STACK #142 Aug 2016

DVD & BD REVIEWS

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There's no business like blow business. NARCOS: SEASON 1

A King-sized time travel tale. 11.22.63

Release Date: 23/08/16

Release Date: 10/08/16

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The USA in the 1980s is regarded as the decade of excess, not least for the masses of cocaine that caressed nostrils. That particular phenomenon was basically due to one enterprising fellow, Colombian drug entrepreneur Pablo Escobar (portrayed with admiral restraint by Wagner Moura). This 10-episode first season of Narcos blends crime-thriller with biography to deliver a fascinating view of the rise of cocaine demand in the States, as seen through the eyes of a fictional DEA agent, Steve Murphy (Boyd

Stephen King's massive 2011 novel of the same name, about a time traveller's attempt to prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the titular date, has been turned into an eight-episode mini-series produced by J.J. Abrams. Jake Epping (James Franco) is the guy who goes down the temporal rabbit hole and eventually finds himself in Dallas, 1963, with the opportunity to change history. Jake shadows Lee Harvey Oswald and falls in love along the way to the fateful date, and of course there

Holbrook). While Narcos can be uncomfortably funny, it contains an air of documentary, making it an educational, exciting and often unnerving rush. Available as a limited edition with over 40 minutes of behind-the-scenes features, exclusive to JB Hi-Fi. AF

are the inevitable paradoxes and future repercussions to consider should his mission prove successful. The concept alone makes this a must-see, and the series thankfully trims much of the novel's fat. The combination of King and Abrams is the icing on the cake. SH

THE STRAIN: SEASON 1

SCREAM QUEENS: SEASON 1

THE LAST KINGDOM: SEASON 1

CLEVERMAN: Season 1

DVD&BD

Release Date: 24/08/16 Format:

Release Date: 24/08/16 Format:

Release Date: 04/08/16 Format:

Release Date: 24/08/16 Format:

In between directing fantastic films, the supremely talented Guillermo del Toro penned a vampire book trilogy with Chuck Hogan, which is now a major TV series. He also directed the pilot episode, in which a 747 lands at New York's JFK airport with all onboard dead on arrival. Or are they? CDC doctor Eph Goodweather (Corey Stoll) soon discovers an ancient evil with a hunger for blood has been unleashed upon the city. Ostensibly The Strain does for vampires what The Walking Dead did for zombies, only this time we get to see the apocalypse as it unfolds. And these vamps are definitely not Twilight hunks! Gruesome and gripping. SH

American Horror Story creators Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy bring their distinctive brand of demented horror-comedy to this sassy series that pays tribute to the '80s slasher film cycle – complete with original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. A college campus is stalked by a serial killer in a red devil costume, who's targeting members of the exclusive Kappa Kappa Tau sorority house, led by abrasive queen bitch Chanel (Emma Roberts). Closer in tone to Glee than AHS , Scream Queens knows its target audience and gives them exactly what they want, like guest roles for popsters Ariana Grande and Nick Jonas. Horror fans will enjoy all the in-jokes, too. SH

Let’s go way back to the year 872 AD. We’re in what we now know as England, but then it was a collection of seven kingdoms, which the Danes had an irritating habit of invading and conquering. This plundering leaves young Saxon Uhtred orphaned, so the Danes take him in and raise him. As he matures, his loyalties become torn between his ancestry and those who have looked after him, hindered even more by the fact that the Danes are still busily conquering his homeland. A rousing eight-part adaptation of Bernard Cromwell’s The Saxon Stories, a series of historically based novels, any Game of Thrones fan would be mad to miss out on this sword-wielding bounty. AF

“Aussie” and “sci-fi” aren’t words that go together often enough, so when a superb entry enters the sparsely-filled fray, it’s cause to get excited – and six-parter Cleverman is exciting. Set in a near-future Sydney where a new species of super-strong hirsute humanoids are discovered, and quickly shuttered into a small ghetto labelled “The Zone”, the concept is plucked from tales of the Dreaming – as is the series’ titular hero (Hunter

Page-Lochard). The Cleverman is basically a conduit between the Dreaming and the present, and possesses powers such as

regeneration when injured. Touching upon themes from brotherhood to racism, border protection and beyond, Cleverman really is clever, man. AF

AUGUST 2016

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