Hippies, vampires and the spirit of David Lynch loom large

Writer-director Peter Strickland cites a viewing of David Lynch's nightmarish Eraserhead ("this strange, beautiful piece of atmosphere"), followed by years of triple bills at the King's Cross Scala ("New York underground, sleazy European art porn, creepy Italian horror"), as his cinematic inspiration. It's easy to imagine the creator of Katalin Varga (2009, Artificial Eye, 15) gorging himself on such exotica. From the brooding, amorphous guilt of Lynch's industrial noisescapes to the emotive violence of so much "exploitation" fare, Strickland clearly appreciates the strange mysteries of cinema's most dark and troubling dreams.

His eye-opening first feature is a gothic-inflected Romanian tragedy in which the vampiric spectre of Transylvania's prince of darkness is replaced by an altogether more human monster. Hilda Péter is mesmerising as the innocent outcast, banished from her village when her husband discovers that he is not the father of her son. With horse, cart and nine-year-old in tow, Katalin sets off across the haunting vistas of the Carpathians, hellbent on revenge, the landscape almost singing to her as she goes – an eerie murder ballad. But when she finds the beast who brutally scarred her years ago, will she be able to plunge a stake into his heart? Does revenge or redemption cast the longer shadow? Brooding, sensual and brilliantly unsettling, Strickland's film moves seamlessly between horror and wonderment, a visually enrapturing modern myth with its head in the darkening clouds and its feet firmly planted in the soil of a spine-tingling soundtrack.

While it may be hard to imagine a "good Megan Fox movie", Jennifer's Body (2009, 20th Century Fox, 15) comes close to being just that. Admittedly, Fox herself is the least of this satirical high-school slasher's virtues, its main strength being a spunkily genre-literate script from Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody. Likable Amanda Seyfried takes centre stage as "Needy", the allegedly dowdy teen (clearly Cody's cipher) whose best/worst friend turns out to be a man-eater, in every sense.

Like all the best teen-terror romps (from Carrie to Ginger Snaps), the supernatural elements are based upon down-to-earth adolescent anxieties. There's real recognisable bite in the spectre of Jennifer's dawning vampirism ("she's evil… and I don't just mean high school evil"), and the best moments combine sarky humour and creeping horror with post-Mean Girls aplomb. Sadly, it doesn't quite sustain the initial promise as prom night looms and subtextual meat gives way to more formulaic softcore scares. Yet there's plenty here to entertain young-at-heart horror fans (both male and female), who will appreciate Cody's evident love of the genre and hopefully respond with appropriate good cheer.

The cover for the mirthless dirge-fest The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (2009, Pathé, 15) cites a review which proclaims that this is "as funny as any Will Ferrell or Judd Apatow film". Talk about damning with faint praise. What scant laughs are on offer here are in fact duly stolen by co-producer Ferrell, who drops in for a supportive cameo involving skydiving, Abe Lincoln and dildos (readers are invited to insert their own cheap knob gag here). Elsewhere it's a chuckle-free zone as Jeremy Piven and co attempt to do for cowboy car salesmanship what Blades of Glory did for figure skating: make it seem funny, ballsy, quirky, comic but ultimately (and not entirely ironically) uplifting. Sadly, it is none of these things, at least not on the evidence of The Goods.

It's hard to know what exactly attracted Ang Lee to the hippy-dippy comedy of Taking Woodstock (2009, Universal, 15), a tale of peace, love and understanding which is somewhat hobbled by being quite so benign. Everyone involved seems absolutely lovely – from the quaint Catskills townsfolk whose rural idyll is overrun by vagrant longhairs, to the cops, the TV squares, the bread-head promoters, the security guards (Liev Schreiber in scene-stealing drag) and, of course, the sauntering druggy peaceniks themselves, who are peculiarly polite and well-behaved throughout. OK, so Imelda Staunton's marauding mum starts out screechy and shrieky, but even she mellows under the tide of niceness and a large plate of hash brownies. In knowing counterpoint to Mike Wadleigh's Woodstock, we never actually get to see the festival itself, Lee's focus being on the crowd which seems to exist in a bubble of Brigadoon-like bliss. Only a heavy-handed closing reference to the impending catastrophe of Altamont (which gave birth to the Maysles's terrifying Gimme Shelter) strikes a note of doom – otherwise it's nostalgic sunshine and light all the way.

