks fine - decent colours and sharpness. It's unjust to talk too much about the picture/audio quality, as this is just a screener - and a DVD-R one, at that.

The film's trailer is a tightly edited 2-and-a-half-minutes of gory fun, expertly conveying the stylish camerawork, imagination and general madness of the completed feature.

The documentary is a colossal 60-minute affair, going behind the scenes and revealing the shoot to be a well-humoured but hard-working one. Eaves crops up to give us his insights into the making of the movie, and acts as an affable host throughout. There's also interviews with various cast and crew members along the way.

Finally, disc 2 also includes a trailer for Eaves latest, BANE. More gore, more action, more shootouts are all promised in this fast-paced 2-minute teaser.

Excellent stuff.

Review by Stu Willis