The Morrigan (2026)

“Reminiscent of Late 1980s Italian Horror”

That is not a recommendation by the way, unless you are a fan of a very particular type of exploitation cinema. Marcello Avallone’s SPECTERS (1987), the films Lucio Fulci made when he wasn’t very well, and pretty much the entire oeuvre of Claudio Fragasso (MONSTER DOG, TROLL 2) will all occur to fans of a certain age if they watch THE MORRIGAN, a film filled with non-sequiturs, name actors uttering nonsensical dialogue, and a complete lack of understanding of how radios and telephones work.

Archaeologist Fiona Scott (Saffron Burrows) wants to go to a remote island off the coast of Ireland to excavate the site where she believes The Morrigan is buried. Folklore suggests it’s an ancient and powerful demon but she thinks it’s probably just a powerful female chieftain who got a bad press. She gets to go but because of The Patriarchy her horrible boss Dr Jonathan (Jonathan Forbes) gets to lead the expedition.

To cheer herself up Fiona takes her whiny, petulant, vodka-swilling recently-expelled reprobate of a teenaged daughter Lily (Emily Flain) with her to a place with no internet or mobile phone signal. But it does have priest James Cosmo who can be contacted by radio (although he answers the phone when contacted which suggests some novel wiring, or possibly editing) as well as hotel owner Toby Stephens.

The excavations proceed! They dig a tiny tunnel. Fiona crawls to its end. The tunnel collapses. Fiona finds herself in a cavern with a sarcophagus, In the next scene this extremely heavy-looking object that could not possibly fit down a tiny Saffron Burrows-sized tunnel is back at the hotel. Lily opens it, turns into a monster and goes on the rampage.

THE MORRIGAN wastes a bunch of good actors and some decent locations. Credit is due to Emily Flain who really lets rip with her transformation into the title creature, but overall the execution is all too ramshackle, careless and clumsy, making you think of a bad Jess Franco film in its ‘couldn’t be bothered’ lack of attention to things that repeatedly draw you out of the action. One only for obsessive fans of the leads, and those of us who have to watch everything. Here’s a trailer to help you make up your mind if you want to:

THE MORRIGAN is out on Digital from Thunderbird Releasing on Monday 29th June 2026

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

The Last Video Store (2023)

 

"Nowhere Near as Good as it Could or Should be"

Back in February 2023 I reviewed a no-budget British anthology horror film called VIDEO SHOP TALES OF TERROR that, while often crude in its execution, made up for that with dollops of enthusiasm and occasionally a little style.

THE LAST VIDEO STORE, due out on Blu-ray from Arrow Films, feels almost the opposite. Don't get me wrong - this isn't a big budget affair, but everything that made VIDEO SHOP TALES OF TERROR watchable and ultimately extremely entertaining is lacking in this, a film which features stilted acting, terrible pacing, and a near-plotlessness that makes its 78 minute running time feel much longer than it actually is.

When her father dies, he leaves Nyla (Yaayaa Adams) a note asking her to return some outstanding VHS cassettes to the shop of the title. This includes a mysterious, unlabelled tape that, when played, unleashes a whole load of 1980s movie-style trouble.

And that's where THE LAST VIDEO STORE's strength and major failing lies. The film is packed with visual references to straight to video tat of the 1980s, but rather than use that as background colour it seems to be the sole reason for the film's existence, which means watching it for more than 20 minutes is a bit like sitting next to someone very annoying who keeps poking you and saying 'Weren't the '80s great?'

It also makes the mistake of having posters for Astron 6 productions everywhere (and Adam Brooks turns up at one point) which only helps remind you how much better that team are at this sort of thing. The terrific short DEMONITRON: THE SIXTH DIMENSION gets pinched and redubbed to the film's own ends, again just reminding you of how much better other satires of, and tributes to, this kind of material have been than this.

Unsurprisingly, THE LAST VIDEO STORE started life as a short film (and probably should have stayed as one). You can find the short film on the extras along with the first attempt to make the subject into a feature. Other extras include a commentary track by critics Matt Donato and Meagan Navarro (they're both far kinder to it that I've been), new visual essays by Heather Wixson and Martyn Pedlar, three more short films from the same directors, behind the scenes, a trailer and more. 

There's also a booklet with new writing from Anton Bitel and Alexandra West, a reversible sleeve and a double-sided poster. 

THE LAST VIDEO STORE is now available to stream on Arrow and on Limited Edition Blu-ray

Witch (2024)

The latest horror release from 101 International is WITCH, a film that shares its title with at least three other recent films (Robert Eggers' THE WITCH and two films from Korea). You would think those involved would have picked something else to avoid confusion, but then perhaps that's the point.

This WITCH is British in origin and is set in 1575. But it's less an accurate 1575 and more a Harry Alan Towers late 1960s BLOODY JUDGE-type period setting, where everyone looks improbably modern and the Hungarian locations, while adding a lot of production value, aren't especially period accurate (or any kind of accurate) either. The 'local tavern' looks more like a large town hall and our blacksmith hero lives in the kind of roomy dwelling that would have been more suited to the local magistrate.