With Julien Temple's wonderfully gritty Oil City Confidential playing in cinemas and duly raising the bar of the contemporary "rock doc", it's tempting to be snotty and scornful about Michael Jackson's This is It (2009, Sony, PG), a hagiographic montage of rehearsal footage from Jacko's unfulfilled final tour. Yet despite never being intended for public viewing, the resultant patchwork is a peculiarly charming and occasionally poignant affair. Jackson was clearly pacing himself and rarely hits his moonwalking stride, gesturing towards dance steps rather than throwing himself into them, and occasionally talking rather than actually singing the songs. Yet anyone who felt a morbid tingle at the posthumous release of Elvis's "Twelfth of Never" rehearsal tapes will be similarly intrigued by the apparent intimacy of these "non-performances". Of course the real showman here is Kenny Ortega, heroic helmsman of the High School Musical series and the guiding hand behind this ambitious enterprise which somehow weaves a silk purse out of a potential sow's arse. Go Kenny!

• DVD and video reviews

Mark Kermode
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Television network denies claims that Until Nothing Remains depicts group as totalitarian and unethical

Germany's state broadcaster is locked in a row with the Church of Scientology which wants to block an upcoming feature film that depicts the controversial organisation as totalitarian and unethical.

Bis Nichts Mehr Bleibt, or Until Nothing Remains, dramatises the account of a German family torn apart by its associations with Scientology. A young married couple joins the organisation but as the wife gets sucked ever more deeply into the group, her husband, who has donated much of his money to it, decides to leave. In the process he loses contact with his young daughter who, like his wife, is being educated by Scientology instructors.

Scientology leaders have accused Germany's primary public TV network, ARD, of creating in top secret a piece of propaganda that sets out to undermine the group, and have demanded to see it before it is broadcast.

The 90-minute film reflects an unease in Germany about the organisation, which boasts several thousand members across the country and has its headquarters in central Berlin. The church is considered anti-constitutional by its critics.

Tension reached its peak during the making of Valkyrie, the 2008 film about the plot to assassinate Hitler, when opponents said Scientology leaders had engineered the placing of Tom Cruise, its most prominent member, in the role as Nazi resistance fighter Claus von Stauffenberg, in order to win German supporters. The organisation dismissed the claim.

The filming of Valkyrie sparked numerous clashes between the filmmakers and the government, which initially prevented them from filming on several historical sites, including the Bendler Block where Stauffenberg was hanged, due in part to Cruise's association with Scientology. The ban was eventually lifted.

According to the makers of Until Nothing Remains, the €2.5m (£2.3 m) drama, which is due to air in a prime-time slot at the end of March, is based on the true story of Heiner von Rönns, who left Scientology and suffered the subsequent break-up of his family.

Scientology officials have said the film is false and intolerant. At a preview screening in Hamburg members distributed flyers in which the filmmakers were accused of seeking to "create a mood of intolerance and discrimination against a religious community".

Jürg Stettler, a spokesman for Scientology in Germany said: "The truth is precisely the opposite of that which the ARD is showing." The organisation is investigating legal means to prevent the programme from being broadcast.

Stettler said the organisation was planning its own film to "spread our own side of the story".

ARD's programme director Volker Herres has dismissed the accusations, saying the aim of the drama is to reveal the truth about the organisation.

"We're not dealing here with a religion, rather with an organisation that has completely different motives," he said. "Scientology is about power, business, and building up a network. Its lessons are pure science fiction, it's no religion, no church, no sect."

The film team said it had been "bombarded" with phone calls and emails from the organisation during production. The head of the Southwest German broadcasting organisation, Carl Bergengruen who was involved in the project, said Scientology had "tried via various means to discover details about the film" and that the film crew was even tailed by a Scientology representative.

"We are fearful that the organisation will try to use all legal means to try to stop the film being shown," he said.

• Scientology
• Germany
• Tom Cruise
• Television industry

Kate Connolly
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While she was head of English at Cardinal Griffin school, Poplar, in east London, in the 1950s, my grandmother Maria Kerigan, who has died aged 95, developed an interest in drama and broadcasting. When she retired from teaching in 1968, she decided to volunteer for Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, and in 1970 became its first national secretary. However, her approach to censorship and broadcasting standards was quite different from Whitehouse's.

Films such as Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange were then testing the limits of the British Board of Film Censors (later Classification, BBFC). While denouncing Kubrick's most controversial work, Maria was careful to differentiate between a film depicting violence for its own sake and one where it could be contextualised. Where Whitehouse's approach was absolute, Maria believed instead in providing information to viewers and listeners. Indeed, she felt that the violence in films such as The Godfather (which became one of her favourites) could be fully justified by the story.

