Insomnia 4K (1997)

Second Sight are giving their extra special treatment to director and co-writer Erik Skjoldbjaerg’s Nordic Noir thriller starring Stellan Skarsgård, and which was remade a few years later by Christopher Nolan with Al Pacino in the lead.

Police officers Jonas Engström (Skarsgård) and Eric Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal) come to the north of Norway to investigate the murder of a 17 year old girl. Engström is considered brilliant but a cloud hangs over him because of his sexual relationship with a witness in a previous case. A trap is set for the killer but it goes wrong and Engström mistakenly shoots Vik dead. His seniors believe the killer did it but a full investigation is ordered, meaning that as well as catching the girl’s killer, Engström now has to cover up his involvement in Vik’s killing as well.

A dog dies as part of Engström’s cover up. I’ll put that up there now because I know there are people out there who will want to know. In the Nolan version Pacino’s character comes across a dead dog but here Skjoldbjaerg is keen to blur the line between cop and criminal with Skarsgård’s performance, and while Engström is good at getting the job done he’s also ruthless, self-serving, and inappropriate with some of his female acquaintances. INSOMNIA is a cold, very blue (literally) film and if you’re a fan of Nordic Noir and haven’t seen this you’ll definitely want to add it to your list.

Second Sight’s 4K UHD / Blu-ray limited edition combo set comes with a commentary from Erik Skjoldbjaerg and co-writer Nikolaj Frobenius (in English, in case you were wondering) which is scene-specific. Other extras include interviews with Skjoldbjaerg (29 minutes), and producer Petter J Borgli (who explains why their names aren’t on the US version, 10 minutes). Alexandra Heller-Nicholas provides a 12 minute video essay analysis of the film, and there are three Skjoldbjaerg short films: Spor (17 minutes), Close to Home (31 minutes and made while the director was in the UK) and Near Winter (34 minutes).

The limited edition also comes with a 120 page book with new essays, six art cards and a rigid slipcase to keep it all in.

Eric Skjoldbjaerg’s INSOMNIA is out from Second Sight in a limited edition 4K UHD / Blu-ray set as well as standard edition separate UHD and Blu-ray releases on Monday 25th May 2026

The Devil’s Candy 4K (2015)

Writer-director Sean Byrne’s THE DEVIL’S CANDY, the film he made in between THE LOVED ONES (2009) and DANGEROUS ANIMALS (2025), is getting the special treatment from Second Sight with another of their limited edition 4K UHD / Blu-ray combo releases complete with art cards, 120 page book and slipcase, as well as getting standard separate 4K UHD and Blu-ray releases.

Extremely metal artist Jesse (Ethan Embry) moves with his equally heavy metal-loving teenaged daughter Zooey (Kiara Glasco) and his not quite as heavy metal-loving wife Astrid (Shiri Appleby from TV’s Roswell) to a big old farmhouse in the country. They get it cheap because two people died there, but who they really need to be concerned about is the still-living son of the family, Ray (Pruitt Taylor Vince), now holed up in a motel but still affected by a voice in his head that keeps telling him to abduct Zooey.

Meanwhile Ethan’s wall-sized art is progressing well, even if it isn’t the butterflies a bank has commissioned him for and is instead a hellscape filled with the heads of screaming children. Ethan frequently loses track of time, failing to pick his daughter up from school in the process, and it’s on one of those occasions that Ray is able to grab her.

THE DEVIL’S CANDY runs a sweet 79 minutes and leaves you with enough to think about as to what is actually going on, how much it has to do with the house itself that Ethan has moved into, and whether or not it will continue after the film is over. Byrne cleverly manages a fine, claustrophobic atmosphere even with the frequent use of wide shots, and Ethan’s artwork is a delicious confection of horrors in itself.

Second Sight’s 4K release comes with a Sean Byrne commentary and there are new interviews with Byrne (33 minutes), Embry (20 minutes), cinematographer Simon Chapman (25 minutes), editor Andy Canny (23 minutes) and production designer Thomas S Hammock (16 minutes), giving us nearly two hours’ worth of interviews in all. There’s also a short piece on the VFX work (3 minutes) and two Sean Byrne short films. Of most interest to horror fans will be Advantage Satan (11 minutes) about a couple trapped in a tennis court at night, and you also get Work? (11 minutes) which is about a sex worker. 

Sean Byrne’s THE DEVIL’S CANDY is out from Second Sight in a limited edition 4K UHD / Blu-ray set as well as standard edition separate UHD and Blu-ray releases on Monday 25th May 2026

Invaders From Mars 4K (1953)

“Impressive Restoration of a SciFi Classic”

The BFI are releasing William Cameron Menzies’ classic tale of a young boy who helps thwart a martian invasion, in its new 4K restoration on UHD, Blu-ray, Apple TV and Amazon Prime.

Early one morning during a terrible storm David McLean (Jimmy Hunt) witnesses a flying saucer land in a sandpit beyond the fields next to his home. The next day his engineer father (Leif Erickson from NIGHT MONSTER and THE HIGH CHAPARRAL)  goes off to investigate and comes back changed. Soon other people are behaving strangely and it’s up to David with Dr Pat Blake (Helena Carter whose final film role this was before she left show-business) and astronomer Stuart Kelston (Arthur Franz) to convince the authorities that the threat is real.

