Waxworks (1924)

 

One of the earliest anthology movies (in fact it's probably the second ever made) gets a Blu-ray release as Eureka brings Paul Leni's expressionist masterpiece to disc, scanned in 4K resolution and then restored in 2K.

William Dieterle, probably best known to readers here for directing Charles Laughton in 1939's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and for 1941's THE DEVIL & DANIEL WEBSTER, plays a poet who answers an ad in the paper to provide stories for some of the figures in a fairground waxworks. Dieterle also features in the stories as different characters.

The first story is about Caliph Harun al-Rashid (Emil Jannings, whose OTHELLO you get to see at the beginning of 1973's THEATRE OF BLOOD) who leaves a wax double of himself in bed while he prowls the city in search of the local baker's wife. 
The second has Conrad Veidt (CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD et al) as Ivan the Terrible, convinced he is going to be the taget of an assassination, stealing another man's bride and ending his days insane and convinced upending an hourglass will stop him from dying.

The final story is barely a story at all, as Werner Krauss (DR CALIGARI himself!) plays Jack the Ripper and pursues our hero around the waxworks before a rather abrupt ending. 

A title card inserted before the film begins states that over twenty minutes of footage of WAXWORKS has been lost, which explains why the film does seem to be over rather quickly. Still, this is a lovely print of a tinted transfer which comes with two new music scores - traditional piano from Richard Siedhoff and rather more avant-garde chamber work from Ensemble Musikfabrik, and much fun can be had flicking between the two depending on the mood of the scene (and the viewer).

Eureka's disc also comes with a commentary track from critic Adrian Martin, a talking head piece from Kim Newman, an interview with Julia Wallmuller about the search for WAXWORKS and Paul Leni's REBUS-FILM Nos 1-8 - a collection of short film crossword puzzles shown to accompany main features back in the day.

There's also a collector's booklet with new writing on the film, and the first 2000 come with a limited edition 'O' card.

Paul Leni's WAXWORKS is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 9th November 2020

The Sheltering Sky (1990)

 

Bernardo Bertolucci's adaptation of Paul Bowles' novel gets a UK Blu-ray release in a 1080p HD presentation courtesy of Arrow Films.

Algeria in the late 1940s. Kit Moresby (Debra Winger) and her husband Port (John Malkovich) arrive with the intention of travelling, rather than being tourists. The latter is thinking of home as soon as they arrive, Kit says, whereas the former may never go home.

As they journey from town to town and eventually into the desert, it becomes clear that something has happened back at home that has left deep scars, but exactly what is never explained. They encounter others who may be escaping something, too -  an English woman (Jill Bennett) and her creepy son Eric (Timothy Spall). Eventually tragedy strikes and it becomes obvious that things can never again return to what the Powers seem to be desperately seeking.

Stunningly photographed by Vittorio Storaro and with sensitive acting and directing, THE SHELTERING SKY is never less than a feast for the eyes while all the time the viewer is wondering exactly what's going on, or rather what has been going on for this strange couple to have come all this way to embark on what feels like aimless wandering. The film bears comparison to another literary adaptation from 1990, Paul Schrader's film of Ian McEwan's THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS, both in its 'strange posh people abroad' plot and the sense of mounting dread that ensues. But there's also elements of the 'Up the Creek Without a Paddle' subgenre here too. As the Moresby's move further into the desert you get the feeling they're getting closer to their own Heart of Darkness. As well as this being reminiscent of Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, all the luggage they insist on bringing with them to their (possible) doom is evocative of Herzog's AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD. 

Arrow's disc comes with a ported over commentary track from Bertolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas and screenwriter Mark Peploe and there's a 47 minute archival featurette on the making of the film plus ten minutes of archival cast interviews. New materials include a video essay by David Cairns and Fiona Watson and a new interview with art director Andrew Sanders. You also get an image gallery, trailer and reversible sleeve. The first pressing comes with a booklet with new writing on the film from Kat Ellinger.

Bernardo Bertolucci's THE SHELTERING SKY is on on Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 2nd November 2020

The Grudge 2 (2006)

 

The sixth film in the GRUDGE universe is getting a new Blu-ray and DVD release courtesy of Fabulous Films. Yes that's right I said the sixth. As of this writing there are thirteen films in the various Japanese and US franchises and if you want the list then it's all in my review to the 13th film called unhelpfully, THE GRUDGE.

But back to THE GRUDGE 2, which is the US sequel to the 2004 THE GRUDGE and not the 2020 THE GRUDGE or any of the Japanese films. A summary of the story so far will probably be more helpful.

The source of all the ghostly goings-on in these films is Kayako (Takako Fuji), who was murdered by her husband for having designs on another man. Her husband also murdered her only child and the family cat. Because of the violence of the murder and because (it turns out in this one) as a child Kayako was some kind of repository for evil spirits exorcised by her mother from other people, the house where she was killed now has a curse on it. Anyone who enters dies a horrible ghostly death. 

