Innerspace 4K (1987)

Director Joe Dante’s comedic take on FANTASTIC VOYAGE, and the film he made in between EXPLORERS (1985) and THE ‘BURBS (1989), is getting a 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Arrow.

Washed up pilot Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid) agrees to take part in a miniaturisation experiment in which he, inside a special submersible, is going to be injected into a rabbit called Bugs (well, this is a Warner Bros. picture after all). However, bad guy Victor Scrimshaw (Kevin McCarthy) and bad girl Margaret Canker (Fiona Lewis) plan to steal the miniaturisation technique so shifty character The Cowboy (Robert Picardo on top silly voiced form) can sell it to the highest bidder. When the robbery goes wrong Tuck ends up injected into supermarket assistant manager and hypochondriac Jack Putter (Martin Short). Will Jack listen to the voice that is now actually in his head and help Tuck get back to normal size?

According to a number of the (very good) extras on this disc, INNERSPACE started life as a straight idea but thanks to a complete rewrite by Jeffrey Boam (THE DEAD ZONE) and the efforts of all concerned, it became on Oscar-winning (for its special effects) comedy. While the script is funny and Joe Dante is no stranger to making things entertaining the real key to the success of INNERSPACE is its cast, especially Quaid and Short who only have one scene together but nevertheless have a dialogue chemistry that sparkles. The part of ‘the girl’ is played by Meg Ryan just before she got famous and her star quality is obvious as well. Combine that with familiar faces from the Dante repertory company and cult film fans will have a ball.

Arrow’s disc comes with two commentary tracks. The first is from 2002 and features Dante, producer Michael Finnell, VFX master Dennis Muren, and actors Picardo and McCarthy. Think you’re good at spotting Dante’s in-jokes? Well there are some here that completely passed me by but they’re all pointed out in this engagingly chatty track. Author and critic Drew McWeeny provides a brand new commentary that is as respecting of Dante’s work as it is enthusiastic and provides a nice ‘fan’ track to go alongside the film-makers’ one.

Other extras include a brand new hour-long making of featuring Dante, Finnell, Muren, Picardo and others where some of the material from the commentary is understandably repeated, while the VFX are gone into in greater illustrative detail. There’s 24 minutes of Joe Dante’s personal behind the scenes footage from the film and 20 minutes of footage from ILM. You also get storyboard galleries, continuity polaroids, production stills and a poster gallery. Arrow’s limited edition also comes with a booklet with new writing on the film, a double sided poster and reversible sleeve.

Joe Dante’s INNERSPACE is out on 4K in individual UHD and Blu-ray editions on Monday 27th April 2026

The Man Who Haunted Himself 4K (1970)

Studio Canal are releasing Basil Dearden’s final film as director (The Persuaders! two episode combo MISSION: MONTE CARLO doesn’t count) in a new 4K restoration on UHD, Blu-ray and Digital. Apparently it was star Roger Moore’s personal favourite of his films and it’s not difficult to see why.

Driving home from work on the M4 one day Harold Pelham (Moore) crashes his car and ends up in surgery where, for a moment, his heartbeat fails to register on monitoring equipment. Then there are two, then there’s one again. Discharged from hospital Pelham goes about his normal life but soon something odd starts to happen. 

People claim they have seen him in places he’s never been, including Julie (Olga Georges-Picot), who also claims she has entered into a relationship with Pelham. As the strange incidents mount up Pelham seeks the aid of a psychiatrist (Freddie Jones all hair, shades and bow tie). Is Harold mad or is there really someone impersonating him? Or is what’s actually happening even stranger than that?

Previously filmed for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series as The Case of Mr Pelham, the screenplay here does a reasonable job of opening up the story to feature length. The staging of the opening accident is excellent, with a low slung camera attached to the side of the car being something that might have quite possibly influenced a young George Miller. Most noteworthy of all is Roger Moore who really gets to demonstrate a range that many jokers of the period claimed he didn’t have. Pelham isn’t the most likeable of characters but as his world crumbles we start to feel real sympathy for him.