Shot in colour in a way that suggests the process was as novel for the film-makers as it would be for the audience of the period, INVADERS FROM MARS is obviously low budget but benefits immensely from both the creative use of colour and from director William Cameron Menzies’ production design which allows for some images to exhibit great depth. In fact, while some sources suggest the film was supposed to be in 3D this actually wasn’t the case, but with those long corridor shots (and the title design) it’s easy to see why. The film also scores points for having an alien that isn’t a simple man in a suit (although there are also four of those) but is instead ‘an advanced human’ - all head and tentacles.

The BFI’s disc comes with a new commentary track from Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw which is up to their usual excellent standard. You might want to watch Tobe Hooper's 1986 remake before playing this and some of the other extras, though. There's also a new short piece (16 minutes) from Nic Wassell about the twin subtexts of paranoia and hope in the film. Other extras have been ported over from the 2022 Ignite Films release and include a piece from Menzies biographer James Curtis (16 minutes), an interview with Jimmy Hunt (11 minutes), a 22 minute discussion between directors John Landis, Joe Dante, editor Mark Goldblatt, VFX specialist Robert Skotak and film preservationist Scott MacQueen, a seven minute piece on the 4K restoration, a festival introduction to the film from film-maker John Sayles (7 minutes), director Ernest Dickerson talking about the film (5 minutes) and two sequences seen in European prints (6 minutes in all). There’s also a trailer and image gallery with plenty of publicity materials as well as images from the BFI National Archive. Finally, the first pressing comes with a booklet featuring new writing on the film by Deborah Allison and Barry Forshaw and more. 

William Cameron Menzies’ INVADERS FROM MARS is out in 4K from the BFI on UHD, Blu-ray, Apple TV & Amazon Prime on Monday 11th May 2026 

Cold Storage (2026)

“Even More Fun that the Source Novel”

After its recent run in UK cinemas, director Jonny Campbell’s film of David Koepp’s novel (Koepp also wrote the screenplay for this) is getting a 4K, Blu-ray and DVD release from Studio Canal and is already out on Video On Demand.

Like the recent TV show THE LAST OF US, COLD STORAGE uses the very real concept of the Cordyceps fungus, which is capable of taking over ants and using them as ‘zombies’ to spread the fungus further, and applies it to human beings. In this case the fungus comes crashing back to earth from Skylab and is eventually contained within a secure military storage facility.

Time passes and unfortunately pretty much everyone except bioterror operative Robert Quinn (Liam Neeson) has forgotten about it, so much so that the place where it’s kept secure has now been sold to a storage company. Employed as night watch-people are Teacake (Joe Keery) and Naomi (Georgina Campbell) who are the ones present when everything starts to kick off in a highly entertaining zombie apocalypse kind of way.

COLD STORAGE the film is quite the surprise. David Koepp’s novel is entertaining page-turning pulp but the film version ramps this up to give us a movie with likeable characters, gruesome special effects, and pacing that’s just right. Horror fans who have been around long enough will be thinking it opens like Deran Serafian’s ALIEN PREDATOR / MUTANT II (Skylab falls to earth bringing with it a disease that takes over your nervous system and causes you to explode), carries on like THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (a very nice opening bit set in an Australian town) and then becomes pleasantly reminiscent of Dan O’Bannon’s RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (“We’re calling the emergency number for the military that’s written here!”

The film is a Studio Canal production, and for UK viewers there’s the added fun of seeing British sitcom stars (Brassic’s Aaron Heffernan, Flowers’ Daniel Rigby) as well as Lesley Manville and Vanessa Redgrave, all doing American accents. The special effects are deliciously gloopy and the whole thing bombs along, wrapping up in less than 100 minutes. It’s all great stuff and highly recommended to pulp body horror exploding-head-loving film fans everywhere. On the one major down side, Studio Canal’s disc contains no extras at all (Boo!). HMV will be carrying a limited edition of 1000 copies with different cover art, a slipcase and art cards but again no other extras.

COLD STORAGE is out from Studio Canal on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 11th May 2026 

Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters Blu-ray Release (2024)

Following its big screen premiere at London's Cineworld in Leicester Square, and subsequent TV showings on Sky Arts, Freeview Channel 36 and Now on October 31st 2024, this brand new documentary about one of the world's most famous film companies is now getting a double disc Blu-ray release. 

Narrated by Charles Dance (a good choice), there won't be anything here that Hammer obsessives don't already know but for the curious, this is a well-presented history of Hammer Films with lots of interviews that include Hammer cast members Martine Beswick, Caroline Munro, and Madeline Smith. In a change from many documentaries Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, while mentioned, are allowed less discussion time here to allow for profiles and anecdotes on more of the behind the scenes artists like Terence Fisher, Brian Clemens,  James Bernard, Jimmy Sangster, Anthony Hinds and Michael Carreras, the latter two to some extent via interview footage from previous BBC documentaries.

