I Will Never Leave You Alone (2023)

"Grim Japanese-Style Ghost Story"

American film-maker D W Medoff's low budget modern-day ghost story is getting a Blu-ray release from Arrow Films.

Richard Marwood (Kenneth Trujillo) is in prison on a sentence of involuntary manslaughter. He is offered a chance of parole on one condition: he has to stay in an abandoned house for a week and rid it of the ghosts that may or may not be haunting it. If he leaves the house he breaks his parole. 

So of course he agrees, and of course there is (at least one) ghost, but which is scarier: the restless spirit or the memories he has of the terrible thing that happened to the rest of his family, as a result of which he is now unable to speak?

It would spoil things to give too much more away, suffice to say that this setup could go any number of ways and Medoff elects for one of the grim ones, so be warned. Otherwise this is definitely what is known today as a slow burn of a movie, with its hints of a vengeful ghost suggesting influences by Japanese horrors such as THE GRUDGE. 

Admittedly there are a number of ideas here that are a bit difficult to swallow, one being that an American estate agent would actually specialise in 'house ghost clearing' which their Chinese clients are insisting on, and the other being that apparently a number of candidates have already tried and haven't been able to spend more than a couple of nights in the house. Would anyone in a position of authority really think of sending a traumatised prisoner into such an environment? And the final scene, while presumably intended to be the most disturbing of all, pushes everything in the direction of being ultimately a little bit silly.

Photography is crisp and, unfortunately, high definition enough to render effects and makeups rather less effective than they might otherwise have been. This is exactly the kind of film that needs to be in grainy 16mm with darker lighting to allow the viewer's imagination to fill in the gaps rather than what we get here. 

Extras include an interview with the writer-director (24 minutes) and commentary from him for a selected 23 minutes of footage (it's all together so you don't have to search through the film) and three D W Medoff shorts - AWOL, I'm Down Here and Yahrzeit. Each is about six minutes long and feel like mini anthology movie segments or comic book stories, each atmospheric and leading to a decent conclusion. 

D W Medoff's I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU ALONE is out on Blu-ray from Arrow on Monday 5th May 2025

The Eternal Daughter (2022)

"A24 Art House Gothic - And Very Good, Too"

After premiering at the LFF in 2022 and its subsequent run in cinemas last year, Joanna Hogg's atmospheric mood piece gets a Blu-ray release from the BFI.

Julie Hart (Tilda Swinton) arrives at a remote Welsh country hotel with her mother Rosalind (Swinton again) for them to spend a few days together. Julie is a film-maker and plans to spend the daytime working on a new writing project. 

As time goes on it becomes apparent that there is nobody else staying at the hotel. It also seems that Julie's mother used to live there and she tells Julie how the rooms have changed since she was a resident. Things get stranger, culminating in Rosalind's birthday when the bringing in of a cake leads to revelations.

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER has a very slight plot but makes up for it with a lot of very well done gothic atmosphere. Hogg films both interiors and exteriors from just the right angle and with just the right amount of lighting (or lack of it) to suggest extreme creepiness. In fact if Mike Flanagan hadn't already recently remade THE HAUNTING for Netflix the thought of Joanna Hogg making it would have been most welcome. 

Swinton is excellent in both roles (no surprises there) and the film gets bonus points for having her character reading the original Robert Aickman-edited Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories at breakfast. Like Aickman's own stories, THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER is more about gradually building a sense of unease than delivering shocks, so you'll be best rewarded if you go in not expecting the kind of blood and thunder one might associate with the term 'Gothic', but rather something that's going to get under your skin and keep you thinking about it for days afterwards.

Extras on the BFI's Blu-ray include an excellent commentary track with Hogg and production designer Stéphane Collonge which discusses some of the inspiration for the film (NIGHT OF THE DEMON, THE INNOCENTS) as well as many of the details about how it was made. Another audio track provides audio description which more discs should have. There's a 35 minute Q&A with Hogg and Swinton and a separate, 76 minute conversation with Hogg which covers her entire career. You also get PRESAGES, an 11 minute short film with Hogg narration. Finally the disc comes with an informative booklet featuring essays by Catherine Bray and Hannah Strong, and an interview with Hogg by Roger Luckhurst.

