Murders in the Rue Morgue 4K (1971)

The latest in the ‘Hammer Presents’ range sees the label following up its release of CRY OF THE BANSHEE with another AIP-produced Christopher Wicking (writer) and Gordon Hessler (director) collaboration. In fact it was their last, and marked the final film in the lengthy series of Poe ‘adaptations’ (some of them stretch the definition a bit) the company had been making since the 1960s.

At a Grand Guignol-style theatre in Paris members of the repertory company are being bumped off by a fiend in a black cape who pours acid on them. The company’s leader, Cesar Charron (Jason Robards in a very Vincent Price-style role), also has other problems to worry about as his wife Madeleine (Christine Kaufman) keeps having dreams about a masked man swinging an axe. The police are baffled and as the murders continue, all set against the backdrop of the stage play ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’ that is being performed at the theatre, it turns out that the answers to everything lie in the past.

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE is a bit too clever for its own good, wanting to do something different from adapting the Poe novel while acknowledging it, giving us a revenge plot filled with murders and even more stuff regarding the Charron family’s past. It’s all a bit much, not helped by having Christopher Wicking write the screenplay. Known for his rather oblique treatments of horror properties, Wicking’s scripts could tend toward the confusing and you really have to pay attention here to appreciate everything that’s going on. 

But for EuroHorror fans it remains a treat. Set in France and filmed in Spain by an American company operating out of its UK office, the film is an understandable mixture of actors, including Bond villain Adolfo Celi, Paul Naschy standby Maria Perschy, Hessler regulars Marshall Jones and Peter Arne, as well as international stars Herbert Lom, Lilli Palmer and Michael Dunn.  

Hammer’s disc features a commentary track from the always enthusiastic Chris Alexander (who performed similar duties on CRY OF THE BANSHEE) on the 1.85:1 aspect ratio director’s cut version. You also get the 1.66:1 framed theatrical release. The director’s cut runs 98 minutes, the theatrical runs 87 and also contain the tinted dream sequences some may remember from TV showings back in the day. Otherwise we get a new talking head piece from Kim Newman (21 minutes), an archival interview with director Gordon Hessler (12 minutes) image gallery, and a trailer. 

Gordon Hessler’s MURDERS IN THE RUN MORGUE is out in 4K as separate UHD and Blu-ray releases on Monday 20th July 2026

The Curse (2026)

“Splatter-Filled J-Horror”

After its UK premiere at Glasgow Frightfest (and its world premiere at Fantastic Fest), Blue Finch are releasing director Kenichi Ugana’s new J-Horror picture THE CURSE on digital. 

Riko works at a hair salon. Scrolling through her social media one morning she comes across a photograph of one of her  friends that shows an unnerving spectre in the background. When she tries to contact the friend it turns out the girl died months ago. Her flatmate presumes it’s someone impersonating her and puts a post on the picture, only to be rewarded with a string of insults and a video showing someone smashing a bleeding doll with a hammer while chanting a curse.

Riko’s flatmate starts bleeding from the eyes and soon she’s committing violent acts upon herself, as well as eating a local dog. Eventually she kills herself (very graphically) by stabbing herself in the throat. It’s not long before Riko realises she’s the next target of the curse and, together with three friends, tries to find a way to stop it.

THE CURSE is low budget but does its damnedest to keep you interested with over the top gore, some eye-catching special effects and, most important of all, a climax that could stand alongside some of the crazier Italian giallos for the amount of mayhem that ensues. Anyone expecting the ‘quiet horror’ of RINGU or JU-ON should be warned that THE CURSE gets pretty noisy pretty quickly, and as such it makes for a highly entertaining, of not exactly subtle, modern entry in the J-Horror subgenre. Here’s the trailer:

THE CURSE is out on Digital platforms from Blue Finch Releasing on Monday 13th July 2026

Black Box: Flight 298 (2026)

“Seriously Decent Aeroplane-Set Horror”

Signature Entertainment are giving a Digital, Blu-ray and DVD release to the new film from director Steven Quale (the excellent FINAL DESTINATION 5) and co-produced by Warren Zide (the entire FINAL DESTINATION series) so they can both very much be forgiven for sneaking in a reference to that particular franchise at the beginning of BLACK BOX: FLIGHT 298 (just listen to the announcements over the airport tannoy). 

Vero Airlines Flight 298 sets off from New Orleans to Seattle. The passengers include a sickly-looking chap who pretty soon is coughing up blood. Then the dogs in the cargo hold start to howl. And what’s with those strange flashing lights on the distant horizon?

I’m being deliberately vague because the first act of BLACK BOX: FLIGHT 298 is thirty minutes of delicious wondering as to what on earth is going on (although the artwork gives it away a bit). Is there a plague on board? Are there stones from Stonehenge in the cargo hold? Or is the aeroplane being subjected to something infinitely weirder? 