It's also great to see acknowledged Hammer experts Jonathan Rigby, Wayne Kinsey and David Pirie giving their thoughts, while the presence of Sarah Appleton will be a reminder to some of us that her late father (and another fantastic author on British genre subjects), Denis Meikle, is sadly missing from this lineup of genre luminaries. Meanwhile, John Carpenter, John Landis, Joe Dante and Tim Burton (but no Martin Scorsese although I expect he was asked) are the directors who get to pay tribute to the studio. 

Quibbles? Well, Hammer House of Horror is only mentioned in passing and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense doesn't rate a mention at all. These may not  have represented the pinnacle of Hammer production quality but they are important, not least because many people watching this will be able to remember them. If there was a limited running time perhaps some of the stuff about the very early days could have been cut to make way for it. There's a very odd (and misjudged) bit of AI at the end that has justifiably put many people's backs up. All I can suggest is that you close your eyes when the tarot dealer takes off their hood.

Hammer’s Blu-ray presentation is spread over two discs. The first contains the documentary as it was shown on Sky, plus ten minutes of behind the scenes clips and a trailer. Disc two contains an alternate version of the documentary, with the main difference being what many will believe to be a much better ending. Other than that there’s extended interview footage with John Logan (29 minutes), Martine Beswick (17 minutes), Janet Clemens (14 minutes), Blair Mowat (15 minutes), Caroline Munro (14 minutes), Madeline Smith (18 minutes) and Matthew Kneale (12 minutes). 

HAMMER: HEROES, LEGENDS and MONSTERS is getting a double disc Blu-ray release from Hammer Films on 

Monday 11th May 2026

Fall 4K (2022)

“Still the Best Film Set at the Top of a 2000 Foot Pole”

Yes it really is. Admittedly it’s a very small genre to be the king of but it is very much head and shoulders (and 2000 ft) above anything else like it. Director Scott Mann’s FALL, which received a memorable IMAX premiere at 2022’s London Frightfest film festival, has just had a welcome 4K release from Signature Entertainment.

Successful films are often the result of a simple idea done well, and FALL deals with the concept of two girls trapped on a 3 foot by 2 foot square very, very high up in the air extremely well. The two in question are Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner), Both are experienced climbers who plan to climb a television mast in the desert, firstly to scatter the ashes of Becky's husband who fell to his death a year ago when the three of them were climbing together, and also to get Becky out of the year-long depression into which she has subsequently plummeted. 

All goes well on the ascent, but when they try to come down the rusting ladder  at the very top of the tower collapses, leaving the two girls stranded and having to rely on their wits both to survive and to work out how to get back down. Director Scott Mann wrings the maximum amount of tension out of the situation, the two leads are charismatic and have a great rapport and the film doesn’t waste a second of its 107 minute running time.

Signature’s 4K looks excellent and is the best and most vertigo-inducing way to watch this outside of a cinema. Extras are the same as the previous 2022 Blu-ray release with a commentary track by Mann and producer James Harris which is crammed with production information, a 15 minute making of featuring interviews with Currey, Gardner and Mann and plenty of on-location footage as well as rehearsals on a plywood square in Mann’s garden, and a Madison Beer pop video with lyrics on screen for those who fancy a singalong, perhaps up a ladder.

Scott Mann’s FALL is out on 4K UHD from Signature Entertainment now

The Snake Woman (1961)

The film director Sidney J Furie made after DR BLOOD’S COFFIN, for the same company (Caralan Productions) and for even less money, gets a posh restoration release on Blu-ray on the Hammer Presents label.

In the wilds of Northumberland mad Victorian herpetologist Horace Adderson (John Cazabon) has been injecting his wife with cobra venom to ‘keep her sane’. She gives birth to a ‘cold baby’ called Atheris. When the baby grows up she’s played by Susan Travers. Atheris turns feral and goes to live in the Northumberland countryside, biting some poor chap to death once a month (not the same one each time, obviously). She also sheds her skin, five years before we saw the same thing in Hammer’s own THE REPTILE. Before we get to the climax THE SNAKE WOMAN also gives us a disgruntled low-budget Northumberland mob (the budget can only stretch to four torches), a mad old lady, voodoo, and cobras living quite happily in the North of England. 

Susan Travers would go on to be best known for playing Nurse Travers who gets smeared in sprout juice and eaten by locusts in Robert Fuest’s THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES while Furie would soon escape low-budget efforts like this and go on to direct THE IPCRESS FILE (1965). Screenwriter Orville H Hampton also wrote 1959’s superior THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE. His SNAKE WOMAN screenplay set the action in the United States which explains some of the discrepancies in the story’s relocation to the UK.

THE SNAKE WOMAN is all pretty rough low-budget stuff, but Heidi Honeycutt and Sarah Morgan do their very best in their commentary track to eke out worthwhile things to say about it. Hammer’s presentation is the best THE SNAKE WOMAN has ever looked on home video. Other extras on the disc consist of a trailer and an image gallery and that's it.

Sidney J Furie’s THE SNAKE WOMAN is out on Blu-ray on the Hammer Presents label on Monday 4th May 2026