The Visitor 4K (1979)

Arrow Films are bringing out the quite remarkable experience that is director Giulio Paradisi's THE VISITOR on 4K UHD. I tried to convey the quite awesome incoherence of this film 12 years ago in my review of Arrow's Blu-ray release. Looking back I don't believe I can top it, so here it is reproduced below, along with some updated pertinent info on the extras. 

How does one begin to describe THE VISITOR? Attempting a plot summary won't do, because that way lies madness. If I were to tell you who is in it that won't help either, because there's no way the mixture of star turns this movie features could possibly help give you a feel for how insane this film is. I could say it's from Ovidio Assonitis, who gave us TENTACLES - a daft Italian film about a monster octopus, and BEYOND THE DOOR  - a daft Italian OMEN ripoff that gets more incoherent as it goes on. Incoherent, now there's a word we can use to describe THE VISITOR. Mind you, that's a word we can also use to describe quite a lot of Italian exploitation cinema of the 1970s. But if any single movie can be described as the apotheosis of 1970s Italian incoherence, it is indeed, THE VISITOR.

In a galaxy far, far away (I think) John Huston awaits a dark shape that turns into a little girl while the sky turns the colour of tea being tipped into a glass of water. We cut to Franco Nero as Jesus addressing a room full of bald children. Enter John Huston looking vaguely normal. Just as we expect him to tell Mr Nero to get back to the psychiatric ward and leave the paediatric oncology patients alone we realise we are still on the other planet / galaxy / dimension / whatever. Jesus Franco (some delightful unintentional subtext there) has been relating the raison d'etre of everything we are about to watch, so we had better have been paying attention. In fact let's rewind and watch it again.

Sateen, Yahweh, flock of ravens, three survived, escape ship fell to earth, Sateen's genes, power of evil, etc etc. Got it? Never mind, now we're in Atlanta about to embark on a tour of the city's highlights thanks to some sort of deal the film-makers made with the mayor and made sure to point out in the very first caption onscreen. There's a basketball game that goes on for far too long, then we meet Lance Henriksen, who has been assigned by Mel Ferrer and his gang of evil lawyers (?) to get his girlfriend Joanne Nail pregnant. She carrying the genes of Sateen you see, and while she already has a foul-mouthed hawk-wielding daughter, a son is needed to...I don't know - fulfil a prophecy or something? Joanne doesn't want to get pregnant so when her daughter gets a gun for her birthday the little girl shoots mother in the back and paralyses her.

Joanne seems remarkably chipper for someone who will never walk again. Soon she's back home in her wheelchair while John Huston arrives from...I don't know...space? He's brought a group of bald men with him who proceed to erect some white sheets in a pleasing arrangement on top of a skyscraper. I still have no idea why. Mr Huston is here to stop / get the little girl & defeat the bad guys. I think. The daughter goes ice skating and flings some men around. There were meant to be elephants in this scene as well because the director thought people liked them.

Shelley Winters turns up as the anti Mrs Baylock and proceeds to serenade everyone with a traditional Negro folk song. John Huston arrives at the house, announces he's the babysitter and everyone believes him. Some more stuff happens that's so out there I really can't assemble it into any kind of logical sequence anymore, and I've only just watched the film. It all ends with...oh, but that would be telling. Actually it wouldn't but I can't actually remember. I think Jesus pops up again and the reason for the bald children is explained. Kind of. But actually not at all, really.

Plotwise THE VISITOR is an unbelievable mess, acting wise it's an unbelievable display of name stars giving their all to something where no-one could possible have had any idea what was going on. I was delighted to see that Arrow have retained their archival interview with screenwriter Lou Comici on their new release and it's still possibly the highlight of the entire disc, in which you get the feeling he had to write the script based on the gesticulations of a madman who couldn't communicate in any known language. And yet despite all this, the direction is really rather stylish. Immense care has been taken to compose shots for dialogue scenes that would otherwise be utterly disposable. The other planet is rather trippy. So are some effects in the sky we get to see at the end (I wasn't sure what was happening). Lance Henriksen gets attacked by a flock of birds & I'm sure the wooden one we see pecking at him is intended to be wooden. But why?