Joanna Hogg's THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER is out now from the BFI on Blu-ray and Digital

Ghost Stories For Christmas Volume 2 (1974 - 2006)

Just under a year following their release of Volume One of the BBC's GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS which I reviewed here, the BFI are bringing out Volume Two, which completes the annual series of stories that went out under that title, and includes some worthwhile extras as well.

Before I get into the detail of what's on the discs, it's worth saying upfront that if you're a fan of the BBC Ghost Stories then this set is going to be a must have. The picture quality of each episode is a major step up from previous DVD releases and each of the original series stories comes with an excellent new commentary. If that's all you need to know then you can order this with confidence, but if you need a bit more, then read on. 

The set consists of three Blu-rays, the contents of which are as follows:

Disc One: The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974) and The Ash Tree (1975)

The set kicks off with a personal favourite M R James story, filmed in and around Wells Cathedral and featuring the attempts of Michael Bryant's crusty academic (aided by Paul Lavers as his assistant) to locate a hidden treasure by decoding Latin clues (one of the most delicious elements for us classics students back in the day). Needless to say his efforts are rewarded with something horrible that comes to get him.

The Ash Tree is David Rudkin's adaptation of M R James' tale of the witch Mrs Mothersole (Barbara Ewing) who takes a terrible revenge on the family of the witchfinder who executed her using spiders that live in the tree of the title. Previous DVD transfers have always been too dark but the BFI's new version finally allows us to see the special effects spiders very nicely and they're a perfectly creditable TV screen monster of the period. 

Abbot Thomas comes with a commentary track from Simon Farquar which is full of facts about the episode, including cast, crew, locations, and even the music score. The Ash Tree's commentary is by Jon Dear working from notes by Johnny Mains and is also excellent.

Other extras include director Lawrence Gordon Clark introductions to both stories (20 minutes in all) and a 16 minute video essay from Nic Wassell that points  out all kinds of interesting details about all the Christmas Ghost Stories. 

Disc Two: The Signalman (1976) and Stigma (1977)

Time to switch from M R James to Charles Dickens and Clive Exton. The Signalman stars Denholm Elliott at his twitchiest as the title character with a terrible sense of foreboding, while Stigma is an original story filmed in Avebury (location of the previous year's Children of the Stones) about the unleashing of a vengeful witch's spirit.

The commentary on The Signalman is from Jon Dear with special guest Mark Gatiss, while Kim Newman and Sean Hogan provide commentary duties on Stigma, with kudos to Mr Hogan for managing to get a PSYCHOMANIA reference in there.

Extras on disc two are limited to two Lawrence Gordon Clark introductions (19 minutes in all)

Disc Three: The Ice House (1978), A View From A Hill (2005), Number 13 (2006)

The main feature on disc three is The Ice House, John Bowen's weird Aickmanesque story of the strange events that befall a man (John Stride) when he attends a health spa. It's very different from the way the series started off in 1971, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact both The Ice House and Stigma are superb examples of the television horror short story form for the late 1970s and it's a shame that there weren't more like them.

Kim Newman and Sean Hogan are on hand for another excellent commentary, and this time the special features consist of two of the more recent Ghost Stories For Christmas - A View From a Hill and Number 13, and you also get the 2000 version of Christopher Lee reading Number 13 as well. The set also comes with a booklet that includes new essays on all of the classic original series episodes on the set. All top quality stuff

GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS VOLUME TWO is out in a three disc Blu-ray set from the BFI on Monday 20th November 2023

The Others (2001)

"Classic Ghost Story gets an Upgrade"

Alejandro Amenabar's THE OTHERS gets a UHD, Blu-ray and DVD with new extras (as well as the archival ones ported over) from Studio Canal.

Jersey, 1945. Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman) lives with her two children Anne (Alakina Mann) and Nicholas (James Bentley) in a remote country house, the curtains of which are always kept closed because of a condition from which the children suffer. Their life is interrupted by the arrival of three servants seeking work who claim they were employed at the house before. Meanwhile Anne claims to have a ghostly friend called Victor who visits her regularly and when the piano begins playing itself Grace becomes convinced the house is haunted. Things are further complicated with the arrival of Grace's husband Charles (Christopher Eccleston), thought to have been killed in the war. The strange occurrences continue until an ultimate, shocking revelation.