In the previous film, Sarah Michelle Gellar became involved after being sent to the house to look after an elderly woman whose usual social worker had disappeared (yes it was Kayako) after her son and his wife also disappeared (Kayako again). Miss Gellar eventually burned the house down.

Now it's sequel time! Amber Tamblyn, previously seen messing around with the cursed videotape in Gore Verbinski's remake of RINGU as THE RING (you'd think she'd have learned by now) plays Gellar's sister who travels to Japan and finds herself in a world of creaky-voiced creepy crawly horrors, uncovering more of Kayako's past (see above). Meanwhile in the US, why are Jennifer Beals and her family suddenly the subject of hauntings in what must be the most drab-looking apartment to grace a mid 2000s American horror film?

Blu-ray extras include ten minutes on Ms Fuji, whose sixth and final film this was playing Kayako as well as featurettes on story development, adapting the films for a Western audience and director of all six films Takashi Shimizu talking about his creation and how he hoped he would get to direct THE GRUDGE 3 (he didn't) and cast Ms Fuji again (that didn't happen either). Altogether you get 50 minutes of behind the scenes material that touches on all the previous films including the Japanese ones. There are also deleted scenes, an alternate ending and an additional epilogue that was cut from the original release. 

Takashi Shimizu's THE GRUDGE 2 is out on Blu-ray and DVD from Fabulous Films on Monday 2nd November 2020

Tales From the Hood I & II (1995 & 2018)

 

 "Excellent Package of Anthology Horror Movies"

      The BFI are releasing the first two TALES FROM THE HOOD films (the third one has just been released) in a two disc Blu-ray set with a host of extras.

         TALES FROM THE HOOD is a genuine surprise. A mid-1990s horror film that embraces the narrative style and comic book setups of previous anthology movies (especially those made by Amicus) while at the same time skilfully employing contemporary African American cultural themes at their core. 

Three hoodlums arrive at a mortuary with the promise of a drug deal. They meet the mysterious Mr Simms (Clarence White III) who, with his 1970s-style dress sense, proves to be something of a Dolemite-style cryptkeeper, telling the boys four tales based on the mortuary's current 'residents'.

Violence from white cops, domestic violence, the massacre of slaves, and gang warfare form the basis of the stories, which considering the seriousness of the subject matter are far more entertaining and EC-style than you might expect both in terms of their style of execution and the horrible ends which the perpetrators of the atrocities end up suffering. If you've seen pretty much any Amicus film you'll have guessed the ending, which is still extremely satisfying and embellished with some excellent makeup effects. Director Rusty Cundieff absolutely knows how to film this kind of horror, co-writer and co-producer Darin Scott was one of the team responsible for the superior Vincent Price-starring horror anthology FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM and we get a music score from accomplished genre composer Christopher Young. It's therefore a pleasure to watch each tale unfold knowing you're in safe hands (especially as the stories' protagonists very much aren't). 

Extras for TALES FROM THE HOOD include Shout Factory's making of documentary from 2017 featuring interviews with Cundieff and Scott as well as stars Corbin Bernsen, Wings Hauser and Anthony Griffith amongst others. There's also a commentary track from Rusty Cundieff, also from 2017.

It wasn't until 2018 that a sequel emerged, this time written and directed by both Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott. This time Keith David is our storyteller (which he does superbly) and the stories on the whole are rather lighter in touch, at least to begin with. The first, about a human-sized gollywog that goes on the rampage, dangerously skirts the line of being too ridiculous but just about gets away with it if you're forgiving. In the second a gang try to discover where some money has been stashed by a man they've tortured to death, employing a white medium to channel the dead man's spirit. The third is about a date-rape night that goes horribly wrong for the perpetrators. None of these comic book-style stories will prepare you for the fourth segment 'The Sacrifice' which is powerful and affecting, all the more so because of what has gone before. It would not have been out of place in Jordan Peele's new Twilight Zone series and in fact is better than many of the stories in that. 

Extras for the second movie include an 18 minute interview with Darin Scott and a substantial 68 minute interview with Rusty Cundieff which looks like it was conducted by Zoom and covers both films in detail. 

TALES FROM THE HOOD is an excellent anthology. What's surprising is how good TALES FROM THE HOOD II is, so don't go under the misapprehension that it's been packaged with the first as an 'extra'. Considering that most sequels are terrible, especially ones made over 20 years after their original, and in a decade where we've seen plenty of truly terrible anthology movies it's very much worth watching. An excellent package from the BFI. 