Whitehouse regularly appeared on television, arguing for taste and decency. Maria, however, quietly operated the machinery of the association, engaging in effective diplomacy with figures in the BBFC, BBC and government, and making the case for greater provision of information and education about film and television productions.

Her pragmatism may have produced an unspoken tension with Whitehouse. They parted company as campaigners shortly after The Romans in Britain trial of 1982. Whitehouse's autobiography, Quite Contrary (1993), omitted all mention of Maria, despite her years as a dedicated volunteer.

Born near Leigh, in Lancashire, Maria won a scholarship to Mount St Joseph grammar school in Bolton, then read English at Manchester University, and became headteacher at St Edmund's primary school in Little Hulton, aged 26. She and her husband, Carl, moved to London in 1952, where Maria joined Cardinal Griffin school. After her retirement, she continued to coach children in English. She was involved with the Catholic church and was a fundraiser for the aid agency Cafod.

Carl died in 1998. Maria is survived by their two sons, Anthony and Shaun, two daughters, Pat and Cecelia, 10 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

• Censorship
• Stanley Kubrick

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All-new footage from the third chapter in Stephenie Meyer's hugely popular vampire romance series finally arrives.

Take a look at a new batch of videos from the Jude Law film.

We have all the details on the very first 3D home entertainment system that is available right now.

Showtime has lined up another feature film supplier.

Take a look at this behind-the-scenes video for Matt Damon's new film.

Take a look at this poster image for Sylvester Stallone's latest film.

The Infernal Comedy, based on true story of Austrian serial killer, among highlights of Barbican's plans for coming year

It might not be the cheeriest night out, watching John Malkovich as a resurrected Austrian serial killer on stage with a baroque orchestra and two sopranos singing arias about murder and abandonment, but it will, the Barbican's artistic director cheerfully suggests, be one of his personal highlights.

"It's a kind of 21st-century version of an 18th-century melodrama," said Graham Sheffield. "Absolutely brilliant and completely unique."

The Malkovich piece, The Infernal Comedy – part drama, part concert – is based on the true story of Jack Unterweger, who killed at least 11 prostitutes. "Probably not a thing to take a person on a first date," Sheffield conceded.

The show was announced today as part of the Barbican's plans for the coming year, along with the return of big-name regulars such as Peter Brook, with The Magic Flute; Michael Clark, with the next instalment of his production come, been and gone; and Robert Lepage, with a new multimedia production called Blue Dragon.

The centre's managing director, Sir Nicholas Kenyon, painted a rosy picture of the Barbican's last 12 months. "We are building on success because last year the Barbican had its best year ever with 1.2m tickets sold and attendances 13% up, and that is continuing this year. People are buying tickets through the recession. We are in a period of remarkable success across the arts."

Other highlights announced today include screening the latest Nasa outer space footage for the Houston Symphony's performance of The Planets; the Dutch theatre group Toneelgroep Amsterdam restaging three Antonioni films; a new version of Peter Pan from the National Theatre of Scotland; and Peter Sellars directing his version of György Kurtág's Kafka Fragments.

The Barbican's move into east London will continue: for example, when the jazz legend Wynton Marsalis arrives with the Jazz at Lincoln Centre orchestra from New York there will be jam sessions at Dalston's Vortex and a family concert in Hackney.

"We are creating a new model for the future of what an arts centre can be," said Kenyon. "It depends on the interaction of excellent names with as diverse an audience as possible."

In visual arts, the Barbican art gallery's big summer show will be an exploration of the relationship between surrealism and architecture, with the architects Carmody Groarke designing a "house" in which there will be the work of artists from Man Ray to Dalí to Louise Bourgeois. Then in the autumn the gallery will host the first European exhibition devoted to avant-garde Japanese fashion from the early 1900s to the present.

The Barbican's main resident orchestra, the London Symphony orchestra, will see the principal conductor, Valery Gergiev, take on Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich as well as a less familiar name, the living Russian composer Rodion Schedrin.

Sir Colin Davis will continue his series of Nielsen symphonies, Bernard Haitink will conduct Schumann, André Previn will conduct Strauss and Vaughan Williams and Sir Simon Rattle will conduct the LSO for the first time since 2000.

• Theatre
• Classical music
• John Malkovich
• Art
• London

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Take a look at this new poster that will be seen at the South by Southwest Film Festival.