Arrow's 4K transfer looks even better than THE VISITOR's previous Blu-ray release. New extras include a commentary track from critics BJ and Harmony Colangelo who open by admitting they weren't alive during the 1970s (Arrow could easily have found film-savvy people who were but there you go) but feel the film emulates a lot of what that decade was about, a new visual essay from Meagan Navarro on the film's context within the exploitation cinema of the time (19 minutes) and another from Willow Catelyn Maclay discussing the influence of society's attitude to abortion that influenced both this and other 'devil child' movies (11 minutes). It's good to see Arrow have retained the interview with Lance Henriksen which is almost as funny as Lou Comici's and definitely worth a watch, as well as their interview with DP Ennio Guarnieri. There's also a booklet with new writing on the film.

Crazy, incoherent and trippy, THE VISITOR nevertheless makes you wish there had been more films made like like this, because whatever pioneering new form of film-making it was, it needed an awful lot of refining before it could be considered a viable entertainment medium. As it is you'll probably only be able to make it all the way through THE VISITOR's nearly two hour running time once. But you'll be showing bits of it to your friends forever.

Arrow Films are releasing the unique cinematic experience that is THE VISITOR on 4K UHD on Monday 16th February 2026

Jimmy and Stiggs (2025)

 

“Homemade Insanity”

It’s worth saying right at the start of this review that if you’re a fan of the films of exploitation auteur Joe Begos (VFW, BLISS, CHRISTMAS BLOODY CHRISTMAS) then you might like JIMMY AND STIGGS which, after its UK premiere at Frightfest last year, is getting a digital release from Blue Finch. If you’re not then you won’t, and if you’ve never seen a Begos film before this definitely isn’t the place to start. 

        Mr Begos comes across as the kind of person who, a little like the great Jess Franco, only feels comfortable when he’s making movies. Unfortunately also like Franco, it means some of those movies are borderline unwatchable, which you may well find is the case with JIMMY AND STIGGS.

Started during lockdown, the action of the film is confined to the flat of Jimmy (Begos). An out of work film-maker, Jimmy drinks a lot, swears even more, and takes a titanic amount of drugs. He’s also very into his exploitation cinema with nods to CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, porn director Alex De Renzy, and even the 1978 film SEX WORLD playing on the TV. 

Coming out of a massive bender (and soon to plunge into another one) Jimmy becomes convinced that aliens have invaded his flat and may have put an implant into him. When his friend Stiggs (Matt Mercer) arrives and the exits to the flat get mysteriously bricked off it’s time for a no-holds-barred neon lit showdown with a bunch of rubbery blue melon-headed monsters, despatching them in the most splattery ways imaginable.

JIMMY AND STIGGS last 83 minutes, and that’s with a couple of amusing fake trailers at the start as well. It still feels overlong. As you can see from the stills, much of the film is lit in gaudy pinks and blues and that, plus lots of flashing lights, may well get wearing pretty quickly depending on your tolerance. If your subtitles have a censoring facility for bad language switch it on and be astounded at the quantity of asterisks on the screen. It’s all loud, it’s all intense, and even with an effective Steve Moore score it’s all a bit much. But like I said, if you like, or rather if you love Joe Begos’ movies this one takes particular aspects of his film-making pretty much to breaking point. Here’s the trailer:

JIMMY AND STIGGS is out on Digital from Blue Finch Releasing on Monday 16th February 2026

Cry of the Banshee 4K (1970)

For the first in their ‘Hammer Presents’ line, in which Hammer Films are releasing classic British horror from other studios, we’re getting the American International Picture CRY OF THE BANSHEE in a 4K restoration, which is going to be available in a two-disc set of either two UHD discs or two Blu-rays.

