"Eerie Poe-Inspired Art House Horror"
Arrow are releasing writer-director Patrick Picard's singular take on Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher on Blu-ray after its UK premiere on the Arrow channel.
Francis (Liam Aiken) destitute to the point of near homelessness and with his few belongings in storage, receives an invitation from his wealthy childhood friend Jean Paul (JP) Luret (Joe Adler) whom he hasn't seen in years.
As soon as Francis arrives at Luret's house things are strange. Luret's sister Vivian (Annalise Basso from Mike Flanagan's OCULUS and OUIJA 2) keeps herself locked in a downstairs room and refuses to come out, while JP himself admits it is years since he has left the building, instead having food and other supplies delivered.
JP wants to rekindle his and Francis' childhood friendship - he cooks Francis' favourite food (if buttered toast really is) and the two play fight inside sleeping bags. But JP has a cruel streak, exhibited when Francis goes to a vault beneath the house for champagne and ends up locked in. So what's really going on? And who is the masked figure that's crawling around JP's house (the Bloodhound of the title)?
Well, it's going to be up to you to decide because THE BLOODHOUND offers more questions than answers. If you're familiar with the Poe story that won't help as it's just the jumping off point for Picard's examination of friendships lost and how we change, both physically and mentally, to the point where old friends become unrecognisable. Is JP even rich? His house looks like the corridors and bedrooms of a university hall of residence, admittedly one with boxes of money stashed everywhere in keeping with JP's eccentricity.
Arrow's disc comes with four Picard short projects, which are very short indeed (about a minute) and are experimental abstracts rather than narrative in nature. There's also a commentary track from the director and his editor David Scorca as well as a 45 minute making of. The first pressing of the disc also comes with a booklet with new writing on the film from Anton Bitel.
Patrick Picard's THE BLOODHOUND is out on Blu-ray from Arrow on Monday 22nd March 2021
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