It was certainly shocking back in the day when THE OTHERS was released and it still packs a punch today. There aren't many films that deserve the appellation 'instant classic' but writer / director / composer Alejandro Amenabar's film was rightly compared with genre classics like THE CHANGELING (1980) and THE INNOCENTS (1961) pretty much from the off and if anything time has merely served to cement its reputation as one of cinema's all-time classic ghost stories.

Studio Canal's new disc comes with a couple of new extras. A Look Back at THE OTHERS is a 51 minute compilation of new interviews with Amenabar, producer Fernando Bovaira, and stars Kidman and Eccleston, covering all aspects of the production and discussing the movie's cinematic antecedents. Amenabar's role as composer is covered in a separate 5 minute featurette.

Other features have been ported over from older releases, including a making of (21 minutes), and pieces on visual effects, the director, and Xeroderma Pigmentosum, the light-sensitive skin condition suffered by the children in the film. There are also the usual still galleries and a trailer.

Alejandro Amenabar's THE OTHERS is out on UHD, Blu-ray and DVD from Studio Canal on Monday 9th October 2023

Ju-On: The Grudge Collection

Arrow Films are releasing, in a five disc box set, the six films that constitute the original Japanese cycle of JU-ON movies. The JU-ON franchise is one of the more confusing out there, not least because in the UK the third and fourth movies were released first but with the titles swapped around. There are also US versions, as well as both Japanese and US reboots and remakes. Mind you, it's still nowhere near as confusing as the HALLOWEEN franchise, which you'll see at the end of this review where I'll be going through how they all fit together. But for now let's crack open this six film set and take a look at what Arrow has for us:

Disc One: 

Ju-On: The Curse (2000)

This is where it all started. A brief, 70 minute made for video feature that consists of several short vignettes, each concentrating on a different character. The overall story, though, is a familiar one, that of the brutal murder of Kayako Saeki (Takako Fuji), her son Toshio (Ryota Koyama) and the family cat by Kayako's husband Takeo (Takashi Matsuyama) in a fit of jealousy. The scare tactics that would be employed throughout the series are present and correct here also - the pale wailing child, that rasping sound effect, and Kayako's tendency to appear in confined spaces and come down stairs in the scariest way possible. 

Because it was made for video the film is in 4:3 and the quality isn't great, but it is worth watching, if only to see how such a simple concept can be rendered terrifying even on an almost non-existent budget. Extras here are a trailer and two short and charming introductions, one from Takako Fuji and the other from writer-director Takashi Shimizu.

Ju-On: The Curse 2 (2000)

As writer-director Takashi Shimizu states in his brief introduction to the second film, the two CURSE films were made at the same time and over a period of just a few days. It's not surprising, then, the running time of THE CURSE 2 is also brief at 75 minutes, or that 30 minutes of it is spent on a recap of the first movie. Theres enough new stuff to make it worth watching, though, but any details here would swiftly end up in spoiler territory. Suffice to say the events of the first film are resolved and then a new family moves into the Saeki house, with the movie ending on a teaser for the next film which became the series' first theatrical release and the one that the title JU-ON: THE GRUDGE is best known for. Extras for this one are the introduction and a trailer.

Disc Two (4K UHD) and Disc Three (Blu-ray):

Ju-On: The Grudge (2002)

If THE CURSE started it all, JU-ON:THE GRUDGE is the reason we're all here. Arrow's presentation of Takashi Shimizu's classic is a new 4K restoration with the UHD disc in HDR10 compatible Dolby Vision and it looks and (especially) sounds great. It's actually beneficial to watch the CURSE movies first as JU-ON THE GRUDGE really strips the narrative down to the 'violent act leads to haunted house that affects anyone who goes within spitting distance of it' concept. Once again the plot focus hops from character to character and, like many great horror films, it's all really just an excuse for Shimizu to scare us with a variety of creepy scenes, which he achieves very memorably indeed. There's more than enough here to ensure that audience word of mouth would have made it the big success it became.

Arrow have essentially, and quite reasonably, built their boxset release around JU-ON: THE GRUDGE and its immediate sequel and there are plenty of extras for both. Extras for JU-ON: THE GRUDGE include two commentary tracks - a new one by historian David Kalat who talks about the long and quite complicated genesis of the movie, as well as the archival commentary from Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel. There's also an English dub track for those who fancy it.