We're in sixteenth century England, and magistrate Lord Edward Whitman (Vincent Price) divides his time between sentencing witches and dealing with his Jacobean tragedy of a family. One case of the latter leads to him disrupting a pagan ritual led by Oona (Elizabeth Bergner) in which a number of cultists are killed. Oona curses Whitman’s entire family to die by the hand of the ‘Banshee’ which manifests itself through foundling child groomsman Patrick Mower, and once the revenge is set in motion there’s no stopping it.

Famously (to BritHorror obsessives if no-one else) available in two versions, CRY OF THE BANSHEE is present here in both, which accounts for the two discs in the set. Disc one has the UK version (called ‘Director’s Cut) here, available in two aspect ratios (1.85:1 and 1.37:1) and will be the one most familiar to UK viewers who may well have encountered it on ITV screenings if not at the cinema. It’s a bit of a mess of a film, rambling and lacking focus, with the revenge plot only kicking on about halfway through. 

Disc two has the US (here called ‘Theatrical’ cut) which has both pros and cons. On the good side, the attack on Oona’s ritual has been moved right to the front of the film which is where it should be, and offers us a rare example of AIP messing round with a finished picture and actually doing something positive with it. However it loses Terry Gilliam’s weird opening animated titles and we get a pretty poor Les Baxter score replacing the UK one by Wilfred Josephs.

But, in either form, is CRY OF THE BANSHEE any good? Chris Alexander, who provides a commentary track on Disc one seems to think so, and he helpfully talks about the US edit as well. The film feels like a very uneasy follow-up to AIP / Tigon’s WITCHFINDER GENERAL, where part of the point was that witches aren’t real. Instead CRY OF THE BANSHEE plays along with the numerous rip-offs of that film which all wanted to have their cake (torturing of witches) and eat it too (they actually are witches, allowing for all sorts of demon shenanigans). Vincent Price hated the film, while the rest of the cast includes the likes of Pamela Farbrother (FRIGHTMARE), Michael Elphick (TV’s Boon), Hugh Griffith (that bottle probably contains the real stuff), Hilary Dwyer and Swedish film star Essy Persson who gets to go memorably mad. All that said, it’s definitely not the film to show someone to demonstrate why you love British horror films as they’ll likely be left scratching their heads as to its appeal.

Other extras include Kim Newman talking about the film for 13 minutes and on disc two the 18 minute interview with director Gordon Hessler has been ported over from the old MGM Midnight Movies release. You also get the usual image gallery, TV and radio spots and a trailer. 

Gordon Hessler’s CRY OF THE BANSHEE is being released by Hammer Films in both two disc UHD and two disc Blu-ray sets on Monday 9th February 2026

Dark Winds Seasons 1 - 3 (2022 - 2025)

Acorn International Media are releasing seasons 1 - 3 of the acclaimed Navajo Nation crime series on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital. Seasons 1 & 2 consist of six 50 minute episodes and Season 3 of eight episodes. Each season is also available separately, with Season 3 getting released at the same time as the box set. The show is based on the Leaphorn and Chee series of crime novels by Tony Hillerman and was originally shown in the UK on the U & Alibi crime drama channel. It's an excellent piece of work and if you've not encountered it yet, shouldn't be spoilt. Therefore I'm only going to supply the briefest plot outlines below of what you can expect from the boxset.

Season One - Discs 1 & 2

It's 1971 and Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon from AMERICANA, BONE TOMAHAWK and THE FOREVER PURGE) has the job of patrolling 27 000 square miles of Navajo Nation desert near Monument Valley with the help of very few staff including Sergeant Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten). When an elderly Navajo man is found dead with his eyes and liver gouged out beside a 19 year old girl who has apparently been frightened to death they are joined by new recruit Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon) to investigate the crime. Meanwhile the FBI are investigating a helicopter raid on an armoured car (which opens the first episode) with the helicopter last seen heading over Navajo territory. Could the crimes be linked?

Season one of Dark Winds is only six episodes but packs a lot into its running time, quickly setting up its cast of regular characters and giving you enough incident and intrigue that by episode four you'll be wondering how they'll manage to resolve it all in two more episodes. Suffice to say they do. The locations and photography are stunning, the Navajo culture is presented in some depth but never at the expense of moving the plot forwards, and there's a welcome undercurrent of the supernatural and black magic at work as well. The only extra is on disc two but it's a decent 34 minute making of that includes an interview with executive producer Robert Redford.