Studio Canal’s 4K looks excellent. Don’t worry too much about the picture noise on the menu screen - this settles down nicely for the main feature. New to this disc is an 12 minute interview with well-known actor Kevork Malikyan (who has brought his copy of the screenplay with him) who plays Pelham’s butler Luigi. Other extras include a ‘Masters of Horror’ segment in which directors Joe Dante and Stuart Gordon discuss the film (18 minutes), an audio commentary ported over from the 2024 Imprint release from genre experts Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons that’s up to their usual high standard and in which they point out a number of significant visual touches as well as discussing the source story / novel, an interview with Moore’s PA and friend Gareth Owen (16 minutes), a 2024 making of that features Freddie Jones (33 minutes), storyboards (including the opening car crash sequence) and 36 minutes of Michael J Lewis score for those who don’t own the now long out of print promo soundtrack CD. Collectors will want to know that the disc doesn't contain the 2005 commentary track with Roger Moore and Brian Forbes, so you may want to hang onto your Network or Kino Blu-ray for that. The disc also comes with four art cards.

THE MAN WHO HAUNTED HIMSELF is out from Studio Canal in a new 4K restoration on UHD, Blu-ray and Digital on Monday 27th April 2026

The Nightcomers 4K (1971)

There were worse directors in the 1970s than Michael Winner, but probably none with such a high profile who courted controversy so often and who frequently had major studio talent at his disposal. A typical Winner work from that period is THE NIGHTCOMERS, which Studio Canal are releasing in a new 4K restoration on UHD, Blu-ray and Digital as part of their cult classics line.

THE NIGHTCOMERS is a prequel to the Henry James story (actually more of a novella) The Turn of the Screw, which was filmed with great success as THE INNOCENTS in 1961 by Jack Clayton. Part of the reason both that film and the book it’s based on work so well is because so much of what happens is not explained and is, essentially, unknowable. What THE NIGHTCOMERS sets out to do is explain everything which, as well as being redundant, it doesn’t do half as well as it probably could.

When the parents of Flora (Verna Harvey) and Miles (Christopher Ellis) are killed in a car accident, they are left alone at remote Bly Manor with only the cook (Thora Hird), governess Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham) and handyman Peter Quint (Marlon Brando) for company. Jessel and Quint are engaged in a sado-masochistic relationship that’s witnessed by the children and which they then reproduce in their play, which is where everything starts to go really wrong.

Part of the problem with THE NIGHTCOMERS is that you know what’s going to happen, but that would still have left space for an interesting story that could have played with the ideas of 'were the children / weren’t they affected by the behaviour of Quint and Jessel' and indeed what exactly it was that the two adults got up to. The film might also have worked better had it been told more from the children's point of view. Unfortunately with the casting of Marlon Brando in the lead, THE NIGHTCOMERS instead veers dangerously into becoming The Peter Quint Show. There’s at least one lengthy sequence where the actor has obviously been allowed to go ‘full Marlon’ and while it is, as Kim Newman says in his extra on here, an acting masterclass, it doesn’t really belong in a film like this. 

It’s also hard to accept why Stephanie Beacham’s Miss Jessel Hooks up with Quint or takes part in his bizarre sex games as she seems to reap little benefit from it. Beacham is far better in the scenes without Brando, where she delivers a more nuanced, sympathetic performance. The child actors are rather stilted and it’s obvious Winner’s forte was not in directing children.

Studio Canal’s 4K disc comes with a new 19 minute Kim Newman talking head piece which is very informative. Carried over from the Imprint release is a 29 minute featurette of interviews with surviving crew members (including SFX ace John Richardson and first assistant director Michael Dryhurst) and if you’re looking for on-set gossip about Mr Winner this is the place to go. You also get a video essay from Kat Ellinger on film interpretations of Turn of the Screw (19 minutes) and two commentary tracks. Contrary to what Kat Ellinger says in hers there is no Michael Winner commentary on this disc so hang on to your Kino region A Blu-ray if that’s a favourite (if nothing else Winner's commentaries do tend to be...er...winners). There’s also a very informative ‘nuts and bolts making of’ commentary from Alain Silver and Jim Ursini. Finally there are the usual trailers and the disc comes with four art cards. 