Arrow's disc has two new interviews, one with director Shimizu (who also introduces the film) and one with star Takako Fuji. Evolution of JU-ON is 27 minutes in the company of J-Horror movie scholars Tom Mes and Zach Davisson who discuss all the influences on the film from Kaidan stories to Nakata's RINGU and beyond.

Archival material is extensive - interviews with Shimizu (31 minutes), Megumi Okina who plays Rika (17 minutes) and Kayoko Shibata who plays Mariko (10 minutes). There's also a stack of brief on-set interviews with the cast, four behind the scenes featurettes, five deleted scenes (with commentary) and an alternate ending. As well as a trailer and a image gallery you also get a ten minute reading by Hiroyoshi Kihara of the two 'true' stories that inspired the movie.

Disc Four: 

Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003)

Released just six months after JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (at least according to the commentary we have on this disc from Japanese cinema expert (and producer of this box set) Jasper Sharp  and cultural historian Raechel Dumas, this sequel maintains the same fragmented narrative format, this time all centred around a documentary piece that has been filmed in the haunted Saeki house.

There are some good creepy bits in this one, including a very creative hanging sequence but it does go seriously over the top towards the end, so be prepared from some childbirth ludicrousness and quite a bit of gore.

We get an introduction from the director, the aforementioned commentary, an English dub, and a stack of archival material including an interview with the director (28 minutes), six on-set interviews with the cast (2-4 minutes each), four deleted scenes, lots of behind the scenes footage (including the filming of the movie's two highlights mentioned above) and preview and premiere footage from Japan, Korea and Taiwan as well as a trailer and image gallery.

Disc Five: 

Ju-On: White Ghost (2009)

Ju-On: Black Ghost (2009)

The final disc in Arrow's set is a double bill of films, each with a 60 minute runtime and made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the JU-ON franchise. While keeping the same narrative format, neither has much to do with Kayako or the Saeki house. BLACK GHOST is about a schoolgirl possessed by the physical remnant of her unborn twin, and is the better, if rather crazier of the two pictures, with the climactic conjoined foetus exorcism scene a daft but entertaining standout. 

WHITE GHOST has a family moving into a new house and, in a plot device straight out of some of those terrible AMITYVILLE sequels, a spirit in an old mirror possesses the father, who then kills the entire family and commits suicide. He records his final words on a cassette tape which, this being JU-ON world, becomes cursed. Toshio Saeki does have a tiny cameo int his one but it's actually rather silly and probably should have been left out. The main ghost, an old lady holding a basketball, is also more likely to inspire laughs than chills.

Extras on this disc are a 12 minute interview with Maru Asato who directed BLACK GHOST and she also introduces the film. You also get trailers and an image gallery. 

Arrow's box set also comes with a 60 page book featuring writing on the films as well as reversible sleeves featuring new and classic artwork. You also get 24 double-sided postcards and a reversible poster.

Finally, let's have a summary of the entire JU-ON: THE GRUDGE franchise. Titles included in Arrow's set are in blue. Other titles reviewed on this site are in brown. First of all there are four Japanese films:

JU-ON: THE CURSE (2000)

JU-ON: THE CURSE 2 (2000)

JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2002)

JU-ON: THE GRUDGE 2 (2003)

Then come the American ones:

THE GRUDGE (2004)

THE GRUDGE 2 (2006)

THE GRUDGE 3 (2009)

After that some more from Japan. Firstly the end of the 'original cycle':

JU-ON: BLACK GHOST (2009)

JU-ON: WHITE GHOST (2009)

Followed by the Japanese reboot cycle:

JU-ON: THE BEGINNING OF THE END (2014)

JU-ON: THE FINAL CURSE (2014)

SADAKO VS KAYAKO (2016)

Not forgetting the Japanese Netflix TV series:

JU-ON: ORIGINS (2020)

And finally the latest US remake / reboot with the modern trend of having a supremely unhelpful title:

THE GRUDGE (2020)

So, if you didn't know all that before, now you do. 

Arrow Films are releasing JU-ON:THE GRUDGE COLLECTION in a six disc UHD and Blu-ray box set on Monday 19th December 2022, all ready for Xmas.