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 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

Dr Blood’s Coffin (1960)

The ‘Hammer Presents’ label strikes again! This time it’s with a UK blu-ray release of one of director Sidney J Furie’s early movies, one that boasts a great title, some lovely locations, and Hazel Court.

People are disappearing in the small Cornish village of Porthcarron (actually the small Cornish village of Zennor). Could the recent arrival of local GP Dr Blood’s son Peter (Kieron Moore) have anything to do with it? We don’t have to wait long to find out, but we do have to wait rather longer (almost the entire film, in fact) to see the zombie promised by the posters. 

Was this the first colour zombie picture? That’s one of the many things discussed by Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons in their accompanying commentary track which, chatty, convivial and fact-packed, is worth the price of the disc on its own. The zombie himself (Paul Stockman) is brought back to ‘life’ in a climactic surgery sequence that involves a transplant with a rather floppy-looking heart, but medical accuracy is hardly the point of this or we wouldn’t have Dr Blood performing open heart surgery on people while they look at him.

As mentioned on the commentary, there’s not really enough here for a 90 minute feature, with the most shocking thing being that the Cornish weather stays nice for almost the entirety of filming. Hazel Court plays the zombie’s (still-living) wife and helps to up the acting quality in a film that also boasts genre favourite Kenneth J Warren. Nathan Juran supplies the script, Buxton Orr the music, and Furie manages a number of nice setups, all making the film worth watching if you’re a fan of the above. 

Hammer’s disc gives us the film in two aspect ratios - 1.66:1 and 1.85:1. They are listed as ‘UK and US versions’ but apart from the screen shape there’s no identifiable difference. Apart from the commentary you also get a trailer and an image gallery which is worth perusing for its wealth of publicity material for a film that’s not that well known.

Sidney J Furie’s DR BLOOD’S COFFIN is out on Blu-ray on the Hammer Presents label on Monday 4th May 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

Jitters (2025)

 

        JITTERS, the new horror film from director Marc Zammit, is getting a digital release from Reel2Reel Films. It’s quite a step up in quality from the last film he had his name on (a bit more about that in a minute) and if you’re a fan of modern low budget British B movie horrors you’ll want to give it a look.

Tiffany (Jessica Impiazzi) is found dead at her computer console. Detective Collymore (Fabrizio Santino) is assigned to the case. Meanwhile his colleague Detective Harding (Anto Sharo) is investigating the death of a games developer who has killed himself with a nail-gun onscreen. 

More people are found dead in bizarre circumstances and everything seems to be connected to a new interactive video game called Jitters, in which a clown (Daniel Jordan) gives you riddles to solve with cash prizes promised if you win, and dire consequences if you lose. When Collymore gets embroiled in the game he finds that not just his but family’s lives are at stake from an unstoppable AI creation that can cause you to die from your greatest fear.

JITTERS is low budget, feels home-made, and some of the acting leaves a bit to be desired. However it tells its story well, the pacing is excellent and in many ways it's reminiscent of old-fashioned British B movies of the 1950s and 1960s that weren’t necessarily filled with great talent but which were nevertheless very entertaining to watch. Director Marc Zammit’s most recent credit prior to this was WITCH which I reviewed here and JITTERS represents a big step up in terms of both storytelling and general film-making skill, so much so that given sufficient resources Zammit could quite easily be making something for Blumhouse as his next project. 

It’s by no means a classic and there are some occasional bits that may raise an inappropriate smile (every policeman involved with the case has a beard including the boss, while a man who has just gouged out his own eyes behaves more as if he’s just got a bit of indigestion) but if you fancy some late night low budget horror entertainment JITTERS really is pretty decent stuff. Here’s a trailer:

Marc Zammit’s JITTERS is out on Digital on Monday 16th March 2026 from Reel2Reel Films

The Severed Sun (2025)

 

"Beguilingly Weird British Folk Horror"

Writer-Director Dean Puckett's THE SEVERED SUN, which is based on his own 2018 short THE SERMON is getting a digital release from Blue Finch.