Michael Winner’s THE NIGHTCOMERS is out in a new 4K restoration from Studio Canal on UHD, Blu-ray and Digital on Monday 27th April 2026

 

Exit 8 (2026)

 

“Video Game Adaptation Fails to Fulfil the Promise of its Setup”

Based on the successful video game of the same name, Vertigo are releasing director Genki Kawamura’s EXIT 8 in selected UK and Ireland cinemas this week. 

A young man who is never named and simply referred to as ‘The Lost Man’ (Kazumari Ninomiya) is on the underground on his way to a job interview when he is rung by an ex-girlfriend. She tells him she is at the hospital and that she is pregnant. It’s not spelled out but we infer from their conversation that she wants him to help her make the decision whether to keep the baby. Unfortunately when he exits the train he loses both his phone signal and his way, finding himself in a repeating circuit of tiled corridors from which there seems to be no escape.

Except there is, and he soon finds the rules for how to get out literally spelled out for him on a sign: if he sees something anomalous in the corridors he must turn back. If he doesn’t he needs to carry on. As long as he follows the rules he will ascend through the levels, starting at zero, until he reaches Exit 8 and his way out. So off he goes, encountering along the way a number of individuals including a man with a briefcase who keeps walking past him. Every time our lost man gets it wrong he’s sent back to level zero. Will he ever escape?

The opening act of EXIT 8 is excellent. The layout and features of the few corridors our hero has to pass through looks straightforward but as he keeps making mistakes so we, too, learn the features of his route and start looking closely for errors. Unfortunately after this the character of a little boy is introduced and the film becomes far more interested in the relationship between the two and in tying that in to the man’s opening conversation with his girlfriend. 

This would not be too much of a problem if a similar degree of attention was paid to trying to challenge him with the anomalies, but it isn’t. In fact, by the time the film is over you will have thought of twenty better, cleverer and more maddening ways for our hero to have been tripped up than the film does. Apparently the little boy isn’t even a part of the video game, and anyone hoping for our hero to meet people trapped in the loop who have been trying to solve it for years, or for our hero to question whether what he is seeing is even real are all ignored in favour of a ‘save the child’ scenario. EXIT 8 offers a tantalising premise for what could have been a taut and suspenseful thriller but ultimately, and disappointingly, it takes the morality play route instead. Here’s the trailer:

Genki Kawamura’s EXIT 8 is out in UK & Ireland cinemas from Vertigo Releasing on Friday 24th April 2026

Danger: Diabolik 4K (1968)

“Psychedelic 1960s Comic Book Caper”

Esteemed director Mario Bava’s much-loved comic book movie is getting a 4K restoration dual format release on UHD and Blu-ray from Eureka. The limited edition of 2000 also includes a 60 page book with new writing on the film from Roberto Curti, Jochen Ecke, Sergio Angelini and Troy Howarth all housed within a hardbound slipcase.

Brilliant and resourceful criminal Diabolik (John Phillip Law) has two loves in life: stealing things and Eva (Marisa Mell). The police, led by Inspector Ginko (Michel Piccoli) try to catch him by baiting him with a million dollars (which he steals), a fabulous emerald necklace (which he also steals) and an enormous bar of gold (guess what happens to that). All this contributes to the Diabolik Enormous Flamboyant Underground Lair where, when he’s not plotting amazing crimes he’s either asleep or being tickled by Eva and her enormous feather. But have the police finally managed to outwit him?

A big budget comic book movie from the Dino De Laurentiis studios, if you’ve seen Roger Vadim’s BARBARELLA (1967) or Mike Hodges’ FLASH GORDON (1980) you’ll have an idea what you’re in for here: glossy, brightly coloured, ultra-cool mayhem with sleek cars, amazing sets, and costumes that range from the extremely desirable (I’ve never wanted to own so many of the ties worn in a movie) to the ludicrous. Indeed, so colourful and over the top are parts of this that some may find it hard not to think of Mike Myers’ AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY series of films, which seem to draw at least as much from this as they do James Bond. 