Season Two - Discs 3 & 4

Jim Chee is given the job of finding a stolen lock box by Rosemary Vines (Jeri Ryan). Meanwhile at the local medical centre a man dying of cancer is blown up by a bomb placed in his car. It soon becomes apparent that the bomber has been to the town before and is now bumping off more people as part of a plot that involves the sinister 'People of Darkness' (the title of the Tony Hillerman novel this is taken from).

Season two doesn't have quite as complex a plot as part one but it's more action packed and delivers a number of memorable set pieces, including one at the local hospital as well as a long painful trek through the desert. Acorn's discs have no extras for this season.

Season Three - Discs 5 & 6

A teenaged boy goes missing. The police find some bloodstains and his abandoned bike with what look like machete gouges in the frame. Meanwhile Bernadette discovers what might be evidence of a human trafficking gang near the border, and an FBI agent (Jenna Elfman) could mean bad news for Joe Leaphorn.

Season 3 combines two Tony Hillerman novels - 'Dancehall of the Dead' and 'Sinister Pig', with the screenwriting bringing the plots of the two books together nicely. As well as guest stars like Bruce Greenwood there's an amusing cameo from Robert Redford (his final screen appearance) and George R R Martin. You can fill in your own response to Redford's line to his producer colleague. The sole extra on Acorn's disc is a good one - a 42 minute making of that helps make up for the lack of one on Season 2.

Overall, DARK WINDS is an excellent crime show that deserves to be better known, with fine acting (lead Zahn McClarnon is a standout but everyone brings their 'A' game to this) an intriguing setting and time period (Navajo Nation in 1971) and a sensitive and authentic-feeling portrayal of the indigenous people who live there without any of it ever getting in the way of the plot or the action, both of which are riveting. Top stuff, and apparently Season Four is on the way.

DARK WINDS Seasons 1 - 3 is out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from Acorn Media International on Monday 2nd February 2026

We Bury the Dead (2025)

Signature Entertainment are releasing writer-director Zak Hilditch's latest post-apocalyptic drama (he made the emotional endurance test that was 2013's THESE FINAL HOURS) on Digital, with a DVD and Blu-ray release to follow. The apocalypse in question is rather more low-key this time around and those who have seen THESE FINAL HOURS will probably be relieved to hear WE BURY THE DEAD isn't quite the hammer blow to the senses that Mr Hilditch's previous genre effort was.

America makes a terrible mistake (likely to be a recurring theme in cinema for the next few years) and a pulse bomb is let off by accident, killing everyone on the Australian island state of Tasmania. There's no radiation pollution so once the fires have settled down teams of volunteers are sent in to clear up the dead. Before they do so, however, they are warned by the military that some of the victims are waking up and aren't at all like they were.

Ava (Daisy Ridley), an American, comes over as part of the volunteer corps with the intention of looking for her husband who was at a convention in Hobart. She teams up with Clay (Brendon Thwaites) and together they make their way south into territory that is yet to be cleared by the authorities as safe to enter.

Whereas THESE FINAL HOURS was an unflinching, brutally cynical under-the-microscope examination of humankind faced with certain death after a worldwide disaster, WE BURY THE DEAD comes across more like one of zombie genre progenitor George A Romero's more thoughtful, equally concerned movies like THE CRAZIES (1973). Once our civilians are clearing up bodies it becomes clear that the military can't be trusted and neither, necessarily, is Ava who is harbouring her own secrets.

There are zombies, but only very seldom are they encountered so anyone expecting an undead gorefest will be disappointed. Once Ridley and Thwaites are on the road the film suffers from slowing the action down a bit too much when it should perhaps be developing into more of a road movie, but for a low-key, restrained piece this isn't bad at all. Here's the trailer:

Zak Hilditch's WE BURY THE DEAD is out from Signature Entertainment on Digital  HD on Monday 2nd February 2026 and Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 16th February 2026