In an isolated rural British community some time after an unspecified apocalypse, Magpie (Emma Appleton from LOLA and the first two episodes of THE WITCHER) kills her abusive husband, possibly while under the influence of a tall, taloned, glowing-eyed Beast (James Swanton). Following this, another abusive man in their village is killed, after which Magpie is accused by Andrea, the man's wife, (Jodhi May, also from Season One of THE WITCHER) of being a heretic. 

Magpie is almost hanged but is saved by the intervention of the community's leader and pastor (Toby Stephens) who also happens to be Magpie's father. However soon even he begins to realise that to control his flock he may have to sacrifice some of the members of his own family.

THE SEVERED SUN benefits immensely from gorgeous landscape photography, some beautiful compositions, and from not being shy of splashing the gore about where necessary. That plus its measured pacing means it could make an excellent companion piece on a double bill with Robert Eggers' THE WITCH (2015) and if you're a fan of that film then you may well like this, too. 

Those who want subtext with their folk horror won't have to dig too deep to find it, and there's an effective electronic music score by 'Unknown Horrors' that adds to the creeping atmosphere of dread and claustrophobia, one that's skilfully constructed to contrast with the backdrop of the wide open spaces of the story's setting (actually Bodmin in Cornwall). Here's a trailer:

Dean Puckett's THE SEVERED SUN is out on Digital from Blue Finch Releasing on Monday 6th October 2025. There will be selected cinema Q&A screenings from Monday 29th September

Eclipse (1977)

 

"Ultra-Obscure Late 1970s Weird British Oddity"

That alone should be enough to cause a veritable stampede of enthusiasts of arguably the most interesting decade for British cinema (and certainly British horror cinema, of which this could be considered to be a part - at a stretch). Simon Perry's ECLIPSE is coming out on Blu-ray in a 2K remaster from the best 35mm elements available on the BFI Flipside label.

Twin brothers Geoffrey and Tom (Tom Conti in a dual role) are at sea at night in their little schooner, intent on seeing a lunar eclipse. During the darkest part of the eclipse something happens and Geoffrey ends up overboard and drowned, with Tom unclear at the inquest as to exactly what happened. 

Tom travels to his remote childhood home on the Scottish coast to spend Christmas with Geoffrey's wife Cleo (Gay Hamilton) who has an impressive collection of gin bottles hidden away in every room, and Geoffrey's son Giles (Gavin Wallace, who delivers every line of dialogue as if he is much further away from the person he's talking to than he actually is). Over the Christmas period Tom and Cleo talk, Tom and Giles play with a train set, and dark secrets are revealed.

But what exactly is going on in ECLIPSE? It's not a spoiler to say that there's no straightforward answer, and the film doesn't so much end as come to a bit of an abrupt halt (one of the places where the commentary track is helpfully enlightening). Despite that, 1970s BritHorror fans will find much to enjoy, with the location and atmosphere appropriately moody and a menacing synthesiser score from the late Adrian Wagner that sounds similar at times to Ivor Slaney's work on Norman J Warren's TERROR.

Unsurprisingly, water plays a major part, not just in Geoffrey's death but in the story we are then presented with - both Giles and a dress Tom has bought for Cleo are seen submerged and even Cleo's perpetually drunken state could be considered akin to seasickness, while both leads have dialogue that circles around what they really mean like a whirlpool.

As usual the BFI have come up with some excellent extras. The commentary by the always listenable Vic Pratt discusses the themes of the film as well as the careers of those involved, including their involvement in the kind of obscure bits of British TV and children's cinema for which Mr Pratt's enthusiasm is always appreciated.

We also get two short films - Channel 4's The Chalk Mark (1988) and Marooned (1994) starring Robert Carlyle as a ScotRail employee. Finally, as well as an image gallery and trailer, we get three public information films on the theme of drowning which will be greatly nostalgic to those of a certain age, consisting as they do of Joe and Petunia, Charley Says and everyone's favourite, Lonely Water.

Simon Perry's ECLIPSE is out on Blu-ray from the BFI in their Flipside series on Monday 21st April 2025