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

Mantrap 4K (1953)

Another of Hammer’s early (ie pre-Hammer horror) B movie crime thrillers is being given the double disc (UHD and Blu-ray) 4K treatment complete with a slew of extras, both on disc and on paper. 

This time it’s Terence Fisher’s MANTRAP, an adaptation of the Elleston Trevor novel Queen in Danger. Over opening titles (in the UK version, anyway) we see Kieron Moore’s Mervyn Speight escaping from prison. He’s in for a murder he didn’t commit, and now he’s seeking the real killer. Meanwhile his wife Thelma (Lois Maxwell) has hooked up with new man Victor (Bill Travers) and is busy with her job as beauty editor at a major newspaper. Added to the mix is lawyer Hugo (Paul Henreid) who is recruited to find Speight before the police do in the hope of proving his innocence, all of which culminates in an almost Agatha Christie-style climax of assembling all the suspects at a party so the real killer can be identified.

MANTRAP is absolutely reasonable B movie stuff, by which I mean it’s not as good as some of the other B features we now have on 4K like THE MAN IN BLACK or STOLEN FACE but it’s still a pretty good time and the climax means the title is a better play on words that you initially might think. Hammer’s 4K transfer is crisp and the film includes a number of familiar faces to fans of British movies of the period, including the charming Kay Kendall as Henreid’s wife-to-be and a blink and you’ll miss her appearance from Barbara Shelley.

As with all these releases the true money’s worth is in the extras. You get two versions of the film - UK and US with different commentaries on both. The UK’s MANTRAP features noir experts James Harrison and Sergio Angelini whereas the US MAN IN HIDING has Toby Roam and Heath Holland. I don’t agree with the latter that MAN IN HIDING is a better title because it lacks the double meaning of the UK one. Their commentary also seems to suggest they are actually watching the UK version (where we see Moore breaking out of prison) rather than the US version where the titles open over a still image of the A4 to London. A textless version of this image is also provided as an extra and I can’t help but wonder if this was supposed to be a textless version of Moore’s escape as just over a minute of a still shot of a main road is going to be a contender for the least interesting extra to grace any disc this year.

Other extras include an excellent introduction to film noir in general and British film noir in particular, with Wayne Kinsey, Imogen Sara Smith and Sergio Angelini discussing the subject for 32 minutes. There’s also an excellent piece on author ‘Elleston Trevor’ (watch the piece to find out the reason for the quotation marks) with authors Martin Edwards, Mike Ripley and Barry Forshaw (25 minutes). Jonathan Croall gives us a 25 minute piece on his father, the actor John Stuart, while a freezing-looking Wayne Kinsey and Robin Bailes (also freezing) track down the locations for the film (30 minutes). There’s also a 23 minute archival interview with camera operator Len Harris as well as just over a minute of behind the scenes footage which is a brief but unmissable extra. Finally you get a book with new writing on the film from Wayne Kinsey, Pamela Hutchinson and others plus the usual luxury packaging to keep it all in. Another essential purchase for anyone interested in British cinema of the period.

Terence Fisher’s MANTRAP is out in 4K from Hammer in a limited edition two disc UHD and Blu-ray set on Monday 13th April 2026

Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb 4K (1971)

One of Hammer’s more ambitious films that, like its contemporaries DEMONS OF THE MIND and HANDS OF THE RIPPER (both 1971), tried to do something a little different with what were by then well-worn themes, is getting a dual format 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Studio Canal.

Valerie Leon is Margaret, daughter to Andrew Keir's Professor Fuchs, an egyptologist of distinctly dodgy inclination, who seems to have half a rebuilt tomb in the basement of his ordinary-looking suburban house, a whole load of Egyptian artefacts, and a number of colleagues who want nothing more to do with him after some escapade abroad many years ago, which culminated in their breaking into the tomb of Queen Tera (Leon again). Tera, by all accounts, was a pretty naughty piece of work (well, she was definitely pretty, and sadly we don't get to find out how naughty she was capable of being). What's far more worrying is that the professor seems to have some poorly researched and badly thought out plan that involves the life of his daughter and the supplanting of her existence by said evil queen on the occasion of her next birthday. 

Good old Hammer. Only at the height of their powers could they take a minor Bram Stoker novel, fill it with slashed throats, a crawling severed hand and a sexy leading lady, and just by accident produce an original and satisfying spin on the mummy theme that still works fifty five years on.

With a title that means nothing other than that James Carreras had learned to copy Tony Tenser's approach to titling films by reaching into a box of cards labelled with 'horror' words until the right combination came up, a director who died before filming finished, a star who left once filming had started, and a script by a writer who was both banned from the set and notorious for screenplays that were a bit difficult to make any sense of sometimes, it's a wonder that BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB is any good at all. What's more surprising than that is that it's actually well worth watching, and is easily the best (along with the 1959 THE MUMMY) of the films Hammer made that had a connection to ancient Egypt. It's rare that the fourth movie in any horror film cycle has anything to commend it, but following in the wake of CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB and THE MUMMY'S SHROUD this is surprisingly original, well directed, and being shot in what looks like the depths of winter only serves to heighten the creepy atmosphere that pervades the movie right up to that classic final shot.

The acting is fine throughout, with the usual collection of British character actors and eccentrics (Aubrey Morris take a bow you loveable weirdo, you) and Valerie Leon, having been used as decorative set dressing in a number of Carry Ons, getting the role that she was born to play. Hammer didn't always get their casting right but she is uncannily perfect for the roles of both Tera and Margaret. 

And uncanny is the work that best sums up BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB. This is Hammer unwittingly doing cosmic horror. Immense forces we cannot comprehend are being manoeuvred into position from an ordinary suburban house by people who have no real idea what they are setting in motion. It’s a setting and story worthy not just of Lovecraft but of more modern horror writers like Ramsey Campbell and, had Hammer lasted more than a few more years, represents a fascinating and potentially brilliant direction the company could have taken.

Studio Canal’s dual format set, like its other 4K Hammer releases, gives us some new material as well as consolidating archival extras from other releases. New to this disc is an interview with star Valerie Leon (9 minutes) and a talking head piece from Kim Newman (19 minutes). Archival extras consist of a Steve Haberman commentary, the making of featurette from Studio Canal’s previous Blu-ray release (18 minutes), and interviews with Leon & Wicking (10 minutes), sound recordist Tony Dawe (6 minutes) and camera operator Neil Binney (5 minutes). As well as behind the scenes and lobby card galleries and trailers you also get a 64 page book featuring new essays (including one by David Huckvale) and two posters.

BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB is out on 4K in a dual format UHD / Blu-ray release from Studio Canal on Monday 6th April 2026