Eureka’s 4K transfer is delicious and the ideal way to appreciate not just all that colour, but also Bava’s intricate compositions, matte paintings and model work which we, sophisticated viewers that we are, will all be looking out for now but which back in the day would have wowed cinema audiences. Sound options include the two different English dubs (one of which is in both mono and 5.1 surround) and an Italian mono track.

Eureka’s disc comes with three commentary tracks. Tim Lucas is the acknowledged expert of Mario Bava’s cinema and his commentary track will have you rewinding the film to look more closely at the cleverest bits of Bava's camera trickery which Mr Lucas superbly deconstructs for us. Tim returns for another commentary, this time with star John Phillip Law where obviously more time is spent on Mr Law’s recollections. Finally we get Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson who still find a lot to say that hasn’t already been covered.

Other extras include Leon Hunt who gives us an excellent 22 minute guide to Diabolik the comic book and the character’s screen incarnations. Rachael Nisbet provides a 27 minute academic look at the ‘pop art politics’ of the film in a video essay (27 minutes) and there’s an archival piece ‘From Fumetti to Film’ (20 minutes) to which Stephen R Bissette, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, De Laurentiis, composer Ennio Morricone and others all contribute. Mr Yauch returns to provide a commentary track for the DIABOLIK-themed video to the Beastie Boys song Body Movin’. There are also a couple of trailers.

Mario Bava’s DANGER: DIABOLIK is getting a dual disc UHD and Blu-ray 4K release in a limited edition of 2000 on Monday 20th April 2026

Crucible of Horror (1970)

        Hammer continues their series of ‘Hammer Presents’ releases, showcasing British horror movies of the period that weren’t actually made by Hammer themselves, with this decidedly peculiar entry from 1970.

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR (US title) aka THE CORPSE (UK title) aka THE VELVET HOUSE (shooting title and the one it went out under in its public domain form on budget release DVD in the US) is the story of the Eastwood family. Father Walter (Michael Gough) is domineering and controlling and is backed up by his son Rupert (Simon Gough). Subjected to Walter’s tyranny are his wife Edith (Yvonne Mitchell from another recent Hammer release, DEMONS OF THE MIND) and daughter Jane (Sharon Gurney who would also appear in Gary Sherman’s DEATH LINE).

Eventually Walter’s abuse reaches such a degree that Edith and Jane decide to kill him. Or at least they think they've killed him, because then his body disappears only for it to turn up in a crate they then have to dispose of. But that’s not the end of the story by any means.

Viewed as a piece of early 1970s BritHorror CRUCIBLE OF HORROR is a rather strange, stilted (at least in its first act) piece that ultimately makes little sense. Viewed through a more arthouse, EuroHorror lens, it comes across more as a slice of endearingly perverse lurid eccentricity. The script is vaguely Pinteresque, if Harold Pinter’s obsessions had included bicycle seat fetishism, incest, flogging, and the ‘compulsory conscription of all young ladies between 18 and 20 into domestic service’.

The direction (by Viktor Ritelis) is a bit rough in places, with some of the performances reminiscent of characters in Spike Milligan’s ‘Q’ sketches. If you’re at all familiar with them then you too may expect at several points a voice over to announce “Come in Film No.7 your time is up” and for everyone to face the screen and ask “What are we going to do now?” It's all very much in the MUMSY, SONNY, NANNY AND GIRLY genre of ‘Mad British Families Doing Mad Things Because They’re Mad’ and let’s face it, there aren’t enough of those.

Hammer’s new 2K restoration Blu-ray transfer offers a brighter, crisper image than the Region A Shout Factory disc from 2018 but the extras are different so collectors may want to hold onto their Shout disc anyway. UK and US versions of the film are present on the disc but there’s very little difference between the two other than the title card. Extras on Hammer’s disc consist of an erudite commentary track from BFI Flipside boys William Fowler and Vic Pratt who do a fine job of providing analysis of what we’re seeing on screen as well as providing background info. The film’s Pinteresque style is dealt with in greater depth by Jonathan Rigby in an excellent 32 minute piece in which he picks choice scenes and lines of dialogue to illustrate his point, comparing the entire piece to a three act play. You also get a trailer and image gallery.

CRUCIBLE OF HORROR is out on Blu-ray from Hammer on Monday 20th April 2026