TALES FROM THE HOOD I & II is out on Blu-ray from the BFI in a two disc set on Monday 2nd November 2020

Lake Michigan Monster (2018)

 

"Happy Homemade Shenanigans"

An attempt to do something slightly different with the ultra low-budget comedy Lovecraft subgenre, LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER is getting a Blu-ray release from Arrow packed with extras.

Captain Seafield (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews who also writes and directs because it's that kind of production) claims his father was snatched from their boat by a sea monster and so he enlists the aid of three 'specialists' to help him track it down. 

LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER is very much in the spirit of Larry Blamire's LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA movies, and if you liked those you might get a kick out of this one. Be warned,  though, that the budget is much lower and the sense of 'shot on a Sunday afternoon because we were bored and thought it might be a wacky thing to do' is much higher.

But does it work? Whereas Blamire's films justify their feature length, LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER starts to outstay its welcome rather fast. It feels like the kind of thing that might have worked as a five minute sketch, or at a stretch a half hour episode of The Goodies or The Comic Strip, but at 78 minutes this stuff starts to get rather wearing. Mind you, such is the beauty of Blu-ray that you can pause it and come back later. It's also the kind of film to leave on at a party because it's highly likely none of your guests will have ever seen it.

Arrow's Blu-ray is packed with extras, including three commentary tracks, one of which is 'drunk' although nobody gets into a fight like on the best (and unplanned) alcohol-assisted commentaries. There are three interviews, an effects breakdown and you get the Captain Seafield theme song performed by the Seafield Monster Sextet if you really want to hear it again. 

As usual there are trailers, stills and a reversible sleeve. The first pressing of the disc comes with a booklet with new writing on the film by Barry Forshaw.

LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER is out on Blu-ray from Arrow on Monday 2nd November 2020

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (2020)

 

"I always wanted to photograph a chicken in high heels."

How can you resist finding out more about the man who said that? Helmut Newton, controversial photographer with a unique and distinctive visual style that once seen is never forgotten, is the subject of this new documentary that's about to get a cinema and digital release from Blue Finch.

Rather than start off chronologically, telling you where Newton was born and what his parents were like, this one drops you straight into its many stars reminiscing about working with him. If you're not familiar with Newton's work, or the many famous models he worked with, you will be after the first fifteen minutes. 

It's a refreshing way to tell his story, learning about 'the legend' first from such fashion luminaries as Anna Wintour, Isabella Rossellini, Charlotte Rampling, Grace Jones and Claudia Schiffer, who all provide charming reminiscences about working with him. 

Newton died at the age of 84 in 2004 in a car crash. However, sufficient video recordings and interviews were made of him that he is very much a presence in this, and pretty much gets to tell his own life story. 

HELMUT NEWTON: THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL is a fascinating, well put together and extremely watchable documentary that treats its subject with respect and sympathy. An excellent, informative and educational piece of work.

HELMUT NEWTON: THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL is out on Curzon Home Cinema and Digital Download on Friday 23rd October 2020

Dementia (1953)

A curious black and white oddity that runs for just under an hour, John Parker's dialogue-free DEMENTIA is getting a dual format DVD & Blu-ray release from the BFI.

A young woman wakes up in a cheap hotel room, her mind still filled with vestiges of the nightmare she has just had. She leaves the building and finds herself embarking on an odyssey of sleaze and murder over the course of one night in the skid row world in which she finds herself. And that doesn't include the bizarre flashbacks she has to her life as a child.

The BFI's disc has quite a few extras, the most succinct of which in providing background to this one is Joe Dante's Trailers from Hell segment in which he explains that DEMENTIA was the only film by director John Parker, that he made it with his mother's money, submitted it to the New York Censor board multiple times only for it to be rejected, and that eventually it was bought by producer Jack H Harris who retitled it DAUGHTER OF HORROR and added narration. It's probably most famous as the film showing in Harris' THE BLOB (1957) when the titular creature attacks the cinema.

It's certainly a weird film, foreshadowing both Polanski's 1965 REPULSION and some of the grimmer, weirder moments of David Lynch's oeuvre. The sleaze quotient, the bloody deaths and a severed hand no doubt all contributed to the film being refused a certificate and there's also a fascinating score by George Antiel with vocalisations by Marni Nixon, possibly best known as Audrey Hepburn's singing voice in George Cukor's MY FAIR LADY (1964).

Other extras include the Jack Harris DAUGHTER OF HORROR version, a Kat Ellinger commentary, the short British film ALONE WITH THE MONSTERS about an elderly lady who, overcome with loneliness kills herself, a piece on the restoration and trailers for both version of the film.

If you get the first pressing there's also a booklet with new writing on the film from Vic Pratt, William Fowler and Ian Schultz

John Parker's DEMENTIA is out on dual format DVD & Blu-ray from the BFI on Monday 19th October 2020