But those aren't the only problems with WITCH. Never mind that the lead female character's name is Twyla, never mind that the boom mike swings into view with gay abandon three times in rapid succession about 25 minutes in, never mind that we are shown the ending of the film at the beginning and then have to endure a long, slow 100+ minute slog to get back there. No, the main problem with WITCH is that the story is essentially simple but is presented in such a horribly convoluted way that it becomes increasingly difficult to work out what's going on. A length info dump in the middle of the film only serves to muddy the waters further. Again, perhaps all this is deliberate, in this case to distract you from the fact that the film doesn't actually have a witch in it at all. 

On the plus side there are some decent special effects and the music's not bad. On the bizarre side, if you watch the film through the end credits a scene pops up set in the present day with characters and actors we've never seen before (at least I didn't think so) and featuring what looks like a different book from the one that's been so important (I think) to the plot so far. So incongruous and odd is this sequence that for a moment I wondered if it had been edited in from another film by mistake. Perhaps it had. I haven't said too much about the actual plot because for a change I'm going to let the trailer do that for me. Here it is:

WITCH is out on digital from 101 International on 29th April 2024

Prey! (2024)

"Christian Film-makers Throw Themselves to the Lions"

Mukunda Michael Dewil's new 'When Animals Attack!' picture gets a digital & DVD release from Signature Entertainment.

Africa: the Kalahari desert. Christian missionary couple Andrew (Ryan Phillipe) and Sue (Mena Suvari) are forced to leave the village in which they are based (or rather the solitary tent that is all we see if it) because of the imminent arrival of militant extremists.

The only plane out is a rickety crate piloted by the extremely dubious Grun (Emile Hirsch) who agrees to take them to safety along with three other passengers. No sooner is the plane in the air than a poorly CGI-rendered version of it is hurtling to the ground with such speed it should be dashed to bits. Instead the film cuts straight to the budget-saving aftermath to show that several bits have survived reasonably intact, which is more than can be said for Sue who has a bad leg and can't move.

Grun reveals that they have crashed in a game reserve filled with lions, leopards and hyenas. If that's true then luckily for them they've landed on the one vast plain of it that's completely devoid of any wildlife at all. This absence of wildlife persists for most of the film.

Oh yes. For a movie that claims to be about the threat of savage, carnivorous wildlife, PREY! is Trades Descriptions Act terrible. The few animals we see are in footage obviously shot somewhere else. At one point a freeze-frame lion's face attacks what's left of the plane and it's not until the very end that there's any significant human-animal interaction at all. Mena Suvari's character disappears halfway through, only for Andrew to reveal that lions have dragged her body away. We see none of it, meaning the only item of interest so far is to wonder whether Suvari's agent only allowed her to be in half of this, and only act from the chest up for most of that. There's the hint of a Christian message towards the end allowing the viewer to ponder the question: If God exists, would he allow his propaganda to turn out this ropey?

It's actually no fun being this hard on a film but PREY! is dreadful, and not in an entertaining 'Bad Film' kind of way. One can only imagine what the three main stars were thinking agreeing to be in this. Crushingly poor. Here's the trailer: 

PREY! is out on Digital and DVD from Signature Entertainment on Monday 29th April 2024

Til Death Do Us Part (2023)

"In Desperate Need Of Counselling"

Timothy J Woodward, Jr's TIL DEATH US DO PART, now getting a UK digital release from Plaion Pictures, has a great action movie central premise. A bride (Natalie Burn) gets cold feet on her wedding day and leaves her husband to be at the altar. This causes the ire of his seven groomsmen. Led by the Best Man (Cam Gigandet) they hunt her down and she ends up having to violently despatch each of them. 

That sounds great, doesn't it? Reminiscent of Tarantino or, for the more literary minded, Cornell Woolrich. So make sure you check out the work of those instead rather than watching this hugely disappointing effort, which is short on action and very long in meaningless, meandering dialogue scenes that frequently feel improvised. 

There's another plot going on as well, bits of which are revealed in either flash forwards or flashbacks (the film is never clear until the end) and which only serve to confuse the narrative, and to cause fans of THE LOST BOYS (1988) to squint at the screen and ask themselves if that really is Jason Patric (it is). Cam Gigandet tries hard to inject some charisma into the proceedings to the point where you begin to feel sorry for him, and Natalie Burn is actually quite good in the few action scenes where she's required to do something. 

Most likely responsible for none of this working is director Timothy Woodward, who made the similarly dreadful THE FINAL WISH (2018) and whose film-making skills seem to have actually got worse in the five years since. Watch READY OR NOT again instead. Meanwhile here's the trailer: 

TIL DEATH US DO PART is out on Digital Platforms with a new revised release date of Monday 15th April 2024