The actual explanation doesn’t disappoint in a film that’s top quality B movie entertainment with good acting, plenty of suspense, decent special effects, and one shot near the end that’s the kind of thing us low budget horror prospectors live for in movies of this calibre. It takes itself seriously but only as much as good exploitation movies should. If you’re a fan of movies like SNAKES ON A PLANE or 2007’s FLIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD you’re going to feel right at home with this one. Here’s a trailer:

Steven Quale’s BLACK BOX: FLIGHT 298 is out on Digital from Signature Entertainment on Monday 6th July 2026 and on DVD & Blu-ray on Monday 13th July 2026

The Descent 4K Steelbook (2005)

"Spectacular 4K Restoration of a British Horror Classic"

Studio Canal have released a gorgeous three disc steelbook edition of writer-director Neil Marshall’s THE DESCENT, which comes with a bunch of new extras, a poster, and a plastic slipcover that complements (and interacts with) the steelbook cover art. So in between some pictures of the new packaging let’s take a look at what we get:

Disc One (UHD) and Two (Blu-ray)

A group of female friends including Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and led by Juno (Natalie Mendoza) head off on a caving expedition, one year after the death by accident of Sarah’s husband and daughter. They all think they’re exploring a known cave system until a rockfall causes Juno to reveal that they are the first people to have ever gone down there. Trapped in the darkness and searching for a way out, they soon have something much worse to contend with.

THE DESCENT is a twenty first century British horror classic, one which relies on great acting, suspenseful direction, and everyone (production design, photography, special effects and music) all pulling their ‘A’ game. Studio Canal’s disc gives us the new 4K restoration from Pathé, scanned in 5K (according to the opening title card) from the original 35mm negative. And it looks spectacular - crisp and vivid, with scenes in near darkness (and there are a lot of them) losing no resolution and the blacks looking deep with no loss of picture quality.

Disc one comes with a mixture of UK and French trailers, the US alternate ending, and two archival commentary tracks, one with Neil Marshall and the cast (minus Natalie Mendoza who was working) and the other with Neil Marshall and the crew. 

Disc Three - The Extras

New extras consist of a new 47 minute documentary ‘What Lies Beneath’ with new interviews with Marshall, DP Sam McCurdy, Designer Simon Bowles, SFX man Paul Hyett and star Shauna Macdonald. There’s a ten minute interview with composer David Julyan about the score which has some fun reveals, and a 44 minute Neil Marshall ‘Masterclass’  - essentially an on stage interview - conducted at the 2026 Gérardmer Film Festival. 

Archival extras include a making of (41 minutes), Marshall interview (7 minutes), Marshall and Macdonald and Mendoza interview (10 minutes), Paul Hyett and the SFX team (12 minutes), Simon Bowles (10 minutes), caving reference footage (9 minutes), deleted and extended scenes (10 minutes), five minutes of outtakes and ten minuets of storyboard & scene comparisons.

The 4K restoration of Neil Marshall’s THE DESCENT is available in a three disc steelbook set from Studio Canal from 29th June 2026

The Cold Prey Trilogy (2006, 2008, 2010)

 

Second Sight are giving their lavish boxset treatment to the Norwegian slasher franchise that launched the international career of director Roar Uthaug (TROLL, TOMB RAIDER) and provided horror fans with a novel setting for murderous mayhem. Second Sight’s limited edition set comes with the three films on Blu-ray (1080p transfers on three separate discs), each with a set of extras, and you also get a 120 page book with new writing, five art cards, and a slipcase. So let’s take a deeper look at what we get:

Disc One: Cold Prey aka Fritt Vilt (2006)

Five friends set off for a snowboarding holiday on the Norwegian slopes. Unfortunately their fun is curtailed almost immediately when one of them, Morten Tobias (Rolf Kristian Larsen) manages to break his leg. Fortunately there’s somewhere to take him in the form of the rotting and long-disused hotel that’s just over the next rise, the one near which all manner of winter sports enthusiasts have disappeared. They settle in to some of the most disgusting hotel rooms committed to celluloid and pretty soon they’re being bumped off. Could it have anything to do with the child from the opening scene who mysteriously disappeared years ago?

In the extras director Rolf Uthaug says he pitched COLD PREY by playing the trailer for Marcus Nispel’s TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake and said “Now imagine that, but cold.” Which is kind of what COLD PREY is to an extent. But what could have been a generic slasher is kept fresh by good direction, an amazing location and likeable performances, especially from Larsen and final girl Ingrid Bolsø Berdal. It’s a must-see for slasher enthusiasts and was a deserved hit.

