With their new box set He Came from the Swamp, Arrow provide an impressive showcase for the low-budget exploitation movies of Florida filmmaker William Grefé, which feature cheap monsters, violent criminals, hippies and drugs and killer sharks.
Criterion’s new two-disk Blu-ray showcases Bong Joon-ho’s second feature, Memories of Murder (2003), a complex and disturbing account of an actual Korean serial killer case from the mid-1980s. Both satire and existential horror story, the film displays the same concerns and creative skill which marked Bong’s international 2019 hit, Parasite.
Indicator’s Columbia Noir #2 box set presents another six movies, hovering between A and B pictures, from the late ’40s to late ’50s. Crime, romance and a society shaken in the aftermath of the Second World War provide a background for portraits of characters torn by guilt, paranoia, betrayal and moral uncertainty.
Universal’s series of minor B-movies based on Simon & Schuster’s line of fiction and NBC’s long-running radio show called Inner Sanctum gave third-string horror star Lon Chaney Jr. a brief opportunity to get away from the monsters he played in the 1940s. Despite a low critical reputation, these atmospheric little movies are quite entertaining and receive a nice showcase in Eureka’s two-disk Blu-ray set.
Recent revelations about Richard Stanley complicate my relationship with his work. As a longtime fan, it’s deeply troubling to learn that he’s been a violent abuser of women for many years…
Two new BFI releases present a variety of movies from the fringes of the industry – John Parker’s surrealist noir Dementia (1953), aka Daughter of Horror (1957), and Short Sharp Shocks, a collection of British theatrical shorts with an emphasis on horror and the uncanny made between 1949 and 1980.
Criterion’s new release showcases Jacques Rivette’s most playful feature, Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974), with a terrific transfer and exhaustive (and exhausting!) supplements, including a an illuminating commentary by Adrian Martin and a second disk containing four-and-a-half hours of documentaries and interviews.
Bingeing has been my default viewing mode for some time, but it’s only more recently that it’s come to encompass indulging in multiple releases by a particular company – which in turn is a result of those company’s offering regular sales and discount packages of monthly releases. The most prominent examples of this are Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, both of which specialize in genre and exploitation titles, pulling me into deep, often sordid, black holes.
Bingeing has been my default viewing mode for some time, but it’s only more recently that it’s come to encompass indulging in multiple releases by a particular company – which in turn is a result of those company’s offering regular sales and discount packages of monthly releases. The most prominent examples of this are Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, both of which specialize in genre and exploitation titles, pulling me into deep, often sordid, black holes.
I can now say from personal experience that watching horror movies a week after having a heart attack (even a relatively minor one) may not be the smartest idea – but I did enjoy these five eerie features.