Second Sight’s Blu-ray is step up from previous DVD releases, but overall this is a pretty grainy low-res film so don’t expect anything spectacular, for this or the other two in the series. Extras include a new commentary from Uthaug and Berdal (in English in case you were wondering) and new interviews with the director (22 minutes) and star Ingrid Bolsø Berdal 19 minutes). There’s also an ‘alternate ending’ which is actually just the ending we see but fleshed out with storyboards for material they didn’t have the budget for, and featurettes on the visual effects (24 minutes) and behind the scenes (22 minutes), plus nine minutes of bloopers. The disc is rounded off with two short films: Mountain Rose Runs Amok (2 minutes) which is a brief amateur slasher piece and An Evening in the Green which is three minutes of jolly fun with a lawnmower and, as its director (Roar Uthaug) puts it ‘a bucket of pig intestines’. There’s also a music video but it’s not for the catchy end credits song.

Disc Two: Cold Prey II aka Fritt Vilt II (2008)

Unsurprisingly following in the wake of the success of the first film, COLD PREY II is to COLD PREY what Rick Rosenthal’s HALLOWEEN II was to John Carpenter’s original. Taking up where the previous film ended, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal’s Jannicke is taken to hospital. Soon the bodies of her friends are taken there too. And the body of the axe-wielding maniac. You can guess the rest. This one really is a bit too much by the numbers to make it interesting but if you love generic slashers you’ll probably still have a jolly hospital-based time.

Extras include a new commentary track from director Mats Stenberg (again, in English) as well as a 32 minute interview. There are also interviews with Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (11 minutes) and Roar Uthuag (4 minutes), who was associate producer on this one. There are also extended and deleted scenes (5 minutes), bloopers (3 minutes), and a behind the scenes featurette (34 minutes & goodness me the weather looked terrible).

Disc Three: Cold Prey III aka Fritt Vilt III (2010)

It’s prequel time! The little boy who would grow up to be the killer in the first two films kills his parents. Twelve years later a group of friends hiking in the area start to get bumped off by the ‘Mountain Man’. COLD PREY III is the most by the numbers of the lot and feels very much like a Texas Chainsaw ripoff. However we still get some impressive locations (and very little snow this time) making the Norwegian landscape the star of this one.

Extras this time include a new commentary track from Christer Andresen (a Norwegian associate professor of film studies specialising in Norway’s horror films and Phillip Escott of Second Sight, and a behind the scenes featurette (8 minutes).

The COLD PREY trilogy is available in a special limited edition set from Second Sight on Monday 6th July 2026

Wake in Fright 4K (1971)

“May You Dream of the Devil, and…”

Arrow are giving us a welcome 4K restoration on separate UHD and Blu-ray releases, of Ted Kotcheff’s masterful adaptation of Kenneth Cook’s novel.

It’s a pretty faithful adaptation as well, following the novel’s plot of teacher John Grant (Gary Bond) who works in a school in the middle of Nowhere, Australia, finishes up for the holidays and heads off to Sydney to be with his girlfriend. Unfortunately he makes the fatal mistake of stopping off in the mining town of Bundanyabba and the even more fatal mistake of having a few drinks and a bit of a gamble, the result being he loses all his money. 

Where WAKE IN FRIGHT scores all the points, however, is in how it portrays what happens next, with the new ‘friends’ John has made not caring a jot that he has no money and instead happy to involve him in the endless rounds of drinking, fighting and kangaroo hunting that make up their lives. And it’s not long before John finds it incredibly easy to just slip into that lifestyle as well, perhaps permanently.

WAKE IN FRIGHT boasts excellent performances, not just from Bond (a career high) but from the actors playing the inhabitants of ‘The Yabba’, especially Donald Pleasence as a burned-out doctor. The  harsh Australian vistas look even more bleached in 4K and cautious viewers should be warned that the kangaroo-hunting sequence is intact.

Arrow’s release gives us a lot more extras than Eureka’s Blu-ray of ten years ago. The commentary with director Ted Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley has been ported over, and we get a brand new second commentary by Peter Galvin, who wrote the book detailing the making of the film. There’s also a look at the film’s Broken Hill locations (an impressive 50 minutes), an interview with sound editors Keith Palmer and Eddy Joseph (15 minutes), and a profile of Donald Pleasence from Kim Newman (15 minutes).

Director Philippe Mora discusses the film with Paul Harris for 20 minutes, there’s a new interview with cinematographer Brian West (21 minutes) and archival interviews with Ted Kotcheff (13 minutes)  and actor Jack Thompson (7 minutes), as well as archival audio interviews with Kotcheff (a whopping 130 minutes) and composer John Scott (16 minutes). We also get Kotcheff’s Q&A from the 2009 Toronto Film Festival (46 minutes), alternate scenes from the UK & US version titled OUTBACK (11 minutes), a 1971 TV segment on the film (6 minutes) and another from 2009 on the film’s rediscovery (7 minutes), an obituary for actor Chips Rafferty (3 minutes), trailers and an image gallery. There’s also a fascinating 38 minute trailer reel of Australian films like THE SUNDOWNERS and WALKABOUT, all made by overseas film-makers. The disc also comes with a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film.

Ted Kotcheff’s WAKE IN FRIGHT is out in 4K in separate UHD and Blu-ray editions on Monday 29th June 2026